4-73. In all joint operations, sustainment is a Service responsibility except as specified by DOD combatant command support agent directives, combatant commanders’ lead Service designations, or inter-Service support agreements. Combatant commanders direct theater army commanders to provide common-user logistics and ASOS, agencies, or multinational forces, as required. However, shared sustainment responsibility or common-user logistics is more effective, especially for joint operations. Directive authority for logistics is the additional authority used by combatant commanders to eliminate duplicated or overlapped sustainment responsibilities. The theater army coordinates with the combatant command staff to determine joint sustainment requirements, identify responsibilities, and enable commanders to exercise mission command for sustainment. (See ADRP 4-0 for more information on sustainment.)

3-8. Sustainment staffs monitor and coordinate sustainment functions between the sustainment and supported staffs. The sustainment staffs also coordinate with specialized functional centers (HRSC and Financial Management Support Center) for oversight of those operations. Theater Army, corps, and division headquarters have staff elements aligned with the movement and maneuver, field artillery, intelligence, mission command, and protection warfighting functions. The sustainment cell within these headquarters consists of the assistant chief of staff, personnel, assistant chief of staff, logistics, assistant chief of staff, finance, surgeon staff, and engineer officer. These staff elements assist the sustainment commander in providing command and control.

2-95. Army team building is a continuous process of enabling a group of people to reach their goals and improve effectiveness through leadership and various exercises, activities and techniques (FM 6-22). The goal of Army team building is to improve the quality of the team and how it works together to accomplish the mission. Using doctrinal terms and symbols is one method of fostering teamwork. Often, the only basis for trust and teamwork in situations that require rapid task organization is a common language and approach to operations. Training and rehearsals also provide opportunities to foster teamwork. Teambuilding is essential to achieving the effective teams required of mission command. (See ATP 6-22.6 for more information on teams and teamwork.)

2-6. The staff keeps its units well informed. The staff also keeps civilian organizations informed with relevant information according to their security classification, as well as their need to know. As soon as a staff receives information and determines its relevancy, that staff passes that information to the appropriate headquarters. The key is relevance, not volume. Masses of data are worse than meaningless data; they inhibit mission command by distracting staffs from relevant information. Effective knowledge management helps staffs identify the information the commander and each staff element need, and its relative importance. (See chapter 3 for more details on knowledge management.)

1-47. Friendly force agility further mitigates risk in tactical operations. Agility is the ability of friendly forces to react faster than enemy forces. It is as much a mental as a physical quality. Agility permits the rapid concentration of friendly strengths against enemy vulnerabilities. Friendly forces achieve agility through rigorous and realistic training, well-known and drilled unit standard operating procedures, maintained and continuously shared understanding and estimates, and the use of the mission command approach.

1-5. Development depends on having clear purpose for what, when and how to develop. Good leader development is purposeful and goal-oriented. A clearly established purpose enables leaders to guide, assess, and accomplish development. The principles of leader development describe goals for what leaders need to be developed to do: leading by example, developing subordinates, creating a positive environment for learning, exercising the art and science of mission command, adaptive performance, critical and creative thinking, and knowing subordinates and their families. The core leader competencies and attributes identified in ADRP 6-22 and the Army Leader Development Strategy (ALDS) provide additional detail of what leaders need to be able to do.

4-22. Staffs keep their units well informed. Staffs also keep adjacent, coalition, allied, and civilian organizations informed with relevant information according to security classification and need to know. Staffs have an obligation to establish working relationships with unit members. As soon as a staff receives information and determines its relevancy, that staff passes that information to the appropriate headquarters. The key is relevance, not volume. Masses of data inhibit mission command by distracting staffs from relevant information. Effective knowledge management helps staffs identify the information commanders and staff elements need, and its relative importance.

2-281. Setting the conditions for effective home-station training requires collaboration between the operational force units, the installation range operations, and the aligned USAF air support operations squadron. Installations must be able to simulate division-assigned airspace, so that individual airspace users as well as BCTs can operate as if they were under the control of a division JAGIC. Divisions need to train with the joint command and control system linkages they would have in an actual conflict. For example, installations can develop common graphic control measures that are shared on a digital COP through the use of Global Area Reference System keypad-based UAS airspace coordinating measures to enable rapid airspace coordination for UASs. Installations and units enhance individual and staff skills by using the mission training center to train Soldiers on their individual mission command information systems and how to pass relevant data to other Army and USAF C2 systems.

