text: Chapter 2
  Foundations of Engineer Operations
  Army engineers support operations by using a variety of engineer capabilities.
  Commanders use engineers to assure mobility, enhance protection, enable force
  projection and logistics, build partner capacity, and develop infrastructure. This chapter
  describes engineer tasks, the lines of engineer support, and engineer support to the
  warfighting functions.
  ENGINEER MISSIONS
  Engineer missions seek to provide freedom of action for supported forces. Engineer missions that affect
  terrain deal with obstacles (including gaps), bridges, roads, trails, airfields, fighting positions, protective
  positions, deception, and a wide variety of other structures and facilities (base camps, aerial ports, seaports,
  utilities, buildings). Engineers affect these by clearing, reducing, emplacing, building, repairing, maintaining,
  camouflaging, protecting, conserving, or modifying them in some way through tasks (obstacle clearance,
  obstacle reduction, infrastructure and environmental assessments, geospatial engineering).
  Regardless of category, engineer missions have different purposes in different situations. For example,
  a task to clear explosive hazards from a road that is designated as a direction of attack may have the purpose
  of assured mobility. Two days later, that same road may be designated as a main supply route, and a task to
  clear explosive hazards from the road may have the purpose of protecting critical assets or enabling logistics.
  The same task is involved, but with different purposes. In addition to the different purposes that an engineer
  task can have at different times, engineer support often involves simultaneous tasks with different purposes
  that support different warfighting functions. This chapter explains how engineer missions are grouped by
  purpose into the lines of engineer support, how they are grouped into the types of operations, and how they
  contribute to the warfighting functions.
  LINES OF ENGINEER SUPPORT
  Fundamental to engineer support to operations is the ability to anticipate and analyze the problem and
  understand the OE. Based on this understanding and the analysis of the problem, engineer planners select
  and apply the right engineer discipline and unit type to perform the required individual and collective tasks.
  They must think in combinations of disciplines, which integrate and synchronize tasks in concert with the
  warfighting functions to generate combat power. Finally, they establish the necessary command and support
  relationship for these combinations. The lines of engineer support are the framework that underpins how
  engineers think in combinations, and these lines provide the connection between capabilities and tasks.
  Commanders use lines of engineer support to synchronize engineer missions with the rest of the
  combined arms force and to integrate them into the overall operation throughout the operations process. Lines
  of engineer support are categories of engineer missions and capabilities that are grouped by purpose for
  specific operations. Lines of engineer support assist commanders and staffs with understanding the engineer
  capabilities, organic to the engineer disciplines, and aligns activities according to purpose. The engineer
  disciplines are capabilities (based on knowledge and skills) that are organized in units. These units are
  organized based on the disciplines that are executed through individual and collective tasks. The combination
  of these tasks for a specific purpose, in the context of decisive action, achieves the lines of engineer support.
  Regardless of where a task falls within the Army universal task list, task alignment with a line of
  engineer support is determined by the purpose of the task in a given situation. Engineer support is primarily
  focused on achieving the four lines of engineer support.