When a corps is the land component command in a joint force, the corps
commander and staff will be required to use the Joint Operations Planning
System (JOPS). The JOPS is a standardized planning process established by
the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). When a contingency operation requires more
than one corps, a numbered army may be designated the land component command
for the JTF. The corps commander also may be the senior US commander in the
operational area.
When this is the case, he may be designated the joint
task force commander and have a joint staff assigned to enable him to
control all US forces assigned to the JTF.
In this situation,
representatives of other service components may be assigned to the corps
staff. Alternately, two separate staffs may be organized. One is organized
to direct the operations of the corps and the other to control the JTF as a
whole.
Type Contingency Corps.
As with forward deployed corps, there is no
standard contingency corps. A contingency corps that is designed for rapid
deployment from bases located in the US into an operational area will be
structured according to certain factors. Those certain factors are:
o
Mission.
o
Enemy.
o
Terrain and weather.
o
Troops.
o
Time available.
The above factors are referred to as METT-T.
A contingency corps could be deployed into a developed theater. However, it
is usually deployed for short-duration and limited-objective conflicts into
areas where no US base exists. Therefore, the contingency corps must be a
less-flexible organization that can operate independently.
Figure 2
illustrates a type contingency corps.
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IS7003
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