Fire support base
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A fire support base (FSB, firebase or FB) is a military encampment designed to provide indirect fire artillery fire support to infantry operating in areas beyond the normal range of direct fire support from their own base camps.
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[edit] Components during Vietnam War
An FSB was normally a permanent encampment, though many were dismantled when the units that they supported moved. Their main components varied by size: small bases usually had a battery of six 105 millimeter or 155mm howitzers, a platoon of engineers permanently on station, a Landing Zone (LZ), a Tactical Operations Center (TOC), an aid station staffed with medics, a communications bunker, and a company of infantry. Large FSBs might also have two artillery batteries, and an infantry battalion.[1]
Firebase Bastogne was a United States firebase constructed in Vietnam in 1968, by the 101st Airborne Division.
[edit] Use in Afghanistan
Firebases have been set up in Afghanistan since the action by U.S.-led Coalition forces began in 2001. These bases provide fire support to Coalition forces in the search for Taliban fighters along the Pakistan border.[2]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Field Artillery 1954-1973 Chapter 3: In Order to Win". History.army.mil. http://www.history.army.mil/books/Vietnam/FA54-73/ch3.htm#p55. Retrieved 2010-10-11.
- ^ Asadabad. GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved on: November 11, 2007
[edit] External links
- The Gunpit - Basic Layout
- The 2001 version of Vietnam LZs, FBs, FSBs and Camps
- Vietnam Studies: Field Artillery 1954-1973 - Chapter 3 deals with the FSB concept from the field artillery viewpoint
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