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The battalion fire control NCO.

Article Excerpt
My first experience with the Field Artillery battalion fire control NCO (FCNCO) was as a young soldier in a battery fire direction center (FDC) during the battalion "Best FDC Competition." I was the FDC advance party man in a 105-mm battery and had just pulled into position with the rest of the battery advance party.

As I began to enter the initial gun data into the back-up computer system (BUCS), I heard this gruff voice asking, "What are your priorities of work as the advance party man?" Before I could answer, he took the data and BUCS and entered the data in a few seconds. His final words were, "It's getting ready to shoot!"

During the rest of my first tour, I experienced the wrath of that old, crabby, knowledgeable, chain-smoking, coffee-drinking manual fire direction guru many times. He dictated what we trained on and when and where we trained it.

The battalion FCNCO has remained essentially the same for the past 12 years--although with the introduction of digital systems to the Field Artillery, the scope of his duties has increased and will increase even more in the next three to four years.

This article addresses the duties and responsibilities of the FCNCO and outlines some tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for his increasing the effectiveness of the battalion.

Duties and Responsibilities. The primary duty of the FCNCO is to be the premier trainer of all the Military Occupation Specialties (MOS) 13E Cannon Fire Direction Specialists and 13C Automated Fire Support Systems Specialists in the direct support (DS) FA battalion. He determines the "gate" training strategy for all 13E/C tasks in the battalion; manages the 13E/Cs; mentors battery and platoon FDC soldiers, section chiefs and fire direction officers (FDOs); guards FDC Sergeant's Time training; and develops the roadmap for digital training in his battalion.

In addition, the FCNCO brings much to the DS orders process in the military decision-making process (MDMP). With his shooter's and executor's perspective, he can serve the battalion well.

Training. While I was the FCNCO for the 2d Battalion, 320th Field Artillery (2-320 FA), 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the battalion instituted an aggressive training program to introduce ex-Paladin FDC chiefs to the world of manual FDC secondary checks and computations. We did this via FDC consolidated training in...

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