The Doctrine 2015 strategy was established in 2011 to reengineer and restructure the doctrine development process. The focus of Doctrine 2015 is to reduce the time required to create new doctrine, revise existing doctrine, and rescind outdated publications. The new development process ensures current doctrine keeps better pace with the changing operational environment and more aptly fits the needs of the user than previous doctrine did.
Commanders, staffs, leaders, and Soldiers require doctrine that keeps pace with the ever changing operational environment. The Doctrine 2015 products--Army doctrine publications (ADPs), Army doctrine reference publications (ADRPs), field manuals (FMs), and Army techniques publications (ATPs)--provide the relevant and timely fundamental principles, tactics, techniques, and procedures that guide Army forces in actions.
The purpose of this article is to provide an update on the progress of the sustainment-oriented FMs that are part of Army Doctrine 2015. Doctrine 2015 consists of nine sustainment warfighting function FMs, each recently published (in fiscal years 2013 and 2014):
• FM 1-0, Human Resources Support.
• FM 1-04, Legal Support to the Operational Army.
• FM 1-05, Religious Support.
• FM 1-06, Financial Management.
• FM 4-01, Transportation.
• FM 4-02, Army Health System.
• FM 4-30, Ordnance Operations.
• FM 4-40, Quartermaster Operations.
• FM 4-95, Logistics Operations.
PERSONNEL SERVICES FMs
FM 1-0 provides an understanding of how human resources support contributes to current and future operations. FM 1-0 describes how human resources professionals, organizations, and systems play an increasingly critical role in supporting the total force. This FM also provides a discussion of the organization and operation of human resources organizations within the Army.
FM 1-04 is the Army's manual for operational legal doctrine. FM 1-04 provides authoritative doctrine and practical guidance for commanders, staff judge advocates, legal administrators, and paralegal Soldiers across the range of military operations. It outlines how the Judge Advocate General's Corps is organized in accordance with the Army's force design and discusses the delivery of legal support to the force.
FM 1-05 details fundamental principles of comprehensive religious support. FM 1-05 provides the foundation for evaluating and refining tactics, techniques, and procedures for religious support operations. It provides a doctrinal approach to decision-making that assists commanders, staffs, chaplain's sections, and unit ministry teams in examining a situation, reaching logical conclusions, and making informed decisions about how best to provide religious support.
FM 1-06 outlines how financial management supports unified land operations. FM 1-06 describes how financial management complements combat power, supports strategic and operational reach, and enables endurance. FM 1-06 provides the foundation that supports development of the doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, facilities, and policy domains that support the Army. It also establishes how financial management operations are integrated and synchronized into the overall operations process.
TRANSPORTATION
FM 4-01 provides authoritative guidance for transportation operations that support unified land operations. It applies to the range of military operations and contains an expanded discussion of the transportation doctrine that was introduced in Army Doctrine Publication 4-0.
FM 4-01 describes how transportation operations provide strategic and operational reach and enable endurance. This FM also establishes how transportation operations are integrated and synchronized into the overall operations process.
HEALTH SERVICES
FM 4-02 provides doctrine for the Army Health System (AHS). FM 4-02 discusses the current AHS force structure and how the design enables the support of unified land operations.
FM 4-02 identifies medical functions and procedures that are essential for operations covered in other Army Medical Department proponent manuals, and it depicts AHS operations from the point of injury or illness through the successive roles of care within the area of operations and subsequently to the continental United States.
ORDNANCE
FM 4-30 describes the core competencies of the Ordnance Corps and the strategic relevance of those competencies in sustaining the Army's unified land operations function. The FM provides fundamental guidance for the employment of Army maintenance operations and describes the two-level maintenance concept.
FM 4-30 also lays out the tactical and operational mission of munitions operations and explosive ordnance disposal operations in support of unified land operations.
QUARTERMASTER
FM 4-40, Quartermaster Operations, provides doctrine for the two quartermaster core competencies (supply and field services) and provides an understanding of the quartermaster principles, organizations, and procedures within the context of decisive action. FM 4-40 presents a doctrinal discussion of the organization and operations of quartermaster units within the Army.
FM 4-40 also identifies the strategic partners that support quartermaster functions and provides an overview of supply chain management, operational energy, and the modernization of both the aerial delivery and mortuary affairs force designs.
LOGISTICS OPERATIONS
FM 4-95 serves as the doctrinal bridge between the overarching principles prescribed in ADP 4-0 and ADRP 4-0, Sustainment, and lower level sustainment ATPs. It details Army logistics operations, mission command for logistics, and logistics support for theater operations. It also describes how the logistics element of the sustainment warfighting function facilitates operational success by providing Army forces operational reach, freedom of action, and endurance.
The FM explains the Army principles of logistics--how the Army operates to provide logistics support to unified land operations in the present to near term, with its current force structure and materiel. It also describes the strategic and joint interfaces and interdependence, Army Title 10 logistics requirements, and unified action partners that provide logistics support to unified land operations. And it covers logistics support to force projection and interagency coordination.
The last chapter explains how logistics is integrated into the operations process to support decisive action and provides instruction on establishing metrics for logistics operations in order to gauge the success of logistics support provided. It also provides guidance on planning, preparing, and executing logistics and provides an example of logistics operations from force projection to theater closing.
The nine sustainment Doctrine 2015 FMs can be accessed via Army Knowledge Online (https://armypubs.us.army.mil/doctrine/index.html). The Army Publishing Directorate (APD) (http://www.apd.army.mil/AdminPubs/new_subscribe.asp) is another valuable resource that contains publications and forms. APD offers the opportunity to subscribe to the site and receive weekly e-mail updates concerning published or rescinded documents so that users have the most up-to-date information on hand.
Doctrine developers strongly encourage active participation in doctrine development and require input from the field in order to ensure the sustainment doctrine is applicable to the way operations are conducted today. Detailed instructions for recommended changes to doctrine are contained in each of the nine FMs.
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Reginald "Reggie" Snell, a retired Army officer, is a doctrine developer for the Combined Arms Support Command. He holds a master's degree from Central Michigan University and is currently completing a doctorate in education with a specialization in training and performance improvement at Capella University.
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