Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

van Creveld, Martin L.

Air power and maneuver warfare / by Martin van Creveld , contributing authors,

Kenneth S. Brower and Steven L. Canby,

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1 . Maneuver warfare. 2. Airpower. 3. Maneuver warfare-Case studies. I .

Brower, Kenneth S. II . Canby, Steve L. Ill . Title.

U250.V26 1994

355.4'2-dc20 94-16884

CIP

ISBN 1-58566-050-7

First Printing July 1994

Second Printing August 1997

Third Printing July 2000

Fourth Printing September 2001

Disclaimer

This publication was produced in the Department of Defense school environment in the interest of academic

freedom and the advancement of national defense-related concepts . The views expresseded in this

publication are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of

Defense or the United States government.

This publication has been reviewed by security and policy review authorities and is cleared for public

release .

Ll.
Contents

Chapter Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vii

CONTRIBUTING AUTHORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvi

1 THE NATURE OF THE BEAST . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2 MANEUVER WARFARE IN ACTION-EARLY

GERMAN CAMPAIGNS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

3 MANEUVER WARFARE IN ACTION-THE

GERMAN 1941 CAMPAIGN IN RUSSIA . . . . . . . 61

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

PHOTO SECTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

4 MANEUVER WARFARE IN ACTION-THE

SOVIET VERSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148

5 ISRAEL: MANEUVER WARFARE, AIR

POWER, AND LOGISTICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

6 MANEUVER WARFARE AND AIR POWER

IN THE 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Past Limitations on Air Power . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Air Power and New Developments . . . . . . . . . . 196

Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Situational . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

The Cordon Sanitaire of Reconstruction . . . . . 200

Differences in Styles of War for Air Power . . . . 203

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

111
THE INSTITUTE RESPONDS . . . . . . . . . . . 221

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Illustrations

Figure

1 The Campaign in Poland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

2 The Campaign in the West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

3 The Leningrad Campaign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

4 German Operations, 1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

5 The Campaign in the Ukraine . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

6 The Campaign of Army Group Center,

June-August 1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

7 Moscow: The Battles of Vyazma-Bryansk . . . . . . 92

8 Battles of Encirclement of the Eastern

Campaign, 1941 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

9 The 1967 Campaign in the Sinai . . . . . . . . . . . 164

10 The 1973 Campaign in the Sinai . . . . . . . . . . . 178

11 The Gulf Campaign, 1991 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Table

1 Expenditure of Tank Armies per 100 Kilometers

of Advance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2 Divisional Estimated Requirement Rates

Daily (Tons) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3 Rates of Advance of Tank Armies in the

Third Period of the Great Patriotic War (GPW) . . . 110

4 The Soviet Principles of Warfare at the

Operational and Tactical Levels . . . . . . . . . . . 118

5 Average Densities of Manpower and Weapons

in Breakthrough Sectors during the Great

Patriotic War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

6 Average Aviation Densities on Axes of Attack

in the Fronts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

iv
Foreword

An essential part of the Air War College, Maxwell Air

Force Base (AFB), Alabama, curriculum consists of the

study of military history and specific campaigns .

Distinguished military scholars often visit the college to

discuss and explore issues with the faculty. Martin van

Creveld was one of those distinguished scholars. He had

previously been commissioned by the Air Staff to investigate

the effects of the US Army's move toward a more

maneuver-oriented kind of warfare and the effect that move

will have on the US Air Force role on the battlefield. The Air

Staff was concerned about a host of issues: logistic support

for a highly mobile force; friendly force confusion on huge,

rapidly changing battlefields; close air support with or

without air base support; and a host of other issues . The

bottom line for the Air Force concerned several issues of

great impact. First, Must air combat change because land

combat is changing? and, Is the decisiveness of air power

increasing geometrically to the point where the twenty-first

century will find it is as decisive as ground power was in the

twentieth century?

Our guest historian agrees that sophisticated, highly

technical air and space developments may have made air

power dominant on the conventional battlefield. The great

exception, however, lies in the trend away from conventional

to unconventional conflict . To Professor van Creveld,

nation-states have lost the monopoly on the legitimate use

of violence. To prepare for a conventional scenario is to

prepare for the last war, not the next one. The possibility of

more "Lebanons" is much higher than the likelihood of

future "Irags."

The Airpower Research Institute (ARI) of the College of

Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education (CADRE),

Maxwell AFB, Alabama, also became interested and

V
experience of the Israelis, the Luftwaffe, and the Soviet air

force in supporting fast-moving forces is instructive to an air

force that promises to support a steadily faster-moving army.

And so the discussion went, with both sides learning

much. We invite your interest and dialogue, and invite you

to visit Maxwell AFB, Alabama. As the Air Corps Tactical

School in the 1930s became central to developing air power

theory and doctrine, so will that same role be adopted by the

Air War College and the Airpower Research Institute in the

1990s. The Gulf War was a watershed for air power; there

will never be another just like it, nor will there be an

opportunity to fight it again .
Contributing Authors

The author wishes to extend his heartfelt thanks to the

following contributing authors who willingly provided their time

and expertise to this project.

Kenneth S. Brower is a defense

analyst and naval engineer . An

internationally recognized author and

lecturer on defense affairs specializing

on the interaction of doctrine, tactics,

and technology, he was widely seen

and heard on US television and radio

networks during Operation Desert

Storm. Among numerous ship designs,

Mr Brower was responsible for the

Ticonderoga-class Aegis cruiser, as

well as a number of other ship designs.

He has specialized in conducting

comparative studies of US and

international ships and weapon systems . He is currently

president of Spectrum Associates of Springfield, Virginia, a

defense-consulting firm.

Dr Steven L. Canby, an economist

and defense analyst, is a well-known

author and lecturer specializing in

military doctrine, manpower, regional

security, application of technology,

task specialization, and European

defense integration. He was among the

handful of analysts responsible for

inducing the change in the American

style of war from firepower and

attrition to maneuver . He is a

graduate of West Point; the Infantry

School's airborne, ranger, and

commander courses ; Command and

General Staff College; and Harvard University. He is currently

president of C & L Associates of Pontiac, Maryland, a defenseix
program in national security studies.

Any errors or omissions remain my own, but the quality of this

effort has been solidly improved by the contributing authors .

x
Martin van Creveld was born in the Netherlands but

raised and educated in Israel. After taking his master's

degree at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, he read for a

doctorate in history at the London School of Economics.

Since 1971, he has been on the faculty of the history

department at the Hebrew University, where he is now a

full professor. At present, he is the first occupant of the

Oppenheimer Chair for Warfighting Strategy at the Marine

Corps University, Quantico, Virginia.

His most important publications are Hitler's Strategy

1940-1941: the Balkan Clue (1973) ; Military Lessons of

the Yom Kippur War: Historical Perspectives (1975) ;

Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (1979);

Fighting Power: German and U.S. Army Performance,

1939-1945 (1982); Command in War (1985) ; Technology and

War: From 2000 B.C. to the Present (1989); The Training of

Officers : From Military Professionalism to Irrelevance

(1990) ; The Transformation of War (1991) ; and Nuclear

Proliferation and the Future of Conflict (forthcoming).

Vii

Preface

In the form it has finally assumed, this volume falls into two

very different parts . Part 1 was written by Dr Steve Canby, Ken

Brower, and myself at the invitation of Air University, Maxwell

Air Force Base, Alabama. It represents our joint attempt to clarify

the relationship between air power and maneuver warfare since

1939, a subject that derives its importance from the fact that

maneuver warfare has been the US Army's official doctrine since

the early eighties and remains so to the present day.

By contrast, part 2 was added ex post facto. It contains the

collective wisdom of the military doctrine analysts of the Air

University on the same subjects, as well as the way in which we

have presented them. The reader is invited to wade through the

entire volume and draw his/her own conclusion about the past,

present, and future of air power on the one hand and maneuver

warfare on the other, assuming indeed that they do have a future .

In bringing this volume to print, I should like to thank several

people who in various ways were instrumental for its genesis,

production, and completion. The first is Dr Steve Canby who, in

addition to writing some of the chapters, assumed much of the

administrative burden connected with the contracting side .

Another is Lt Col Andrew Ogan who acted as liaison between the

authors on the one hand and the Pentagon and the Air University

on the other. Finally, it is necessary to commend Mr Ted Kluz of

the Air War College for persistence and determination. Not only

was the original idea of doing this study his, but he has guided

and supported it throughout the publication process . If it finally

sees the light of print, much of the credit is his.

Introduction

The end of the cold war has been compared to a

monumental shift in the tectonic plates.' Even as the

collapse of the Eastern bloc caused the most important

threat to American security to disappear, it has unleashed a

host of changes that will irrevocably reshape the strategic

landscape. Beyond doubt, these changes have enormous

implications for US national security policy and military

strategy. Just how they may play out cannot be known.

Therefore, intellectual preparation, planning, and at least

some training for any contingencies that may arise must go on.

As far as can be foreseen at present, future threats to

American security and interests will almost certainly be one

of three types, which are discussed here in order of

increasing magnitude and decreasing probability. The most

likely type will come from nonstate actors or from those

states which, impressed by the enormous American capacity

for conventional warfare so recently demonstrated in the

Gulf, will resort to other means. To counter a threat of this

kind-be its name guerrilla war, terrorism, low-intensity

conflict (LIC), or, to use my own terminology, nontrinitarian

warfare3-both air and ground forces will probably be

required. The former will consist principally of helicopters

and light, fixed-wing transport aircraft, the latter of light

troops (in general, nothing heavier than lightly armored

'vehicles will be appropriate) . Since firepower in such a war

will be delivered by light, highly accurate weapons, the

logistic burden will almost certainly be small compared toj

the conventional conflicts of the past. This is not to say that'

,only only primitive technology is likely to be of use . Light does;

necessarily mean simple ; and indeed, one can easily

ienvisage the employment of some very sophisticated devices .

IThe point is that in such warfare, the most important role of

whatever heavy forces get involved may be not that of,

fighting but of standing by and maintaining escalation;,

dominance.

xiii
military power, is nevertheless strong enough to represent a

substantial conventional threat should its rulers try to

imitate Saddam Hussein. In such a conflict, and provided

only the appropriate bases are available and secure, the

USAF is likely to shine. At present, and as far ahead as one

may look, no other country possesses the hardware, much

less the "software," needed for mounting an air campaign

that will even remotely compare with US capabilities in this

field . Admittedly, it is quite possible that, under such

circumstances, air will inflict sufficient pain and attrition to

do the job almost on its own, as some allege was the case in

the Gulf. On the other hand, the possibility of a ground

campaign's being necessary-which was also the case in the

Gulf-cannot be ruled out. Either way, the logistic burden is

likely to be substantial. Cutting the enemy's supply lines

while protecting and managing one's own will be important.

Third, the possibility of a reconstituted Soviet (Russian)

threat must be considered. At the moment, such a possibility

appears almost too remote to contemplate; still, it cannot be

entirely ruled out. There have been press reports about

alleged Pentagon plans to aid Lithuania against a Russian

invasion. Perhaps more important, there is the worst-case

scenario involving the former Soviet armed forces as a

military as strong and sophisticated as one's own. If only by

way of an intellectual exercise, examining these forces-and

devising ways to counter them-will provide a yardstick

against which to measure all other, presumably less

dangerous, contingencies.

As already indicated, each of the above three scenarios

will assuredly require some form of air operations, ground

operations, and logistics; nevertheless, this study is only

concerned with the latter two-in other words, those on the

more intensive end of the spectrum. This is not because LIC

is unimportant. On the contrary, this author believes that it

is probably the most important of all and one that air forces

in general, and the USAF in particular, should take much

xiv
almost independent of, the others. Almost by definition, LIC

is diffuse and lacks any clear center of gravity. This means

that it gives but little scope for examining the real issue

facing this study: the way to integrate air power on the one

hand with maneuver warfare on the other.

While American commanders such as Robert E. Lee and

George S. Patton excelled in maneuver warfare, the latter's

present prominence is an outgrowth of the Vietnam War.

Following its failure in that conflict, where it engaged in

pure attrition ("search and destroy"), the US Army during

the late seventies started looking around for a different style

of war. In doing so, it hit upon the German campaigns of

1940-42 and took them as its example. In 1981, it issued a

new and radically revised version of its main manual, Field

Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations. Since then, maneuver

warfare has become the official standard for the US Marine

Corps also and has recently been incorporated into its Fleet

Marine Forces Manual (FMFM) 1-1, Campaigning.

Nevertheless, the meaning of maneuver warfare in terms of

actual tactics, organization for combat, and the internal

design of units has not always been clear. This is all the

more the case for the US Air Force, which has continued to

procure much the same aircraft as before and also has

continued to plan missions, allocate sorties, and attack

targets in a seemingly unchanged manner.

To address the relationship between air power and

maneuver warfare, including the logistic aspect of the latter,

this study is constructed as follows. Chapter 1 is analytical,

offering a discussion of the nature of maneuver warfare, its

dominant concepts, and the way of thought that it

represents . Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 consist of case studies.

Arranged in chronological order, they describe the German

campaigns in Spain (1936) and in France and the Low

Countries (1940), the German campaign in Russia (1941),

Soviet operational warfare (1941-45), and the Israeli

experience (1967 and 1973), respectively. The final chapter
from tactical

to operational,

with a corresponding shift in

the method of sortie allocation and aircraft mix. In

maneuver warfare, close-in battlefield interdiction is as

important as ever but is becoming increasingly an army

mission undertaken by attack helicopters and multiple

launch rocket systems (MLRS) . Further behind the enemy's

front, operational air warfare entails a shift away from

random attacks against supply lines towards a highly

focused effort to destroy follow-up forces, prevent counterattacks, and isolate the battlefield. This shift in the use of

air forces from tactical to operational is akin to using a

fission weapon as a trigger for a fusion device . Whereas

"tactical" merely uses the power of tactical aviation on its

own, "operational" leverages it and produces new levels of

synergy in the interactions of ground and air forces .

Notes

1 . Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Overseas Mission Study

(Washington, D.C. : Department of Defense, June 1991), 1-1.

2 .Ibid.

3 . Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free

Press, 1991), particularly chapter 2.

