are linked in purpose. Then you must decide — leaving sufficient time for subordinates to react both intellectually and physically.
— Intellectually, so they can do their own problem solving and communication to their organizations;
— Physically, so they can get the right combination at the right place at the right time, and with soldiers and units motivated and fit for battle.
Smart commanders share their thoughts. They think 'out loud.' In the Army, there are terms, and even procedures, for this. For instance, commanders can give subordinates a 'heads-up' — 'this is what I am thinking of doing' — to put their subordinates into their own head space. A 'heads-up' requires no action. They can also issue a 'warning order,' which does require action. A 'warning order' is a shorthand but official communication that tells a subordinate, 'I will order your unit to do the following; I'll send the formal, more detailed order shortly.'
Once they have forecast and decided, senior commanders must resist the temptation to tinker at the margin of orders they've issued. Tinkering will only contradict and confuse the process. (An emergency caused by an unexpected opportunity or an unexpected enemy action requiring immediate action to preserve the force will of course require a change in orders.) Orders issued are difficult to impossible to retrieve, especially when units and leaders are tired and in physical danger. So decide, make it stick, and leave it alone.
Yet adjustments are necessary, so commanders can and do plan ahead to give themselves and their subordinates choices during changeable situations. For example, if the enemy stands still, you do one thing. If he retreats before you, you do another. If he moves toward you, you do something else. If he tries to maneuver around you, you do still something else. In such cases, you want to be able to make adjustments without going through an entire seventy-two-hour cycle. These adjustments frequently resemble the 'audibles' used in football. When a quarterback looks over the defense and sees a situation that's different from what he anticipated when he called the original play, he can call an 'audible' — a play from a previously rehearsed list of possibilities. Commanders also develop 'plays' to call in certain anticipated future situations. The formal name for these in doctrine is 'branches and sequels.' (Branches are variances off the original plan; sequels are follow-on actions to continue the original plan.) In VII Corps in Desert Storm, the branches and sequels were called FRAGPLANs. These FRAGPLANs were each contingent on a future battlefield situation. You forecast the future. If it looks like this, you adjust to do this. Meanwhile, each of your echelons will also have developed its own set of FRAGPLANs for execution when or if you call one of yours. No forecast will ever be perfect, so at best some minor adjustments are normally required.
Missions for a mounted corps are normally either terrain or force oriented. The corps will take certain actions principally to occupy or defend terrain, or else they will take other actions principally to defeat or destroy enemy forces. These types of missions are not mutually exclusive, but they are fundamentally different. In NATO, for example, VII Corps had the mission of defending NATO territory. To do that they had to defeat any enemy force that came into their area… and maybe even attack to throw such a force out. But the main aim was preservation of territory. Defeat or destruction of the enemy force was a means to that end. Theoretically, if no enemy had come into their area, they could have gone elsewhere to help someone else. In the offense, terrain orientation means that you want possession of what is called key terrain. If you have key terrain and deny it to the enemy, that will contribute to the defeat of the enemy by giving you positions of advantage. Many times, of course, the enemy has the same appreciation of key terrain that you do and will do his best to occupy it or fight you for it. In that case, you'll have to attack that enemy force in order to occupy or otherwise control the ground. Korea was a good example of terrain orientation on the 38th Parallel. After Chinese intervention and the beginnings of armistice talks, UN forces attacked to gain ground that would put them on or above the 38th Parallel and thus restore the original Korean status quo. In the Gulf War, XVIII Corps had a terrain orientation to interdict Highway 8, in order to prevent Iraqi forces from reinforcing from Baghdad or escaping the Kuwaiti theater to Baghdad. Their mission was to get to Highway 8 fast. Enemy forces were a target only as they got in the way of interdicting Highway 8. Since in fact few enemy forces stood in their way, and since their terrain orientation gave them a fixed geographic spot to reach, measuring how fast they traveled from their start point to Highway 8 made eminent sense.
Force orientation is another matter. In a force-oriented mission your essential task is to aim your force at the enemy force in a posture and in a direction that allows you to accomplish your mission at least cost to your troops. Except that it must be negotiated to get to the enemy, terrain is not of much consequence. Sometimes that is a real problem, requiring considerable effort in the use of bridges and limited road networks, and in bad weather. A mission to conduct a force-oriented attack is time- and space-independent until the commander assigns an area within which to conduct the mission and then adds time or distance constraints if they are required. Though you will have to cover space in order to close with and defeat or destroy the enemy force you are aiming at, your orientation does not directly depend on how fast you go or on the physical distances you cover. In other words, unless your mission requires specific time parameters, you focus on the enemy and operate at the speed and over the distances that allow you to defeat or destroy him. A further priority is to retain physical cohesion and protection of your own force, so that when you strike the enemy you do it with all the advantages to your side. Normally, the enemy force is either stationary in known locations or capable of moving. Thus you are not quite sure where they will be when you reach them.
Because of the greater number of variables involved, aiming your own moving force at a moving enemy force, and hitting it, is the height of skill required in maneuver warfare. Some sports analogies — such as open field tackling or blocking on a screen pass — come to mind. But with a corps you are not talking about a few players on either side but about tens of thousands of vehicles and aircraft. Not only must each of these change direction and speed, but — to generate focused combat power — each of them must also remain in the right physical relationship to the others. Since battles and engagements in land warfare are usually decided by destruction of the enemy, it is vital for you to maneuver the various parts of your force to positions where they can either do that or threaten to do it, and thus cause the enemy to quit or go away. So where you position your tanks, artillery, intelligence collectors, and logistics all determines how much physical combat power or firepower you will be able to focus on the enemy. Thus, even as the two forces are in motion relative to each other, you are looking hard at the capability of your own forces and their disposition, while judging the capability and disposition of enemy forces. Because there is no fixed target to aim your force at when the enemy is moving, after you find him, you try to fix him. The art in this is to make your final commitment to a direction of attack and an organization of your forces that will hit the enemy at a time and place that will result in fixing him at a relative disadvantage, or so that the enemy cannot adjust to your attack in your chosen configuration and direction. Then your troops outfight him and you win.
The success of a force-oriented mission is achieved by the defeat or destruction of the enemy force, as measured against your own losses, within the time you are given, if that is a criterion. The success of a terrain- oriented mission is judged by the occupation of the ground, again within whatever time you are given, if that is a criterion. When comparing unit performance to the sole standard of the amount of ground covered in a given period, the unit with a force-oriented mission will always come out second best.
A mounted corps moving and aimed at a moving enemy force can put itself into any number of configurations on the ground. When you are certain the enemy will be at a place and time and in a known configuration, you can commit your own forces early to the exact attack formation you want and leave them that way. When the enemy is less predictable and has a few options still available to him, then you want to move initially in a balanced formation, and commit to your final attack scheme as late as possible. You want your own forces to be able to execute, but you don't want to give your enemy time to react. That is a matter of judgment and a — much misunderstood — art form that takes much skill, brains, intuition, and practice to develop well. It is the essence of senior-level tactical decision making. To commit to an attack maneuver prematurely is to give the enemy time to react. To commit too late is to prevent your own forces from accomplishing the maneuver.
A commander will also pay attention to traditional military principles.
The principles of war — so called — were derived late in the nineteenth century, but they are still applicable today. They usually characterize any successful operation. They are:
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