Research Paper on the Continuity of Operations Plan

Research Paper on the Continuity of Operations Plan
Technical Logistics College
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Subject
Professor
July 2021
Introduction: Continuity of Operations Plan
As the Army begins to evolve, we must work toward a way to fight that we have not trained on in well over 20 years since the war on terrorism had begun. Over the past 20 years, we have fought under the strategy of counter-insurgency. With this mindset, we have set up large operating bases throughout our theaters of operation and have had superiority over our adversaries in every way possible. From the equipment we fight with, to the training our soldiers have received, the insurgents and terrorists of both Iraq and Afghanistan stood nowhere near to our level of proficiency. Now that we are turning the page and working back toward a possibility of a peer or near-peer fight and large-scale combat operations, we must retrain most of the force that has never had the opportunity to train under these circumstances. We have become very comfortable with our technological resources that could be limited in a fight of this nature. Things that we once took for granted, such as sending an email to an item manager or getting on the phone and calling them to check the status of a part, could all come to a screeching halt.
For this reason, we must understand how to manually process our forms and procedures to allow the warfighters to take the fight to the enemy. A war will not end if we do not have access to Global Combat Support System-Army (GCSS-Army). Our access to our standard automated systems to include GCSS-Army, communications via VSAT, telecommunications, and cellular communications, has been cut off in this scenario. We will discuss how we will continue to allow the fight to move forward while still maintaining readiness using manual forms and processes until those lines of communication are restored. We will cover readiness, work order process, dispatching, parts requisition and turn-in, recovery operations, and PMCS.
Readiness as a Code One Priority in Times of Distress
Readiness is one of the most significant visualizations that the Army uses to determine the status of a unit's ability to fight. Data is gathered daily and analyzed at echelons far above the Forward Support Company level of our assignment in our automated system. Without using GCSS-Army for our readiness reporting, we must go back to a manual reporting procedure outlined in AR 700-138 paragraph 1-18. Before manual reporting is used, authorization and the change to manual reporting should be granted by the deputy chief of staff G4. After the approval has been given, the reports can then begin sending in the manual reports. Several forms must be used to determine the readiness over the reporting period accurately. For ground equipment status reporting, we will use a DA Form 2406, Material Condition Status Report. Use DA PAM 750-8 and AR 700-138 as a reference to correctly fill out this form. A few other forms may be used depending on the organization you support, such as DA Form 1352 for aircraft, DA Form 7752 for UAV, and DA Form 3266-1 for missile systems. Capturing the data throughout the reporting period is crucial to ensure this report is accurate before submission. A...