The Future Of Field Artillery

Merging with air defense

- 1st Lt. Taylor Maroni

Faced with an uncertain future, the field artillery branch and the United States military as a whole must be prepared for anything. We can look at our branch’s past to see how it evolved to meet different challenges and analyze the effectiveness of the decisions that were made in response. We can focus on developing an understanding and building trust with the other branches of service in order to maximize the assets available for our mission. Once we know what we want our future to look like, we can begin developing new doctrine and adjusting the field artillery and air defense artillery job specialties as needed. In order to prepare for an uncertain future, we need to embrace new unit configurations, new equipment and new doctrine that embodies a bold and logical progression from our current standards.

Making the best possible decision going forward concerning the field artillery and air defense artillery branches may seem like a daunting task, but we can look to the past for guidance. By analyzing the decisions that were made and the nuances of the situations, we may be able to discern patterns that are applicable to today’s situation. The air defense artillery began as a part of the field artillery branch, and by 1958, momentum was gaining to split the two due to increasing technical and tactical differences. However, it was not until 1968 that the two branches were officially separated. The main argument for the split was that trying to teach officers both kinds of artillery prevented them from attaining the proficiency necessary in order to carry out basic functions in either specialty. Separation was finally achieved in 1968 mostly due to experiences in the Vietnam War.