Attacking the Attacker

Attacking the Attacker by First Lieutenant Ralph Peters The regiment is the most coherently developed tactical formation employed by armies organized and trained in the Soviet manner. Just as the battalion task force (B!l'F) is the key to Soviet understanding of US. battlefield integrity, our frontline how-bfight decisions must be based on a knowledgeable critique of the enemy regiment. The regiment is the Soviet's basic battlefield package; it is the level at which the Soviet commander first enjoys the flexibility and independence of the US. battalion commander, and it is the level where his combined arms are in the most fruitful and responsive balance. At the same time, the regiment is the level at which the Soviet force is most predictable and therefore, the level at which its tactical chain of command and control can most effectively be broken. Although many authorities differ as to the degree, it is generally accepted that the Soviet army is tactically less flexible than our own, slower in comprehensive battlefield reaction to unexpected developments, and with a decidely more rigid system of command, control and communication. Without further thought, this iron clad structuralism is routinely cited as a weakness because the North American temperament perceives only its awkward and brittle aspects. Yet the Soviets view this rigidity not only as a necessity but also as a source of strength. Despite the sophisticated technical development of all Soviet military forces since the raw days of WW II, the Soviets still see ground forces as more of a bludgeon than a rapier. The primary difference is that they now possess a high-technology bludgeon-but it remains a bludgeon. And flexibility is not a desirable quality in a club. There is nothing wrong with rotelearned battle drills so long as they prove appropriate to the situation, as when a quick, clear response is necessary to retain or wrest the initiative at the lowest levels. Battle drills reduce or even eliminate decision time and economize tremendously on the extent of troop leading procedures junior leaders need to employ. Our task is to strike the mind behind the bludgeon, to aggressively create situations where ingrained battle drills prove ineffective, and to force enemy commanders at all levels to reorient their efforts away from the goals their s u p riors have assigned. It is my argument that all this can be accomplished best by making maximum, rather than the present minimum/median (read: defensive), use of the capabilities of our new and superior battlefield systems by swiftly and relentlessly attacking the attacker to the depths of his regimental deployments, while operational and joint asseta fight the deep battle just over the horizon. Our current tactical doctrine for Europe, despite the advent of the August 1982 version of F'M 1005, Operations, involves a passive defense against the enemy's firstline regiments. This amounts to waiting for the bludgeon to descend. Only 30 when the enemy’s first tactical echelon has brol or over-the wall of our main battle area (MBA we begin to contemplate counterattack. Altha couched in aggressive language in the manu tactics are essentially passive and we largely maneuver initiative to our opponent, relying above all else to default him. Bluntly, we expect enemy’s plan by successfully engaging his CI power. But our own published doctrine insists 1 better way to give battle. The outnumbered ’ haves aggressively and violently, insisting on i initiative in both fire and maneuver, stands a g of winning than does the outnumbered force t opponent to engage it in a bloody frontal battl Although preservation of the force is certainl goal, the outnumbered commander who is uni any of his force is likely to lose all of it. Rather t to combat the enemy’s direct-fire systems 1 ambush, we should attend to these proven axioms: Disrupt the enemy’s plan. Destroy, or further disrupt, his ability execute a new plan in a timely manner. Then strike his critical combat power whi dered or, at the very least, attempting to redirec; owau.AbYas. At the tactical level, this can most effectively be accomplished by thinking of our enemy in a regimental format and combatting him, initially, with regimental destruction in mind. The authors of FM 100-5, who are fond of quoting Clausewitz, remind us that a sound defense should resemble a “shield of blows.” To affect this on the modem battlefield will require the daring to strike out beyond the limits of our conventionallydefined covering force area (CFA). In certain European deployments, this will have artificial (political) limits, until we openly recognize and’act upon the fact that in wartime an opponent’s national boundaries become inoperative as a local limit of advance. But just a few kilometers back from the death fences, and in various other theaters such as the Middle East, an extended “shield of blows” could become immediately applicable for planning purposes. The purpose of striking out bevond the CFA is to engage the enemy while COMBAT RECON P A l K U 4