4. B. Nietschmann, "The Third World War," Cultural Survival

Quarterly 11, no. 3 (Fall 1987): 1-16.

xvi
Chapter 1

The Nature of the Beast

This chapter first discusses the fundamentals and the

basic underlying concepts of maneuver warfare. To add

depth, it then draws a comparison between maneuver-style

warfare on the one hand and attrition-style warfare on the

other. Finally, it discusses the implications of this type of

warfare for logistics.

As a style of war, maneuver is as old as war itself. This

does not mean that war can consist of maneuver alone,

although that may represent a desirable ideal in theory. In

practice, however, fighting and bloodshed almost always

form an integral part of warfare, for without them,

maneuver degenerates into sterile exercises and endless

shadowboxing as forces are moved about a chessboard.

Nevertheless, it is true that maneuver attempts to minimize

actual fighting. Before the fight, maneuver warfare seeks

ways to place the enemy at a disadvantage by taking up

favorable positions, or else by first taking on part of the

enemy's forces within a limited area so as to obtain a

subsequent advantage over the force as a whole. Once the

fight is over, it seeks to take maximum advantage of the

outcome by pursuing the enemy, keeping him off balance,

and striking into his vitals.

Historians often find the supreme model for maneuver

warfare in the campaigns of Napoleon, and with good

reason. The endless combinations and recombinations by

which he employed his corps d'armee, alternately dispersing

them in order to carry out operational movements and

bringing them together to confront the enemy, have never

been equaled. They formed the essence of the French

emperor's strategic genius, even to the point where, by

"inventing" strategy, he was able to overrun almost the

whole of Europe in a short period of no more than a few
years .' Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that few

commanders of any time or place have fought as many

great battles-batailles rangees-as did Napoleon . He

himself in his memoirs boasted of having commanded in 60

battles.

While the present usage of the term operational is

generally associated with units as large as a corps,

maneuver can apply to even the smallest units. An infantry

squad acting independently in difficult terrain could well

practice maneuver and even think operationally . An

illustrious example is then-Capt Erwin Rommel's account of

his actions in 1914-1918 as a platoon leader and company

group commander in a mountain infantry battalion. To the

extent that he based his operations less on firepower-in

fact, nothing heavier than machine guns was available to

him-than on movement, fluidity, leverage, and surprise,

his thinking and actions clearly anticipated his subsequent

actions as the "Desert Fox" commanding panzers (tanks).

Curiously enough, most of the notable German panzer

commanders in World War II had light infantry or scout

cavalry backgrounds .

In small-unit operations, the essence of maneuver consists

of "stealth and stalking." It is a question of exploiting the

terrain, maintaining cover, and jockeying for position, all

the while waiting for the opportune moment to arrive . In

this respect, it is much like the hunter, or jaeger. In fact,

jaeger units are the source of many of the tactics practiced

in maneuver warfare.

The maneuver of larger units is necessarily more difficult

and surprise harder to achieve because of the size of the

logistic apparatus required. In practice, it will often amount

to pinning the enemy's front and attacking his flanks and

rear. The British military critic B. H. Liddell Hart used to

compare the process to a boxer who uses one arm to parry

his opponent's punches and draw his attention while striking

with the other. Gen George S. Patton, always colorful, spoke

of holding him by the nose and kicking him in the pants.

2
When no flanks exist, artificial ones must be created.

Concentration should be used, and surprise achieved, to

effect an early breakthrough . The next step is to push

forward while dealing with counterattacks or, better still, to

prevent them altogether (a leading task of air power). It is

necessary to drive wedges through the enemy forces, destroy

their cohesion, carve them up into separate parts, prevent

them from mounting counterattacks, and beat them in

detail-if possible by cutting their lines of communication

rather than by attacking their front.

For maneuver warfare to be put into practice, the first

vital element is tempo. Tempo is not the same as speed ; it

has perhaps been defined best by Col John Boyd, USAF,

Retired, as the observation-orientation-decision-action cycle,

sometimes called OODA Loop. Fighter pilots know the

concept from air-to-air combat as energy maneuverabilitya concept which was also initiated in the early 1960s by thenCaptain Boyd at Nellis Air Force Base (AFB), Nevada. The

idea is to get "inside" the loop by transitioning from one

mode of action to another before the other party can react.

As this happens, the opponent progressively loses coherence

in his actions. His situation is comparable to that of a chess

player who is allowed to make only one move for every two

made by his opponent. In ground combat, too, the idea is to

move faster than the other can react and to react faster than

the other can move. All this is done while aiming at fault

lines in the opposing array.

The second central theme in maneuver warfare is

Schwerpunkt, meaning focal effort at the center of gravity. It

is sometimes known as hitting the enemy at the right time

and place with the most force . Discerning this fault line is

not always easy. The Great Captain, or military leader, has

a knack for discerning it by a quick glance, or coup d'oeil, of

the battle area (from the 1960s on, the situation map) with

an experienced eye. Much is therefore intuitive . A good

analogy is the diamond cutter's technique of shattering a

3
diamond by tapping it at exactly the right place in exactly

the right direction with exactly the right amount of force.

The concept of Schwerpunkt is sometimes confused with

hitting the enemy where he is either strongest or weakest.

The first will lead to a head-on clash which, provided the

forces are at all equal, is likely to be both bloody and

indecisive; the latter will lead to attacking into dead ends,

scattering one's forces to no avail, and violating the principle

of maintaining the objective .

The really artistic touch, therefore, consists of finding a

spot that is both vital and weakly defended-a spot which,

as the campaigns of the Great Captain show, can be found in

almost any situation and under almost any circumstances.

Next, that spot should be developed so as to systematically

unravel the enemy's ability to react . For example, in high

mountains the natural centers of gravity are represented by

the widely spaced passes, since it is only by going through

them that an advance is possible . However, a defender

positioned on the slopes on both sides of a pass can easily

make a direct attack very difficult; hence, it is necessary to

outflank the defenses and take them from the rear. The

objective is to trap the defenders, force them to fight while

facing in the wrong direction, prevent their positions from

supporting each other, overrun them one by one, and

subsequently control the pass line. The defender may, of

course, try to counter this maneuver by stretching his

frontage on both sides . However, such an attempt will cause

him to run up against the normal dilemma confronted by

those who rely on a cordon defense: trying to be strong

everywhere, he will end up by being weak everywhere. This

dilemma is likely to be compounded by the lack of good

lateral communications across the front.

Assuming the enemy to be as intelligent as ourselves, we

expect him to attempt to protect his centers of gravity with

all the forces at his disposal. This leads us to the third

principal constituent of maneuver warfare-surprise.

Surprise can only be based on deception. To paraphrase Sun

4
Tzu, it is necessary to find out the enemy's intentions while

concealing one's own. One must pretend to be at point A

doing B while actually being at point C doing D; being at

point C, one must pretend to be at point A doing B. The

purpose of all this maneuvering-which can be very

complicated, time-consuming, and expensive-is to confuse

the opponent, throw him off balance, and introduce an

element of uncertainty into his plans . Once that is achieved,

it is a question-again paraphrasing Sun Tzu-of falling on

him "like a thunderbolt" with all the force that one can muster.

The fourth principal theme in maneuver warfare, and

often the least understood, is combined arms. Combined

arms is the grouping of diverse arms so that the strength of

each arm is brought to the fore so as to expose an enemy

weakness to another arm. An apt analogy would be the wellknown children's game of the intransitive "rock-scissorspaper" circle . Here, each element in the circle is able to deal

with the one coming after it while itself being vulnerable to

the one preceding it. Similarly, in maneuver warfare, tanks

should not be used to smash other tanks-which would

merely lead to head-on clashes and attrition-but enemy

artillery. Artillery is powerless against tanks; hence, it

should be used to combat infantry, which, in turn, is

powerless against it and if not killed will be forced to take

cover. The role of infantry is to neutralize the antitank arm

and that of the antitank arm is to deal with tanks.

To adduce another example of the principle in action,

medieval heavy cavalry acting on its own was once the

weakest of the arms ; elusive light cavalry, relying on the

bow for the long-distance work and on the sword or scimitar

for the coup de grace, was the strongest . So long as the

Crusaders relied solely on their heavily armored cavalry,

they were repeatedly beaten as the Arabs would entice them

to attack, allow them to exhaust themselves, and then

swarm around and annihilate them piecemeal . To counter

such tactics, the Crusaders themselves were forced to adopt

the combined arms system, originally adapted from the

5
Byzantines. Infantry, armed with pikes, provided shelter for

the other arms. Bow infantry caused the Arab bow cavalry

to maintain a respectful distance, and the heavy cavalry

waited for opportunities such as when the Arabs were

pinned against terrain obstacles or tripped by concentrated

bow firepower as they incautiously came too close to the

Crusader formation. At that point, heavy cavalry would

deliver an irresistible blow . Provided all the other

components were kept well in hand, opposing light cavalry

could not cope with this system, while one's own light

cavalry was used as an auxiliary arm for foraging, for

screening, and for filling gaps between the heavy cavalry

and the main body so as to minimize the danger of being

swarmed about.

The modern combined arms team likewise requires

diversity. Scouts should be light, particularly in the attack.

In the Wehrmacht, panzer reconnaissance units (i.e .,

motorcycle troops) were the elite within an elite. Light and

heavy infantry are required to complement the tank. The

antitank component is a distinct arm of its own. Tanks are

for attacking/exploiting in the offense and counterattacking

in the defense. The value of combined arms is obtained from

the coordination of their diversity, not in the sum of their

firepower scores .

Because tempo, surprise, and combined arms all mean the

rapid adaptation of available resources to a fleeting situation,

the fifth cardinal element of maneuver warfare is flexibility .

Flexibility is an ideal that everybody recognizes ; less

recognizable, however, are the ways in which it is achieved.

To be flexible, a military organization must be well rounded,

self-contained, and not too specialized. It must discourage

excessive standardization of component parts and allow

redundancy (which permits the organization to absorb hits

without impairing its ability to function) and even allow

some waste. Even when all these structural elements are in

place, the only factor that can guarantee flexibility is

training and still more training. While exercises designed to

6
ensure that smooth cooperation of all the different elements

are very important, they in themselves are not enough .

Rather, it is necessary to pit oneself against an active,

reactive opponent (i .e ., to use war games of every sort).

Finally, the sixth cardinal element of maneuver warfare is

a decentralized command that will permit flexibility. In a

rapidly moving, fluid battle or campaign, even the best

available communications system is unlikely to keep up

with the movement of forces . The amount of personnel,

equipment, procedures, and information needed to keep up

may well be so great as to cause clogging and thus impede

movement. The only way out of this dilemma is to rely on a

properly designed, properly rehearsed distribution of the

responsibility among the various command echelons. Lower

levels must be granted both the right and the means to exercise

their own initiative, adapt themselves to the situation, and

seize the opportune moment. In maneuver warfare, units

and commanders who merely follow orders-let alone wait

for them-are useless. The whole point, on the contrary, is

to make use of the "total independent commitment"-as the

Wehrmacht's regulations used to put it-of the troops from

the lowliest private up.

If troops are to use their own initiative, they must be

given insight into the army's objectives at one level, or

possibly even two, above their own. In other words, they

should be given mission-type orders that, in addition to

describing such matters as the overall situation, available

enemy intelligence, means to be used, assembly places,

demarcation lines, and jumping-off times, will explain the

purpose of each operation and the way in which it fits into

the plans of higher headquarters. Orders of this kind will

have the additional advantage of acting as a safeguard

against anarchy; however, they are not enough in themselves.

To carry out maneuver warfare effectively, commanders at

every level should have at their disposal means for

monitoring their subordinates that will be independent of those

subordinates' own reports-or, using a term first coined by
this author, a directed telescope. Most likely the telescope

will consist of specialized personnel (e .g., Patton's

"Household Cavalry") and equipment. Its exact nature will

depend on the situation as well as the available means.

Americans tend to find maneuver warfare counterintuitive . This may be because US armed forces since the

Civil War have had a long tradition of fighting from a

position of overwhelming material strength. For them, war

has often been a question of maximizing the blows that they

could deliver on the basis of available resources, then

exchanging blow for blow until the weaker side-almost

always the enemy-was attrited to the point of being no

longer combat capable . On top of this problem has come

linguistic confusion. As we saw, modern US Army maneuver

doctrine was deliberately modeled on the German precedent.

Nevertheless, even the best available translations cannot

render the exact meaning of the original language; in turn,

American terms often differ subtly from British ones. For

example, the very title of German keystone manual

HdV100/100 VS-Nfd, Fuehrung im Gefecht, can be variously

translated either as "Command and Control in Battle" or as

"Leadership in Combat." In the past, this and similar

problems have caused great confusion. Even after a decade

of explicit acceptance of German maneuver precepts, the US

Army's AirLand BattleFuture (Heavy) 2004 (January

1989), while couched in maneuver terms, was arguably a

halfway house between maneuver and attrition. The latest

US Marine Corps manuals (e .g., Fleet Marine Forces

Manual [FMFM] 1-3, Tactics) and the US Army's recent

concepts about the nonlinear battle do better at capturing

the German meaning.

At any one time, attrition warfare will have most units

on-line. These are organized homogenously based on the

belief that a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.

Operational reserves are small to nonexistent. Correspondingly, there are few divisions that can be rotated onand off-line to rest combat units and to integrate and train

8
replacements. Maneuver warfare, by contrast, will usually

screen the front and have only a minority of all the troops in

action; the majority will be held ready in reserve so they can

not only engage in training and reorganization but prepare

to operate on a surge basis . Units are heterogenous in

quality with the best units leading the attack and the

remainder following and consolidating the gains.

