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FM 6-0

9-30. IPB is the systematic process of analyzing the mission variables of enemy, terrain, weather, and civil considerations in an area of interest to determine their effect on operations. The IPB process identifies critical gaps in the commander’s knowledge of an operational environment. As a part of the initial planning guidance, commanders use these gaps as a guide to establish their initial intelligence requirements. IPB products enable the commander to assess facts about the operational environment and make assumptions about how friendly and threat forces will interact in the operational environment. The description of the operational environment’s effects identifies constraints on potential friendly COAs. It also identifies key aspects of the operational environment, such as avenues of approach, engagement areas, and landing zones, which the staff integrates into potential friendly COAs and their running estimates. For mission analysis, the intelligence staff, along with the other staff elements, will use IPB to develop detailed threat COA models, which depict a COA available to the threat. The threat COA models provide a basis for formulating friendly COAs and completing the intelligence estimate.
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