was a joint exercise program, but it had no basis in mission tasks. In other words, there was no system for analyzing worldwide missions, then determining joint tasks, and then setting up an exercise program to practice those tasks.
In other words, his goal was to form a kind of joint equivalent of the Army's TRADOC.
That didn't happen completely, but Franks and his staff did have some successes — coming up, for example, with a means to analyze joint Mission-Essential Tasks, which became the basis for the yearly joint exercise programs; beginning a joint doctrine program; and publishing the first joint doctrine. They also helped General Bob Herres establish the Joint Requirements Oversight Council to better define new systems requirements that fit more than one service.
In the spring of 1988, General Vuono managed to get a waiver for Franks that asserted he was now 'joint qualified' and so rescued Franks from what should have been a three-year tour of duty. Franks was now to assume command of the 1st Armored Division in the middle of July, and a year later he would become a lieutenant general commander of VII Corps. It was in that position that he would encounter the greatest challenge of his life.
If we can begin to understand what he and the Army went through in the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait from 24 to 28 February 1991, however, we will first have to understand one thing.
If Fred Franks can be said to have a single focus, it's armored cavalry
CHAPTER SIX
Maneuver Warfare
Maneuver warfare is all about moving powerful mounted formations to gain an advantage over an enemy force to defeat or destroy them. How that is done has undergone significant evolution in the twentieth century, up to and including Desert Storm. It will continue to evolve. The thoughts that follow represent the distillation of the experience and wisdom about maneuver warfare and mobile armored formations that Fred Franks has spent the better part of a professional lifetime acquiring:
South of Chancellorsville, Virginia, predawn, 2 May 1862, at a planning meeting between General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson:
'What do you propose to do?' Lee asked.
'Go around here.'
'What do you propose to make the movement with?'
'With my whole corps.'
'And what will you leave me?'
'The divisions of McLaws and Anderson.'
'Well, go on,' Lee said.
Lee's 'Well, go on' set off as grand a maneuver as has taken place in the history of the U.S. military. At a little after 0700 that same morning, Stonewall Jackson began moving his corps of almost 32,000 soldiers and over 100 artillery pieces twelve miles along the covered route of Furnace Road to Brock Road across the front of two Union corps. His movement would put his corps on both sides of the Old Orange Turnpike, facing east in a position of great advantage to attack into the now-exposed west flank of the Union XI Corps, who were facing generally south. Jackson's attack at a little after 1700 that afternoon caught the Union XI Corps completely by surprise and set off a chain of events that led four days later to Union general Joseph Hooker's quitting the field and moving his numerically superior army back north.
Normally, a tactical envelopment requires both a fixing force and an enveloping force. The fixing force holds the enemy in place while the other force maneuvers and envelops the enemy. In this case, Lee was left to fix Hooker with McLaws's and Anderson's divisions, while Jackson commanded the enveloping force.
In the history of warfare, the two warring sides have always tried to gain such positional advantage over each other. The reason is quite simple. Hit the other side from an unexpected direction with enough strength that he cannot recover, and you will soon own the initiative and then the battlefield.
Battle is chaos on a grand scale, with chance occurring continually. What you are trying to do as a commander is keep the enemy in this chaos, while operating with some sense of order and cohesion on your own side. You try to place your soldiers in an advantageous position where they can physically outfight the enemy. But in placing them in such an advantageous position, you are also outthinking the enemy commander — as Lee and Jackson outthought Hooker at Chancellorsville. You are trying to give the enemy more problems to solve in a given time than he and his organization can possibly handle. You are trying to run him out of options, and thus force him to fight you on your terms. Then you physically defeat or destroy him.
Combat is the application of physical force. Yet brute force applied directly against brute force is usually not the most effective application of physical force, and will soon wear down the attacker to the point where he cannot continue. Consequently, the aim of commanders is to maneuver and thereby gain positional advantage that puts the enemy into chaos and keeps him there by repeated blows until he quits or you own the area.
Thus, it is not only forms of mobility that make successful maneuver warfare. It is using whatever form of mobility is available to move forces to positions of advantage. From there you can then overwhelm the enemy with a series of repeated blows. Forms of mobility are important only as they move the attacker to those positions of advantage, and as they give the attacker relative advantage over the defender.
HISTORY
There have been many means of movement to these positions of advantage. Each of these has been adapted continually to remain useful, or else it has been discarded. For example, excellent training, discipline, and physical conditioning of soldiers on foot have given them a relative advantage over their battlefield enemies in many historical situations, and even today on some terrain.
Recent history is full of examples of the advantages gained in maneuver. In May 1940, German attacks into France across the Meuse River and on to the Atlantic coast allowed German armored forces to swiftly position themselves between major elements of the the Allied forces, forcing evacuation of British forces from Dunkirk and creating the opportunity to defeat the now-outnumbered French forces to the south. In 1941-42, Rommel's repeated flank attacks to the south of British Eighth Army defenses in the Western Desert led to the continued collapse of British positions almost up to Alexandria, Egypt. The maneuver of the Japanese fleet to a position north of Hawaii to attack Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 is another example. Yet the Japanese inability to follow up their initial success gave no staying power to the initial chaos caused by the attack. In September 1950, MacArthur's landing of U.S. X Corps at Inchon, Korea, put a major allied force well behind the North Korean forces and astride their logistics routes, and sped the destruction of that army in the field. Later, in the Vietnam War, refusal by our own government to permit land, sea, and air forces to maneuver to positions to cut off the flow of men and material from North Vietnam to South Vietnam lengthened that conflict and led ultimately to loss of South Vietnam by its physical occupation from the North. In October 1973, the Israeli crossing of the Suez to position a major force to operate well inside Egypt was a key factor in ending the brief but lethal war Israel fought with Egypt and Syria. Simultaneous air assault and airborne maneuvers by elements of XVIII Corps on the night of 20 December 1989 put them in positions to rapidly isolate and physically defeat Panamanian forces in less than forty- eight hours. These examples point to various forms of movement, foot-mobile infantry, tanks, ships, and aircraft, employed on land, sea, or air to gain positional advantage over the defender.