Attrition war is linearly oriented, with units packed

closely together and with flanks tied in tightly. Maneuver

war is thrust-line oriented, with wide, and often unequal

and variable gaps between attacking thrusts . Gaps are seen

as setting up opportunities. Thus, there is an orthogonal

(right-angle) relationship between attrition and maneuver

warfare. Attrition seeks to smash the enemy assets one by

one until few or none are left. Maneuver seeks to break up

the various kinds of glue (logistic flows, command and

control, the capability for coordination and mutual

reinforcement) that bind them together even to the point

where they will no longer be able to put up a coherent

resistance . Attrition warfare takes aim at the enemy's

strengths ; maneuver warfare, at his weaknesses . 2

Regardless of the size of the engagement, attrition focuses

on the immediate battlefield and often results in massive

bloodshed. Maneuver seeks to avoid both the battlefield and

the bloodshed by moving to the next highest operational

level; in other words, it seeks to decide the tactical

engagement by using grand tactics, the grand tactical

engagement by using operational art, and the operationalsized engagement by resorting to strategy. This, of course, is

another reason why such warfare requires commanders to

be trained to think at least one level of war (preferably two)

higher than the one in which they themselves are operating.

Acting on the defense, attrition warfare puts the bulk of

its forces well forward while attempting to create and hold

long, continuous fronts covered by natural obstacles that

serve to slow and stop the enemy so he can be destroyed by

firepower. By contrast, an army engaging in maneuver

9
warfare will only screen its front, and that front may well

have gaps deliberately built into it. Obstacles serve purely to

deflect the enemy thrust so as to set up counterattacks .

Attrition warfare avoids linear obstacles because they

inhibit counterattacks. Meanwhile, the bulk of the forces are

held back far enough to put them out of harm's way;

subjected to an attack, a maneuver-oriented army will first

give way and then, after the attacker has exposed his flanks

and possibly overextended himself, rely on a swift, sharp

counterattack carried out without waiting for orders from

the next highest command echelon. In attrition warfare,

attack and defense will be sharply differentiated, whereas in

maneuver warfare the difference will be much smaller

because both will consist of the interplay of thrusts and

counterthrusts.

The terms defense and front raise the issue of

force-to-space ratios, which for many years have been a

salient factor in arms control and in studies purporting to

measure the military balance in Europe. 3 Since the units are

static and the firepower that weapons can bring to bear

limited, attrition warfare always demands a defensive

"minimal" regardless of the opponent's strength. 4 Otherwise,

gaps will appear and flanks cannot be tied in. By contrast,

maneuver warfare is fluid by definition. Hence, not only can

it make do with much lower force-to-space ratios but may

actually relish them. A defense acting in such a way may

well hold its own against an attacker outnumbering it by

three to one and even more. There were many instances of

this kind on the Eastern Front in 1943-45, whereas the best

example of all is arguably the one presented by the Israeli

defense of the Golan Heights in 1973 .

To understand the nature of the advantage enjoyed by the

maneuver-based defense, it is perhaps most convenient to

follow Carl von Clausewitz . By his logic, the tactical defense

enjoys three cardinal advantages : surprise, the benefit of the

terrain, and concentric attack. 5 Surprise favors the defender

because, unlike the attacker whose moves must take place

10
in the open, he can mask both his positions and the

movements that take place behind them. Terrain favors the

defender because he can furnish it with all kinds of

obstacles, although it should be explicitly noted that, to

Clausewitz, the value of such obstacles consists less of their

own inherent strength than of the possibilities they offer for

using the unexpected to confront an attacker who tries to

move through them. Finally, though the attacker may be in

a better position than the defender to envelop the opponent's

entire force, the defender is better able to launch concentric

attacks against parts, or segments, of the enemy force that

have broken through and thus have detached themselves

from logistic support as well as control from the rear. Note

that all three advantages will accrue to the defender only in

case he is mobile or at least retains an operational reserve

(in other words, the extent to which he engages in maneuver

warfare).s

In attrition warfare, the defense relies on the strength of

its prepared positions and confronts the attack head on. In a

maneuver defense, the basic tactic from which all variations

are run is the side step, like that of the bullfighting

matador. This is as true for light infantry in mountains as it

is for heavy armor in flat terrain. The German "room

defense" tactic provides for a series of side-stepping

maneuvers at each command level from company to corps

and reaches to a considerable depth. Shoulders and sides of

the penetrated area are held. Flanking units are usually not

withdrawn (i .e ., they are not taken back to phase lines

parallel to the front) . The depth to which the enemy is

permitted to penetrate depends on his strength and

availability of reserves, as well as the nature of the defended

area and political considerations . On the Eastern Front in

World War II, there were at least two cases when depths

reached 100-200 kilometers-Operation Blau (Blue) in May

1942 and Field Marshal Erich von Manstein's counteroffensive in the Ukraine early in 1943. In the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO), the Germans used to have a

11
declaratory posture of a rigid defense on German soil until

an enemy thrust reached about 40 kilometers (km). This

provided time to bring up operational reserves and to stretch

out and overextend an attacking thrust in preparation for a

counterstroke against weak, elongated flanks as well as

against any isolated attacking units that might have broken

through. In many ways, this is the old Cannae model that

has so permeated German military thinking since the Battle

of Sedan in 1870.

Attrition and maneuver also differ in the way weapons are

employed. The former uses them in order to destroy as many

targets as possible as rapidly as possible; the latter uses

them to bring about specific tactical situations considered

favorable by the commander. To continue the NATO

defensive reasoning as explained in the last paragraph, the

Germans planned to use multiple launch rocket systems

(MLRS) to canalize the attacker's movements even before he

reached one's own forward edge of the battle area (FEBA).

Thus, the "canal" in which he moved would be made deeper,

with a corresponding reduction of the depth to which he

would be allowed to penetrate into friendly territory. By

such means the attacker's freedom of movement would be

reduced. As soon as the direction of the enemy thrust

became known, the side stepping would begin and other

sectors could be denuded of troops who would be free to

counterattack. All this, to repeat, is possible only provided

the defender subscribes to maneuver warfare. Attempting to

practice attrition against a superior opponent, he probably

would not be able to counter the attacker's Schwerpunkt in

time and, consequently, would lose at least the battle or at

most the war.

Logistically speaking, a major advantage of maneuver

warfare-and one that has important implications for air

power-is that armed forces so oriented require significantly

less support than do positionally oriented ones tending towards

attrition. This phenomenon is manifest in comparative

teeth-to-tail ratios. In World War II, the German army had

12
total army divisional slices of approximately 31,000 men.

Soviet ones were leaner still . Meanwhile, those of the

American, British, and Canadian divisional slices exceeded

64,000.

Moreover, the German and Soviet armies fought a

protracted conflict over vast areas largely devoid of a

modern infrastructure . Their troops, particularly Soviet

ones, may have had to do without some of the comforts

available to the Western Allies ; yet on the battlefield, these

troops, the infantrymen in particular, were much more

liberally supplied with the things that mattered (i.e .,

automatic weapons). At a time when American GIs were

still toting their single-shot M-1s (and British Tommies

their World War I Lee-Enfields), the Germans had

introduced the Sturmgewehr and the Soviets the avtomat

kalasnikova (AK) . Furthermore, the German and Soviet

armies, unlike the US Army, were liberally equipped with

mortars and light machine guns . And by- utilizing the

organizational device of artillery divisions, the Soviet

General Staff (Stavka) ensured that there would be more

artillery support available at the decisive moment-that is,

during breakthrough operations . Correspondingly, German

and Soviet divisional subunits had less organic support built

into their tables of organization and equipment (TOE) and

less corps and army-level support than did the American,

British, and Canadian armies .

Historians have sought to explain this divergence in

teeth-to-tail ratios by reference to protracted war and living

off the land. The first of these arguments assumes that a

protracted war requires more maintenance and sustaining

support than does a short one, when in fact it is more the

result of an army's doctrinal style and the organization

devised to support that style. The second argument

misrepresents the nature of modern warfare. It is true that

both the German and Soviet armies stripped the countries

through which they passed . Engaging in widespread and

systematic robbery, the Wehrmacht in Russia was even able

13
to procure some 50 percent of its food supply on the spot.

However, this only went so far in meeting the logistic

requirements, given that these requirements consisted very

largely not of food and fodder but of ammunition; petroleum,

oil, and lubricants (POL); and spare parts .

It is, of course, true that Soviet and German forces were

much less motorized than Western ones, relying as they did

on railways on the one hand and horse-drawn transport on

the other. Still, this cannot explain the fact that a German

panzer division operating in the Western Desert required

only 300 tons of supplies a day to remain fully operational

as compared to 600-650 tons for an American armored

division in France in 1944-45. 7 Rather, the real answer

seems to lie in (1) the use of artillery, (2) the tempo of

operations, and (3) the organization .

Linear armies attack and advance ponderously across the

front. Since there is little significant weighting of the attack,

artillery and close air support play major roles in facilitating

the advance of tanks and infantry. In contrast, maneuver

armies attack along narrow, highly focused sectors. These

sectors receive overwhelming priority in allocation of

firepower support whereas other sectors only receive a

pittance and are to do little more than "demonstrate" to

their front. Moreover, even in the attack, maneuver armies

do not use artillery until the last moment so as to avoid

telegraphing intentions ahead of time. When it is used,

artillery fire is sharp and intense with the purpose of

stunning the enemy rather than killing him. All this means

that, for the campaign as a whole, tonnage requirements are

much less. The same applies to the quantities of transport

and engineering, as well as to the support and maintenance

services that these functions themselves require.

Tempo sharply reduces casualties and logistic demands.

This is the logical result of maneuver impacting the enemy

before he can react coherently. The Soviets in their detailed

postbattle studies (table 1) made elaborate correlations

demonstrating this phenomenon. Their data show that, in

14
addition to reduced demands for ammunition and fuel, fastbreaking advances of 20-50 kilometers a day resulted in

three times less personnel losses and 1 .5 times less tank

losses than when the tempo of advance was 4-10 kilometers

per day. 8

Table 1

Expenditure of Tank Armies

per 100 Kilometers of Advance

(Experience of the Great Patriotic War)

Forms of Expenditure Rate of 16-45 km/day Rate of 4.5-13 km/day

Expenditure of ammunition 0.25 1 .5

units of fire

Expenditure of diesel fuel 0.7 2.0

for T-34 Tank

Source: V. Y. Savkin, The Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics (A Soviet View), trans . and

published under the auspices of the USAF (Washington, D.C. : Government Printing Office, 1972), 137.

Finally, the implications of tempo and use of artillery are

reflected in the manner by which maneuver armies are

organized. Attrition armies are organized with relatively

few divisions . In World War II, the US Army had but 89

divisions and the US Marine Corps (USMC) only six, even

though the overall size of US ground forces was as large as

that of the German and Soviet armies, which had many

times more divisions . American divisions were organized to

remain on-line in the attack and defense for prolonged

periods; German and Soviet divisions were not. Because they

were designed for prolonged combat, American divisions and

corps had organic, built-in logistics for conducting the attack

and defense. They were not designed for agility and

high-tempo operations . Nor, given their small number with

most of them on line, was there much opportunity for

differentiation in the amount of logistic support organic to

and in support of these divisions. Thus, in table 2, we see

that while soldiers eat the same wherever they may be on

the battlefield, their use of ammunition, fuel, and spares

15
varies as much as 13 :1 for ammunition, 6 :1 for fuel, and 3 :1

for spares according to their division's task in the battle.

Maneuver armies recognize and capitalize on this

phenomenon. Attrition armies do not and cannot. Today's US

Army and USMC espouse maneuver doctrine; however, their

organizational practice remains premised on attrition style

warfare.

Another facet of supply for maneuver warfare is that

forward, adjacent, and reserve divisions and corps must have

common logistics though not necessarily common weapons.

The NATO principle that logistical provision is a national

responsibility becomes inoperable with adoption of the

alliance's new operational concept of counterconcentration .

National provision has always caused commanders

heartburn; still, it may have been workable as long as

nations fought along a cordon in well-defined sectors and

breaks in the defense chain were supposed to trigger nuclear

Table 2

Divisional Estimated Requirement Rates Daily (Tons)

Heavily Opposed or Lightly Opposed or Average Totals

Major Axis Minor Axis Maximum

AMMO FUEL AMMO FUEL RATIONS SPARES Minimum

MRa/Tkb MR/Tk MR/rk MR/Tk MR/Tk MRfTk MR/Tk

Breakthrough 520/480 700/610 280/260 400/370 30/28 120/85 1370/1200

830/740

Defense 580/520 320/300 370/330 200/180 30/28 80/50 1010/900

680/590

Pursuit 66/63 900/810 44/40 590/550 30/28 60/40 1055/940

730/660

Reserve 140/120 230/200 88/80 160/140 30/28 35/25 435/375

315/275

Source: Royal Military Academy, The Sustainability of the Soviet Army in Battle (Sandhurst, Eng., Soviet

Studies Research Centre, September 1986), 23 . (This study and its annexes have many useful charts and

monographs relating to Soviet operations, artillery suppression, and logistical support.)

a = Motorized Rifle Division

b = Tank Division

16
responses. Over the years, though, the latter lost its

credibility. NATO's operational brittleness and its inability

to assist collapsing corps by reinforcing or counterattacking

were the principal reasons why the alliance was so militarily

weak even though its overall firepower scores compared

favorably with those of the Warsaw Pact. Among NATO's

corps, only the three interspersed German corps had a

cross-corps capability because they could tap the assets of

the German Territorial Army. All other corps were tethered

to their own sectors because of the need to accompany

counterattacking columns with cumbersome, nationally

dedicated logistical trains.

As of the last decade of the twentieth century, NATO's

new force structure blueprint and operational concept are

incompatible with its existing mode of logistic provision .

Structuring by multinational corps compounds the

difficulties. Maneuver is not possible if numerous different

national "umbilical cords of supply" are twisting around

each other as their combat heads attempt to jostle for

advantage against a maneuvering opponent in a low

force-to-space setting. And even if this twisting, tangled

mess could be sorted out somehow, maneuver would still

be inhibited by unnecessarily clogged roads as logistic

trains trail long behind national divisions. Maneuver must

be consummated before the enemy can coherently react ; if

this is not done, then maneuver becomes mere movement .

The solution to NATO's present problem is apparent.

Logistic support within divisions is highly integrated, penny

packeted, and difficult to change. However, the same is not

true for logistic arrangements above division.

Except for personnel and equipment for specific units like

medical and weapons system maintenance, most corps

support units need not be present in peacetime and can be

provided by host-nation support in wartime.

