Into the Storm: On the Ground in Iraq sic-1 Read online

  In the end, it turned out to be the world's best main battle tank. If you went out onto a used tank lot, where all the world's best tanks were lined up for sale, the Abrams would be the one you'd pick. Its 1,500-horsepower turbine engine will drive it across a battlefield at speeds in excess of forty miles an hour; it has great dash speed, accelerating to twenty mph in less than ten seconds; and it will do it quietly. (Some early opponents in NATO exercises called M1s "the Whispering Death.") The M1A1 that VII Corps took into Iraq carried a 120-mm smoothbore cannon as well as a.50-caliber and two 7.62-mm machine guns.

  Crew protection is superb. Primary armor protection for the M1 comes from its Chobham armor (named after the British research facility in Chobham, England). The M1 is also equipped with an automatic fire-detection /suppression system, and the M1A1 additionally has an atmospheric overpressure system to allow the crew to survive and fight on a battlefield contaminated with toxic chemicals, biological agents, or nuclear fallout.

  In Desert Storm, M1A1s killed many Iraqi tanks. "When I went into Kuwait, I had thirty-nine tanks," a captured Iraqi battalion commander reported. "After six weeks of air bombardment, I had thirty-two left. After twenty minutes in action against M1s, I had none."

  By the end of the 1970s, the Army in Europe had grown weary of staring down the superior Soviet equipment from their lightly armed M551 Sheridan light tanks and their 1950s-technology M60-series tanks. All that changed by the early 1980s, when the Army started to field the Big Five. They were a shot in the arm for the confidence of the Army in Europe.

  DOCTRINE

  Not only was it necessary to have new tools and new training, but it was crucial to learn a whole new way to fight. The ideas with which an army fights are only slightly less important than the ideas for which it fights. Doctrine is a statement of how the Army intends to fight. It gives the Army a common language and a common reference point that allows shorthand professional communication. It's not a dogma; it's a guideline, a statement of principles that should prove helpful in solving battlefield problems. But the solutions themselves will be dictated by the specifics of the situation. For an Army with a degree of complexity caused by the lethality and speed of modern battle, such a common work plan is invaluable.

  In July 1976, the U.S. Army published its remarkable document FM 100-5. This manual was the Army's capstone doctrine statement. You could call it the Army's Philosophy of War.

  The '76 FM 100-5 came largely out of studies of the '73 Mideast War by General DePuy and his colleagues at TRADOC; its focus was on how the U.S. Army must fight to win on the modern battlefield; and it was written largely by a small group of senior officers under General DePuy's direction, including then-Major Generals Donn Starry and Paul Gorman. The book differed from earlier general manuals in that it was designed as a primer to inform the Army about how to understand the modern battlefield and how to fight and win when outnumbered on that battlefield. The book was meant not only to inform and instruct, but to restore confidence.

  As an instructional manual the new FM 100-5 was widely applied — the Army quickly internalized the changed battlefield it now confronted — but as a how-to-fight manual, it was widely misread. Because its chief focus was on what it called "Active Defense," many leaders discounted it. They thought the approach was too "defensive" — too passive — but it was no such thing. A careful reading in the context of its times shows that it was in fact a very clear expression of what the U.S. Army could actually do at that time in order to get itself ready to fight and win. Later advances on this early doctrine would go a long, long way in the direction of attack. Meanwhile, however, a start had to be made with what was then available and possible.

  When Donn Starry commanded V Corps in Germany, even as he implemented FM 100-5 and rebuilt warrior confidence in the unit, one thing still bothered him: Warsaw Pact army doctrine called for attack in waves. They'd hit you, and then hit you again and again, with fresh echelons of troops. Starry was not convinced he could be successful with an outnumbered force if the Warsaw Pact continued to introduce fresh echelons of troops into the fight. This issue had been on his mind ever since he himself had stood on the Golan Heights with Israeli Major General Musa Peled just after the 1973 Mideast War. There he'd listened to Peled's accounts of the IDF's fight against the Soviet echelonment tactics used by the Syrians. The IDF had won outnumbered on the Golan by attacking deep with air and 175-mm artillery, and then by maneuvering Peled's own division deep during the last days of the war.

