Engineer presents professional information designed to keep U.S. military and civilian engineers informed of current and emerging developments within their areas of expertise for the purpose of enhancing their professional development.
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34 Engineer January–April 2014 By Lieutenant Colonel Gerald S. Law The support force moves into position during a combined arms breach at the National Training Center. T his article presents a way for leaders who are supporting a maneuver task force and for task force engineers and operations offcers to understand, incorporate, and execute the fve breaching tenets. It also describes the breaching tenets and presents breaching trends observed at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California. Finally, it presents tools and methods to assist leaders during the planning and rehearsal process of combined arms breaching. The breaching tenets are— ■ Intelligence. ■ Breaching fundamentals. ■ Breaching organization. ■ Mass. ■ Synchronization. 1 Intelligence consists of developing obstacle information requirements such as location, size, type of mines, and potential point of breach (POB). To gather the intelligence necessary for success in combined arms breaching, it is necessary to determine the available reconnaissance capabilities, such as an unmanned aerial vehicle, scout platoon, scout weapons team, or engineer reconnaissance team. Once identifed, the assets must be focused on developing obstacle intelligence. It is critical that task force engineers work closely with battalion intelligence offcers to ensure that information collection assets focus on intelligence, which provides the critical information necessary to plan and execute the second breaching tenet— breaching fundamentals. Breaching fundamentals describe actions on the objective, otherwise known as SOSRA: ■ Suppress means to provide effective direct and indirect suppressive fres on the objective. ■ Obscure means to employ smoke on and between enemy positions and the reduction area. ■ Secure means to hold the obstacle with appropriate combat power. ■ Reduce means to use explosive, mechanical, and/or physical means to destroy the obstacle. ■ Assault means to destroy the enemy on the far side of the obstacle. 2 EN Law.1.indd 37 3/12/2014 1:26:55 PM