For any European-based multinational corps trying to wage

maneuver warfare, changing the existing system of logistic

support is an operational imperative . Such an approach

17
would also ease three of the most pressing concerns in

basing US troops in Europe-costs, equitable burden

sharing, and local community interest in maintaining

military bases . Centralizing logistics in this manner would

allow a 25 percent reduction in US Army peacetime

personnel strength . Most logistic tasks can be accomplished

by assigning them to in-place divisional support commands

for normal peacetime demands and by local contracting for

peak peacetime demands (and training and familiarization

for wartime tasking under the auspices of German regional

commands, formerly termed Territorial Army).

Now to the other side of the logistic equation, namely

denying supplies to the enemy. It is evident that for linearly

deployed, attrition-oriented ground forces to achieve victory

by strangulation is impossible . They are designed for

pushing the enemy back and generally lack the agility for

piercing his front and pinching off large formations .

Experience in Italy (1943-45), Korea (1950-53), and

Vietnam (1965-73) also shows that it is almost equally

difficult for a land air force to reduce the enemy's logistic

support to the point where he is no longer able to resist. By

contrast, maneuver-oriented forces will have many

opportunities to act against the other side's lines of

communications (LOC). Advancing into the enemy's rear

even though his front is still intact, they will be in a position

to overrun bases, tear up railroads, block roads, and

intercept convoys of every kind. This capability can be seen

clearly in the history of every war of maneuver from France

in 1940 through Suez in 1973 to the Gulf in 1991 . Air power

fits into this formulation by supporting maneuver. Without

air, maneuver cannot be consummated; and air, by

inhibiting enemy maneuver, facilitates one's own maneuver.

Air itself accomplishes little in attacking supplies and LOCs .

If the enemy's supplies-particularly fuel, which is most

readily interchangeable-can be captured through high

rates of advance rather than destroyed, so much the better;

again, there are many examples of this in the history of war

18
during the last few decades. 9 Furthermore, in war the effect

of morale to material forces is as three to one. Nothing is

more demoralizing to troops than to learn of the presence of

an enemy to their rear. As a result, they will often be beaten

long before their supplies actually run out.

To those who are unfamiliar with its basic concepts,

maneuver warfare often looks like some kind of esoteric

magic whose objective is to obtain something for nothing. In

fact, it is nothing of the kind; rather, following ideas familiar

to all great commanders (though most clearly expressed by

the Chinese writer Sun Tzu), it is based on the way we

perceive the enemy and, by implication, the nature of our

duel with him. Its starting premise is that the enemy

resembles us . Therefore, he needs to be approached not as

an assembly of "targets" to be destroyed one by one but as a

living, intelligent entity capable of acting and reacting.

Simple as that idea may be, we have seen how, in the field of

operations and logistics alike, this way of looking at the

enemy leads to concepts and methods that are radically

different from those of attrition warfare and, in some cases,

counterintuitive . Having explored the nature of the beast,

we shall take a more detailed look in the following chapters

at the way air power has been used to support and, in some

cases, decide war.

1 9
Notes

1. David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (New York:

Macmillan, 1966), pt. 4.

2. Under the German system, this was known as Flachen-und-Luecken

Taktik (literally "surface-and-hole tactics") .

3. For an excellent comparative analysis of the so-called bean count

models on their own terms, see Natalie J. Goldring, The Conventional

Balance: How Far beyond the Bean Count Are We? a report of the

Defense Budget Project (Washington, D.C. : The Project, June 1989). All

these models unwittingly premise the attrition approach to war, as do

virtually all Lanchester and quantitative models.

4. See B. H. Liddell Hart, "The Ratio of Forces to Space," in Europe,

Deterrent or Defense, ed. B. H. Liddell Hart (New York: Praeger, 1960),

94-109.

5 . Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret

(Princeton, N.J . : Princeton University Press, 1976), bk. 6, chap. 2 .

6. Clausewitz's reasoning leads to the paradoxical conclusion that

whereas the defender has the advantage in flatlands, in mountains the

advantage lies with the attacker. This is because there will be no

opportunity in broken terrain for the defender to carry out concentric

attacks . For a similar contemporary German view, see Lt Gen

Hans-Henning von Sandrart, "Forward Defence: Mobility and the Use of

Barriers," in NATO's Sixteen Nations, no. 1/85: 41-43 . The German

meaning of mobile defense is not synonymous with the American

meaning. "Fluid" for "mobile" gives a more accurate rendering. Period

papers from General von Sandrart's immediate successors as army chief

(Generals von Ondarza and Naumann) exhibit similar thinking.

7. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to

Patton (London: Cambridge University Press, 1978), chap. 5 and 7.

8. V. Y. Savkin, The Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics:

(A Soviet View), trans. and published under the auspices of the USAF

(Washington, D.C. : Government Printing Office, 1974), 136.

9. German general Erwin G. Rommel at Tobruk in May 1942

captured sufficient fuel to carry him to El Alamein; conversely, the

failure of the Germans to capture a million gallons of American fuel

during the Ardennes offensive in 1944 played a critical role in their

failure.

20
Chapter 2

Maneuver Warfare in Action

Early German Campaigns

This chapter first outlines the background of the German

system of "operational" warfare. Next, it examines how the

Luftwaffe was built in conformity with this system and

tested during the Spanish Civil War and the Polish

campaign of 1939 . Finally, it shows how the Luftwaffe fit

into the French campaign of 1940, where it achieved its

greatest triumph.

The key thought on which everything depends is

Clausewitz's view that a country's strength consists in its

armed forces ; therefore, the great goal to strive for is the

defeat of the enemy's armed forces.' Such a doctrine, seeking

to end the war by a quick decision, was well suited to the

status of Prussia, the smallest of the five great powers until

the second half of the nineteenth century. It continued to

dominate German intellectual preparation for the two world

wars. Looking backward, we tend to see Germany as a

colossus that twice made a bid for global domination and

almost succeeded in its attempts. That, however, was not

the way the Germans saw themselves . With national

unification coming very late, they thought of Germany as

continuing to be a relatively small, poor country. In their

minds, moreover, it was a nation that had the misfortune of

being located in the center of Europe and was therefore

constantly threatened by the surrounding powers whose

combined demographic, economic, and military resources

were greater than its own.

Still following Clausewitz (in fact, admitting that

Clausewitz was the greatest single influence on his military

thought), 2 Helmuth von Moltke (1800-1891), chief of the

German General Staff, believed that to defeat the armed

forces of the enemy it was necessary to confront him in

21
battle. However, the resources of the modern state were so

great and its territory so large that not even the largest

frontal battle could be expected to lead to decisive results.

Even if the battle were won, the outcome would merely be to

push the opponent back along his line of communications

until he came to some other position, usually a river or a

defile at which to make a fresh stand. As the invader

advances, his numbers diminish due to the need to leave

garrisons and occupy the country. As the victor moves

farther and farther away from his bases of supply, the

defeated party falls back on his own. According to the

doctrine of the "culminating point," the winner might even

end up by finding himself in a worse situation than at the

beginning. In essence, the problem consists not so much of

gaining a battle as turning a victory into a decisive one by

preventing the enemy from making good his retreat.

Thus, the use of space and time in order to bring about not

just a battle but a decisive battle stood at the heart of the

German method of making war. In modern English, the

system of movements that this involves is known as

maneuver; the Germans themselves called it operieren. This

is not to say that it was original with them. Like everybody

else, they received the idea of war as a series of operations

directed into the enemy's rear from Napoleon by way of

Antoine Jomini and Clausewitz and, after them, a whole

bevy of lesser luminaries. As even a superficial reading of

the literature will confirm, Napoleon was in many ways the

grand master against whom everybody else measured

himself. His example continued to dominate military

thought throughout the nineteenth century and right up to

World War I.

This operational doctrine was put to the test for the first

time in the wars of 1866 and 1870-71. In both campaigns,

the Prussian/German field armies, making use of the

railways and being controlled by telegraph, deployed along

what were, by contemporary European standards, extremely

broad fronts . Organized in massive groupings that

22
numbered over 100,000 men each, they entered the enemy's

country from two or three different directions at once .

Although operating independently of each other, they were

still able to carry out a series of coordinated maneuvers

designed to bring them onto the enemy's flank and rear.

There were great German victories at Koenniggraetz and

Sedan when these farces came together to crush the enemy.

As Moltke himself was later to explain to historian Heinrich

von Treitschke, this kind of concentric operation represented

"the highest that strategy could achieve.

"3

The purpose of the German doctrine was to achieve quick

and total victory by encircling the enemy. Hence it was

known as Kesselschlacht, literally "pot battle" (perhaps in

memory of the French general who, finding himself

surrounded at Sedan in 1870, said that "nous sommes dans

un pot de chambre et nous y serrons emerdees"). A quarter

century after it had first been put into practice, the doctrine

was given incomparably brilliant theoretical formulation by

one of Moltke's successors as chief of the General Staff, Graf

Alfred von Schlieffen . Von Schlieffen explained in his

Cannae Studien that from the time of Hannibal,

maneuvering against the enemy's flank and rear in order to

sever his communications had always been the one decisive

move in war, whereas everything else merely led to

"ordinary" victories . 4

When the Germans went to war in 1914, they hoped to

achieve a quick decision by going around the enemy and

maneuvering their forces against his flank and rear. This

time, however, their maneuver was planned on a gigantic

scale and designed to cover not just a few frontier provinces

but an entire country. In actuality, these plans proved too

ambitious . While the size of armies had increased tenfold

since 1870, there had been no corresponding revolutionary

developments either in transport or in command and

control . 5 This meant that both sides, but the Germans in

particular, still depended mainly on rails and horses for the

former and on wires for the latter. The advance, which

23
aimed at nothing less than taking the French armies in the

rear and crushing them against their own border

fortifications, faltered and ran out of control before being

brought to a halt at the Battle of the Marne. 6 The

inconclusive race to the sea that followed proved that, in the

kind of mobility that formed the keystone of the operational

style of war, the Germans possessed little or no real

advantage over their opponents.

The struggle of attrition that developed from late 1914 on

was in many ways the opposite of the German style of war

and just what it had always sought to avoid. Paradoxically,

however, that very stalemate was of great assistance in the

development of air power and, specifically, air-to-ground

cooperation. When the war broke out, air power was in its

infancy . Its only previous use had been by the Italians, who,

when fighting the Senussi in Libya, relied on aeroplanes to

track their nomadic enemies and toss the occasional grenade

at them.? No country as yet possessed an independent air

force (US aircraft were assigned to the Signal Corps), and

the method commonly used was to distribute the few

available planes to armies and corps, which employed them

for reconnaissance purposes . When war broke out,

encounters between reconnaissance aircraft on both sides

soon led to pilots using carbines and pistols to take potshots

at each other. Both sides quickly saw the need to protect

their reconnaissance machines with specialized fighters, and

so air-to-air combat was born .

By 1916 the air squadrons of both sides-it being too early

to speak of air forces-were carrying out many of the types

of missions later associated with air power. In addition to

reconnaissance and air-to-air combat, these missions

included observation for artillery; attacks on enemy

positions with grenades, light bombs, and machine guns;

interdiction of ground forces; and attacks on airfields, lines

of communications, supply dumps, and military installations

of every kind behind the front.$ By the end of the war, both

sides had added strategic bombing aimed at the enemy's

24
civilian war industries, transportation networks, and

centers of population to their repertoire . However, the scale

on which the last-named type of missions were carried out

was minuscule, proving to be almost irrelevant to the

outcome of the conflict.

Air-to-air combat and strategic bombing constitute

independent missions that can be carried out even in the

absence of good air-to-ground and ground-to-air

communications. However, if air power is to be of assistance

to armies in the field, it is critical that good communications

be established between them. In fact, though a few aircraft

were equipped with primitive radios beginning in 1918, no

such communications were available to any belligerent

during World War I. Pilots had to make do with improvised

devices . They tried to communicate with the ground by

wagging their wings, giving blasts on horns, writing out

messages on pieces of paper that were then wrapped around

weights or put into containers and dropped overboard.

Conversely, ground troops who wanted to communicate with

friendly aircraft or simply to make sure that their own

positions would not be bombed or strafed by them had to

rely on pieces of colored cloth, smoke, and flare signals fired

from Very pistols. 9

The stationary nature of the war made it easier to use

such primitive communications for air-to-ground

cooperation. Except in darkness or when the weather was

bad, the massive trench systems bisecting the countryside to

a depth of several miles on each side constituted the best

possible means of identifying the location of one's own troops

and that of the enemy. This made it relatively easy for pilots

to avoid attacks on friendly forces. Also, since the absence of

operational freedom meant that the vast majority of

large-scale moves on both sides were purely frontal, there

was normally no clear center of gravity or decisive point.

Under such circumstances, the decision as to which enemy

forces to attack and when and where to attack them was less

an operational problem than a technical and tactical one. In

25
other words, what support air power could give to ground

forces was made possible precisely by the fact that the war

was, for the most part, not fluid but rigid. Conversely, if air

power was to be effectively used in the kind of operational

war beloved by the Germans, then a lot would depend on

devising better technical means for air-to-ground and

ground-to-air communications-a point that was not wasted

on the air force commanders of the time . to

Stalemate at the front also had the effect of shifting the

main burden to each country's demographic-economicindustrial basis. In this competition, the Germans were

confronted by the combined resources of almost the entire

world and were, as they had always feared, unable to match

their enemies in the long run. Much of their conduct of the

war can therefore be seen as a series of attempts to break

the deadlock and restore operational freedom, first in the

east and then-having gained the upper hand there-in the

west. As the ultimate failure of the great 1918 offensives

showed, the technical means that would enable logistic

support to follow on the heels of rapidly advancing assault

troops and the troops themselves to be commanded by rear

headquarters were just not available ."

In the end, operational success eluded the Germans. Still,

their ability to punch holes through the Allied trench

systems was demonstrated time and again, thus showing

that they were at least tactically on the right track.

