ATP-5-0-2-1 Staff Reference Guide Volume 1 Download
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Planning 07 December 2020 ATP 5-0.2-1 109 Facilitate information preparation of the battlefield. Support effective, efficient, and accurate targeting. Identify risks and opportunities. INFORMATION COLLECTION PLANNING 2-321. Commanders and staffs continuously plan, task, and employ collection assets and forces to collect information. They request information and resources through higher echelons. This information and intelligence helps commanders turn decisions into actions. 2-322. Information collection planning is crucial to mission success. Four fundamentals required to plan, synchronize, and integrate IC activities are— Information collection effort driven by the commander. Full staff participation in synchronizing and integrating IC. Collection capability, either organic or augmented by nonorganic resources, to conduct IC. Capability to analyze and produce intelligence to conduct IC. 2-323. Commanders must quickly and clearly articulate their CCIRs to the staff during the IC planning process. This enables the staff to facilitate the commander's vision and decision making by focusing on the CCIRs. PRIMARY INFORMATION COLLECTION TASKS AND MISSIONS 2-324. Information collection includes all activities and operations that gather data and information used to create knowledge and support the commander's requirements, situational understanding, and visualization. Commanders achieve IC when they conduct all collection tasks together with an operation. The appropriate mix of collection tasks and operations helps satisfy many different requirements. It also ensures that the operations and intelligence working group does not favor or become too reliant on one particular unit, discipline, or system. The Army has four tasks it conducts primarily in support of the IC plan (see appendix C for more details): Reconnaissance. Surveillance. Security operations. Intelligence operations. ROLE OF THE COMMANDER AND STAFF IN INFORMATION COLLECTION 2-325. The commander and staff are as important to the IC process as a coaching staff is to a professional football team. Success or failure of a team is directly related, not only to the vision of the coaching staff, but also to their ability to communicate a commander's visualization and provide team members with the proper tools and training to accomplish that vision. While collection is ongoing, the commander and staff plan, prepare, and assess that collection; monitor the status of collection assets; and provide the assets with life support needs. The Role of the Commander 2-326. Commanders must understand, visualize, describe, direct, lead, and assess all operations. Understanding is fundamental to a commander's ability to establish the situation's context. Understanding involves analyzing and comprehending operational and mission variables in an operational environment. It is derived from applying judgement to a COP through the filter of commander's knowledge and experience. 2-327. Numerous factors determine a commander's depth of understanding. Information collection and the resulting intelligence products help a commander understand the AO. Formulating CCIRs and keeping them current also contributes. Maintaining understanding is a dynamic ability; a commander's situational understanding changes as an operation progresses.