Marine Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3-16, Fire Support Coordina- tion in the Ground Combat Element, is a framework for coordinating and em- ploying supporting arms in consonance with maneuver elements.
This manual provides guidance for the organization, planning, and conduct of the full range of military operations on urbanized terrain. This publication was prepared primarily for commanders, staffs, and subordinate leaders down to the squad and fire team level. It is written from a Marine air-ground task force perspective, with emphasis on the ground combat element as the most likely supported element in that environment. It provides the level of detailed information that supports the complexities of planning, preparing for, and executing small-unit combat operations on urbanized terrain. It also provides historical and environmental information that supports planning and training for combat in built-up areas
Marine Corps Techniques Publication MCTP 3-10F (Formerly MCWP 3-16) Fire Support Coordination in the Ground Combat Element 2 May 2016, is a framework for coordinating and employing supporting arms in consonance with maneuver elements. While this publication covers many aspects of fire support, it focuses on fire support coordination in the infantry division, regiment, and battalion. The doctrine applies across the full range of military operations-from humanitarian assistance to a major theater war. Fire support doctrine is based on a common understanding of the nature of war and on our warfighting philosophy as described in Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication (MCDP) 1, Warfighting. This doctrine provides for fast, flexible, and decisive action in a complex environment characterized by friction, uncertainty, fluidity, and rapid change. This publication is a field reference guide for commanders, their staffs, and fire support coordination personnel. It forms the basis for specific fire support coordination tactics, techniques, and procedures. This publication supersedes Fleet Marine Force Manual (FMFM) 6-18, Techniques and Procedures for Fire Support Coordination, dated 27 March 1992.
The manual describes the general strategy for the U.S. Marines but it is beneficial for not only every Marine to read but concepts on leadership can be gathered to lead a business to a family. If you want to see what make Marines so effective this book is a good place to start.
This publication is about winning in combat. Winning requires many things: excellence in techniques, an appreciation of the enemy, exemplary leadership, battlefield judgment, and focused combat power. Yet these factors by themselves do not ensure success in battle. Many armies, both winners and losers, have possessed many or all of these attributes. When we examine closely the differences between victor and vanquished, we draw one conclusion. Success went to the armies whose leaders, senior and junior, could best focus their efforts-their skills and their resources-toward a decisive end. Their success arose not merely from excellence in techniques, procedures, and material but from their leaders' abilities to uniquely and effectively combine them. Winning in combat depends upon tactical leaders who can think creatively and act decisively.
Friendly fire incidents often disrupt the close and continuous combined arms cooperation so essential to success in modern combat, especially when that combat is conducted against a well armed, well trained, and numerically superior opponent. This study, by presenting selected examples in their historical settings, is intended only to explain a few of the most obvious types of friendly fire incidents and some of the causative factors associated with them. By directing the attention of commanders and staff officers responsible for the development, training, and employment of combat forces to the hitherto little explored problem of friendly fire incidents, this study is intended to generate interest in and solutions for the problems outlined. The scope of this study is limited to incidents involving US forces in World War II and Vietnam, although some evidence is available from other conflicts in the twentieth century has also been considered. In sum, this study can claim to be no more than a narrative exposition of selected examples. Although its conclusions must be considered highly speculative and tentative in nature, this study can be of substantial value to an understanding of the problem of friendly fire in modern war. Chapters one through 5 of this report discuss: Artillery Amicicide; Air Amicicide; Antiaircraft Amicicide; Ground Amicicide.
This paper focuses on the formulation of doctrine since World War II. In no comparable period in history have the dimensions of the battlefield been so altered by rapid technological changes. The need for the tactical doctrines of the Army to remain correspondingly abreast of these changes is thus more pressing than ever before. Future conflicts are not likely to develop in the leisurely fashions of the past where tactical doctrines could be refined on the battlefield itself. It is, therefore, imperative that we apprehend future problems with as much accuracy as possible. One means of doing so is to pay particular attention to the business of how the Army's doctrine has developed historically, with a view to improving methods of future development.