Following these events, German military thought between

the world wars revolved almost entirely around the problem

of restoring operational freedom and, with it, the kind of war

they favored and in which they were supposed to excel . The

ideal of the Kesselschlacht remained unaltered; the question

was how to gain the freedom of movement necessary for

carrying it out. The conventional solution, repeatedly

advocated by Chief of Staff Hans von Seeckt during the

early twenties, was to rely on highly trained infantry forces

employing 1918-style infiltration tactics on a larger scale

while taking advantage of every kind of modern weapon,

26
including the air force . 12 This was never very convincing,

and during the thirties a group of younger officers began to

look at "fast forces" (schnelle Truppen) as the solution to

restoring mobility and thus allowing maneuvers aimed at

the enemy's flank and rear. 13 The debate had by no means

been resolved when war broke out in 1939 . Some five-sixths

of the Wehrmacht's entire order of battle still consisted of

infantry divisions; and there were many military leaders,

beginning with Gen Ludwig Beck, the chief of the Army

General Staff (resigned March 1938), who doubted whether

it could be done at all.

During this period, the Germans, with the significant

exception of Gen Erich von Ludendorff of World War I

fame, 14 also continued to regard war primarily' as a question

of one armed force fighting another. Along with everybody

else, they tended to exaggerate the extent of the damage

that strategic bombardment could inflict; war games

conducted by the Army General Staff during the mid-1930s

proceeded on the assumption that within a few days of the

beginning of hostilities, a dozen or so German border towns

would be in flames . 15 However, with some exceptions,16 they

did not accept the theories of Gen Giulio Douhet, Alexander

de Seversky, and others . 17 Douhet had sought to shift the

focus of hostilities away from the armed forces ; instead of

devising better ways in which they could fight and defeat

each other, he hoped to make their struggle unnecessary by

going after the civilian population instead. His approach did

not commend itself to the Germans both because they

claimed to have the best armed forces of all and because

they believed, correctly as it turned out, that strategic

bombardment, even if ultimately successful, would require a

long-term massive effort that they could ill afford. 18 Instead,

their work during the entire period was aimed at finding

better ways in which air power might assist the ground

forces and thus help them achieve an operational victory.

When Hitler began rebuilding the Luftwaffe during the

mid-1930s, these ideas were reflected in its first operations

27
manual (1935) . 19 Entitled Die Luftkriegfuehrung-literally,

"The Conduct of Air Warfare"-the manual was signed by

the first chief of staff of the Luftwaffe, Gen Walther Wever.

It opened by reasserting the traditional German belief that

the enemy's center of gravity lay in his armed forces and

that those forces could only be defeated by the combined

action of all three services. 20 The first mission of the

Luftwaffe, overriding all others, was to gain air superiority

either by attacks on the enemy airfields or by air-to-air

combat. 21 Next, the manual cut across our current

distinctions between the tactical and the strategic; instead,

it put the emphasis on the operativ by which Wever, using

standard German terminology, meant the maneuvers of

large units from division to army group size. Air power was

to contribute to victory by attacking military objectives that

were quite broadly defined. 22 On the other hand, attacks

having as their sole objective the terrorization of the enemy

civilian population were explicitly forbidden as being both

counterproductive and contrary to the law of war.

The Luftwaffe's operations in support of the land forces

were divided into unmittelbar ("direct") and mittelbar

("indirect") . Unmittelbare Unterstuetzung, literally "direct

support," which Wever and a majority of officers considered

to be of lesser importance, stood for what we today would

call direct battlefield support. Besides reconnaissance and

artillery observation, it included both bombing and strafing.

Mittelbare Unterstuetzung carried connotations of maneuver,

leverage, and choke points . It stood for operational warfare

behind the front, including strikes at lines of communications, supply bases, and reserves as well as missions against

"the sources of the enemy's strength" (Kraftquellen) such as

armament factories ; however, as already explained, it

excluded the bombardment of the civilian population. 23 All

this was very much in line with Clausewitz, Moltke,

Schlieffen, and even the rather less well-developed ideas of

Seeckt. 24 On the other hand, it rejected both those who

envisaged modern war as a "total" struggle of attrition

28
between entire social systems and the more rabid advocates

of strategic air power who hoped that aircraft would be able

to win wars all on their own. 25

The first opportunity the Germans had to put their

rediscovered operational doctrine to the test was in Spain.

Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July

1936, the Luftwaffe dispatched nine Ju-52 transport aircraft

that played a critical role in bringing Gen Francisco Franco's

forces over from Africa to the homeland. Subsequently, the

Condor Legion, commanded by Gen Hugo Sperrle with Col

Wolfram von Richthofen acting as chief of staff, was

expanded. At its peak, it was comprised of about 5,000 men

and 100-150 aircraft, including liaison and reconnaissance

machines, ground-attack aircraft, fighters, light bombers,

and transports (Ju-52s) that were occasionally able to

double as bombers. This organization never exceeded more

than one-third of all the air forces fighting on Franco's side,

including both Spanish and Italian. The German

contribution in ground troops was nil.

If the Germans had hoped to make Spain into a showcase

of modern operativ warfare, they were disappointed. Spain,

by virtue of its geography, was not a single theater of war

but several. The various provinces are separated by

mountain chains . They have a markedly dissimilar

character and are often linked solely by a handful of roads

that twist and wind their way through high passes. During

wintertime some of the passes are usually blocked by snow.

Much of the terrain is very broken and rugged, offering little

scope for sweeping operations by large mechanized forces

even if such forces had been available to either side. Both

the nature of the terrain and the fact that this was, after all,

one of the poorest countries in Europe meant that many,

perhaps most, supplies had to be carried in horse-drawn

wagons or even on the backs of pack animals. The

commanders of the Condor Legion, trying to establish their

forward headquarters at places where they could observe

the action, routinely relied on horses . 26

29
Besides, this was not simply a trinitarian conflict between

the armies of two opposing states . Instead, it was a

many-fronted civil struggle in which operativ warfaredrawing arrows on a map, cutting lines of communication,

overrunning bases, encircling the enemy's armed forcescounted for little . General Franco's own military experience

had been gained almost entirely in colonial warfare in the

Sahara. Perhaps for this reason, among others, he and his

advisers put great value on guaranteeing the political

security of one province before proceeding to conquer the

nextpoco a poco (stage by stage), as his deputy, Gen

Emilio Mola Vidal, once put it. 27 The character of the

struggle was such that objectives were sometimes of great

symbolic value; they could not simply be bypassed,

abandoned, or ignored. As a result, throughout the war,

Franco repeatedly rejected his German advisers' proposals

for launching bold strokes deep into the enemy's rear or for

going straight toward the center of his power. Three

instances come to mind.

In the summer of 1937, Franco refused to advance directly

to Madrid, preferring to conquer the northwestern provinces

first. In February 1938, considerations of prestige caused

him to refuse to bypass the town of Teruel south of Madrid.

That same summer, he refused to carry out another

would-be decisive stroke, rejecting a northward move from

the river Ebro into Catalonia in favor of a campaign aimed

at overrunning Valencia. The German commanders of the

Condor Legion suffered agony as they saw their most

cherished principles of war-concentration, maneuver, the

quest for the enemy's center of gravity, and the decisive

battle that would quickly end the war-thrown away-28

Looking back, however, one finds it hard to avoid the

conclusion that they were wrong and Franco was right.

In the absence of wide-ranging, fast-moving, deeppenetrating mechanized forces and country suitable for their

support, the struggle took one of two forms . In the

northwest, and later during the Nationalist drive toward the

30
Mediterranean, it was a question of infantry fighting for the

mountain approaches, often converging on a town or

province from several directions at once, as during the

northwestern campaign. The central plains north and south

of Madrid initially saw some attempts at operativ warfare in

the form of a Nationalist pincer movement on two sides of

the capital (January-February 1937); however, this was

halted and a brutal struggle of attrition took its place at

Jarama and Guadalajara. 29 The major battle that developed

on the river Ebro after the Republicans crossed it from the

north in July 1938 was also one of attrition and has, indeed,

been compared to Verdun. 3o

In essence, Spain offered few opportunities for maneuver

warfare if by maneuver warfare we mean the operations of

armored or mechanized forces exploiting weak spots to slice

through the enemy's country while aiming at objectives deep

into the enemy's rear. The character of the country and of

the conflict itself, as well as Spanish misgivings, all

combined to prevent this.

Under such circumstances, it was perhaps inevitable that

the German air operations should be prolonged and

conducted in piecemeal fashion. The forces themselves did

not arrive all at once. Once they arrived, strategic surprise

had been lost, though tactical surprise still could be, and

sometimes was, achieved . There were many attempts to

gain air superiority both by striking at enemy airfields and

by aerial combat. However, given the number and quality of

machines on both sides (during much of the conflict, the

Republicans actually outnumbered their enemies, and until

the end of 1937, their Soviet-built fighters were clearly

superior to the German craft), there was no possibility of

gaining a rapid, overwhelming advantage in this respect.

Strategic air warfare, even if it had been possible with the

primitive means available, was generally rejected by Franco

as contrary to Spanish national interests . He felt that Spain

did not have sufficient armament factories to justify attacks

on them, and, wishing to avoid escalation, he refrained from

31
bombing the ports. 31 German aircraft flew numerous deep

interdiction missions behind the front, "deep" here being

dozens rather than hundreds of miles. They certainly hit

marching columns, supply lines, depots, and military

installations of every kind, particularly during the last

phase when they helped interdict reinforcements trying to

move from France southward through the Pyrenees .

Generally, however, the dispersed nature of the conflict did

not allow their operations to follow any particular pattern or

to focus on any particular Schwerpunkt except perhaps on a

purely tactical scale. The war was anything but a neat,

classic blitzkrieg (lightning war), and subsequent attempts

to present it as a prelude to one do not carry conviction.

There were other reasons why, from the Condor Legion's

point of view, large-scale operativ warfare was just not in

the cards. The main fighter was the He-51, a biplane with a

fixed landing gear that was completely outclassed by the

Soviet-supplied I-16 Rata. Practically the only role for which

the He-51 could still be used was close support. This was all

the more important because the Nationalists were short of

artillery and were forced to rely on air power to make up the

shortage. Acting in small groups of twos and threes and

rarely more than 10 or 12, legion bombers, operating with

fighter support, blasted a way for the infantry through the

mountain passes that led first to the northwest country and

later eastward to the Mediterranean. 32 Light bombers and

ground-attack aircraft also took an active part in the set

piece battles that developed at Jarama, Guadalajara,

Brunete, Teruel, and later along the Ebro . In all these cases,

close support meant just what its name implied, often to the

point that aircraft, acting as flying artillery, were

interchangeable with the legion's 88-millimeter antitank

guns used in the ground role . Thanks to the aircraft's low

speed and the altitudes at which they made their attackson occasion, as little as 50 to 200 meters-they were often

able to pound enemy forces within 50 meters of friendly

ones. When this naturally led to attacks on friendly forces,

32
the Nationalists began wearing white signs on their backs.

Even so, such attacks were by no means rare .

Thus, the Germans in Spain both violated their own

doctrine-which explicitly rejected the use of air power

within the range of ground artillery-and found their hopes

for operativ warfare frustrated to a large extent. However,

this is not to say that they did not learn many important

lessons . This was the first time since 1918 that Luftwaffe

personnel had seen any action at all . Commanders, pilots,

and ground crews gained experience that they, acting as

instructors, were later able to pass to others. Every kind of

mission was flown, including air-to-air combat for which

Capt Werner Moelders developed his "four-finger"

formation, which was later to be famous. 33 The nature of the

ground organization needed to support air warfare was

studied in depth; in 1937-38, the legion, alternating

between the northwest and the country around Madrid, was

already able to display the astonishing capability for the

rapid redeployment of its forces that was to serve the

Luftwaffe well later on. It was in Spain that Richthofen,

who began by serving as the legion's chief of staff and then

took over as its commander in chief, served his apprenticeship . It was to turn him into perhaps the world's leading

exponent of close air support, an expertise demonstrated to

the full in 1941 and 1942, when he was called upon to

provide air support to Hitler's Balkan campaign and to the

conquest of Sevastopol . The experience gained was

invaluable .

When the legion finally returned home in May 1939, the

Luftwaffe found itself in a strange situation . Both its own

doctrine and that of the ground forces-as embodied in the

famous Truppenfuehrung (Forces Guidance) of 1936-

continued to stress operativ warfare as the only one in

harmony with Clausewitzian ideas and, moreover, with

Germany's own peculiar strategic situation. 34 However, that

kind of warfare had hardly been practiced in Spain; as some

Luftwaffe officers saw the problem, conditions in that

33
country had more to do with war in China or Ethiopia than

among major European powers . 35 The kind of mission with

which the Luftwaffe had had the most experience and which

had proved most successful was close support; however, the

dive-bombing aircraft considered most suitable for this

mission only made up some 16 percent of its combat

strength. 36 To make matters worse, ground-to-air and

air-to-ground communications had barely advanced beyond

the point where they had been at the end of World War I . 37

No progress whatsoever had been made in the coordination

of air power with armored forces, given that tanks in Spain

were only present in small numbers and, in view of the

nature of the terrain and of the struggle itself, tended to be

used overwhelmingly in the infantry-support role .

Richthofen himself, while on maneuvers, noted that the

army's generals, specifically Heinz Guderian, failed to

understand either the capabilities or limitations of air

power. Throughout World War II, this highly intelligent air

officer was to regard the army as "unteachable." 38

In Poland, the German Wehrmacht was able to practice

maneuver warfare for the first time and on a grand scale.

Other than rivers, the terrain presented no major

geographical obstacles such as those in Spain. This was an

international war deliberately planned to be as brief and as

decisive as possible . Hence, the objective throughout was

clearly the 45-division Polish army, which was to be

outmaneuvered, encircled, and destroyed if it did not

surrender; only after those objectives had been achieved was

Warsaw itself to be subjected to intensive bombardment and

compelled to raise the white flag. The main forces entrusted

with operatic tasks consisted of the two arms of a pincer

movement (fig. 1). They struck out of East Prussia and

Silesia, moving south and northeast, respectively. After a

few days of border fighting, they gained operational freedom

of movement and were able to create a huge Kesselschlacht

that embraced the whole of western Poland. The main

Polish forces had been left to cover the western part of the

34
country, a deployment dictated more by political factors

than by military ones . They were bypassed and then

encircled as the German forces met east of Warsaw. It was a

classic in maneuver warfare, even though Poland's

geographical position (the country was surrounded by

German or German-controlled territory on three sides) made

the victorv easv.
The German penchant for operativ warfare was also

reflected by the type of organization with which the

Luftwaffe opened this, its first major campaign . In contrast

to British practice, which had always drawn the

fundamental distinction between fighters and bombers, the

German system was not functional but geographical . The

idea was to facilitate operativ warfare by assigning separate

air commands to each major force ; in this case, the army

group coming from East Prussia was supported by Luftlotte

1 (First Air Fleet), whereas those driving north from Silesia

were assisted by Luftfrotte 4. 39 Each of these formations

contained aircraft of all types, including liaison,

reconnaissance, fighter, Schlachtflugzeuge (close support),

dive-bomber, bomber, and transport planes. Each came

complete with its own ground organization and was capable

of rapid redeployment when the need arose. Not only did the

Luftwaffe possess a total of 117 motorized supply columns,

but Richthofen's command alone had 11 mobile

airfield-construction companies attached to it. 4

° In short,

each Luftflotte was a well-rounded, balanced air force, complete

in itself and capable of undertaking every sort of mission.

