ATTP 5-0.1 Commander and Staff Officer Guide - Army Electronic ...

Chapter 4
Conduct a Course of Action Briefing
4-111. After developing COAs, the staff briefs them to the commander. A collaborative session may
facilitate subordinate planning. The COA briefing includes—
� An updated IPB.
� Possible enemy COAs.
� The approved problem statement and mission statement.
� The commander’s and higher commander’s intents.
� COA statements and sketches, including lines of effort if used.
� The rationale for each COA, including—
� Considerations that might affect enemy COAs.
� Critical events for each COA.
� Deductions resulting from the relative combat power analysis.
� The reason units are arrayed as shown on the sketch.
� The reason the staff used the selected control measures.
� The impact on civilians.
� How it accounts for minimum essential stability tasks.
� Updated facts and assumptions.
� Refined COA evaluation criteria.
Select or Modify Courses of Action for Continued Analysis
4-112. After the COA briefing, the commander selects or modifies those COAs for continued analysis.
The commander also issues planning guidance. If commanders reject all COAs, the staff begins again. If
commanders accept one or more of the COAs, staff members begin COA analysis. The commander may
create a new COA by incorporating elements of one or more COAs developed by the staff. The staff then
prepares to war-game this new COA. The staff incorporates those modifications and ensures all staff
members understand the changed COA.
STEP 4 – COURSE OF ACTION ANALYSIS AND WAR-GAMING
4-113. COA analysis enables commanders and staffs to identify difficulties or coordination problems as
well as probable consequences of planned actions for each COA being considered. It helps them think
through the tentative plan. COA analysis may require commanders and staffs to revisit parts of a COA as
discrepancies arise. COA analysis not only appraises the quality of each COA but also uncovers potential
execution problems, decisions, and contingencies. In addition, COA analysis influences how commanders
and staffs understand a problem and may require the planning process to restart.
4-114. War-gaming is a disciplined process, with rules and steps that attempt to visualize the flow of the
operation, given the force’s strengths and dispositions, enemy’s capabilities and possible COAs, impact and
requirements of civilians in the AO, and other aspects of the situation. The simplest form of war-gaming is
the manual method, often utilizing a tabletop approach with blowups of matrixes and templates. The most
sophisticated form of war-gaming is modern, computer-aided modeling and simulation. Regardless of the
form used, each critical event within a proposed COA should be war-gamed using the action, reaction, and
counteraction methods of friendly and enemy forces interaction. This basic war-gaming method (modified
to fit the specific mission and environment) applies to offensive, defensive, and stability or civil support
operations. When conducting COA analysis, commanders and staffs perform the process actions and
produce the outputs shown in Figure 4-5.
4-115. War-gaming results in refined COAs, a completed synchronization matrix, and decision support
templates and matrixes for each COA. A synchronization matrix records the results of a war game. It
depicts how friendly forces for a particular COA are synchronized in time, space, and purpose in relation to
an enemy COA or other events in stability or civil support operations. The decision support template and
matrix portray key decisions and potential actions that are likely to arise during the execution of each COA.
4-22 ATTP 5-0.1 14 September 2011