JP 3-09 Joint Fire Support JP 3-60 Joint Targeting Joint Battle Damage Assessment

[John Kettler]

I was trying to find a list of priority US FS targets when I came across this, JP 3-09 Joint Fire Support, the "how you do it" pub on Joint fire Support for the entire US military and allies. There is much to learn here, so it's worth learning a lot of acronyms. The appendices are full of practical info on the use and limitations of various US FS systems. Grog central! This is a 2014 doc.

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp3_09.pdf

The complementary doc from 2013 is JP 3-60 Joint Targeting. This one is much easier to read, since it deals with much more concrete matters, with clear definitions in the text.

http://tinyurl.com/glymkyk

After you've hit the target or targets, you want to know what you achieved or didn't. For that, you turn to the Commander's Handbook for Joint Battle Damage Assessment, published in 2004.  This tells you which assets can tell you what, and to what level of accuracy. What I particularly like about this one is it gives comparisons, of various types of targets before and after hitting them, so the brain has something more solid than text and charts. Here, it is all about maps, target sets, Commander's Intent, target priorities, time urgency and more.

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/doctrine/jwfc/hbk_jbda.pdf

Regards,

John Kettler

 

Edited January 11, 2016 by John Kettler

[TheForwardObserver]

If you haven't encountered it before, you might have fun diving into the FM 6-30, the basic Forward Observer bible, for the bottom up view.  From there the 6-20 series of FMs fleshes out the bigger picture top down stuff.  Those manuals can really familiarize the reader with the nuanced language of the redleg used in the 3-09 (always affectionately called the JFIRE manual, and issued in pocket sized form).  The JFIRE does superbly as a quick reference for updated tables, data, and basic coordination measures but is best served on top of a FM 6-30