Targeting 101

As the BN FSO, part of my job is to coordinate all the different assets that we have in the BN and make sure that everything is synchronized in coordination with the BN Operations Officer, and following what the BN Commander's intent is. So, the way that I accomplish that is through what we call the targeting cycle. This cycle uses the intel that we collect to align our operations and then places all the different operations on a calendar together with the assets we're trying to use for each to see how they lay out. With several companies in the BN to coordinate, each one planning multiple operations over the cycle with multiple assets for each, it can be a bit daunting to try to make sure they're coordinated.

Tonight was the first meeting in the cycle that we call Mission Analysis. We go through the intel and talk about what we think the bad guys are doing in our area, then we go through our lines of effort along our campaign plan and evaluate where we stand along Governance, Development, Security, and Information Operations. After some discussion on that, we go through all the operations that the companies want to do for the upcoming cycle based off the intel that was briefed (which was sent out to the companies a few days prior to allow them to plan). Once we get through the CONOP (concept of the operation) slides, we'll go through how they will lay out on the calendar as planned with the assets that each requested for their operations. I brief the calendar and the conflicts associated with operations overlapping with different assets requested, etc. and then recommend possible fixes. After that, the BN CDR gives his planning guidance for the cycle, and the meeting is done. Tonight's meeting lasted roughly an hour and a half and we went through 102 slides!

What's difficult is that we conduct the meeting online with the companies who are located on different COPs/FOBs from us, so sometimes the connection is not reliable when they are trying to brief their slides and vice versa. Anyways, I got a few compliments on how well our first MA brief went, so it felt good. I have to give a lot of credit to my counterpart, CPT Tanquary for doing such a good job setting up the process and showing me how they went about it here to make it a seamless transition.

The next meeting we have in a couple days, we will go through the recommended changes with the operations officer, and he will give further guidance for deconfliction prior to the next meeting. At the final meeting of the cycle, we will present the BN CDR with a course of action decision brief which basically lays out the proposed targeting calendar with the operations for the cycle with deconflicted assets for him to approve or make modifications to. Generally, he will only make minor modifications and following his approval of a course of action, I will capture the changes and publish the targeting frago (fragmentary order) to the companies and staff to be executed. We'll see how the rest of the process goes and how effective we are as a BN at it. Hopefully, I can help make sure we are synchronized and making the most out of the enablers that we bring to the fight!