As Germany became subject to intensive air attack later

in the war, this organization came into question. Attempts

were made to remodel the Luftwaffe on the British pattern

with separate commands for fighters and bombers ; by then,

however, the days of operativ warfare were long over.

The Luftwaffe's record in Poland was mixed. It opened the

campaign with a surprise blow at dawn 1 September 1939,

the first time in which any country had employed this tactic

that was later to become standard in the hands of all

attackers . However, fog and clouds covered many of the

targets of Luftflotte 4 (East Prussia) in particular ; 41

moreover, the Poles had expected the German move and had

dispersed or hidden many of their own aircraft. While the

German pilots reported many Polish aircraft destroyed, a

large part of those consisted of obsolete or unserviceable

machines deliberately left on the runways, and some were

36
dummies. Attacks on Polish ground installations only

gradually made their effects felt, with the result that the

Polish air force was not really defeated for a week or so and

could continue to fly at least some missions until the very last

days of the campaign. By that time, numbers counted. The

Luftwaffe initially enjoyed a six-to-one numerical

advantage. Since most of its fighter aircraft were clearly

superior to the Polish ones, it was able to establish air

superiority although not to the extent of avoiding heavy

losses. (No fewer than one-third of all the German aircraft

engaged were destroyed or damaged.) 42 Although the

campaign moved much faster than had been the case in

Spain, good air-to-ground communications had still not been

established. Hence, most air attacks on Polish troop concentrations, railway trains, and troop convoys-which, being

horse drawn, were not easily distinguished from refugee

columns-had to be carried out deep in the rear . This

entailed the use of moving bombing lines that staff officers

strove to keep up to date, though not always with success. 43

The effectiveness of the German air attacks is debatable.

At the time, it seemed almost like the apocalypse had come,

as testimonies by Polish officers and other survivors prove . 44

On the other hand, a survey conducted by the Germans

themselves after the campaign found the actual damage to

be disappointingly slight. 45 Considering the fact that the

Luftwaffe's aircraft were light by later standards and that

only a minority of them were dive-bombers capable of any

accuracy (the Germans completely lacked high-altitude

bombsights), this is not surprising. Some of the damage was

purely psychological . (For example, the pilots of Henschel

Hs-123 [light ground-attack] aircraft found that they could

cause enemy columns to disperse in panic if, by making

their airscrews turn at certain speeds, they imitated the

sound of machine guns firing.) The final verdict must be

that, although material results were often meager, air power

caused widespread demoralization and disorganization,

including the disruption of the Polish telecommunications

37
network. 46 Poland was a flat and largely open country, in

many ways ideally suited to attacks from the air. Air power

may not have destroyed the Polish forces in toto, but it

certainly forced them to disperse . Traffic on the principal roads

and railway lines was interrupted, although the Germans,

desirous of preserving the bridges for their own use, often

employed fragmentation bombs (Splitterbomben) in order to

maximize the effect against convoys while avoiding damage

to the structures themselves. 47 Supplies and reinforcements

were interdicted and failed to arrive . With Luftwaffe

interdiction sorties numbering almost 5,000 during the first

five days alone, the Poles were soon able to move only by

night . In addition, they had to constantly worry about

attacks against which they had very little protection.

From the special point of view of maneuver warfare, the

original mission given to the Luftwaffe was to prevent the

Poles from mounting a counteroffensive against the Suwalki

area in East Prussia. 48 When the counteroffensive failed to

materialize, the Luftwaffe focused on securing the flanks of

the advancing German armies by attacking the approaches

that led to them. In fact, the majority of its missions were

devoted to that task. 49 In this capacity, the Luftwaffe proved

its mettle on two occasions in particular. The first was

during the battle for the Radom pocket southeast of

Warsaw. Here the aircraft of Luftflotte 4 were able to halt

all rail and road traffic, thus preventing the main Polish

reserve force (the so-called Prusy Army) from carrying out

its planned counterattack at Kielce; later this force, its route

across the Vistula blocked, was pounded from the air until

60,000 men laid down their arms . 5° The second came on the

river Bzura, 70 miles west of Warsaw, during the second

week of September. 51 The Polish Poznan Army, coming from

the north and fighting desperately to avoid encirclement,

made use of night marches in order to hide its preparations

for a counterattack. Gen Johannes von Blaskowitz's German

Eighth Army, making light of its opponent, was taken by

surprise and driven back 10 miles over a 30-mile front. The

38
main German armored forces were far away to the east and

separated from the scene by the river Vistula as well as the

city of Warsaw itself. Accordingly, it fell to the Luftwaffe to

play the decisive role in repulsing the assault. This it did

most effectively, flying 1,693 sorties between 11 and 17

September and holding the Poles in check until the German

Tenth Army could change front, come to its neighbor's aid,

and force the surrender of 170,000 men. 52 These two

occasions turned out to be the first when the Luftwaffe, by

striking deep into the rear of an enemy counterattack, was

able to protect one of those long, exposed flanks that were

the natural result of German-style operativ warfare. They

were by no means to be the last.

This being a study of maneuver warfare, we need not be

concerned here with the extent to which the Germans

engaged in strategic air operations. There certainly were

attacks on purely civilian targets; however, many of these

seem to have been the result of errors in identification or

else of individual pilots getting rid of their surplus

armament on their way back from missions. Attacks on

Warsaw-which the Poles had declared "a fortress"-were

initially limited to such targets as radio stations, power

plants, and water-pumping stations,53 though the ancillary

damage done was certainly considerable . Only toward the

end of the campaign did the Germans, having repeatedly

failed to induce the Polish government to lay down its arms,

deliberately attack civilian targets on a large scale in order

to bring about the city's surrender. When the commanding

general of the German Eighth Army protested and argued

that his artillerymen were prevented from seeing their

targets by the smoke of the incendiaries dropped by the

Luftwaffe, his arguments were put aside by Hitler himself.

By that time, Polish opposition both in the air and from

the ground had diminished to the point where the

excruciatingly slow Ju-52 transport aircraft (their maximum

speed was around 170 miles per hour) could be used as

bombers; this was done simply by having two crewmen

39
stand at the open doors and shovel out loads of small

incendiary bombs. Though many Poles died in the crowded

apartment buildings,54 the weight of the bombardment-500

tons of high explosives plus 72 tons of incendiaries-was not

comparable to subsequent German and Allied use of air

power against cities. In the end, the capitulation of Warsaw

on 28 September was brought about as much by a lack of

supplies as by air power per se, for the city had been

completely surrounded for 10 days.

Through all this, the German doctrine was not blitzkrieg

("lightning war")-the term itself had yet to be inventedbut the good old operatic style of warfare dating back at

least to Moltke. It did not envisage pencil-like strokes by

independent armored forces deep into the enemy's country

but rather a series of massive moves coming from different

directions, encircling the enemy, and ending, so far as

possible, in a Kesselschlacht that would crush a common

enemy between them. 55 The original German plan for the

West, to which Hitler turned his attention within days of

bringing the Polish campaign to an end, did not even

envisage this . In many ways, it was a singularly

unimaginative affair, designed to push forces westward from

the border across Belgium and parts of the southern

Netherlands in order to reach the North Sea and establish

bases for air warfare against Britain. Since no encircling

move around Paris was included in the scheme, the

description of it as a repetition of the Schlieffen Plan is

incorrect. Also, there were exactly opposite reasons for the

shortcomings of both plans. In 1914, the German General

Staff had displayed excessive boldness in relying on

nonexistent technical possibilities. Twenty-five years later,

their successors were plagued by a distinct lack of

imagination and, above all, a failure even to think about the

way in which final victory could be won.

The story of how this plan was abandoned and replaced by

what became one of the classic military operations of all

time need not be recounted here . 56 Who first proposed the

40
plan is immaterial, whether it was Hitler himself, Chief of

the Army General Staff Gen Franz Halder, Gen Erich von

Manstein (at that time chief of staff to an army group in the

West, having been demoted from head of the Operations

Department, Army General Staff, Berlin), or Gen Heinz

Guderian (serving as an armored corps commander). Suffice

it to say that the original plan fell into Allied hands when a

German liaison plane force-landed at Mechelen, Belgium, on

10 January 1940. In retrospect, this proved to be a stroke of

luck for the Germans, since it forced them to adopt a new

plan and thus acquire the tremendous advantage of surprise.

The Allies, led by Gen Maurice Gamelin, the French

commander in chief, had originally planned to respond to a

prospective German invasion of Belgium by moving their

forces northeastward to the river Dyle. 57 Granted access to

the adversary's plans, they not only concluded that their

dispositions were correct but decided to move their forces

even further north in order to link up with the Dutch at

Breda. This maneuver was well suited for dealing with a

repetition of the Schlieffen Plan; however, it exposed the

Allied rear to a counterstroke delivered by way of the

Ardennes, a region which they-and specifically General

Gamelin, who in 1937 had made a personal study of the

problem-considered as nearly impassable for mechanized

forces. 58 It was defended only by the French Second Army,

a weak and demoralized force of reservists largely armed

with leftover World War I weapons. Faced with this

formation, the Germans went on to apply another

fundamental principle of war when they built up a very

heavy concentration of forces in the form of Army Group A,

including nine out of 10 armored divisions available. Relying

on deception, albeit it inadvertent, the Germans were thus

able to focus strength against weakness and, a greater feat

still, to do so at a decisive point; the small town of Sedan

was to prove the key to their entire operation (fig. 2) .

In preparing for the campaign, the Luftwaffe divided its

forces into two Luftflotten. Luftflotte 2 under Gen Albert

41

Kesselring was attached to Army Group B, which stood

ready to invade Belgium and the Netherlands. Luftflotte 3

under General Sperrle was detailed to support the critical

Army Group A. In numbers of combat aircraft (fighters,

bombers, and ground support), the two forces together

outnumbered the Allies 2,474 to 2,196 (another 850 first-line

combat aircraft, including all of the excellent Spitfire

squadrons, were kept back in England). 59 The quality of the

bombers on both sides was roughly equal; however, the

German Me-109 fighter enjoyed a clear edge over all but the

relatively few French Dewoitine 520s and British

Hurricanes that were available. Even at this late date, only

15 percent of the German combat aircraft were specialized

for close-support missions.s0 The rest consisted of single- and

twin-engined fighters, as well as comparatively light

twin-engined bombers that were unable to carry much more

than two tons of ordnance.

Perhaps more important than these qualitative and

quantitative advantages, the Germans possessed the

initiative and, as it turned out, incomparably superior

momentum . In addition, they had a unified command

system that enabled them to share information throughout

the forces and to shift resources from one point to another as

the leadership saw fit. By contrast, the Allies never got their

act together, let alone set up a single command organization

capable of coordinating all their forces . When the German

attack came, the Dutch, isolated in the north, would fight

their own war and would be overwhelmed before anybody

could come to their aid. The Belgians, who before the war

had even refused to allow Allied officers to reconnoiter their

prospective positions on the Dyle, would surrender-some

would claim prematurely-on 28 May. Even before this took

place, Field Marshal John Gort, commanding the British

Expeditionary Force, had decided to evacuate the continent

and had begun the necessary preparations . When the

Belgian surrender became known, he would at once put

these plans into effect without waiting to coordinate with

43
the French or even to inform their high command. Among

all the causes of the "strange defeat," this one should by no

means be overlooked.

On 10 May 1940, the Luftwaffe lived up to its aggressive

reputation by launching the campaign with a surprise blow

at the enemy air forces. At dawn, over 300 Heinkel and

Dornier bombers attacked 22 airfields in the Netherlands,

Belgium, and northern France. The Dutch had received

warning from sources inside the Abwehr, the German

military counterintelligence service in Berlin, and at least

some of their aircraft had been dispersed.s l Nevertheless,

the damage done in attacks on the airfields as well as in

air-to-air combat took its toll. By the evening of the first

day, three quarters of the Koninglijke Luchtmacht (Royal

Netherlands Air Force) had either been destroyed or

rendered hors de combat. Attacks on the Belgian and French

air forces were also quite successful; the British alone

escaped serious damage. The daily reports of the German

Armed Forces High Command tell the story in numerical

terms. They claimed 300-400 Allied aircraft destroyed on 10

May, 300 on the 11th, 320 on the 12th, 150 on the 13th, 200

on the 14th, 98 on the 15th, 59 on the 16th (clearly, the

opposition was diminishing), 108 on the 17th, 147 on the

18th, 143 on the 19th, 47 on the 20th, and 120 on the 21sta total of over 2,000 aircraft. These figures were almost

certainly exaggerated; still, the fact remains that by the end

of no more than one week, the Dutch, Belgian, and French

air forces had been eliminated as fighting organizations.

Even the British, who were least affected, lost one-half of all

the frontline aircraft they had possessed both in the United

Kingdom and on the continent at the start of the campaign.

In comparison, the Luftwaffe lost some 1,130 aircraft of all

types, comprising approximately one-quarter of its strength.

Out of these, 539 were lost during the first six days of

operations.

