SUTS3: The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook, 3rd Ed.

SUTS3: The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook, 3rd Ed. is the third revised edition of The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook, completely updated for 2019 to include ADP 3-90 Offense and Defense (Jul ‘19), FM 3-0 Operations w/Change 1 (Dec ‘17), FMs 3-90-1 & -2 (May ‘13), ATP 3-21.8 Infantry Platoon and Squad (Apr ‘16), ATP 3-21.10 Infantry Rifle Company (May ‘18), TC 3-21-76 The Ranger Handbook (Apr ‘17), and the latest versions of more than 20 additional references.

At 344-pages, chapters and topics include tactical mission fundamentals, the offense, the defense, stability and counterinsurgency operations, tactical enabling tasks (security, reconnaissance, relief in place, passage of lines, encirclement, and troop movement), special purpose attacks (ambush and raid), urban and regional environments (urban, fortified areas, desert, cold region, mountain, and jungle operations), patrols and patrolling.

Tactics is the employment and ordered arrangement of forces in relation to each other. Through tactics, commanders use combat power to accomplish missions. The tactical-level commander uses combat power in battles, engagements, and small-unit actions.

The nature of close combat in land operations is unique. Combatants routinely come face-to-face with one another in large numbers in a wide variety of operational environments comprising all types of terrain. When other means fail to drive enemy forces from their positions, forces close with and destroy or capture them.

Offensive actions are combat operations conducted to defeat and destroy enemy forces and seize terrain, resources, and population centers. They impose the commander’s will on the enemy. A commander may also conduct offensive actions to deprive the enemy of resources, seize decisive terrain, deceive or divert the enemy, develop intelligence, or hold an enemy in position. The four primary offensive tasks are movement to contact, attack, exploitation, and pursuit.

A defensive task is a task conducted to defeat an enemy attack, gain time, economize forces, and develop conditions favorable for offensive or stability tasks. Although on the defense, the commander remains alert for opportunities to attack the enemy. A defending force does not wait passively to be attacked, aggressively seeking ways of attriting and weakening enemy forces before close combat begins. There are three basic defensive tasks—area defense, mobile defense, and retrograde.

The Small Unit Tactics SMARTbook translates and bridges operational-level doctrine into tactical application -- in the form of tactics, techniques and procedures -- and provides the “how to” at the small-unit level as a ready reference at the battalion, company, platoon, squad and fire team level.

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