Tactical Planning (Offensive and Defensive) Minimum Essential Information Requirements

Abstract
The present experiment identified minimum essential information requirements for offensive and defensive tactical planning. These requirements were identified as a result of analyzing information requests of highly experienced field grade officers who actually accomplished sets of offensive and defensive tasks in a controlled exercise environment. To this extent, these experimental results should represent a close approximation to real world minimum essential information requirements. Because the data were gathered in a controlled exercise environment, certain restrictions must be placed on the generalizability of these requirements. The scenarios presented a single offensive and single defensive set of task requirements for a mechanized corps and mechanized division echelon in a potential mid-intensity conflict. The environment is pre-combat and reflects planning activity only. At the 50% criterion level, certain information items which barely attained the minimum request frequency might drop out were the experiment to be replicated; and other items which fell just short of the cutoff might achieve significance. Nonetheless, the minimum requirements identified reflect a body of information items consistently requested by experienced Army officers. The hierarchical structure of the data base permit delineation of these minimum requirements by category and level of detail.

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