Exploiting their command of the air, the Germans next

made innovative use of air power in support of their operativ

44
ground offensive . The possibilities of airborne warfare had

been much discussed during the interwar period and

experiments had been conducted by the Soviet, Italian, and

German air forces among others. However, when hostilities

broke out, it was only the Germans who had the necessary

troops and equipment in place and who had worked out the

appropriate organization . To them, airborne warfare was a

question of neither simple descents into the enemy's rear

nor "vertical envelopment"; rather, in conformity to their

operativ doctrine, airborne forces were seen as can openers.

Though explicit evidence is lacking, the Germans seem to

have understood that airborne forces, lacking artillery and

other heavy weapons as well as mechanized transport,

would not be able to resist a determined counterattack for

very long. Hence it was a question of seizing key objectives

that were not too far ahead of the front as to be totally out of

reach . Once they had been seized, the objectives would have

to be held until the ground forces, engaging in a rapid war of

maneuver, could reach them. 62

The most important objectives consisted of the bridges

crossing the great Dutch rivers at Rotterdam, Dordrecht,

and Moerdijk and those over the Belgian Albert Canal,

protected by the fortress at Eben Emael. The first group of

bridges represented the key to Fortress Holland because the

bridges in the northwestern region of the Netherlands were

in an area which, being low lying and capable of being

flooded, had protected Amsterdam against invasion ever

since the War of Liberation in the sixteenth century. The

bridges over the Albert Canal, which constituted a formidable

antitank ditch with vertical concrete walls along much of its

length, had to be crossed if Belgium was to be invaded. As in

all maneuver warfare, it was a question of somehow finding

a soft spot in a vital objective and using surprise to capture

it. The Germans brilliantly succeeded in doing both .

On the morning of 10 May, the Dutch bridges were seized

by three battalions of paratroopers. Four hundred airborne

troops captured two out of the three bridges over the Albert

45
Canal; meanwhile, Eben Emael, which bristled with

artillery and had the reputation of being the strongest

fortress in Europe, was assaulted by a small detachment of

gliderborne troops under the command of a lieutenant who

landed on its unprotected roof. 63

The Germans also attempted to repeat their Norwegian

feat of April 1940. On that occasion, they had landed an

airborne battalion on an airfield near Oslo and,

accompanied by a military band, marched into that city and

occupied government buildings. The Dutch, however, proved

to be made of sterner stuff. When the gliders landed and

disembarked troops on three airfields near The Hague, the

Dutch army, though taken by surprise, refused to panic and

brought up artillery and counterattacked. For four days, it

was all the Luftwaffe could do to keep the Dutch from

annihilating the German infantry on the ground by bombing

and strafing the forces that surrounded the airfields . These

Dutch forces were still successfully holding off the invaders

when their country surrendered five days later.

Although Rotterdam had been cut in half by the Germans

holding the Maas River bridges, Dutch forces in the city

were still holding out three days after the beginning of the

war. This prevented the Germans from completing their

victory. And, more important, it caused them to worry lest

the British try to land forces in their rear and delay the

advance of Army Group B, just as a similar British force in

Antwerp had delayed those of Schlieffen's First Army in

World War I. To prevent this, Gen Georg von Kuechler, the

commander of the German Eighteenth Army, received

orders on the evening of 13 May to attack on the morrow

and break the city's resistance . Just as in the case of

Warsaw seven months previously, the offensive was to be

opened by an air strike against the Dutch forces that clung

to the northern end of the bridges . Also, as in the case of

Warsaw, the Germans wanted to see if they could not induce

the commander in the city to surrender first . The talks on

the morning of the 14th led nowhere. Only during the

46
afternoon did the responsible Dutch commander begin to

appear as if he might give in, but by then it was too late .

The hundred or so He-111 bombers forming part of Luftlotte

2 and destined to carry out the attack had already taken off

from their airfields in western Germany. Lacking direct

radio contact with them, the German commanders on the

spot tried to warn the pilots of these aircraft away by firing

red Very signals, but only about half received the message

and understood it. But the pilots of 57 of the aircraft flew in

at 2,000 feet and dropped 97 tons of high explosives. By

later standards it was a mere pinprick. However, a

margarine factory was accidentally hit and the resulting

conflagration was enough to set the old, wooden city on fire

and destroy its entire western part.

The tragic consequences that grew out of the German

failure to contact their own forces at Rotterdam highlighted

a larger problem-the absence of a proper mechanism by

which their air and ground forces could be coordinated with

each other. The difficulty of doing this had already marked

Richthofen's operations in Spain, whereas the German

troops during the Polish campaign had received occasional

doses of their own medicine either by being subjected to

Luftwaffe attacks or by having to watch bridges that they

themselves had planned to use being blown to pieces in front

of their noses.s4 Air force and army units had agreed on

various signals and recognition devices whereby the latter

could warn the former of their presence . However, these

signals were often either neglected by the troops or

misunderstood by the pilots . The problem was serious

because operations in Western Europe were to become much

more rapid and fluid than the Germans themselves had

ever expected.

In the spring of 1940, following their experiences in

Poland, the Germans had two ways in which their air and

ground field units could cooperate with each other. 65 The

first was by way of the Kommandeure der Luftwaffe, or

Kolufts. These officers were subordinate to the Luftwaffe

47
representative at the General Staff, Ground Army, and

attached to ground headquarters at corps and army level .

The Kolufts were in charge of the airborne reconnaissance

units assigned to the army . To permit close cooperation,

direct radio links-at first Morse Code, later voice-were set

up between those units and the artillery batteries . The

Kolufts, however, had neither authority over nor even direct

communications with the Luftwaffe's combat units,

including its close-support forces . To maintain contact with

them, a second channel of communication was set up in the

form of the Fliegersoffizieren, or Flivos, who were attached

to corps and army headquarters . Accompanied by a few

assistants, the Flivos traveled in armored vehicles . They

were thus in a good position to observe hostilities on the

ground and to report the army's wishes to the

Nahkampffuehrer (close-combat commanding officer) at air

force headquarters. However, neither they nor the army

commanders had the authority to order air -support .

According to Richthofen, the Luftwaffe was neither a whore

to follow where the army led nor a fire brigade on call to put

out even the smallest conflagrations . 66 Reichsmarschall

Hermann Goering was very jealous of his power and insisted

that whatever could fly belonged to him. Throughout the

war, he consistently refused to let the army (or the navy)

exercise command over aircraft beyond those assigned to it

for purposes of reconnaissance, liaison, and artillery

observation. Perhaps as a result, the Flivos were not even

given radio equipment to talk to the aircraft overhead.

Given these limitations, it is not surprising that the

Luftwaffe during the French campaign continued to show a

strong preference for those kinds of operations that did not

require direct cooperation with the ground forces. As we

saw, this modus operandi proved sufficient in the battle for

air superiority, and it also proved successful when the

problem was to occupy key objectives far behind the front.

The Luftwaffe's strikes into the deep rear, which began on

10 May and increased thereafter, required an understanding

48
by air commanders of the situation on the ground but not

close cooperation . Even before the army's crossing of the

Meuse, the Luftwaffe fighter units had protected the

German advance from Allied air attack, though not to the

extent of preventing a few casualties from being inflicted on

Guderian's XIX Panzer Corps. 67 At the same time, the

Luftwaffe attacked communications leading into the rear of

the French Second Army, thereby isolating the battlefield

and preventing reinforcements from being brought up. 68

Later, during the drive from the Meuse to the sea, its

aircraft could be found waging operativ warfare by striking

at troop concentrations, marching columns, railways, and

roads throughout the theater of operations.

While the available data do not permit the impact on

French logistics to be quantified, there were two occasions

when intervention from the air proved particularly

significant. The first came on 19 May, when a French

armored division commanded by then-Col Charles de Gaulle

attempted to advance from the north but was halted before

it could seriously disrupt the Germans' westward advance. 69

The second came on the 22d when the French 4th Armored

Division attacked from the south near Arras. The important

point is that on both of these occasions, success was made

possible by the fact that close cooperation between ground

and air was not required. As was usually the case, the

Luftwaffe directed its main effort against the enemy's

operational reserves rather than its front. Hence, all its

commanders needed was to be familiar with the general

situation. They acquired this familiarity from reconnaissance by their own rear headquarters rather than by direct

communication with the army's advancing spearheads.

The available records show that there was only one

important occasion throughout the Western campaign when

the Luftwaffe, disregarding its own official doctrine, focused

mainly on the close-support role . This took place on 13 May

when the river Meuse, reached by the German spearheads

and about to be crossed by them, formed a clear dividing line

49
between the two sides . The details had been arranged in

advance by means of direct, face-to-face contacts between

the local ground and air commanders, specifically Guderian

and Gen Bruno Loerzer, the commander of Fliegerkorps II

(Second Air Corps). The front along the river was divided

into numbered sectors, a further distinction being drawn

between targets immediately on the banks and those located

further in the rear . The commanding general of Panzer

Group Kleist, Ewald von Kleist, wanted a single mighty

blow, but his wishes were disregarded. 70 Instead, it was

decided that the Luftwaffe would launch continuous

"rolling" attacks (clearly modeled upon an artillery barrage)

in order to paralyze the defenders, disrupt their

communications, and force them to keep their heads down. 71

Beginning on the morning of 13 May, waves of Stukas and

other bombers were sent in until much of Luftflotte 3 was

drawn into the effort. Hundreds of sorties were flown

against the unfortunate French troops. Although not many

of these troops were killed-even the Stukas, for all their

vaunted ability to dive bomb, proved surprisingly

inaccurate-they were nevertheless deafened by the noise,

blinded by the smoke, rendered unable to get in touch with

each other, and forced to remain inactive even as German

assault parties crossed the river in rubber boats. 72 To

repeat, all this was made possible mainly by the fact that

operations on the far side of the Meuse were conducted

against stationary objectives and did not have to be closely

coordinated with the army. Once the river had been crossed,

the Luftwaffe reverted to form. A moving security zone was

established ahead of the advancing panzers, and attacks

were mounted mainly against targets in the Allied rear.

During all this, the Luftwaffe's other great contribution

was to protect the bridgeheads against Allied air attack. The

British and the French had largely ignored the Ardennes in

their prewar planning. However, once the German spearheads started pointing toward the river Meuse, one attempt

after another was made to halt the panzers by bombing

50
them from the air. 73 On 14 May, the Royal Air Force (RAF)

in particular launched a determined attack against the

bridges. Opposed by the Luftwaffe both from the ground

(under the German system of organization, antiaircraft

artillery formed part of the air force) and in the air, the RAF

took so many losses that its bomber arm on the continent

almost ceased to exist. By the evening, the smoking remains

of 89 Allied aircraft dotted the countryside around Sedan

alone. 74 It was perhaps the decisive moment of the entire

campaign.

Thus, assisted from above, the panzers gained operational

freedom on 15 May. It was largely thanks to the Luftwaffe

that the army which the French had improvised to seal the

breach (the Sixth Army) never had time to gather its wits,

let alone its forces ; indeed, its commander, Gen Robert

Touchon, had himself been one of the principal opponents of

an independent French armored force . 75 The most important

obstacle facing the German armored spearheads in Flanders

was not so much the French, who were mostly retreating in

disorder, as it was their own inability to enforce strict traffic

control. The few roads leading through the Ardennes became

congested. Supplies, particularly fuel, failed to reach the

forward units; on 14-16 May, the Luftwaffe had to make air

drops to provide them with ammunition and petroleum, oil,

and lubricants (POL). 76 Once supplied, they were able to

drive forward almost unopposed, pushing a narrow, deep

wedge far into their opponent's rear.

As they approached the coast at Abbeville on 20 May, the

Germans hesitated. Success had been so great and so

unexpected that they were suspicious that a trap had been

set ; Hitler, Gen Gerd von Rundstedt of Army Group A, Gen

Ernst Busch of Sixteenth Army, and even General von

Kleist of Panzer Group Kleist all at one time or another

wanted to rein in their forces' advance and, on at least three

occasions (14, 17, and 22 May), succeeded in doing so . 77 Just

how the order that finally brought the tanks to a halt in

front of Dunkirk came to be issued remains unclear. As best

51
the postwar witnesses could recall, it was Goering who, as

early as 23 May, suggested to Hitler that the job of finishing

off the enemy inside the cauldron be left to "his" air force

alone. 78 We do not know the reason for the decision. It may

have been motivated by a mistaken belief that the terrain

was unsuitable for armor, or else by the desire to save it for

the second phase of the campaign .

The Luftwaffe was able to start flying in fuel,

ammunition, and technicians from Charleville within 24

hours of its evacuation by the French. Its virtuosity in

rapidly shifting its ground organization according to

changing operational requirements was thus demonstrated

once again. Nevertheless, even after three weeks of

campaigning, the bulk of its forces still continued to operate

from airfields in western Germany. 79 As a result, the

German Me-109 fighters-whose outstanding defect was

their short range-were at a disadvantage compared to the

British Hurricanes and Spitfires that took off to confront

them from secure airfields just beyond the English Channel.

For the first time since the early days of the Spanish Civil

War, the Luftwaffe at Dunkirk was unable to establish clear

air superiority over a selected theater of operations. There

developed a series of air-to-air battles in which both sides

lost heavily. The German bombers were prevented from

concentrating on the ongoing evacuation, especially since

they had to be diverted time after time in order to help stop

violent Allied counterattacks .

By 27 May, a mere two days after the order to halt had

been issued, it had become clear that a major evacuation

effort was under way and that the Luftwaffe on its own was

powerless to stop it. Hitler thereupon ordered his tanks to

resume their advance, but by then it was already too late

since the time wasted had been used by the Allies to prepare

their defenses . Next, bad weather intervened; it was not

until 1 June that the clouds cleared and the Luftwaffe,

flying again, was able to sink 14 ships. After this, the

British, harassed by the Luftwaffe but not to the point

52
where operations had to be suspended or even seriously

interrupted, limited the evacuation to nighttime. By 4 June,

German forces were in control of the entire Channel coast. It

was as great a triumph as any they were to enjoy for the

rest of the war.

