what is a military course of action

Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (2.50 / 2 votes) Rate this definition: course of action. 1. Any sequence of activities that an individual or unit may follow. 2. A possible plan open to an individual or commander that would accomplish, or is related to the accomplishment of the mission. 3.

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What is a course of action?

Definition of the term 'course of action ' per official documentation of the United States Department of Defense. 1. Any sequence of activities that an individual or unit may follow. 2. A possible plan open to an individual or commander that would accomplish, or is related to the accomplishment of the mission. 3.

How are the courses of action ranked?

Course-of-action development is the foundation of the plan. Eliminating or inadequately conducting this step produces inferior estimates which impact on …

What happens after courses of action are war-gamed?

Aug 12, 2021 · In the military, service members must maintain operational readiness at all times. A human performance platform helps facilitate this by bringing specialists together, enabling data-driven decision-making, and facilitating better communication. Having a clear Course of Action (COA) at the beginning of your Human Performance program will help ensure its initial …

How does a Commander develop a course of action?

PREPARE COURSE-OF-ACTION STATEMENT AND SKETCH. STEP 1 Development begins with the staff analyzing relative-force ratios. The relative-force ratio is …

What is a course of action example?

How do you determine course of action?

What are the five 5 screening criteria for course of actions COAs must meet?

What's a COA in the Army?

How do you write an Army course of action?

What the meaning of course of action?

What criteria are you going to use to develop your COAs?

What are the steps of the military decision making process?

How many COAs should be developed?

Who can approve COA Army?

Is an AAM a ribbon?

What is a DMB DWV award in the Army?

Why is human performance important in the military?

A human performance platform helps facilitate this by bringing specialists together, enabling data-driven decision-making, and facilitating better communication.

What is H2F in the military?

The military is basing human performance programs like Holistic Health and Fitness (H2F) around five core domains: physical, mental, nutritional, spiritual, and sleep. Any performance program must keep each of these areas in mind when determining which resources to hire and technology to use.

Why is it important to plan out a COA?

While planning out the human elements of a COA is a must, it’s also important to take technical factors into account. Automating data capture, ingestion, and integration with a human performance platform gives performance specialists more time to focus on personnel-related elements and helps scale meaningful touchpoints across thousands of service members.

Is Smartabase good for warfighter education?

A human performance platform like Smartabase can be beneficial in furthering warfighter education. For example, if an individual has poor sleep and HRV numbers for a week straight, the app can be configured to automatically send them a video with several sleep hygiene tips.

How to develop a complete course of action?

To develop a complete course of action, the staff must identify what, when, where, how, and why the unit will execute. A technique to quickly develop complete courses of action is for the XO to assemble the staff and follow the five-step method. The staff develops the courses of action together. While the S-3 develops the scheme of maneuver, the remainder of the staff integrates its assets within its functional area of responsibility.

What is course of action development?

Course-of-action development is the foundation of the plan. Eliminating or inadequately conducting this step produces inferior estimates which impact on the remainder of the MDMP in the following ways. The commander, recognizing courses of action that do not adhere to his planning guidance or are not feasible, responds by having the staff do the work again, which wastes time. Or, in the absence of adequate planning time, the commander develops a course of action himself.

What is the most valuable step within the course of action analysis?

DISCUSSION: Wargaming is the most valuable step within the course-of-action analysis. Observations from the CTCs indicate that few staffs understand how to war-game effectively, and that many staff officers are not involved in the procedure. By wargaming , the staff takes a course of action and begins to develop a detailed plan. Additionally, it can better synchronize the course of action when the entire staff is involved in wargaming . Information recorded during the warga me provides the information for the development of paragraph three (execution) of the operations order, the execution or synchronization matrices, and the decision support template. Because of the importance of its results, and the time it requires, more time is allocated than for any other step. Wargaming results in the identification of tasks, combat power requirements, critical events and priority efforts, task organization and command and support relationships, decision points and possible fratricide locations.

What is the scheme of maneuver?

The scheme of maneuver is a narrative description of how the forces arrayed will accomplish the commander's intent. Ensure the scheme of maneuver addresses the elements of the battlefield framework (deep operations, covering force/security force, close operations, rear operations, and reserve).

How to start wargaming?

STEP 1 Wargaming begins by gathering the tools to be used by the staff. The first tool required is a planning map or sketch of the area of operations. An enlarged map or sketch works best because the entire staff can see the course of action. Post the situation template for the selected enemy course of action and friendly unit dispositions on overlays, then cover the map with acetate. Have the S-3 sketch the course of action on the acetate and revise the sketch during wargaming.

What is a staff course of action?

