ATP-3-09-42 Fire Support for the Brigade Combat Team Download
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1 March 2016 ATP 3-09.42 B-1 Appendix B Estimates, Plans, Orders and Annexes to Plans and Orders The brigade combat team (BCT) staff’s most important function is supporting and advising the BCT commander throughout the operations process. The primary staff products are information and analysis. Staffs extract relevant information from a vast amount of available information, then collect, analyze, and present it to commanders. This enables situational understanding by commanders and assists commanders in making decisions. A tool used to support this staff function is the running estimate. Estimates consist of significant facts, events, and conclusions based on analyzed data. They recommend how to best use available resources. Plans and orders are the means by which the BCT commander expresses a visualization, commander’s intent, and decisions. Plans and orders focus on results the BCT commander expects to achieve. Plans and orders form the basis the BCT commander uses to synchronize military operations. They encourage initiative by providing the what and why of a mission, and leave how to accomplish the mission to subordinates. Plans and orders give subordinates the operational and tactical freedom to accomplish the mission by providing the minimum restrictions and details necessary for synchronization and coordination. This appendix describes the preparation and formats for fires running estimates, plans, orders, and annexes to plans and orders; providing annotated formats as examples. Section I begins with the fires running estimate. Sections II and III describe the fire support plan and the fire support annex to the operation plan (OPLAN) or operation order (OPORD). Section IV contains a summary of the field artillery support plan. Section V concludes this chapter with a very brief discussion of the field artillery battalion OPLAN or OPORD. SECTION I – THE FIRES RUNNING ESTIMATE GENERAL B-1. Running estimates parallel the military decisionmaking process (MDMP). Mission analysis, facts and assumptions, and analysis of the mission variables of mission, enemy, terrain and weather, troops and support available, time available, civil considerations (METT-TC) furnish the structure for running estimates. They recommend how to best use available resources. See FM 6-0 for the format of a running estimate. B-2. The FSCOORD and fires cell planners maintain the fires running estimate to identify when fire support decisions are needed and to help the BCT commander make them. When the BCT commander is considering a decision, the fires running estimate’s presentation always ends with a recommendation. Sometimes the recommendation is implied. For example, when the fires running estimate is presented as part of a situation update, the implicit recommendation is to continue operations according to the present order unless the presenter recommends otherwise. The FSCOORD and fires cell planners maintain only one running estimate. B-3. The BCT commander is usually not briefed on the entire contents of the fires running estimate. The brigade fire support officer (FSO) or other fires cell representative briefs only those parts of the running estimate relevant to the situation and the issue or decision being addressed. Fires cell representatives focus