Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq

• Simplicity—making operations as concise and precise as possible;

• Objective—focus on what is important while avoiding distractions;

• Offensive—gaining and maintaining the initiative over the enemy, usually by attacking;

• Economy of force—using smaller forces—'economizing' — where possible, in order to leave larger forces for the main effort; and

• Unity of command—one commander in charge of each major operation.

During Desert Storm as VII Corps commander, Fred Franks constantly checked his own thinking against these rules to see if he was violating any of them. (Violating them is OK and even called for at times, but you must consciously know you are doing it and why.)

Other principles a commander must consider are the elements of combat power: firepower, maneuver, leadership, and protection. And he must understand further that combat power is situational, relative, and reversible. In other words, you can bring your own combat power to bear on the enemy and enjoy an advantage, but you have to be aware that the advantage is not absolute, does not last forever (the enemy can react and usually does), and depends on a particular situation and a particular enemy force. Situations can change rapidly to your disadvantage. The German surprise attack in the Ardennes in World War II was immediately successful, but after the Allies adjusted to the surprise, they inflicted a crushing defeat on attacking German forces. To put this another way, war will always involve risk and hazard.

In this connection, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, one of the masters of maneuver warfare and battle command, liked to make a distinction between taking risks and taking gambles: With a risk, if it doesn't work, you have the means to recover from it. With a gamble, if it doesn't work, you do not. You hazard the entire force. Normally, to succeed you must take risks. On occasion you have to make a gamble. Because of the extreme difficulty of the maneuver, Franks's decision during Desert Storm to turn VII Corps east ninety degrees and attack at night with three divisions on line was a risk. But the greater risk was to allow the Iraqi defense more time and to fail to use superior U.S. night-fighting capabilities. His decision the first night to halt major ground offensive movement, on the other hand, was a gamble. If the Iraqis discovered it, they could have attacked with chemicals or positioned the RGFC more skillfully to defend against the VII Corps attack and caused more casualties. The greater gamble was getting the corps strung out, causing piecemeal commitment against RGFC units 100 kilometers away. After balancing the vulnerabilities, Franks made his decision. No choices for commanders in war are free of degrees of risk or gamble. Often you must choose between difficult or even bad alternatives.

Just as in any profession, military professionals use precise terms for economy and precision of language. A few of these terms are worth mentioning.

• Center of gravity is a term first used by Clausewitz to designate the source or characteristic from which the enemy derives his power and which should be your aim in your attack. General Schwarzkopf rightly named the RGFC as the center of gravity in the Kuwaiti theater of operations, because the Republican Guards represented the power that permitted the Iraqis to continue to occupy Kuwait and threaten them in the future.

• Culminating point is the limit reached by an attacking force beyond which it is without power to continue or to defend itself in the face of a determined enemy attack. At its culminating point, an attacking force is literally 'exhausted.' At El Alamein in 1942, Rommel's Afrika Korps had gone past its culminating point.

At the start of an attack, you are at the peak of your power or strength. You know that in time you will be weakened by your own physical actions and by what the enemy does. The art of command is to husband that strength for the right time and the right place. You want to conduct your attack in such a way that you do not spend all your energy before you reach the decisive point. You want to stay at sustained hitting power for as long as you can. If your main objective is at some distance from your starting point, then you want to pace your maneuver toward your objective so that when you reach it, you will be able to sustain your hitting power long enough to finish the enemy. The ability to do that is a function of both physical and human factors, and commanders must pay attention to both.

• Deliberate attacks are conducted when you need time to get your forces arrayed and the possibility of surprising the enemy is low.

• Hasty attacks are normally conducted when it is better to attack than to wait — when waiting longer would give the enemy a better chance to defend. In Desert Storm, except for the breach, which was a deliberate attack, VII Corps units conducted mainly hasty attacks.

• Pursuit is a form of tactical offense. You conduct a pursuit when all or most enemy resistance is broken, the enemy is attempting to flee the battlefield, and you want to prevent his escape. Since Desert Storm, there has been a hot controversy over whether VII Corps was in pursuit or attack during the first three days of the battle (24 to 27 February). The evidence shows that they were in attack until 27 February, when much of the Iraqi resistance was broken. But most of at least two divisions in VII Corps (1st and 3rd Armored) were in hasty attacks right up to the cease-fire.

Maneuver Theories

In attack problem solving — bringing his corps to the right place at the right time in the right combination of units, with his soldiers in the right condition — a corps commander must try to see (in his mind's eye or on a map) the current situation (his own and the enemy's), envision what the future situation must look like to accomplish his mission, then figure out how to move from one state to the other at least cost to his troops, communicate that in clear, precise, concise language and by sketches on maps, and finally command the physical execution of the maneuver. In short, attacking requires what the U.S. Army Infantry School taught Fred Franks a long time ago: 'Find, fix, and finish the enemy.' Conducting an attack has an intellectual or continuing problem-solving dimension as well as physical and human dimensions.

Successful attack problem solving is a combination of art, science, and years of education, training, and experience. VII Corps had more than fifteen major subordinate units, each with from 500 to 8,000 vehicles. With that many moving parts, there are many opportunities for chance and friction to interfere with plans. Orchestrating such a massively complex organization through even the simplest of maneuvers (the VII Corps attack maneuver in Desert Storm was anything but simple) involves both constant problem solving and raw brute-force physical execution. Knowing how and when to execute the maneuver involves picturing all those moving parts in your mind and having the latest intelligence on the enemy. Then all of your units need skill, hard physical work, teamwork, and discipline, in order to execute the maneuver, in both daylight and darkness.

A mounted corps uses as its instruments of destruction its armored and mechanized divisions with their carefully put-together punch of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, artillery, and attack aviation. They are the heavyweights. The commander works out how to put the maximum of that power onto the enemy in the shortest possible time. He uses the rest of the corps to reinforce his heavyweight punch. That is the physical. The human dimension rests with his soldiers. They alone bring this awesome physical combat power to its full potential. What is the human dimension? It is the quality of their training and the competence of their small-unit leadership. It is their courage and toughness. It is their motivation to accomplish the mission. It is also their mental and physical state. To the extent you can, you want your soldiers and leaders in such a mental and physical state when they hit the enemy that they are relatively fresh and can sustain the momentum of their attack until the enemy is destroyed.

When the enemy fights back and a battle ensues, adjustments are necessary. That is the essence of fighting. In the midst of these demands, soldiers and small-unit leaders must keep their heads and execute. Leaders must very quickly decide whether to stay the course or adjust. In the face of all this, all soldiers need physical toughness, perseverance, and an iron will. It is a matter of the mind and of the human spirit. Commanders have to influence both.

The forms of maneuver available to the corps to attack an enemy force are well known:

• Penetration—normally an attack on a very narrow front by a concentrated force to rupture an opening in a set enemy defense;

• Infiltration—normally passing through small friendly units by stealth into the enemy's rear, then turning on the enemy from there;