Non Multa Sed Multum

The Latin phrase above means, “Not many but much”. It has become the unofficial motto of 2d Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company (ANGLICO), since we are a small unit (around 150 Marines) that disperses across the battlefield in 4-6 man teams, yet each team brings a substantial set of capabilities with it. On this last deployment, teams from 2d ANGLICO supported the Iraqi Army, US Army (both Regular Army and National Guard), Naval Special Warfare, and Marine Corps reconnaissance units, to name a few. Despite this wide network of supported units, or perhaps because of it, the role of ANGLICO is frequently misunderstood.

So what exactly is an ANGLICO? Let’s start at the beginning.

The ANGLICO mission statement:

To provide MAGTF Commanders a liaison capability, with foreign area expertise, to plan, coordinate, employ, and conduct terminal control of fires in support of joint, allied and coalition forces.

The Marine Corps constantly preaches something known as task organization. For those not familiar with the military, most units are organized along fairly homogenous lines (infantry, artillery, armor, engineers, etc.). Task organization is simply a process of taking units with different capabilities and combining them to accomplish a common mission. Usually this involves attaching support units to a maneuver unit, such as attaching a platoon of combat engineers to a battalion of infantry. Now the infantry battalion commander has control of that platoon of engineers and can use them to accomplish missions that would otherwise be much more difficult to accomplish with a battalion that is infantry-pure. In the Marine Corps these are typically referred to as Marine Air Ground Task Forces (MAGTF, pronounced “mag-taff”). There are, of course, some difficulties encountered due to the fact that the attached unit is not familiar with the operating procedures of their new parent unit. However, if both are Marine units, the difficulties are usually not too bad, since Marines all speak a common “language” and have been to many of the same schools. Simply put, for the most part we talk and think alike, whether we are infantry, artillery, engineers, etc.

When a unit from the Army or another country’s military is attached to a MAGTF, however, the difficulties pile up rather rapidly. The US military is the world’s greatest purveyor of firepower, and the Marine Corps in particular has a highly-evolved doctrine for employing supporting arms such as artillery and close air support. When a joint or coalition unit (read, anyone not wearing an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor) is part of a MAGTF and needs to tap in to the Marine Corps’ supply of available fire support, they need someone with them who has an intimate knowledge of our fire support systems and procedures. Enter the ANGLICO teams. Our job is to provide fire support expertise and access to Marine fire support capabilities to non-Marine units, particularly those operating within a MAGTF.

ANGLICO brings together a unique blend of communicators and fire support specialists. On the enlisted side, ANGLICO teams are made up entirely of radio operators and artillery scout/observers. The radio operators provide a level of knowledge in tactical communications that is unmatched across most of the Marine Corps. The scout/observers are experts in determining and communicating target location to a variety of supporting agencies, whether it be an artillery battery or a section of strike aircraft. On the officer side, ANGLICO is mostly composed of artillery officers and aviators, with a smattering of infantry officers (to supply some of the class that the cannon-cockers and flyboys are woefully lacking). The team leaders bring it all together, and advise the supported commander on the best employment of the available fire support. In addition, at the present time every team leader is a qualified Forward Air Controller (FAC) or Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC), which gives the teams the ability to employ air-delivered ordnance such as laser-guided bombs and missiles in support of the joint or coalition unit.

Edited to add more detail.

ANGLICO teams operate these days with one of the most sophisticated suites of targeting and communications equipment in the military We employ laser range finders and GPSs to locate the targets, the most advanced radios available to Fleet Marine Force units to communicate those locations, and laser designators to spot for laser-guided bombs and missiles. We also have laptops that enable us to send e-mails through a satellite communications channel, and to derive coordinates accurate enough for the employment of GPS-guided weaponry. We of course carry all of the same body armor and weaponry as any Marine riflemen, although the Marines on the teams carry the smaller M4 carbine vice the M16A4 rifle.