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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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.
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]