Small-Ldr's Guide to COIN MCIP 3-33.01
I've been grinding through the guide with a certain fervor of late - not just hitting the highlights or flipping back and forth, but reading front to back. That's a bit of a challenge when you're talking doctrine or TTPs, but that's sort of besides the point.
As I read, I see plenty of references to charts, network diagrams, and miscellaneous tracking/collection tools to help a company commander and his staff organize and prosecute the COIN mission.
Does anyone know of a package of digital COIN tools out there that can be easily manipulated to suit the situation, sort of like a "COIN ops in a box"? From my experience as a TF battle captain, I realize that some information capture tools need to be built from the ground up, but given the already critical time crunch commander's face in training for the deploy, why not give them pre-formatted templates and tools right out of the gate? The first direction to take may be to go to the S-2, but even then he doesn't have it all, so it often comes down to the Marine with the quickest Powerpoint and Excel skills. Not to mention, there are a number of TTP sections that rate their own smartcard for reproduction and issue as required.
Any MCCDC guys on here who think attaching a CD-ROM to the back dust jacket makes any sense?
Didn't think of it that way...
...but you are on point with the standardization piece RTK. If a unit commander and his staff roll in for the RIP and the turnover consists of a review of the details in standardized form, it could make the RIP more efficient. Staffs would be working with intel and information in roughly the same format that they used during the work-up.
I'll admit that on the Marine side, we are terrible at that degree of standardization, even though the doctrine and TTps are right in our face.
Has the USA made any strides in that direction?
Is it generally available?
Is the guide generally available or is it FAUO?
Marc
One tool that may be useful
I don't know if people are aware of this tool or not, but the CDC has an open source tool called EPI INFO developed to rack epidemiological outbreaks that could prove useful here. It is free, and information on it is available at
http://www.cdc.gov/EpiInfo/
Marc
PS. It's already used in at least one anti-terrorism project - see http://www.cdc.gov/epo/dphsi/8city.htm
All too much information on kinship
Since they deal with kinship, here are a few links to way too much information on kinship types and charts.
Kinship and Social Organization: an interactive tutorial - Produced by an old acquaintance of mine, Brian Schwimmer at the University of Manitoba, this is probably the best online resource for learning about kinship networks and types of families. It's basically the equivalent of an Introduction to kinship course.
Essential Information & explanations, latest texts & monographs on Family.
David's Relationship Chart - There's a downloadable program and a massive number of links.
Marc