Leading, Planning & Conducting Military Operations

BSS5: The Battle Staff SMARTbook, 5th Ed. incorporates the full scope of new material from FM 6-0 (w/change 2), Commander and Staff Organization and Operations (May ‘15); ATP 2-01.3/MCRP 2-3A, Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield/Battlespace (Nov '14); ADRP 1-02, Operational Terms and Military Symbols (Feb ‘15); FM 3-09, Field Artillery Operations and Fire Support (Apr ‘14); ATP 3-60, Targeting (May ‘15); and ATP 5-19 (w/change 1), Risk Management (Apr ‘14). Chapters and topics include the operations process (ADRP 5-0); commander’s activities (Understand, Visualize, Describe, Direct, Lead, Assess); the military decisionmaking process and troop leading procedures (FM 6-0: MDMP & TLP); integrating processes and continuing activities (IPB, targeting, risk management); plans and orders (WARNOs/FRAGOs/OPORDs); mission command, command posts, liaison (ADRP 6-0); rehearsals & after action reviews; and operational terms and military symbols (ADRP 1-02).

* This is the third printing of BSS5 (dated Apr 2017), incorporating minor text edits from Change 2 to FM 6-0 (Apr 2016) and ADRP 3-0 (Nov 2016). An asterisk marks changed content.

Commanders, supported by their staffs, use the operations process to drive the conceptual and detailed planning necessary to understand, visualize, and describe their operational environment; make and articulate decisions; and direct, lead, and assess military operations. The Army’s framework for exercising mission command is the operations process: planning, preparing, executing, and continuously assessing the operation.

Planning is the art and science of understanding a situation, envisioning a desired future, and laying out effective ways of bringing that future about. Design is a methodology for applying critical and creative thinking to understand, visualize, and describe complex, ill-structured problems and develop approaches to solve them. Preparation is activities that units perform to improve their ability to execute an operation. Execution puts a plan into action by applying combat power to accomplish the mission and using situational understanding to assess progress and make execution and adjustment decisions. Assessment is continuously monitoring and evaluating the current situation and the progress of an operation.

The military decisionmaking process (MDMP) is an iterative planning methodology to understand the situation and mission develop a course of action, and produce an operation plan or order. The MDMP helps leaders apply thoroughness, clarity, sound judgment, logic, and professional knowledge to understand situations, develop options to solve problems, and reach decisions. This process, consisting of seven steps with inputs and outputs, helps commanders, staffs, and others think critically and creatively while planning.

Throughout the operations process, commanders and staffs integrate the warfighting functions to synchronize the force in accordance with the commander’s intent and concept of operations. Commanders and staffs use several integrating processes and continuing activities to do this. In addition to the major activities of the operations process, commanders and staffs use several integrating processes to synchronize specific functions throughout the operations process. The integrating processes are: intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB), targeting and risk management.

A product of planning is a plan or order—a directive for future action. Commanders issue plans and orders to subordinates to communicate their understanding of the situation and their visualization of an operation. Plans and orders direct, coordinate, and synchronize subordinate actions and inform those outside the unit how to cooperate and provide support.

Mission command is the exercise of authority and direction by the commander using mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent to empower agile and adaptive leaders in the conduct of unified land operations. Mission command is one of the foundations of unified land operations. This philosophy of command helps commanders capitalize on the human ability to take action to develop the situation and integrate military operations to achieve the commander’s intent and desired end state.

Rehearsals allow leaders and their Soldiers to practice executing key aspects of the concept of operations. These actions help Soldiers orient themselves to their environment and other units before executing the operation. An after action review (AAR) is a guided analysis of an organization’s performance, conducted at appropriate times during and at the conclusion of a training event or operation with the objective of improving future performance. The AAR provides valuable feedback essential to correcting training deficiencies. Feedback must be direct, on-the-spot and standards-based.

Planning & Conducting Tactical Operations

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. 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.

Military Leadership & Training in a Complex World

TLS5: The Leader's SMARTbook, 5th Ed. incorporates the full scope of new material from FM 7-0 Train to Win in a Complex World, FM 6-22 Leader Development, and ATP 6-22.6 Army Team Building! Jam-packed at 400 pages, topics and chapters include military leadership (ADP/ADRP 6-22); leader development (FM 6-22); coach, counsel, and mentor (ATP 6-22.1), team building; (ATP 6-22.6), military training (ADP/ADRP 7-0), train to win in a complex world (FM 7-0); unit training plans, meetings, schedules, briefs; conducting training events and exercises; training assessments, evaluations and after action reviews.

Among professions, the Army Profession has unique characteristics because of the lethality of our operations. The Nation tasks the Army to do many things besides combat operations, but ultimately the primary reason the Army exists is to fight and win the Nation’s wars through prompt and sustained land combat, as part of the joint force. The Army must always be prepared to accomplish this mission through the application of lethal force.

Leadership is the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation to accomplish the mission and improve the organization. As an element of combat power, leadership unifies the other elements of combat power (information, mission command, movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires, sustainment and protection). Confident, competent, and informed leadership intensifies the effectiveness of the other elements of combat power.

The Army depends upon itself to develop adaptable leaders able to achieve mission accomplishment in dynamic, unstable, and complex environments. A robust, holistic leader development program is essential. Through a mix of education, training, and experience, Army leader development processes produce and sustain agile, adaptive, and innovative leaders who act with boldness and initiative in dynamic, complex situations to execute missions according to doctrine, orders, and training.

