Rail Gunners host Redbook conference

By Spc. Dalinda Salazar, 41st Fires Bde. PAOSeptember 8, 2010

FORT HOOD, Texas- Officers from the 41st Fires Brigade, along with officers from the 1st Cavalry Division, attended a Red Team Fire Support Conference at Club Hood, here, to review this year's 1st Cav. Div. "Redbook," Sept. 2.

The Redbook is a collection of standards for leaders to understand fire support training requirements and strategies.

According to the Redbook memorandum by Col. Philip Battaglia, 1st Cav. Div. chief of staff, the First Team Redbook is a product of the leaders of Fires units assigned to the division. It is a compilation of standards that provide tactics, techniques, procedures and standards to be used by leaders to affect fire support training.

The Redbook stands for Fire Support Functional Definition Document and was initially created to publish standards to insure they were being met for brigades who lacked technical expertise of a senior fire supporter.

"During the mid 2000s, the Army underwent a restructuring of our Divisional force structure that involved disbanding the division artillery brigades, and general support artillery battalions were consolidated under a new organization called a Fires Brigade," said Maj. James Schwartz, the fires support officer for the 41st Fires Bde. "Today's Redbook conference ensured for the first time in over five years that a senior artillery commander was involved in establishing the necessary training standards and certification procedures that enable field artillery units to provide accurate and timely indirect fires."

Historically, the standards printed in the Redbook impacted the way a brigade trained and functioned. With new and better technology, the current Redbook takes into consideration the needs of state-of-the-art field operations.

"The current form will bring the fire supporters on Fort Hood all together on a common ground in order to conduct training, integration, and synchronization so that everyone understands what the standards are," said Lt. Col. Patrobick Everett, the deputy commander of the 41st Fires Bde. "Additionally, it makes sure that we as fire supporters understand everything it takes to get fires integrated into the combined arms fight."

The new Redbook is scheduled to be published Sept. 9 and sent to Fort Sill, Okla. for other field artillery brigades to review.