  Starry had long been convinced that, like the IDF, the U.S. Army had to think deep, and now that he was V Corps commander facing a possible echelon attack in a real mission, he was even more convinced. But Starry was also a pragmatist. He was fully aware that the Army could absorb only so many new ideas at any one time, and it was just about to be hit by the new doctrine of active defense. So he put off his thoughts until later.

  In the summer of 1977, Starry succeeded DePuy as TRADOC commander. He was still deeply concerned about Warsaw Pact echelonment tactics and the enormous disparity in numbers. If something wasn't done about them, and if war broke out, sooner or later the sheer weight of numbers would prevail. In the end, he knew, the Army's Active Defense doctrine came down to attrition warfare, and in attrition warfare, numbers do count.

  Starry's idea was to reintroduce a battle in depth: to extend the battlefield deep on the enemy's side of the forward line of contact, to attack follow-on echelons, and to break up the enemy's momentum and disrupt his ability to bring his mass to bear. To do all this required intelligence and deep targeting, and it required the orchestration of this fight with the principal deep-attack assets available to the USAF.

  TRADOC presented Starry with the opportunity to implement this idea.

  Starting with Starry's germ, over the next four years TRADOC developed what became known as AirLand Battle. Actual doctrine creation was a team effort involving two principal doctrine authors at the Army's Command and General Staff College, Colonels Huba Wass de Czege and Don Holder, both of whom worked directly for Lieutenant General Bill Richardson. Wass de Czege and Holder wrote a doctrinal book that built on the strengths of the 1976 edition, while adding both depth and maneuver, and ideas about gaining the initiative and going over to the attack. The idea was to win, and not just to stop the enemy advance.

  At first, Starry called this idea the "extended battlefield." Later, it was "deep battle," and finally AirLand Battle.

  In 1982, Colonel Fred Franks was given command of his old regiment, the 11th ACR, Blackhorse, which was now stationed in Germany in the Fulda Gap. There he was to have his first opportunity to command a large tactical unit. That meant that he was also a military community commander — essentially the mayor of a city of about 10,000 soldiers, civilians, and family members.

  As commander of the 11th ACR, he wanted to introduce the new AirLand Battle doctrine — which the Army was about to publish in August — to teach it not only to the regiment, but also to the V Corps covering force, which consisted of about 10,000 soldiers from various units in the corps that had been put under his operational control to fight the initial battles and break up the momentum of a Warsaw Pact attack toward Frankfurt through the Fulda Gap.

  Franks's corps commander during his two years with the Blackhorse was Lieutenant General Paul (Bo) Williams, a skilled and understanding commander who saw the vital importance of linking the Blackhorse's mission success (as covering force) to his overall corps success. Williams's G-3 was also a cavalryman, Colonel Tom Tait, who was a big help in the continuing work to strengthen the covering-force fight. He and Bo Williams were receptive to Franks's continuing arguments, taken in large part from the AirLand Battle doctrine that Franks himself had helped work on at TRADOC — that they had to begin to win immediately, especially in light of the growing capabilities provided by the new equipment that was becoming available. Franks believed, in fact, that early success in the covering force might even provide a basis for early limited coun
terattacks in NATO territory, which would break up the massed momentum of the other side before it really got started.

  In 1983, Franks had a chance to put these ideas into practice at a REFORGER exercise.

  REFORGER (REturn of FORces to GERmany) was a method of rapidly reinforcing U.S. units stationed in the central region of NATO. In times of crisis, troops would fly in from the United States, link up with equipment already stored in Europe, and — if they had to — go to war. In order to demonstrate U.S. political resolve, as well as to actually exercise the concept, there was a REFORGER exercise each year.

