division brigades and a cavalry regiment). At each of those echelons is an officer chain of command, with a commander and subordinates, and a noncommissioned officer network that normally places a noncommissioned officer directly subordinate to each officer. It additionally places an NCO in direct command of individual crews and sections where there is no officer. The U.S. Army uses noncommissioned officers more extensively than any other army in the world, a proven practice going all the way back to the Revolutionary War. It is why the NCO corps is often called the 'backbone of the Army.'
Each division in the corps is a carefully balanced combined-arms organization consisting of combat capabilities, direct combat-support capabilities, and logistics or combat service support, and is also a team of teams. The cavalry regiment has a similar organization. Each of the other non-division units in the corps is likewise a team of teams, with its own ability to support itself for short duration. But none of these is a balanced combined- arms organization. Rather they are single-function organizations of artillery, engineer, aviation, signal, intelligence, military police, medical, etc.
Even though all corps are different, they do have common organizational characteristics. Normally for a mounted corps, this mix of units will consist of from two to five armored and mechanized infantry divisions, usually eight to ten various non-division brigade-size units, and include armored cavalry and aviation, an artillery command of varying numbers of types of brigades, and a support command that will vary widely in terms of numbers and types of units for logistics support, depending on the theater of operation.
From this common organizational base, corps normally are tailored for a specific geographic theater of operations against a specific enemy. They are each tailored for their mission and anticipated use and they train for that specific purpose.
To accomplish this tailoring, the numbers and types of complete teams — or major command echelons to be included in the corps — are determined by examination of the factors of METT-T (or Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops available, and Time to accomplish the mission). Commanders look at these factors and compile the right mix of combat units (armored divisions, cavalry regiment, air defense, aviation brigade, artillery, and engineer), combat-support units (military police, military intelligence, and signal), and combat-service-support units (personnel, finance, medical, transportation, maintenance, supply, etc.) to give the widest range of options or combinations to accomplish anticipated missions.
Depending on the results of a particular METT-T analysis, the mix of units in a corps and their training will vary considerably. For example, a corps in Korea, given a mission there in that terrain, will be configured with units specially trained to conduct operations against the possible enemy there and on that terrain. It might have a mix of infantry, armor, and artillery quite different from a corps configured to fight on the deserts of the Persian Gulf region. During the Cold War, V and VII Corps in Germany were configured with units to operate in a NATO army group, in a relatively advanced civilian infrastructure of roads, railroads, and communications, on terrain that offered few restrictions to armored movement, and against the Warsaw Pact modernized armor formations. During Desert Storm, VII Corps was built sequentially as it arrived in the theater unit by unit, tailoring it for that theater and the mission there. Only approximately 42,000 of the VII Corps's 146,000 soldiers of Desert Storm had been in the NATO VII Corps. VII Corps was complete in theater only at the end of the first week in February, two weeks before the ground attack. It was only in the final move to attack positions on 14 to 16 February that Fred Franks had the one and only opportunity to train and maneuver that corps as a corps in the conduct of what would be a complex maneuver a week later to destroy the Republican Guards Forces Command.
Most differences between corps will be in the type of combat units involved (tank, infantry, artillery), support required (communications, engineers, etc.), and logistics (trucks, fuel, ammunition, medical, etc.). Each of these different corps will train according to its specific mission. That will include practicing with various combinations of units to ensure they can operate together.
Working with this basic mix of units, the commander then decides how to array them in time, space, and distance to focus combat power continually on the enemy in a moving zone about 150 kilometers wide and 175 kilometers deep. (The width and depth are functions of the terrain over which you are operating and the enemy forces you face — sometimes you are more condensed and sometimes you can expand even farther.) In other words, you begin with a basic mix of units in the corps that gives you the widest range of options against a particular enemy on a piece of terrain. It is then the commander's job to use effectively the power available to him by arranging those units in such a way that the right combination of units will be at the right place at the right time. And he will either keep them that way or will change the combination as needed to suit changing situations during the series of battles he chooses to fight to accomplish the campaign objective.
A commander also has to look at some inescapable physical realities. For example, each of the close to 1,600 tanks in VII Corps in Desert Storm was capable of firing a projectile at more than a kilometer a second over a range in excess of 3.5 kilometers and destroying whatever it hit. So on a relatively flat desert in confined space, you want to ensure that each of these 1,600 units is pointed in the right direction. Otherwise some of the fire, inadvertently, might not be directed at the enemy but at your own troops. In the desert, for example, on a corps front 150 kilometers wide with all 1,600 tanks on line (not a high probability), you would have a tank every 100 meters. Direction of attack and spacing between units become especially important in such a confined space.
Other inescapable physical realities involve continued support of such a large, moving organization. In VII Corps on Desert Storm, there were almost 50,000 vehicles and close to 800 helicopters, and some 20 fixed-wing two-engine intelligence-gathering aircraft. They needed fuel. Daily fuel consumption was about 2.5 million gallons of diesel for ground vehicles and about half that much aviation fuel for aircraft. With their turbine engines switched on, tanks use the same amount of fuel, moving or stopped. The rule of thumb was to refuel tanks every eight hours. After one refueling, the fuel trucks accompanying units would have to travel to a resupply point, fill up with fuel, then return to their units. Meanwhile, while the fuel trucks were resupplying, their units were moving away in the opposite direction from the resupply run. In medium to heavy enemy contact, the corps used about 2,500 tons of ammunition a day. Normally, tanks and other direct-fire systems carried enough ammunition to last them several days, so they did not need immediate resupply. On the other hand, artillery and mortars firing at a much higher rate required resupply from accompanying trucks. These would then have to make the same resupply runs as the fuel trucks. Some corps units also needed places to operate from — airfields, forward operating bases (for helicopters), staging areas (for logistics support, etc.). This required some real estate management and some need for roads (even in the desert), and priorities had to be established for use of those areas and roads.
PRINCIPLES OF APPLICATION
Since, as stated earlier, battle is chaos on a grand scale, with chance intervening continually, you try to create chaos for the enemy by giving him more situations than he can handle in a given time frame and to keep him in that state. At the same time you must keep a certain amount of control and focus on your own operation.
To create and instill this sense of order to their own side, commanders use 'intent' and 'orders.' They then rely first on the disciplined translation and then on the execution of these by each echelon in their organization. In other words, at each succeeding echelon of command — corps, division, brigade, battalion, company — that commander must understand what the next higher commander ordered, then figure out what his echelon must do to accomplish his part in the overall mission. The idea here is not to stifle initiative in subordinate echelons, but to ensure unity of effort in the entire organization and maximum use of available combat power.
To attain this unity of effort through intent and orders, there is communication, both written and oral. After communication, interpretation and problem solving follow, at each echelon of command, to determine what has to be done at that echelon. During this process, commanders allow room for their subordinates to exercise initiative
