Force Design.

Colonel Charles Atkins, Director for Requirements Determination, Development, and Integration, Mr. Charles Hayward, Technical Director for Combat Developments, with additional officers, civilians, and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) comprise the Force Design Division (FDD) located at Fort Huachuca, Arizona (ATZS-CD-W), and Fort Belvoir, Virginia (ATZS-CD-E). FDD works directly for Brigadier General James A. Marks, Commanding General, U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca (USAIC&FH).

FDD's mission is to convert emerging force concepts and designs into table of organization and equipment (TOE) documents; oversee the development of the TOEs for Department of the Army (DA) approval; and to modernize the units over time. It does this by reviewing the application of documents called basis-of-issue plans (BOIPs) to the TOE.

A BOIP is a document that adds new or improved equipment or capabilities to a TOE. This document "modernizes" a TOE unit to improve its capability to accomplish assigned missions. Every piece of standard equipment has a BOIP. Through what seems like an infinite number of checks, the FDD ensures correct manpower requirements criteria (MARC), BOIPs, and TOEs--both personnel and equipment--so that the unit will have the capability to accomplish its assigned missions.

Differences Between TOE, Modified TOE (MTOE), and Tables of Distribution and Allowances (TDA)

The TOE is a proponent-developed requirements document that prescribes the wartime doctrinal mission, capabilities, organizational structure, and the minimum essential wartime personnel and equipment requirements for a given unit. It standardizes like units and identifies three distinct authorized levels of organization (ALOs) for personnel. The Army developed every TOE as a model to satisfy specific unit requirements. An important part of any TOE is its mission statement. The personnel and equipment paragraphs in the TOE support the mission statement. TOE modernization reflects the current status of a TOE unit with respect to its equipment and personnel changes.

There are three basic types of TOE:

* Base (least modernized).

* Intermediate (more modernized).

* Objective (fully modernized).

We modify the TOE to improve units' abilities to accomplish their missions. While the basic mission statement may not change as a unit modernizes, the unit's capability statement often does. We modify a base TOE by applying incremental change packages (ICPs) over time, which can add and delete equipment or change the structure of the unit. An ICP is a grouping of one or more BOIPs. Few units ever achieve their objective TOE status. We are continually developing new designs as well as new systems that will capitalize on the latest emerging technologies.

An MTOE is a major Army command (MACOM) document that we develop for a specific unit, which prescribes the structure for military personnel and equipment, taking into account the unit's unique mission and geographic requirements. The MTOE documents people and equipment based on the unit's mission and ALO.

TDAs are installation-developed command documents that prescribe the structure, personnel, and equipment requirements and authorizations (often containing civilian personnel and commercial equipment) of an activity not normally intended to transit to a wartime theater of operations. During times of war, TDA units may increase in size as the need for more people and equipment to support the war effort expands.

Questions?

If you have further questions, your force integration staff officer (found at divisions, corps, installations, and MACOM levels [also known as force development or force modernization personnel]) should be able to answer your questions.