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In a particular attack, the corps might be in one form of maneuver and the divisions of the corps in another. When VII Corps turned ninety degrees east early on 26 February 1991, the corps itself was executing a turning movement, while the divisions of the corps were executing an envelopment.
Selection of one of these forms of maneuver also involves command preference. 'If called on to fight, my preference has always been for use of overwhelming force,' Franks says. 'My combat experience in Vietnam and in thousands of training exercises has convinced me to crush the enemy force and not sting him. In Desert Storm, I did not want to poke at him with separate fingers; I wanted to smash him with a fist (we even named one of our phase lines 'smash'). I've said this before. I'll say it again: Get the enemy down and then finish him off. Get him by the throat and don't let go until he is finished. Go for the jugular, not the capillaries… That thinking influenced my selection of tactics and maneuver options.'
Depth of the battle space is a vital element on any modern battlefield. As weapons gain longer reach and become increasingly lethal, formations on land are tending to grow smaller and more dispersed. A similar process has gone on in the air and at sea. It's doubtful that we'll ever see again anything like the massed air and sea armadas of World War II. The developments on the ground allow an army commander to use more and more of the battle space to focus his combat power simultaneously on more and more of a given enemy force. Such capabilities require a senior tactical commander to look ahead in time two to three days, and in distance normally 150 to 200 kilometers.
He must, in short, consider the battle space in depth. During the Cold War, the echelonment doctrine of Soviet and Soviet-style forces — waves of attacking echelons that ultimately overwhelm a defender by attrition at the point of attack — made it necessary to consider depth. If the defender did not attack follow-on echelons at the same time he was defending against attacking echelons, he would soon be overwhelmed. Even after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, a corps commander in today's battlefield environment must see the battle space given him to accomplish his mission as three dimensional. It has width, depth, and airspace above it. Within that bounded area, the corps decides where, when, and in what priority to continually apply its own combat power (as well as that temporarily available from air-and sea-based forces) to accomplish the mission it has been given.
To gain intelligence of the enemy forces in this depth, the corps has available to it its own intelligence- gathering capabilities in a military intelligence brigade. The corps further depends on the intelligence-gathering assets available to the theater command and those available at the national level.
The corps also receives help in conducting operations in depth from the theater in the form of theater attack air assets. Normally a corps commander will be able to select targets or enemy capabilities he wants destroyed deep in his operational area (up to the forward boundary of his battle space, or about 150 kilometers). Though this was the doctrine in NATO, it was not the practice in Desert Storm; and that greatly influenced how VII Corps and XVIII Corps could shape the battles they were fighting into the depth of the enemy's formations.
Another area for theater help is in logistics. Normally, theater assets are used to rapidly replenish supplies consumed by an attacking corps. In Desert Storm, this was especially critical in the area of fuel. The theater corps logistics support connection worked well.
Meanwhile, in the attack, the idea is to give the enemy no rest. You want to create a moving 150- kilometer-wide and 175-kilometer-deep killing zone in which he can neither hide nor survive. To create this, depth of the corps battle space is normally divided between the divisions and the corps. Divisions will usually fight to a depth of about 30 to 40 kilometers in front of their forward-most units. Beyond that and out to a depth of 150 to 200 kilometers, the corps will normally fight simultaneously with the divisions, mainly with fires. The killing zone of the attacking divisions dominates the terrain and the enemy. It is all-inclusive. Beyond this 30- to 40-kilometer killing zone, the destruction is more selective, because the attacking assets are usually limited to air, attack helicopters, and long-range Army tactical missiles. With those attacking assets, corps normally go after targets and enemy capabilities that, if taken out, will leave the enemy weakened for the advancing divisions, or take apart the enemy's coherence and cause chaos. Some of these targets might well be the enemy's command centers, his long-range artillery, his logistics and supplies, and his reserves (to keep them out of the division's fight and to severely attrit them).
In some circumstances, the corps commander might see an opportunity to break through with a ground formation and send them deep into the enemy's rear. Such an action can severely disrupt the enemy, for a ground force has not only destructive power but staying power. That is (unlike air, which has limited staying-power effect and eventually goes away), it stays and controls the area it is in, thus denying it to the enemy. In Desert Storm, for example, XVIII Corps positioned the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) on Highway 8, thus blocking early any hope of RGFC retreat toward Baghdad. When to do this and when not to is a major decision for the corps commander and involves both combat power and the capability to continually support such a deep attacking force.
Allocating airspace boundaries above the landmass is also important, so that all air assets can be used simultaneously. For example, the corps wants to be able to operate its own helicopter fleet (up to 800 in VII Corps), while allowing centrally controlled fixed-wing assets to attack targets simultaneously within the same battle space. In Desert Storm, an airspace boundary of 1,000 feet was agreed to; that is, VII Corps could fly its helicopters wherever and whenever they wanted, as long as they stayed below 1,000 feet. This did not prove to be a problem, as air forces flew combat missions normally at 10,000 feet or above.
With only passing regard to VII Corps's maneuver during its eighty-nine-hour attack in Desert Storm, let us look at a hypothetical situation in which a mounted corps moves to contact an enemy force that is also moving. Imagine, for example, a three-division corps moving toward an enemy force that is itself moving toward the corps. Each formation has the mission to defeat the other. Perhaps 200 kilometers initially separate the forces. One might also assume air forces are in parity, that is, the air battle at the moment gives no advantage to either side.
The friendly commander's first priority in this situation will be to designate a point of main effort. Let us imagine that the corps sees an enemy vulnerability and a terrain avenue of movement that will allow a swift attack against the enemy's key reserve units (that is, the reserves he is saving for his own main effort). The friendly commander then designates that operation as his main effort. This designation signals that it is that particular operation that must receive the full support of the corps, and that if the operation is successful, the corps will accomplish its mission. The friendly corps commander designates this part of the operation as his main effort to focus energy and support of his corps. If there is any question, support goes there. Subordinate commanders of all the various units in the corps (especially artillery, aviation, signal, engineers, and logistics) devise their own unit operation to assist the main effort.
At the same time, the corps commander might have another operation in progress that, while necessary, he will designate as a secondary attack or an economy of force. To this and other secondary operations will be allocated only minimum essential resources, so that maximum resources can be applied to the main effort. In this way, the commander can occupy the attention of enemy forces while allowing his main attack to succeed and freeing up some of his own forces for his main effort.
Sometime during the course of the main effort, the corps commander will adopt a basic form of maneuver to attack the enemy force. He will shift to this formation alignment when he determines that the enemy formations are