  The '83 REFORGER involved V Corps units in Germany and units coming from the States. Though the exercise was to be held on the actual Fulda Gap terrain, it was set back some distance from the border. In it, the 3rd Armored Division was to be the Blue, or friendly, force against the opposing Orange force. The 11th Cavalry was not listed to be part of the exercise.

  Fred Franks takes up the story:

  I went to Lieutenant General Bo Williams and asked if we could take part in the exercise so that we could get training on the terrain and work for the first time with our new M1 tanks. After a certain amount of persuading, he agreed to allow us to participate, but only for the first week of the two-week exercise; we would operate in front of the 3rd Armored Division as a covering force, and only with three of our four squadrons plus two battalion-sized task forces from 3rd AD.

  Some is better than none. So I chose my 1st and 3rd ground squadrons and my aviation squadron.

  During that week, the Orange force was to cross the "border" and attack the 3rd AD. For the limited time we had, I wanted to do something bold. I wanted to attack with our M1-equipped squadron (we had only one at the time) as soon as the opposing force moved toward us, so as to surprise them and break up their momentum of attack.

  After I went to the assistant division commander, Brigadier General Tom Griffin, and explained what I had in mind, he agreed to support this. But he told me he knew there would be controversy. Some on the other side were going to claim we were "not playing by the rules, since we were supposed to be on the defense." In my judgment, that was the whole point. When the opposing force attacks, they'll expect to find us defending and backing up. So we should attack early in a preemptive strike and surprise them. In the confusion that followed, we could exploit with additional air and ground attacks, and maybe stop their attack before it got started.

  We anticipated that the opposing force attack would come at first light.

  To create deception, we decided to lead the opposing force to believe our M1 squadron was in our northern sector, when in fact we had them hidden in the center, waiting for the moment to attack. Thus, we sent a few M1s to the northern sector and made sure they were clearly visible to the other side on the evening before the attack. Then we played M1 noise over loudspeakers all along that sector, while we pulled the actual tanks out, loaded them on heavy equipment transports, and then moved them the seventy to eighty kilometers to the south to rejoin the rest of their unit.

  The other piece of my plan was to make a sack for the other side to fall into. Our center squadron was to be the bottom of the sack, so to speak. In other words, I ordered them to defend and then to give way some, so we could draw the enemy after them. Once they were inside, we would attack with the fast-moving M1s. Meanwhile, during the night before the attack, I ordered my aviation squadron (with their newly developed night-flying skills) to give me a clear picture of the posture of the opposing force. I wanted to hit them just after they moved against us.

  We were ready. We had rehearsed this, so we all knew what we were doing. I had a great team of commanders and soldiers who could pull this off. And in Tom Griffin I had a senior commander who trusted us and was not afraid to go out on a limb and risk a decision for us.

  At 0715 the first morning, I advised Tom that conditions were right. Our aviation had reported that the opposing forces had concentrated a large force in the area we wanted to attack. These looked to be second-echelon units to be used later in the day, after the initial attack was successful. Meanwhile, our middle squadron (the 3rd Squadron of the 11th, commanded by then-Lieutenant Colonel Stan Cherrie, who was to be my G-3 on Desert Storm) had reported that the opposing force had attacked. They could hold, but not for long. Our M1 squadron (1st Squadron of the 11th, commanded by then-Lieutenant Colonel John Abrams, now a lieutenant general and V Corps commander in Germany) had reported they were ready (I had them on an immediate attack readiness posture).

  My operations officer, Major Skip Bacevich (later my G-3 in the 1st Armored Division and later still commander of the 11th Cavalry in a rapid deployment to Kuwait in June 1991), was with me in our two M113 command vehicles on a hill overlooking the attack area. The weather was clear. Perfect! But if we waited much longer, the opposing force would break through my middle squadron and I'd have to use my M1 squadron to stop that. I wanted to attack and seize the initiative, just as our doctrine recommends. So did Tom Griffin. He gave us the approval. I ordered John and the aviation squadron to attack.

