Well, the Marines are cross-training their artillery units to do peacekeeping missions when the big guns are not needed:
The U.S. Marine Corps has told it’s artillerymen that they will now have to train for a secondary job in civil-military operations (CMO). This involves working directly with civilians in peacekeeping operations.
This will keep the artillery units around for the major combat operations while giving them the flexibility to help in peacekeeping.
The Army has responded to this trend as well. In addition to converting some artillery units to other types, the Army has retrained some artillery units for Iraq duty without their tubes:
The U.S. Army has retrained some of its artillery troops in Iraq to deal with infantry and security jobs.
This has made it difficult for me to tell what is going on out west, in al Anbar, just based on unit names. I read one blogger reporting on events out west assume that since a U.S. Army field artillery unit was with the force on the offensive, we had heavy firepower out there. I did not assume that. First of all, the Air Force is providing the heavy firepower. And second, a lot of our artillery units are functioning more as military police.
While we can afford to convert lots of artillery to other types of units, counting on our Air Force to provide ground support when and where needed, the Marine method seems like a good hedge to keep some tube artillery capability around that might otherwise be scrapped.
