Close operations are operations that are within the commander's
area of operation In U.S. armed forces parlance, an area of operations (AO) is an operational area defined by the force commander for land, air, and naval forces conduct of combat and non-combat activities. Areas of operations do not typically encompass the entire op ...
(AO) in their
battlespace
Battlespace or battle-space is a term used to signify a unified military strategy to integrate and combine armed forces for the military theatre of operations, including air, information, land, sea, cyber and outer space to achieve military ...
(see:
Area of responsibility
Area of responsibility (AOR) is a pre-defined geographic region assigned to Combatant commanders of the Unified Command Plan (UCP), that are used to define an area with specific geographic boundaries where they have the authority to plan and cond ...
). Most operations that are projected in close areas are usually against hostile forces in immediate contact and are often the decisive actions. It requires speed and mobility to rapidly concentrate overwhelming combat power at the critical time and place and exploit success. Dominated by
fire support
Fire support is defined by the United States Department of Defense as "Fires that directly support land, maritime, amphibious, and special operations forces to engage enemy forces, combat formations, and facilities in pursuit of tactical and oper ...
, the combined elements of the ground and air elements conduct
maneuver warfare
Maneuver warfare, or manoeuvre warfare, is a military strategy which seeks to shatter the enemy's overall
cohesion and will to fight.
Background
Maneuver warfare, the use of initiative, originality and the unexpected, combined with a rut ...
to enhance the effects of their fires and their ability to maneuver. As they maneuver to gain positions of advantage over the enemy, combined arms forces deliver fires to disrupt the enemy's ability to interfere with that maneuver.
Commanders prioritize fires to weight the main effort and to focus combat power to achieve effects that lead to a decision. The effects of fires can be massed to strike the enemy at the decisive point and time, while reducing the risks to the force entailed in massing maneuver forces at a single point or in a single portion of the battlespace.
[Marine Corps Doctrinal Publication 1-0, ''Marine Corps Operations'', (Wash., DC: HQMC, 2001)]
References
Military operations
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