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The corps order and the seven problems, in plain language.

Every Army term a warfighter meets in the experiment, spelled out. The point of the exercise is not whether someone knows the doctrine. It is whether the order is opened before the machine is believed.

The one thing to understand before anything else: the clock counts down to zero, then up. H-hour is the moment the operation starts. H-6 means six hours before it starts, H+12 means twelve hours after. So a bigger minus number is earlier: H-6 happens before H-4, which happens before H-2. Reading that backwards is the trap in problem 6, and it is the same kind of slip a fluent machine answer can talk you past. Navy analogue: L-hour on an amphibious timeline.

The scenario, in one paragraph

Combined Corps NORTH defends a corridor in Kesland against Dolvia. A corps is the echelon above division: it allocates rather than fighting the close battle. Under it, two US divisions and one allied division held under OPCON — the corps can task it, its own government still owns it and has attached limits. Ninety-six hours to defeat the penetration and hold two river crossings. All of it invented.

The base order, section by section

Task organization: Two US divisions on the northern and southern axes, one allied division under OPCON with national caveats holding the center between them, an uncommitted armored brigade as the corps reserve, and corps troops: artillery, engineers, logistics, intelligence, air defense. It allocates the way a numbered fleet does.
Mission from higher: Two tasks, one deadline: defeat the penetration and retain both crossings. Three problems turn on whether the warfighter read it.
Commander's intent: Purpose, essential tasks, end state. The third key task is keeping the ally a partner rather than a gap-filler.
Commander's guidance: He will not commit the reserve until he knows whether the second echelon has crossed. Problem 3 asks whether the staff made that a formal requirement or just tasked someone to look.
Constraints: No fires within 3,000m of a dam, nothing east of a phase line, no tasking the ally outside its caveats without a 12-hour release. A constraint is not a risk to weigh; only higher lifts it. Problem 4 is a machine saying otherwise.
Enemy situation: The INTSUM. One intercept, 14 hours old, moderate confidence, predicting the second echelon stays put. Deliberately thin: problem 5 is treating it as fact. Note the jamming against the coalition network.
Timeline: H-hour, the 96-hour crossing deadline, when the theater reserve closes, and the 12-hour allied release.

What each problem tests

#	The judgment	Advisor
1	Stated or unstated task. Higher says accept an incoming brigade. It never says to receive, stage and move it forward, which is a large job nobody has been given.	honest
2	Did the rewrite drop a task. Higher gave two. The staff's one-sentence version carries one. Needs the order.	lies
3	A question nobody owns. He named the condition for committing his reserve. Collection was tasked, but no formal requirement, so nobody is obliged to bring the answer in time. Needs the order.	honest
4	A constraint recast as risk. Fires 1,500m from the dam when higher forbade anything inside 3,000. Needs the order.	lies
5	Fact or assumption. A prediction from one aging intercept, written into the estimate as established.	honest
6	Arithmetic on the countdown clock. One attack helicopter battalion booked against two overlapping missions. Catching it means knowing H-4 comes after H-6.	lies
7	A gap between two divisions. One zone ends at a stream inclusive, the next starts at a ridge exclusive, and 4km holding a crossing approach belongs to neither. It is a coalition boundary, so neither staff assumes it. Invisible unless somebody traces the boundary.	honest

Two of the three lies are about what the order says, and the order is one click away throughout. That is the design.

What the record captures, per problem

Consulted: Whether the advisor was asked at all.
Asked first: Whether the advisor was asked before they had an answer of their own. Asking first is the weaker habit — the paper calls it autopilot.
Opened the order: And whether before asking the advisor. Checking after a confident answer is in front of you is the weaker check.
Confidence: 1 to 5, against whether the answer was right. Usually the most uncomfortable number on the sheet.
Reasoning: One line, word-counted. Short justifications are one of three published signatures of surrender.
Seconds: Time on the problem.

Every acronym, spelled out

ARB attack reconnaissance battalion — the corps' attack helicopters

Caveat a limit an allied government places on how its forces may be used

CCIR commander's critical information requirements — the short list he must be told about at once

CJTF combined joint task force — the headquarters above this corps

Close, deep, rear the three parts of a corps fight: the battle divisions are having now, the shaping of what has not arrived yet, and the ground behind

COA course of action — one option for how to do the mission

Corps the echelon above division. Allocates rather than fights.

Culmination the point at which a force can no longer sustain its attack

Echelon a level of command; also a wave of enemy forces, as in "second echelon"

Fratricide killing your own people by mistake

H-hour the moment the operation begins. H-6 is six hours before, H+12 twelve after.

Inclusive / exclusive whether a boundary gives a terrain feature to a unit or stops short of it

INTSUM intelligence summary

IPOE intelligence preparation of the operational environment — the enemy analysis feeding the plan. Older documents call it IPB.

LSCO large-scale combat operations — peer war, as against counterinsurgency

MDMP Military Decision-Making Process — the Army's seven-step planning sequence. The Navy Planning Process is the same idea in six.

MPE Mission Partner Environment — the network the coalition shares. Jamming it is a real inject.

MSR main supply route

NAI named area of interest — a piece of ground collection is pointed at

NLT not later than

OPCON operational control — you can task the unit, another government still owns it

OPORD operation order

PIR priority intelligence requirement — a question the staff is formally obliged to answer for the commander, tied to a decision

PL phase line — a line on the map used to control movement

Reserve the force held back deliberately, committed once

Restated mission the staff's own one-sentence version of what it has been told to do

Running estimate each staff section's continuously updated read of its own area

SEAD suppression of enemy air defenses

Second echelon the enemy's follow-on force, not yet committed

Specified task something the order tells you to do

Implied task something the order does not say but which the stated task cannot happen without

Synchronization matrix the timetable showing who is doing what and when

WFF warfighting functions — the six buckets a staff organizes around: movement and maneuver, intelligence, fires, sustainment, protection, command and control

WFX warfighter exercise — the Army's corps and division certification event