Fort Huachuca range complex supports Army MDO concept

Photo By Amy Stork | Lt. Col. James Chester, an operational level doctrine author from the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, is part of a mobile training team. He briefed stakeholders on the updated FM 3-0, at the Buffalo Soldier Chapel at Fort Huachuca, Ariz. Jan. 31-Feb. 1.  

FORT HUACHUCA, AZ, UNITED STATES

02.01.2023

Story by Amy Stork 

U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence

FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. – Fort Huachuca is positioned to meet the Army’s demands as it builds on its capabilities as a major range test facility base with the installation’s newly named 1st Lt. John R. Fox Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) Non-Kinetic Range Complex.

“Fort Huachuca has the first Army range dedicated solely to training and enhancing the Army’s MDO capabilities,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony R. Hale, U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence and Fort Huachuca commanding general. “It is an environment with the full development and representation of threat capabilities and activities across the electromagnetic spectrum to address the Army’s warfighting concepts and modernization requirements.”

This complex supports the MDO concept within the newly updated Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations, which establishes MDO as the Army’s new operational concept.

Lt. Col. James Chester, an operational level doctrine author from the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate, helped write the new FM 3-0. Now that it’s ready for employment, he is part of a mobile training team that is helping stakeholders get familiar with the new doctrine.

Chester said, the biggest change between the 2017 FM 3-0 publication and the one published in October 2022, is the introduction of MDO as the Army’s operational concept.

“In 2017 there were some aspects of the Future’s Concepts that were ready for employment, but they were fairly limited, and doctrine has to be restricted to what is ready for employment in the immediate and near term,” he said. “In the last five years there have been changes around the world, we’ve validated things through experimentation, training, exercises, real world observations and all that content has been pulled into the new operations manual, and there has been enough that multidomain operations as a concept was able to get fully validated and get changed into being doctrine.”

Multidomain Operations use capabilities to complement and reinforce outcomes and create exploitable physical, information, and human advantages that accrue over time. It requires an understanding of how land forces influence the other four domains and how capabilities applied in those domains influence the outcome on land.

Chester said it’s crucial to understand the capabilities of other services and forces that use maritime, air, space, and cyberspace domains to incorporate them into Army operations in a holistic process.

“One of the best ways to think about multidomain operations is as an expansion of combined arms,” he said. “The classical approach to combined arms was Napoleon with horse calvary, infantry, and field artillery, using them together in ways that complimented strength, and complimented and reinforced success. Multidomain operations is an expansion of that concept which has been a cornerstone of Army operations for a very long time.”

FM 3-0 applies to all echelons, in all formations, said Chester.

“I think there can be a misconception sometimes that this is only geared towards certain kinds of echelons above brigade and it’s not,” he said. “It’s not only about combat operations against a threat, but also about what we do in competition and crisis to prepare for and ideally deter a conflict from happening in the first place.”

• Date Taken: 02.01.2023
• Date Posted: 02.01.2023 17:57
• Story ID: 437661
• Location: FORT HUACHUCA, AZ, US