Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991 TAG: 9102080804
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The three-dimensional approach is central to the U.S. Army's war-fighting doctrine, known as AirLand Battle. Developed in the early 1980s and even now being fine-tuned, the doctrine has never been tested in a major conflict.
But this is how it might work in the Persian Gulf war, according to Pentagon planners:
An Army task force of infantrymen, combat engineers and tanks opens a pre-dawn assault on Iraq's fortified defenses at the Saudi-Kuwaiti border.
An airborne division drops deep behind the Iraqi front line, supported by helicopter gunships and allied ground attack planes whose fire is guided by surveillance aircraft operating miles back of the Saudi border.
Far to the rear of the U.S. attacking forces, a tank battalion patrols for signs that Iraqi air assault teams have infiltrated to strike at allied supply lines.
These scenes may not precisely fit an actual U.S.-led ground offensive against Iraq. But they do describe the three elements that almost certainly are key features of the secret American plan for conducting a land battle.
Dick Cheney, the secretary of defense, and Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were flying to Saudi Arabia on Thursday to get a firsthand look at the war and a readout for President Bush on when a ground war might begin.
The Army carried out the December 1989 invasion of Panama in accordance with AirLand Battle, but the opposition force was weak compared with the Iraqi military.
The features of AirLand Battle that distinguish it from the war-fighting doctrines of other countries, including Iraq, are its emphasis on engaging enemy forces deep behind the front line and combining conventional and electronic warfare.
The doctrine also incorporates the use of nuclear weapons on the assumption that the most likely U.S. opponent would be the world's other major nuclear power, the Soviet Union. President Bush has not publicly ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iraq, but the possibility is believed to be extremely remote.
In the gulf war, it is the U.S. military's technological wonders that make AirLand Battle seem well-suited to the task of defeating Iraq. These advantages - such as laser-guided artillery and missile fire and revolutionary airborne radar systems - allow U.S. forces to deepen the battlefield.
The new Joint Stars airborne surveillance system is a good example. Two Joint Stars airplanes, equipped with advanced radars capable of detecting troop and tank formations 200 miles away, are operating in Saudi Arabia. They are the only two such planes in existence; their presence in the gulf despite not being fully tested is a measure of their importance.
In a ground offensive, the Joint Star planes would send their "pictures" of enemy rear-area forces and their positioning to ground monitoring stations, which would make the information instantly available to commanders.
The advantage of Joint Stars is that it gives field commanders a clearer and more immediate picture of the enemy's future intentions than they've had in any previous war. Knowing, for example, the size and disposition of Iraq's reserve formations in northern Kuwait, a corps commander can more effectively call in air strikes to weed out Iraq's reinforcements before they get to the front.
Such coordination between ground and air units is another major tenet of AirLand Battle.
Army doctrine includes a wide variety of offensive maneuvers that could be used against Iraq. These include "envelopment," in which one mechanized infantry division launches a limited frontal assault, including support from artillery fire, to pin down enemy forces.
At the same time, one or more other divisions swing wide to go around or over the opposition's defenses to strike at his rear. The goal is to encircle the defender.
by CNB