Staff: Develop courses of action that identify what, when, where, how, and why the unit will execute.

How does the staff determine the course of action?

After courses of action are war-gamed, the staff determines which one to recommend to the commander. This requires the staff to continue to analyze and compare each course of action. A quick and effective method to do this is to use a decision matrix. The staff develops criteria for comparison using commanders' guidance, critical events, and other significant factors pertaining to the mission. The staff uses criteria to determine advantages and disadvantages of each course of action. It is the comparison of the advantages and disadvantages that helps the staff determine the course of action with the highest probability of success.

How does military planning work?

The military planning process depends upon analysis to anticipate and respond in real-time to a dynamically changing battlespace with counteractions. Complex technical challenges exist in automating these processes to derive hypotheses about future alternatives for mission scenarios. The military conducts combat operations in the presence of uncertainty and the alternatives that might emerge. It is virtually impossible to identify or predict the specific details of what might transpire. Current generation wargaming technologies typically execute a prescripted sequence of events for an adversary, independent of the opposing force actions. A significant research challenge for wargaming is predicting and assessing how friendly actions result in adversary behavioral outcomes, and how those behavioral outcomes impact the adversary commander’s decisions and future actions. The focus of this research was to develop technologies to assist decision makers in assessing friendly COAs against an operational-level adversarial environment. Utilizing high-performance computing (HPC) technology, it is possible to dynamically execute multiple simulations concurrently to evaluate COAs for critical elements related to execution and timing as well as overall effectiveness against a range of adversarial or enemy COAs (eCOA) [1].

What is attrition based scoring?

Attrition-based scoring represents one approach to answering the need to identify a common set of scoring metrics that allow disparate COAs to be directly compared. The attrition-based scoring approach attempts to consider the kinetic effects of missions, both positive and negative. In researching this approach, several templates were constructed to account for how the results of kinetic actions affected numerous facets of the battle space, including but not limited to, adversary forces; civilian populations; economics; and political, religious, and cultural infrastructures. What quickly became obvious was that each examined application of kinetic force had numerous exceptions. When the templates were combined and revised to attempt to account for all variations, they became very large and were generally sparsely populated and unwieldy. Their sparse nature forced abstraction to allow for direct comparison, with each abstraction specific to the COAs under examination. Additionally, attempting to allow for EBO considerations expanded both template size and complexity. Following numerous failed attempts to find a means to use this scoring approach, a more fundamentally abstract approach was researched.

What is task and effect scoring?

The main emphasis in the task and effect-based scoring model is to account for the relative importance of the individual tasks on achieving the overall desired effects. The viewpoint here is that although a given COA may inflict dramatically more casualties than are sustained, it could still prove to be a poor COA. For example, suppose the purpose of a COA is to destroy the enemy’s ability to utilize weapons of mass destruction (WMD). It achieves 25% success on all missions without losing a single asset, but the COA would not be considered a success. The enemy will still be able to utilize WMD even though they sustained more damage than they inflicted.

How to determine when to echelon forces forward in support of the maneuver plan?

This can be done by shifting the triggers or decision points used to determine when to echelon forces forward in support of the maneuver plan. Those triggers or decision points may be tied to phase lines, objectives, or specific actions accomplished by the maneuver force.

Why do sustainment forces echelon forward?

In many operations, sustainment forces must echelon forward to keep up with their maneuver customers and help them maintain operational reach and endurance. That being said, yet another way sustainment planners can develop different COAs is to look at how they are echeloning sustainment forces forward to support their maneuver customers.

What is a complete COA?

A complete COA incorporates the key elements of decisive, shaping, and sustaining operations and accounts for tasks to be performed and conditions achieved in offense, defense, stability, or defense support to civil authorities. Of course, there are times when developing multiple COAs simply is not possible.

What are the criteria for a COA?

The criteria of a COA includes the following: • Feasibility. A feasible COA can accomplish the mission within the given time, space, and resource limitations. • Acceptability. An acceptable COA must have the right balance among cost, risk, and the potential advantaged gained. • Suitability.

What is COA development?

COA development is step 3 of the 7-step MDMP. It follows mission analysis and precedes wargaming. FM 6-0 defines a COA as a "broad potential solution to an identified problem." In addition, FM 6-0 states that COA development generates "options for subsequent analysis and comparison."

Can a commander limit the staff to a certain number of COAs?

In addition, to save time, the commander may also limit the staff to a certain number of COAs or specify which COAs should not be explored. Nevertheless, these are exceptions to the rule. In the best-case scenario, sustainment planners would have ample time and develop two or more COAs that are feasible, acceptable, suitable, distinguishable, and complete.