1-13. Third, doctrine provides the force with a common frame of reference and a common cultural perspective for solving military problems. By providing a common and standardized set of principles, tactics, techniques, procedures, and terms and symbols for the Army, doctrine enables flexibility, supports rapid action and reaction to emerging opportunities and threats, and facilitates swift adaptation during changing circumstances. Commanders and staffs focus their creative efforts on solving the unique problems of assigned missions without having to publish detailed procedures for completing common tasks for every mission. For example, if Soldiers understand that a change in the main effort means that all or most priorities—such as fire support, sustainment support, and so on—also change, then a commander does not have to specify every detail. The commander can assume that subordinate staffs and commanders will act based on a common approach to operations. A common approach enables units to self-synchronize both within the unit and between units. Perhaps the most important example of this common cultural perspective is the mission command approach. If leaders and Soldiers understand and exercise mission command to conduct operations, then commanders can expect subordinates to exercise initiative, and subordinates can expect mission orders, not detailed instructions. As a result, commanders count on more rapid decision making and more flexible adaptation to circumstances than if doctrine requires approval for every change in orders.

6-7. During offensive operations, enemy forces typically attempt to mask the location of their main effort with multiple fixing attacks on the ground while using fires to disrupt critical friendly nodes (for example command posts [CPs], radars, and fire direction centers) and isolate friendly forward units. Generally, enemy forces seek to reinforce success, massing capabilities at a vulnerable point to achieve large force ratio advantages to enable a rapid penetration of friendly defenses. The enemy uses mobile forces to exploit the penetration rapidly to the maximum possible depth in order to make the overall friendly defensive posture untenable. Threat forces can have advantages in both volume and range of fires, so they can simultaneously mass fires on the point of penetration to enable rapid closure and breakthrough, fix other friendly elements along the forward line of own troops (FLOT), and target key friendly mission command and logistics nodes along the depth of the defense. Threat forces prefer to use fires to move around fixed positions when possible and through destroyed units when necessary. Threat forces seek to maneuver tactically to a depth that achieves operational objectives in support of his overall strategic purpose. Threat forces will employ intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; EW; information warfare; SOF, and all other capabilities at their disposal. These are likely to include chemical weapons. Figure 6-2 shows a typical enemy disruption force in the attack. Figure 6-3 on page 6-6 shows typical enemy fixing and breaching a brigade combat team (BCT) defense. Figure 6-4 on page 6-7 illustrates an enemy exploitation force. Figure 6-5 on page 6-8 illustrates the organization of an army-level integrated fires command.

4-112. Forward deployed forces have the advantage of focusing their information collection toward enemies, adversaries, and specific OEs. This allows them to develop detailed knowledge of adversary and enemy locations, capabilities, dispositions, intentions, and pertinent civil considerations. Constant updates of intelligence products allow these forces to keep current on adversary and enemy capabilities and dispositions. There are several techniques to help ensure continuity of information on intelligence dissemination to include embedding an intelligence liaison officer forward, using home-station mission command facilities, or ensuring adequate connectivity and communication en route.

10-23. During COA development, leaders determine whether the unit has enough combat power to defeat the force (or accomplish a task in stability or defense support of civil authorities tasks) against which it is arrayed by comparing the combat power of friendly and enemy forces. Leaders seek to determine where, when, and how friendly combat power (the elements of intelligence, movement and maneuver, fires, sustainment, protection, mission command, leadership, and information) can overwhelm the enemy. It is a particularly difficult process if the unit is fighting a dissimilar unit, for example, if an infantry unit is attacking or defending against an enemy mechanized force. Below battalion level, relative combat power comparisons are rough and generally rely on professional judgment instead of numerical analysis. When an enemy is not the object of a particular mission or tasks, leaders conduct a troop-to-task analysis to determine if they have enough combat power to accomplish the tasks. For example, a company commander assigned the task “establish civil control in town X” would need to determine if there were enough Soldiers and equipment (including vehicles and barrier materials) to establish the necessary check points and security stations within the town to control the population in town X.

1-30. NCOs are responsible for setting and maintaining high-quality standards and discipline while conducting daily missions and making intent-driven decisions. NCOs serve as standard-bearers and role models vital to training, educating, and developing subordinates. Through training, coaching, mentoring, counseling, and informal interaction, they guide the development of Soldiers in an everyday basis and play a role in the development of junior officers. NCOs, at all echelons, understand and practice the mission command philosophy to execute unified land operations. NCOs advise officers at all levels and are an important source of knowledge and discipline for all enlisted matters. See DA PAM 600-25 for professional development opportunities.

