We have reached a point where we can clearly outshoot our capability to acquire targets. The FA Roadmap is squarely focused on developing continuous, pro-active, real time airborne and ground based target acquisition means. FA units must be capable of operating on a dispersed, demassed battlefield. Organizations must be able to adapt to rapidly changing situations, and must be logistically supportable. Support and sustainment of Field Artillery includes everything from accuracy enhancements to maintenance and logistics.
Accuracy relies on precision location of both weapons and targets.
It also requires corrections for errors resulting from weather conditions and individual weapon characteristics, e.g. muzzle velocity. Tremendous demands are placed on commanders tasked with ensuring tons of artillery ammunition are distributed over great distances on a fast-moving battlefield. The Roadmap looks toward the use of precision munitions as a possible means of reducing support and sustainment burdens. Fifty years ago, the need to compute artillery firing tables drove the development of the world's first electronic, digital computer. Today, the Field Artillery continues to pioneer advances in the area of command, control, and communications using automated data processing.