  The attack was a success. We completely surprised the opposing force and caused such confusion that the exercise had to be stopped while forces got untangled and reset to begin again.

  That whole experience was a lesson for us all. I'll never forget it. We had the right people, the right doctrine, the right equipment, a bold plan, and a commander who knew what we were doing and who trusted and supported us. It was magic. I was learning how to be a senior tactical commander.

  And Fred Franks was proving the efficacy of AirLand Battle in the toughest kind of trial short of war.

  Succeeding Starry at TRADOC was General Glen Otis. Otis had been the Army's operations deputy at the Department of the Army and was thoroughly familiar with the evolving doctrine. Drawing on studies coming out of the Army's War College, Otis was taken with the idea of addressing three levels of war: strategic, operational, and tactical. Strategy was beyond the scope of Army doctrine, but a lot could be done with the operational level. At that level, tactical battles were not discrete, unconnected events. Rather, they needed to be so woven together that they achieved a campaign objective, and thereby gained the overall strategic aim of a military operation.

  The missing strategic link in Vietnam was the operational level of war. Year after year, tactical battles were won by U.S. and allied forces, but in the absence of an operational plan, these never added up to gaining the overall strategic objective.

  Otis included the three levels in the new FM 100-5, and Otis's successor at TRADOC, Bill Richardson, directed expansion of the operational doctrine.

  Meanwhile, while at Fort Leavenworth as deputy commandant of the Army's Command and General Staff College, Lieutenant General Bob RisCassi assigned Franks direction of the project to revise the Army's 1982 FM 100-5 that, while retaining AirLand Battle, included this expanded discussion, which it described as the "design and conduct of major operations and campaigns." Such design would be called "operational art" — the thinking that translated strategic aims into effective military campaigns. The book was approved and published in May 1986, and because operational art and design was a new thought for the U.S. Army, the doctrine was accompanied by a briefing put together by Colonel Rick Sinnreich, director of the School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), that would explain it to the U.S. Army and our allies. In Desert Storm, this 1986 book would serve as the U.S. Army's basic doctrine and directly influence the design of major operations.

  Training and doctrine flow — or at least they should flow — out of the same source. Doctrine gives you mission and focus. Training gives you the skills to carry out your mission.

  In the spring of 1988, before he assumed command of the 1st AD, Fred Franks had the opportunity to visit Eastern Europe to observe a Warsaw Pact military exercise as part of the observer exchanges of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). This visit gave him a unique opportunity to see for himself the training and doct
rine of his potential enemy in operation.

  This was the first time he had been behind the Iron Curtain to have a look for himself. Though he had patrolled it as a platoon leader, troop commander, and regimental commander during two previous tours in Europe, for the first time he was driving through the checkpoints, then down to Prague, and on up to the training exercise north of the capital. He spent a week in the field visiting a Soviet armored division and watching them go through training exercises. He took a lot of pictures, talked to Soviet officers, talked to observers from other countries, and saw at first hand the capabilities and limitations of a Soviet armored division.

  The visit to Czechoslovakia confirmed all he'd always imagined about them: The Soviets' doctrine emphasized tight control. Everything had to go according to a timetable; nobody did anything on his own.

  Franks visited a Czech mechanized infantry unit in a dug-in defensive position, and saw a Soviet unit in a similar position and a Soviet tank unit, equipped with T-72s. They were permitted to take pictures of it and of the troops and their positions, and also observed one of their second-echelon units moving up; they stopped on the side of the road and got out to talk to them. From all this, he got a decent insight into their mentality, leadership, equipment capabilities, approach to training, and approach to wartime situations. They were technically competent. Their field craft was quite good — digging holes, camouflage, movement of vehicles. But everything was very rehearsed. On their major maneuver range, you could see well-worn trails in the snow where unit after unit had done the same thing over the same ground. If anything unexpected happened, or if any radical change was required by some unexpected actions, that would be very disruptive to them.