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ILuyclJmN Figure 1. torized rifle platoon augmented with NBC and engineer reconnaissance personnel, the CRP is the needlesharp tip of the regimental spike. The Forward Security Element (FSE), dispatched in its turn from the advance guard, is a true combined arms formation that bristles with artillery. Any U.S. element engaged by the CRP can expect to see this FSE appear over the horizon in approximately onehalf hour. At that time, the Soviebstyle formation in contact will consist of the Srepower of a motorized rifle company, a platoon of tanks, a mortar battery, and a battery of 122-mm howitzers. The FSE will attempt to complete the job of locating and pinning down U.S. forces, thereby developing a favorable situation for the commitment of the next element. The Advance Guard Main Body (AGMB), considered with the detachments above, makes up a solid onethird of the regimental force. The advance guard commander controls a motorized rifle battalion, a tank company, an artillery battalion, an antitank platoon, an engineer platoon, an antiaircraft section, a signal platoon, and light support assets. With this force, he is expeded to neutralize his opposition through fire and maneuver, allowing the regiment to get on with its advance, or, should the opposition prove too potent, to fix the enemy firmly in place to await a flanking maneuver, envelop ment, or bypass by the regiment’s main body. The AGMB, in a classic deployment, would move between 5 and 10 kilometers behind the FSE and 20 to 30 kilometem ahead of the main body itself. The Main Body (MB) can have an additional battalion or more of artillery attached, to supplement the hpower of the two remaining regimental motorized &le battalions and the regimental tank battalion, minus the company deployed forward with the advance guard. The regimental commander, with his headquarters section, usually travels at the head of this march column. The 2@to 3@kilometer distance he must cover to the battlefield where his advance guard is engaged equates to 90 to 150 minutes of planning time. Monitoring the contact reports from his advance guard and working over his maps, he designs his attack. This is his tactical “window of vulnerability.” As part of a main attack effort, the Soviet-style regiment travels along a single march route for the purpose of maintaining force control. It is critical to the regimental commander that momentum of subunits be fairly uniform. IfU.S. forces can strike him may-june 1983 31 cles m a purely aejensrve role wowa roo us OJ their greatest potentid to create havoc in the midst of a less-responsive, less-well-equipped enemy force.” The prime requirementa for this U.S. shallow-attack force will be: Timely warning and operation orders that get the force out front without waiting for all of the mail to come in. Tailoring for maximum speed and firepower. Aggressive leadership that is willing to take intelligent risks. Dependent upon local mission and assets, a force of be tween company team or battalion/task forcesize is envisioned. Allocation of attack helicopters and aeroscouts will tre mendously increase both the impact and survivability of the force, although the paramount importance of air-ground mor-dination will require greater coordination efforts in this sphere than units are in the habit of making in peacetime. Clearly, such a force could not suddenly be conjured up after we come into heavy contact with the enemy, amidst the wildfire of calls for fire support and reinforcement. In this case, timely orders mean that a commander has already been informed that his unit will not be initially committed to the forward edge of the defense, but will be detailed as the local shallow-attack force. Whenever possible, this should be done before the local battle commences, before we have lost the psychological as well as the physical initiative. This would give the shallow-attack force commander the maximum time to carry out his vital-and timeconsuming-troopleading procedures. It would enable the timely linkup of attachments critical to the mission, and would abet the coordination of the aviation effort with the ground scheme of maneuver. In support of such daring tactics, our attitude toward intelligence collection cannot be a passive one of waiting for the situation to achieve clear outline, and then color itself in. Rather, as part of the tactical plan, local intelligence assests capable of real-time or near-real-time collection and reporting must be tasked to actively seek and swiftly report the specific and so often perishable information required by the tactical commander. To this end, intelligence personnel must be better trained to understand the whys and wherefores of the battle field. The routine lists of dryly-phrased essential elements of information and electronic parameters must be transformed into flesh-and-blood reality that awakens the operator’s and analyst’s initiative and helps them to aggressively target critical nodes and formations, rather than indiscriminately scanning the electmmagnetic spectrum. It is the simple and critical difference between looking for something and merely looking; one more instance of the ever-present activepassive dualism in war. The intelligence specialist too often becomes so enmeshed in his own small web of expertise that he fails to grasp the general military knowledge needed to wisely guide his own efforts. Neither does he like being directed by outsiders. If there is one critical failing common to intelligence personnel, it is ignorance of the friendly force. In a related area, this 32 may-june 1983 present attack helicopter tactics for such a role is questionable. Although we rehearse the use of all troops as emergency re action forces to stymie tank-led