TDG Tuesday: Troop Leading Steps Part III: Complete the Plan & Issue the Order
I’m sorry for posting this so late, but life happens.
I started this series, TDG (Tactical Decision Game) Tuesdays, to get you more in the mindset of how you could potentially handle a given tactical scenario with a limited amount of resources and manpower. My goal is to get you to read these scenarios and think about what resources you have available, what sort of scenarios you might encounter, and what gaps you need to fill in your equipment/training.
Previously, I started this new mini-series on the six troop leading steps, abbreviated as BAMCIS.
Begin Planning
Arrange Recon
Make Recon
Complete the Plan
Issue the Order
Supervise
Over the course of this mini-series, the TDGs have been a successive continuation of the same exercise in which you go over the complete planning and execution of a squad-sized raid on an objective, while following the 6 troop leading steps listed above. If you haven’t already, read TDG 9 for the orientation and scenario that this week builds on, and TDG 10 for the portion on planning and conducting your preliminary reconnaissance of the objective.
TDG 11: Complete the Plan & Issue the Order
This week’s TDG covers the fourth and fifth steps, Complete the plan and Issue the Order. Two weeks ago you came up with a rough plan of attack and a list of RFIs (requests for information) that you wanted answered before finalizing your plan. Last week you planned and conducted your reconnaissance, answering some if not all of your RFIs. This week you will finalize your assault plan and draft it into a 5-paragraph order to issue to your men.
The 5-paragraph order, also known as an “Operations Order format,” is a simple and easy way to organize a mission plan to present to your subordinates. The 5 paragraphs can be easily remembered with the acronym “SMEAC”
Situation: Disposition of all friendly, hostile, and adjacent forces.
Mission: What we are trying to do.
Execution: How we are going to do it.
Admin & Logistics: Who/what is getting where and how.
Command & Signal: Who is in charge and how they are communicating.
If this looks familiar, it should. It’s the same format I’ve used in past TDGs to present the scenario to you. This is a very, very simplified description of what can go into a 5-paragraph order, but for a small group of civilian volunteers it will suffice to organize your thoughts. If you like, you can use as much detail as you want and make a full operations order. A more thorough description of the 5-paragraph order can be found here.
Feel free to post your final product below or email it to me at [email protected]. If you emailed me your recon plan and I haven’t gotten back to you yet, please be patient. I have quite a few of them to work through.
For those of you not actively participating, I will eventually post some of the recon submissions and their results for your reading pleasure.
Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!
About the Author: admin
8 Comments
Comments are closed.
Related Posts
GUNS N GEAR
keep it comming
I hate to say it, but these have become a lot less useful now that people are no longer posting their solutions here and getting the feedback. Just saying.
Matt
Not entirely untrue. It’s planting season, the weather has been nice, and the country is starting to open back up. Also, I suspect a few of our members are on a slightly different schedule as some jobs have rotating shifts. I just finished up my last semester of college and graduated recently. So I have been extremely busy the last month.
These latest posts have been primers for troop leading and planning procedures. These are designed to make sure that your plan goes smoothly and prevents you(and others) from spending hours or days explaining this to everyone before a mission, or, assuming you don’t have the time to explain the nuances of planning and leading, that your plan and procedures are more complete and thus easily understood. Therefore contributing to mission confidence and success.
Nothing hurts more than spending hours explaining this stuff before a real world mission. Especially since the table tops, sand table, and PCCs and PCIs are vital to a successful mission. Things will settle down in a few weeks.
It’s not the troop leading procedures that are less than useful, they are obviously very, very useful and important.
It’s the shift from submitting the solutions as comments to submitting them as email. Those less experienced learned from the comments of those more experienced and the authors replies. There’s no doubt that this is the case.
If you had just completed a mission, would you separate the team and debrief each member individually? No, course not. Because not everyone knows everything or sees everything. We learn from others observations and insights as well as our own. Same thing here.
Matt
Wait until tomorrow when I start posting the results of these past few weeks, I think you’ll be pleased to see what some people have come up with. Regardless, we go back to normal TDGs next week.
Thanks.
Matt
5
[…] TDG11 TROOP LEADING STEPS PART III: Complete the Plan and Issue the Order […]