1-31. Army Civilians provide crucial continuity that complements the roles of Soldiers. Army Civilian leaders require a broad understanding of military, political, and business-related strategies, as well as, high levels of managerial, leadership, and decision-making skills. Army Civilians create and practice leader development for other Army Civilians and support the development of military personnel while serving as supervisors, mentors, and instructors. At all echelons, Army Civilians should understand and exercise the mission command philosophy while providing mission-based capabilities to support Army missions. See DOD Instruction 1430.16 and AR 690-950 for specifics.

7-102. Just as there is a relationship between unit size and the ability of a friendly force to execute a turning movement instead of an envelopment, this relationship extends downward between an envelopment and a flank attack. Corps and divisions are the most likely echelons to conduct turning movements. Divisions and BCTs are the echelons most likely to conduct envelopments—single or double. Smaller-sized tactical units, such as maneuver battalions, companies, and platoons, are more likely to conduct flank attacks than larger tactical units. This is largely a result of troop-to-space ratios and sustainment and mission command constraints. The Confederate attack by the four divisions of Stonewall Jackson’s II Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia on the Union XI Corps of the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville on 2 May 1863 is a historical example of a flank attack.

2-95. A TTSB provides functional signal support for corps and division operations. TTSBs provision communications and information systems support to a theater army headquarters, their subordinate units, and as required, to joint, inter-organizational, and multinational partners throughout the area of responsibility. The TTSB and its subordinate units install, operate, maintain, and defend the Department of Defense information network-Army (DODIN-A). Each TTSB leverages the extension and reachback capabilities to provide joint communications and information systems services to the GCC and subordinate commanders to conduct mission command. (See FM 6-02 for more information on the TTSB.)

4-54. In-transit visibility is the ability to track the identity, status, and location of DOD units, and non-unit cargo (excluding bulk petroleum, oils, and lubricants) and passengers; patients; and personal property from origin to consignee or destination across the range of military operations (+JP 4-01.2). It is critical for tracking the identity, status and location of all DOD units and cargo, and it provides critical input to mission command information systems. Successful in-transit visibility begins during the predeployment phase and continues throughout operations. Accurate weighing, measurement, marking, and tagging of all cargo, containers, and equipment directly contributes to a more complete and timely operational picture for the commander. (See JP 4-01.2 and ATP 3-35 for more information on in-transit visibility.)

2-35. During operations, Army forces enable joint force freedom of action by denying enemy forces the ability to operate uncontested in domains other than land wherever possible. Leaders synchronize the efforts of unified action partners across multiple domains to ensure unity of effort. Army forces adapt continuously to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative. Unified land operations create multiple dilemmas for the enemy by placing enemy forces and objectives at risk. Army forces have the mobility, protection, and firepower necessary to strike enemy forces unexpectedly from many directions creating multiple dilemmas for the enemy commander. Even when conducting dispersed operations, mobile combined arms teams exercising mission command can concentrate combat power rapidly to isolate enemy forces, attack critical enemy assets, and exploit opportunities.

1-14. Because uncertainty is pervasive during operations, success is often determined by a leader’s ability to outthink an opponent and to execute tasks more quickly than an opponent can react. The side that anticipates better, thinks more clearly, decides and acts more quickly, and is comfortable operating with uncertainty stands the greatest chance to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative over an opponent. Leaders make decisions, develop plans, and direct actions with the information they have at the time. Commanders seek to counter the uncertainty of operations by empowering subordinates to quickly adapt to changing circumstances within their intent. Mission command decentralizes decision-making authority and grants subordinates significant freedom of action. The principles of mission command are—

2-40. The theater aviation brigade (general support) supports the theater with additional general support aviation battalions to perform assault, heavy lift, aeromedical evacuation, and air movement. Each theater aviation brigade can conduct assault or general support aviation tasks in support of the theater army and its subordinate commands. Unlike combat aviation brigades (CABs), a theater aviation brigade lacks attack and reconnaissance battalions. The theater aviation brigade has a mix of lift helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. The brigade can conduct air assault, air movement, and sustaining operations. It will normally not have attached UASs. The theater aviation brigade reinforces CABs with additional assault, general support, heavy lift, and aeromedical evacuation. If properly task organized, with additional mission command and staff and maintenance assets, the theater aviation brigade can conduct other traditional CAB missions. If task organized with a theater fixed-wing battalion, the theater aviation brigade flies fixed-wing sorties in support of the ARFOR, theater army, and joint force land component. (See FM 3-04 for more discussion of the theater aviation brigade and theater fixed wing battalion.)