How to set up your TLPS presentation for IBOLC

 

This is an example of how you can set up your TLPS presentation for IBOLC.

In the beginning, you’ll get your operations packet with all your ops graphics in it—for any enemy analysis, your friendly situation, all the way to your company scheme of maneuver. You’ll also get your operations order through five different paragraphs.

From there, you have your ops graphics and a couple different ways to set them up. And then for your platoon operations order, you have a WARNO, your timeline, and so on and so forth.

How I set this up was a bunch of different sheet protectors, and then printing out your platoon operations sheets and sliding those into your sheet protectors—then just writing on your sheet protectors. When you move between different platoon operations, you’ll be able to just erase that writing off and rewrite on them.

A couple other people I know laminated each of these packets—or each of these sheets of paper—so two options: you can either use sheet protectors or laminate those papers and write on them, and just erase them between each operations order.

As you go through your operations order, you’re going to need to make ops graphics. A couple different ways people set these up. When you’re using the 1:50K map, you’re able to get some acetate. How I set this one up was putting two pieces of acetate together, taping them, and then laying that on top of your 1:50K map and lining those up.

For example, this is your macro GTAO that you’ll set up—leading from your TAA to your objective—showing your avenues of approach, your key terrain, your type of terrain you’re going through, whether it’s restrictive, restricted, or not. And then also your enemy’s avenues of approach onto the objective.

Along with that, you will have a micro GTAO, which is right here. How I set this one up was—I went to Home Depot, had some plexiglass cut out, and taped that. You can see in the back there’s a sheet that I pulled out of the ops graphics that comes from the company operations order, and I taped that to the back of the plexiglass sheet. You’re able to write on the plexiglass and erase it, or you can take acetate and tape it on the edge and flip them on and off. Just like this one—I have three different ones attached with some tape that I can just flip on and off. That’s another way to do it. Rather than having to take that acetate on and off, you’re able to just flip it over.

That’s my micro GTAO—same setup. Avenues of approach for both sides, key terrain, your objective, and then that restrictive terrain.

Moving into the macro enemy SITTEMP and how I set it up—just another piece of acetate. Line it up and you’re able to present your enemy situation, which is going to be two levels up for you—the location, the assets they have. Along with that, you’ll brief that SITTEMP as part of your operations packet after your timeline, after your GTAO stuff, and then your enemy general situation and disposition.

You can brief off that GTAO and the assets they have. Start with two levels up and then move into one level up. This is one level up—I have my micro enemy SITTEMP. You’re going to present this and how you think the enemy is going to fight, with action, reaction, and counteraction.

So they’re set up—how you think they’re going to be set up on the objective—and you present to your observer how you think they’re going to fight, in correlation to what moves you’re going to make onto the objective, and then what counter-reactions they’re going to have to each step of the fight. Walk through the phase lines you’re going to hit, when they’re going to fire their targets, and how their assets are going to move throughout the fight.

For your macro, you’ll most likely use the 1:50K map.

Another option—you can move into your scheme of maneuver. Your friendly scheme of maneuver. Let me set this up.

This one—I took a piece of plexiglass cut out from Home Depot and just drew right on it. That’s another option. You can take a piece of plexiglass, write on it, and then move it on and off your graphic or big map.

Later in your packet, you’ll present the enemy SITTEMP (which we just did), then move into your own mission statement, your concept statement, and then your concept of operations.

Before your scheme of maneuver, you’ll have a COA sketch. In the beginning, I gave my observer my WARNO and my COA sketch, which I took out of my packet and gave to them right up front, laid out on the table for when I was ready to present. Your sketch—if you need it for the operation—you’ll pull that out along with the COA sketch.

When you get to your concept of operations, you’ll brief that—each stage on your COA sketch. It’s just a napkin drawing of how you’re going to fight. Don’t go too detailed into it.

When you get to your concept of operations, this is what you’ll brief off of your COA sketch, and then move into your scheme of maneuver—your five different phases (or four), depending on what you pull out of your company operations order.

So for example—phase one, in part two—phase one started off in the TAA, up to the right. Have that depicted on there—where the TAA is. Then you’ll move into phase two, which is your movements. Draw out your routes, how you’re going to arrive at the objective, and list your checkpoints and CCPs along the way.

You can see we have CCP1 established in the TAA, your dismount point. Then in this one, you have your DOA—how you’re going to reach the attack position. Phase two ends with the establishment of the OP.

Something else that helps—have your phase lines on there, which you can see right here. Also, I put my fire missions on this phase too. Another option is having a specific fires overlay—with only fires on it. I saw some people do that. Also, having your platoon boundaries on here. If you’re fighting side by side with another platoon, you need to make sure to have your boundaries marked.

That was phase one and two.

Then I moved into another option—similar setup to what I showed earlier—pulling a piece out of your ops graphic from the packet they give you, and taping it to the back of a piece of plexiglass on top, and just writing onto the plexiglass for phase three.

You can see—we start off in the OP. This is going to be the start of your actions on. Starting off in the OP and seizing onto your objective. We have our phase lines on here, our CCPs, our DOAs, fire missions, and also platoon boundaries—making sure we stay within those. In this one, we put on our rally point, our mortar firing point, and then our objectives and obstacles. Your obstacles are going to be listed in green throughout your operation.

So with that—you can flip these on and off, if that’s how you want to set it up.

I went into a deeper or more micro scheme of maneuver. This is another example of phase 3 Alpha. You can see phase lines, objectives—our objective and the other platoon’s objectives, just for awareness of how they’re going to fight behind us. We have our obstacles, how we’re going to fight through the objective, where our support by fire is going to be, where we’re going to seize through, and our decisive point with the purple star.

This is also the part where we’d brief our sketch and show how we’re going to get through the obstacles, and what assets from our platoon are going to be set in what positions.

From there, you can move into phase 3 Bravo and then also phase 4—just a continuation of how we’re going to fight through the obstacle, what squads are going to seize the objective, which are going to be in support by fire, and how they’re going to move in after we’ve seized it.

In this one specifically—the next platoon coming in behind us is going to follow through the same breach we did on the obstacles. We’re setting in support by fire for them to seize onto their objective. We needed to depict that. And then our rally points, passage points, and our AXP—should be listed off to the side. And also your CCPs, and any potential fire missions. Don’t forget your phase lines too.

From there, that’s also going to be our phase four, which is our last phase—and how we’re going to set up after the fight. In this company operation, we were told to set up battle positions after seizure of the objective. So we listed our battle positions on here and briefed who’s going to be set in what position, which way they’re going to orient, after the operation. And then our sister platoon moves onto their objective and establishes battle positions also.

So that’s some examples of how you can set up your operations order.

You’re also going to have a TTL (Target Task List) to brief what fire missions you have in each phase—get specific with that. Then you move on to your sustainment and command & signal at the end.

Just using those sheet protectors throughout your operation, you’ll use your ops graphics and the acetate you drew on to go through what parts of your operations packet correlate with your ops graphics.

So that’s an example of how you can use your TLPS, brief your TLPS, and set up your packets and your ops graphics.