21st Century U. S. Army Camouflage, Concealment, and Decoys Field Manual

Book excerpt: This is the latest edition of an important U.S. Army field manual (FM 20-3) covering the vital military tactics of camouflage, concealment, and decoys. According to this manual, ?CCD is the use of materials and techniques to hide, blend, disguise, decoy, or disrupt the appearance of military targets and/or their backgrounds. CCD helps prevent an enemy from detecting or identifying friendly troops, equipment, activities, or installations. Properly designed CCD techniques take advantage of the immediate environment and natural and artificial materials. One of the imperatives of current military doctrine is to conserve friendly strength for decisive action. Such conservation is aided through sound operations security (OPSEC) and protection from attack. Protection includes all actions that make soldiers, equipment, and units difficult to locate. CCD degrades the effectiveness of enemy reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) capabilities. Skilled observers and sophisticated sensors can be defeated by obscuring telltale signs (signatures) of units on the battlefield. Preventing detection impairs enemy efforts to assess friendly operational patterns, functions, and capabilities. CCD enhances friendly survivability by reducing an enemy's ability to detect, identify, and engage friendly elements. Survivability encompasses all actions taken to conserve personnel, facilities, and supplies from the effects of enemy weapons and actions. Survivability techniques include using physical measures such as fighting and protective positions; nuclear, biological, chemical (NBC) equipment; and armor. These actions include interrelated tactical countermeasures such as dispersion, movement techniques, OPSEC, communications security (COMSEC), CCD, and smoke operations (a form of CCD). Improved survivability from CCD is not restricted to combat operations. Benefits are also derived by denying an enemy the collection of information about friendly forces during peacetime. Deception helps mask the real intent of primary combat operations and aids in achieving surprise. Deception countermeasures can delay effective enemy reaction by disguising information about friendly intentions, capabilities, objectives, and locations of vulnerable units and facilities. Conversely, intentionally poor CCD can project misleading information about friendly operations. Successful tactical deception depends on stringent OPSEC.?