Leaders have three principal ways of developing others. They can provide knowledge and feedback through counseling, coaching, and mentoring. The military is a team of teams composed of numerous organizations with one overarching common mission: win the nation’s wars. The ability to build teams through mutual trust and maintain effective, cohesive teams throughout military operations is an essential skill for all commanders, staffs, and leaders.

The Army trains to win in a complex world. To fight and win in a chaotic, ambiguous, and complex environment, the Army trains to provide forces ready to conduct unified land operations. The Army does this by conducting tough, realistic, and challenging training. Training is the most important thing the Army does to prepare for operations. Training is the cornerstone of readiness. Readiness determines our Nation’s ability to fight and win in a complex global environment.

Guide to Logistics, Personnel Services & Health Services Support

SMFLS4: The Sustainment & Multifunctional Logistics SMARTbook, 4th Ed. (w/Change 1*) is the fourth revised edition of The Sustainment & Multifunctional Logistics SMARTbook. In addition to the most current versions of ADP/ADRP 4-0 Sustainment (Jul ‘12), SMFLS4 incorporates the full scope of new material from ATP 4-94 Theater Sustainment Command (Jun ‘13), ATP 4-93 Sustainment Brigade (Apr ‘16), ATP 4-90 Brigade Support Battalion (Aug ‘14), Sustainment Planning, JP 4-0 Joint Logistics (Oct ‘13), ATP 3-35 Army Deployment and Redeployment (Mar ‘15), and more than a dozen new/updated Army sustainment references to include ATP 4-33, ATP 4-42, ATP 4-16, ATP 4-0.1, ATP 4-34.40, ATP 4-92, FM 1-0, FM 1-04, FM 1-05, FM 1-06, FM 4-01, FM 4-02, and FM 4-30!

* Change 1 to SMFLS4 (Mar 2018) incorporates new material from ATP 4-93 Sustainment Brigade (Apr ‘16) and minor text edits from ADRP 3-0 (Nov ‘16). An asterisk marks changed pages.

The sustainment warfighting function is related tasks and systems that provide support and services to ensure freedom of action, extend operational reach, and prolong endurance. The sustainment warfighting function consists of three major elements: logistics, personnel services, & health service support.

Unified land operations acknowledges that strategic success requires fully integrating U.S. military operations with the efforts of interagency and multinational partners. The sustainment of unified land operations requires a continuous link between the strategic, operational, and tactical levels. It also requires close coordination and collaboration with other Services, allies, host nation, and other governmental organizations.

Decisive action is the continuous, simultaneous combinations of offensive, defensive, and stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks. Commanders seek to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative while synchronizing their actions. Sustainment, through mission command, enables decisive action. Sustainment provides the operational commander with operational reach, freedom of action and endurance.

Train, Advise, & Assist

TAA2: The Military Engagement, Security Cooperation & Stability SMARTbook (with Change 1*) is the re-titled and re-focused second edition of The Stability, Peace & Counterinsurgency SMARTbook. Topics and references include the Range of Military Operations (JP 3-0); Train, Advise & Assist (SFA/FID/IDAD/HN/FSF); Stability Operations (JP & ADRP 3-07); Peace Operations (JP & FM 3-07.3); Counterinsurgency Operations (JP & FM 3-24); Civil-Military Operations (JP 3-57); Multinational Operations (JP 3-16); and Interorganizational Cooperation (JP 3-08).

* Change 1 to TAA2 (Sept 2017) incorporates new material and text edits from JP 3-0 (Jan 2017), JP 3-07 (Aug 2016), JP 3-20 (May 2017), JDN 1-3 (Apr 2013), and JP 3-08 (Oct 2016). An asterisk marks changed pages.

In the complex, dynamic operational environments of the 21st century, significant challenges to sustainable peace and security exist. Sources of instability that push parties toward violence include religious fanaticism, global competition for resources, climate change, residual territorial claims, ideology, ethnic tension, elitism, greed, and the desire for power. These factors create belts of state fragility and instability that threaten U.S. national security.

Throughout U.S. history, U.S. forces have learned that military force alone cannot secure sustainable peace. U.S. forces can only achieve sustainable peace through a comprehensive approach in which military objectives nest in a larger cooperative effort of the departments and agencies of the U.S. Government, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, multinational partners, the private sector, and the host nation.

Military engagement, security cooperation, and stability missions, tasks, and actions encompass a wide range of actions where the military instrument of national power is tasked to support OGAs and cooperate with IGOs (e.g., UN, NATO) and other countries to protect and enhance national security interests, deter conflict, and set conditions for future contingency operations.

Use of joint capabilities in these and related activities such as Security Force Assistance and Foreign Internal Defense helps shape the operational environment and keep the day-to-day tensions between nations or groups below the threshold of armed conflict while maintaining US global influence.

Stability operations are various military missions, tasks, and activities conducted outside the US in coordination with other instruments of national power to maintain or reestablish a safe and secure environment, provide essential governmental services, emergency infrastructure reconstruction, and humanitarian relief.

Peace Operations are crisis response and limited contingency operations conducted by a combination of military forces and nonmilitary organizations to contain conflict, redress the peace, and shape the environment to support reconciliation and rebuilding and to facilitate the transition to legitimate governance.

A counterinsurgency campaign is a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations conducted along multiple lines of operations. It requires military forces to employ a mix of familiar combat tasks and skills more often associated with nonmilitary agencies and to be nation builders as well as warriors.

Civil-military operations are a primary military instrument to synchronize military and nonmilitary instruments of national power, particularly in support of stability, counterinsurgency and other operations dealing with asymmetric and irregular threats.