breakthroughs, we are re luctant to mass attack helicopters, preferring a lower-risk piecemeal employment of these very expensive assets. Is it possible that we fail to recognize the full potential of these magnificent killing machines? Are we making the same mistake the British and French did between the world wars, parceling out their armor assets while Guderian recognized the vital principle of mass? Is the correct response to the Soviet tactical air defense threat to hide from it, or to overwhelm and destroy it? Certainly, there are many problems beyond price tags with the employment of massed attack helicopters. The Division 86 concept seems to be a tremendous step in the right direction. But even before its realization, and with slight modifications to current aviation tactics, attack helicopters would play a vital role in the shallow-attack force in locating and stripping away enemy platoons engaged in screening the regimental flank (figure 2). They would add another dimension to the attack on the enemy march column by adding to the enemy’s confusion, and would provide a security screen for our own forces when they elect to break off the engagement. Key to our success would be intensified training of atbck helicopter formations in support of battalion task force maneuver. The ground force must consist mostly of main battle tanks, with barebones mechanized infantry, air defense, and engineer support. Although the exact numbers and proporhave shown. ” iion systems, and enhanced main gun stabilization-could be brought fully into play in a lightning strike against an enemy still in his dense, muletrain march column. Supported by attack helicopters, the relentlessly maneuvering force, with well-controlled Mls as its backbone, would require and agile minded and heavily-armed opponent to react quickly and effectively enouth to deflect-let alone defeat-it. One internal enemy we would have to combat is our tendency to fatten every force with support that finally becomes a burden-a burden that not only slows down the combat force, but adds to its vulnerability. For a mission of limited objective and duration, combat vehicles must depend upon their basic loads of ammunition and fuel. Recovery operations are certainly not to be attempted forward of the CFA, and resupply vehicles will not ride to the rescue. A rule of thumb could be: “If it can’t shoot, it stays home with the trains.” Now, with the enemy’s march route identified and our shallow-attack force enroute under a daring, inventive commander, we must decide where it is most advantageous to strike. Where we are able to strike the enemy’s regimental column will depend on the terrain, the location of other enemy forces, intelligence gaps, the size of the friendly force to be committed, locally-imposed limits of advance, and many other battlefield variables. Given a choice, the greatest potential for disrupting the enemy’s plan and inflicting a maximum or critical casualties upon him would be gained by striking the forward flank of the main body. At a glance, this also entails maximum risk in terms of combat power immediately available to the enemy and in our distance from friendly lines. But closer analysis indicates that a combination of swift, hard-hitting tactics and effective use of terrain could allow a force far smaller in size to inflict serious damage on a Soviet-style regiment (figure 2). First, the regimental commander and his principal assistants customarily travel at the front of the main body. Second, if surprised on the march in terrain where off-road maneuver is restricted, the enemy will only be able to bring a small part of his unwieldy main body into battledrill formation. The number of his d i & h systems present will not prove 80 im-helicopter support would be invaluable both in the interdic tion of enemy pursuit or blacking attempts, and in providing an overhead guide to the battlefield. At best, you have begun the destruction of the enemy regiment and thrown its stricken elements into confusion. As a minimum, you have slowed him and forced him to reconsider his efforts. A strike against the regimental main body, as described above, is only one of many possible options in employing shallow-attack forces. The effects of strikes against elements of the advance guard would range from forcing pre mature deployment to destroying a significant percentage of the enemy force. Certainly, our intelligence picture will refine as the enemy is forced to respond and reveal his intentions, allowing us to mount further, increasingly effective, attacks. Finally, these proposals are most valuable as stimuli Actual battlefield events, influenced by the myriad of details that coalesce to determine the efficiency of the fighting force, are not so forthright. What is vital here is the spurring on of our evolution of fresh tactical concepts. The sooner our dust covers the last traces of the barely-disguised passivity of the 1970’s “active defense” doctrine, the better. Whether our overall mission is to attack or defend, our manner of giving battle must be characterized by the earliest possible seizure of the initiative, by the exploitationaf attack dynamics, and by the swift imposition of our own will upon that of our enemies.

FIRST LIEUTENANT RALPH

PETERS initial contact with the Army was in 1975 as a volunteer English language teacher for Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees. Shortly after he enlisted and later was a distinguished graduate of the 7th Army NCO Academy and a winner of the MacArthur Award and the Patton Award for leadership. He is a professional level German linguist and has served with the 8th ID (M), and 1st Bn. 46th Inf, 2nd Bde, 1st AD. He is the author of Bravo Romeo.

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