CSA Articles of the Year


Army Fires: Enabling Joint Convergence in a Maritime Environment

By Col. Jon Harvey, Lt. Col. Matthew R. Arrol, Retired, and Chief Warrant Officer 5 Steven Pressley

In the Pacific, Army fires will be essential to enabling joint force convergence but will require new approaches to employment and revisiting traditional concepts of fire support in a maritime context.

Link to the article | More from Military Review

Notable Quote

“Given this reality, one could rightly ask, ‘Why don’t we just buy more ships and aircraft if they are better suited to the environment?’ This is a fair question, and this article does not suggest that our naval and air forces don’t need additional funding to support this threat. What it does suggest is that all services have inherent limitations, and Army fires present the adversary with a unique dilemma that forces them to consider the land domain and how to pry U.S. forces from key terrain.”


Striking a Balance: Leadership Versus Management in the Modern Army

By Staff Sgt. Kevin S. Rasins

Effective leadership and management in achieving mission success and operational readiness, particularly for NCOs is vitally important in today's fast-paced and high-pressure environment. Although leadership and management are often used interchangeably, they have unique roles. Both leadership (inspiring and motivating troops) and management (organizing resources, planning, and executing strategies) are essential for success, but one cannot ensure victory without the other.

Link to the article | More from NCO Journal

Notable Quote

“The future of the Army lies in leaders who possess charisma, vision, strategic acumen, and organizational prowess. By recognizing the importance of developing managerial attributes alongside leadership qualities, the Army can cultivate leaders capable of meeting the challenges of the 21st-century battlefield.”


Tactical UAS: Three-Tiered UAS Manning for Increased Lethality and Situational Awareness

By CPT Charles J. O'Hagan, 1LT Parker Mitchell, 1LT Noah Paffenroth, and 1LT Adam Hendrick

This article advocates for a three-tiered approach to manning unmanned aerial systems (UAS) within the U.S. Army, encompassing additional duty, dedicated positions, and a new military occupation specialty (MOS) to optimize the use of drones. The authors emphasize the need for human-machine integration and the development of autonomous technologies to decrease operator workload, enhance efficiency, and improve situational awareness on the battlefield.

Link to the article | More from Infantry

Notable Quote

“As the U.S. armed forces observe the success of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in Ukraine, we must consider how to equip and operate drones at the tactical level within our own formations. To maintain its strategic edge and adapt to the rapidly changing landscape of warfare, the U.S. Army must effectively man and operate drones at this level.”


A Data-Centric Approach to Increasing Crew Lethality: Proposing ‘Moneyball for Gunnery’

By Lt. Col. Jonathan D. Bate, 1st Lt. Ethan Barangan, 1st Lt. Nicholas Calhoon, and Staff Sgt. Jacob Seitz

The Ivy Raider Brigade applied a data analytics approach inspired by Billy Beane's "Moneyball" strategy to improve mounted machine gun (MMG) lethality in Stryker gunnery, focusing on identifying predictive factors of crew performance. Their analysis found that scores from Table III, a range using blank-fire iterations, were correlated with a higher probability of first-time qualification on Table VI, the qualifying table. This approach suggests that data analytics can complement leader experience to enhance military training efficiency and effectiveness, with the potential to set performance thresholds and use machine learning for better predictions.

Link to the article | More from U.S. Army

Notable Quote

“Applying a ‘Moneyball’ approach to gunnery first required an open mind about what produces better performance on Table VI. Beane bucked conventional wisdom when he began measuring players using on-base percentage and slugging percentage rather than traditional metrics such as stolen bases, runs batted in, and batting average.”