Field Artillery and Firepower (review)

Books on artillery tend to fall into two groups, each of which is important. The first addresses guns as hardware, the second artillery forces as critical elements of national power.

About fifteen years ago a remarkable book of the second group appeared, written by an active duty officer of the British Army. Its purpose was to increase understanding of principles of field artillery tactics and to explain how these have developed over time, with attention to pertinent strategic and political forces, and with emphasis on the effects of evolving technology. The book presented its messages within an exceptionally analytical framework. Almost every element of that framework offered unusual insights and illuminating observations. This work was heavily oriented toward the future. Published in 1989 by the Military Press, Oxford, this book was Field Artillery and Firepower, by Major Jonathan B. A. Bailey of the Royal Artillery.

Now, fifteen years later, appears a new edition of Field Artillery and Firepower, by Major General Bailey. The analytical approach to the subject is retained and strengthened, and the analysis extended to cover developments during the last decade and a half. Portions of the text of 1989 have been absorbed into a largely rewritten work, and the book has expanded by about 40 percent.

The revised book is even more future oriented than its predecessor. The last chapter, "Into the Future," summarizes the outlook for the next several years. That chapter is a book unto itself. Throughout, the views presented in Field Artillery and Firepower advance beyond recently emerging patterns of warfare. For example, new ways of thinking about fire support arise when a special forces soldier wearing a turban and crouched behind a boulder on a mountainside can conjure at will, from the stratosphere, all the smart bombs he wants. All these and many other features of modern and future warfare are thoroughly appraised in this book.

Among the scores of impressions and ideas gained by this observer, largely but not at all exclusively from the last chapter, are these: Battlespace in the future will extend over hundreds of kilometers. The airspace above the ground war will be occupied by unmanned aerial vehicles (many on scouting missions and many on seek-and-destroy missions), perhaps by some manned aircraft; and by projectiles (some launched by cannon, some by rockets, and some by other projectiles) en route to surface or air targets. Locating and destroying enemy fighting power at distances measured in scores of kilometers, before those forces can bring their weapons to bear on friendly troops, is the main aim.

Major General Bailey, MBE, serves as Director General of Development and Doctrine for the British Army, where he is responsible for future doctrine, concepts, and force development. Previously, he was Director of Royal Artillery. He has been in the forefront, and in key positions, in NATO activities in the Balkans, and he served as Chief of Fire Coordination in NATO's Rapid Reaction Force, as well as Director of Defence Studies for the British Army.

More about the book. The hundreds of footnotes, which in the first edition were as informative, and sometimes almost as lengthy, as the main text, are now even more numerous and more illuminating. The bibliography initially had a monumental seven hundred entries, and now has eleven hundred. Its main effect on those who care about such things is to emphasize that good military libraries are few and far between. Another insight offered by this book is that if current trends continue, the fully battle-ready field artilleryman of the future will speak only in acronyms and abbreviations.

It will be interesting, in another decade or so, to compare the next edition of Field Artillery and Firepower with its two forerunners. Meanwhile, he who wishes to strengthen his understanding of the role of artillery in the history—and future—of warfare should start here.