Since the 1940 German campaign is one of the most

heavily studied of all time, the effort to understand the role

played by the Luftwaffe in it brings few surprises . Perhaps

the most fundamental point to emerge is the unique nature

of German air doctrine as it then stood. Cutting across our

present distinctions between the strategic and the tactical, it

sought to bring about the enemy's destruction by operativ

warfare in conjunction with, but not in subordination to, the

ground forces . The first and most vital stage in its

implementation was the achievement of air superiority

through combining air-to-air combat with attacks on

airfields and rear installations. Next came the use of

airborne forces as can openers at selected points, a

technique which at that time was completely new and which

the Allies did not employ for the first time until three years

later in Sicily. The bulk of the Luftwaffe's effort was devoted

to what we today would call behind-the-front interdiction

but which, under their terminology, included considerably

more than merely attacks on lines of communications . 80 The

great advantage of such operations was precisely that they

did not require close cooperation with the ground forcessomething for which, as we saw, the Germans were neither

organized nor equipped.

As if to confirm that this was indeed their line of thought,

in 1940 the Germans assigned their acknowledged closesupport experts-Richthofen's Fliegerkorps VIII (Eighth Air

Corps)-to Luftlotte 2, where they would have to work in

conjunction with the largely unmotorized Army Group B.

Only when the spearheads of Panzer Group Kleist reached

the Meuse did the Luftwaffe high command exercise its

prerogatives by switching this force to assist in the

bombardment that covered the crossing, a bombardment

53
itself made possible by the fact that the forces on both sides,

as in World War I, were separated by a clear geographical

line. Once this phase was over, the Luftwaffe reverted to

form. As had already been the case in Poland, it did not try

to coordinate its missions with the racing armor but flew the

great majority against targets well behind the front. In this

way, the problem of distinguishing friend from foe and

securing good air-to-ground cooperation was not so much

solved as evaded.

On the plus side, several strong points of the Luftwaffe

played an important role in the campaign and are worth

spelling out. In spite of organizational and technical

problems, understanding between air and ground officers at

the headquarters level was generally very good due to the

fact that all the senior Luftwaffe commanders were ex-army

personnel. Since the majority of aircraft (Stukas in

particular) were simple and easy to maintain, they often

could fly an astonishing number of missions per day (as

many as eight) ; and because this was a brief campaign

conducted under favorable climatic conditions and in a

theater of war where communications were generally

excellent, high levels of operational serviceability could be

achieved and maintained. The German air force's ability to

rapidly redeploy its forces, all the more important in view of

the short range possessed by its principal fighter aircraft,

has already been mentioned. It was largely due to the

excellent airfield-construction companies that followed in

the wake of the armored spearheads and, using every means

available, were capable of making a field serviceable within

a matter of hours.

A final verdict on German maneuver warfare at this time

must mention a paradox. In May 1940, despite many lessons

learned in Poland, blitzkrieg as a doctrine was only just

being born and had not yet been christened. The campaign

therefore developed as a mixture of the old operativ doctrine

and the new system of independent, deep-striking

operations by mechanized forces, a fact that explains the

54
peculiar nervousness displayed by many echelons in the

German command at various points in the war. Only after

hostilities were over did the Germans fully understand the

extent of the revolution that they had wrought in warfare,

and only then did blitzkrieg receive its name. Meanwhile,

the campaign had displayed many of the principles of war in

action. The Germans had managed to preserve operationalthough not strategic-secrecy. Secrecy, in turn, helped them

deceive the enemy as to the location of the main attack and

achieve surprise.

While a frontal advance, assisted by spectacular airborne

operations, was launched into the Netherlands and Belgium

and held the enemy's attention, Army Group A built up a

heavy concentration of forces prepared to strike into the

Allied center of gravity, which was also a vulnerable spot.

Once that spot had been taken and left behind, the Germans

continued forward, bypassing and encircling the bulk of the

enemy forces while relying on sheer speed for protection.

The enemy was overwhelmed not so much by firepower,

although that played a role, as by rapid movements that

carved up the theater and left him unable to react until it

was too late. The Luftwaffe, in spite of many weaknesses,

not only managed to gain control of the air-an

indispensable prerequisite-but played an active role in

each one of these stages. In such a way did it make its

contribution to maneuver warfare.

55
Notes

1. See Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard

and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J . : Princeton University Press, 1976), 595f

2. See Eberhard Kessel, Moltke (Stuttgart : Koehler, 1957), 507-9.

3. Quoted in Wolfgang Foerster, ed., Friedrich Karl von Preussen:

Denkwuerdigkeiten aus seinen Leben, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlag,

1910), 67 .

4. On Schlieffen's theories of war, see Gerhard Ritter, The Schlieffen

Plan: Critique of a Myth (New York: Praeger, 1958), 3-10. On the

doctrine of Kesselschlacht as a whole, see Matthew Cooper, The German

Army (New York: Stein and Day, 1978), 130ff.

5 . See especially Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from

Wallenstein to Patton (London: Cambridge University Press, 1978), chap.

4; also idem, Command in War (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University

Press, 1985), 148ff.

6. See Robert B. Asprey, The First Battle of the Marne (Philadelphia:

Lippincott, 1962).

7. See Martin van Creveld, Technology and War (New York: Free

Press, 1989), 184ff.

8. See Brereton Greenhous, "Evolution of the Close Combat Support

Role for Aircraft in World War I," Military Affairs 21, no. 1 (February

1975) : 22-27.

9. See Army War College, "The Infantry Airplane and the Infantry

Balloon," English translation of a captured German document dated 1

September 1917, copy in National Air and Space Museum Library,

Washington, D.C.

10. See Ernst Wilhelm von Hoeppner, Deutschlands Krieg in der Luft:

Ein Ruckblick auf die Entwircklung and die Leistrungen unserer Heeres

Luftstrit Krdfte im Weltkriege (Leipzig: Koehler and Umeland, 1921),

149. The author, a general of cavalry, commanded the German air force

during the last stages of World War I .

11. See van Creveld, Command in War, 168ff.

12. See Hans von Seeckt, Thoughts of a Soldier (London: E. Benn,

Ltd., 1930), 63-64. There is a good chapter on Seeckt in Jehuda Wallach,

Kriegstheorien (Frankfurt am Main: Bernhard and Graefe, 1971).

13 . For the creation of the German armored forces, see Heinz

Guderian, Panzer Leader (London: Joseph, 1953), 30-63 .

14 . See Erich von Ludendorff, The Nation at War (London:

Hutchinson, and Co ., Ltd., n.d.), particularly chap. 1.

15. See, for example, Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe, "Wehrmachtmanoever (Luftwaffe) 1937," German military records (hereinafter cited

as GMR), in the Collection of Seized Enemy Records, 1941- , Record

Group 242, National Archives, Washington, D.C . (microfilm), Microfilm

Publication T-321, roll 10, frames 4749773ff. (T-321/10/4749773ff.) ; also

56
Ruewehr, "Der Luftkrieg ueber Mittel- and Westeuropa, 1939-41,"

GMR, T-971/18/000221/6 .

16. See, for example, "Gedanken zur Operativen Luftkrieg," GMR,

T-321/10/474790ff.

17 . See Maus A. Maier et al., Germany and the Second World War,

vol. 2, Germany's Initial Conquests in Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1991), 34ff.

18 . Ibid., 36.

19. For the history of the manual, see Paul Deichmann, Der Chef in

Hintergrund: ein Leben als Soldaten von der preussischen Armee bis zur

Bundeswehr (Oldenburg: Stalling Verlag, 1979), 58-63; for an analysis,

see Williamson Murray, "A Tale of Two Doctrines: The Luftwaffe's

`Conduct of the Air War' and the USAF's Manual 1-1," Journal of

Strategic Studies 6 (December 1983): 84-93.

20. Generalstab der Luftwaffe, Die Luftkriegfuehrung (Berlin, 1935),

par. 2. To emphasize the point, the Luftwaffeakademie also brought out

a new edition of Clausewitz.

21. Ibid., par. 9.

22. Ibid., par. 31.

23. On these aspects of German prewar air doctrine, see Herhudt von

Rohden, Vom Luftkriegfuehrung: Gedanken ueber Fuehrung and Einsatz

Moderner Luftwaffen (Berlin : Mittler, 1938); Horst Boog, Die deutsche

Luftwaffe, 1935-1943: Fuehrungsprobleme - Spitzengliederung -

Generalstabsausbildung (Stuttgart : Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1982),

151-64; and Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe, "Richtlinien fuer den

Einsaetze der Fliegertruppe zur unmittelbaren Unterstuetzung des

Heeres," 1 August 1939, GMR, T-324/76/(unframed) .

24. See Hans von Seeckt, Gedanken eines Soldaten (Berlin : Verlag

fuer Kulturpolitik, 1929), 91-95 .

25. See OKL, Generalstab, 8. Abteilung, "The Douhet Theory and Its

Application to the Present War," Air Historical Branch translation no.

VII/11, USAF Historical Research Agency (USAFHRA), 512.621, VII/11.

This study was originally written in November 1944.

26. On all this, see Raymond L. Proctor, Hitler's Luftwaffe in the

Spanish Civil War (Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1983), passim.

27. Quoted in Klaus A. Maier, Guernica, 26.4.1937: die Deutsche

Intervention in Spanien and der "Fall Guernica" (Freiburg: Rombach

Verlag, 1975), appendix 1, constituting Richthofen's diary entry for 2

April 1937 .

28. Proctor, 122, 253.

29. Ibid., 104-14.

30. Ibid., 229 .

31 . Ibid. ; see also Williamson Murray, Strategy for Defeat: The

Luftwaffe, 1933-1945 (Maxwell AFB, Ala. : Air University Press, 1983), 16.

57
32. See Proctor, passim.

33. Ibid., 256.

34. Specifically on this point, see von Rohden, Vom Luftkriegsfuehrung,

10; also Oberbefehlshaber der Luftwaffe, "Richtlinien fuer den Einsatz

der Fliegertruppe," 6. Here it is explicitly stated that "only in exceptional

cases is the employment against the enemy [FEBA] effective ."

35. Herhudt von Rohden, "Luftwaffe and Gesamtkriegsfuehrung," in

E. Eichelbaum, ed., Das Buch von der Luftwaffe (Berlin: Bong, 1938), 20.

36. For a list of the various types, see Matthew Cooper, The German

Air Force, 1933-1945: An Anatomy of Failure (London: Jane's, 1981), 93.

The total number of first-line combat aircraft was around 2,355. Of

those, 1,176 were bombers, 1,079 single- and twin-engined fighters, and

only 406 ground attack aircraft-including 40 Hs-123s that were

hopelessly out of date.

37. Willamson Murray, "The Luftwaffe and Close Air Support,

1939-1941" (Unpublished paper, 1984), 106-7.

38. Generalkommando III. A. K., Abt . Ia op ., nr. 1633/36 g .,

"Zusammenarbeit mit der Luftwaffe," 15 December 1936, GMR,

T-405/6/4834188ff., reporting on the autumn 1936 maneuvers.

39. For a detailed order of battle presentation, see Generalstab der

Luftwaffe, Wehrwissenschaftliche Abteilung, "Der Einsatz der

Operativen Luftwaffe gegen Polen," ibid., T-971J19/000877ff./25-9.

40. Richard Suchenwirth, The Development of the German Air Force,

1918-1939, USAF Historical Study no. 160 (Maxwell AFB, Ala. : USAF

Historical Division, Air University, 1968), 140; Herhudt von Rohden,

"Die Plannung and Vorbereitung des Luftkriegs gegen Polen 1939,"

Luftkrieg, no. 5, appendix 6, 1946.

41. Ibid., 49.

42. See Georg W. Feuchter, Geschichte der Luftkrieg (Frankfurt am

Main: Athenaeum, 1954),112-13.

43 . See R. R. Muller, "The German Air Force and the Campaign

against the Soviet Union, 1941-1945" (PhD diss., Ohio State University,

1990), 83, for the details .

44. Paul Deichmann, German Air Operations in Support of the Army,

USAF Historical Study no. 163 (Maxwell AFB, Ala: USAF Historical

Division, Air University, 1962), 105.

45. "Erfahrungsbericht der Luftflotte 1 ueber den polnischen

Feldzug," quoted in Murray, "Luftwaffe and Close Air Support," 20-21;

Generalstab der Luftwaffe, 8. (Kriegswissenschaftliche) Abteilung,

"Vortrag ueber der Luftkrieg in Polen 1939: 23 July 1944," GMR,

T-971/18/00264/21 .

46 . "Der Einsatz der Operativen Luftwaffe gegen Polen," ibid.,

T-97U19/75.

47. Ibid., 76.

58
48. Ibid., 30.

49. See Field Marshal Hermann Goering's order, 9 February 1939, in

ibid., 74.

50. Maier, Germany and the Second World War, vol. 2, 113 .

51. See ibid., 114; also R. Elbe, Die Schlacht an der Bzura in September

1939 aus deutschen and polnischen Sicht (Freiburg im Breisgau :

Rombach, 1975).

52. "Vortrag ueber der Luftkrieg in Polen," GMR,

T-971/18/000257-63/14-20 .

53. "Der Einsatz der Operativen Luftwaffe gegen Polen," 89. See also

Goering order, 16 September 1939, where the list of targets is given as

"supply installations (gas, water, and electrical works), casernes, depots

(food, ammunition), the citadel, the war-ministry, major communication

centers and known artillery positions," GMR, T-971/50/000621-2.

54. Details in "Vortrag ueber der Luftkrieg in Polen," GMR,

T-971/18/000260/17.

55. See Matthew Cooper, The German Army (New York: Stein and

Day, 1978), 174-75, for an analysis. The fact that this was still operativ

warfare rather than blitzkrieg led to some tension among the senior

German commanders, since the exponents of armor argued that more

could have been done if only they had been given a free rein. See B. H.

Liddell Hart, History of the Second World War (New York: Putnam,

1971),29-30.

56. The most thorough study remains Hans A. Jacobsen, Fall Gelb:

Der Kampf um den deutschen Operationsplan zur Westoffensive 1940

(Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1957), 326; see also Klaus A. Maier, The Initial

German Conquests, 2386:, for an up-to-date discussion.

57. See Alistair Horne, To Lose a Battle: France 1940 (London:

Macmillan, 1969), 1166 , on the development of the Allied plans.

58. Michael Garder, La Guerre Secrete des Services speciaux

francaises, 1939-1945 (Paris : Plon, 1967), 178-79; and A. Dorgeles, La

Dr6le de Guerre (Paris : Michel, 1971), 123. For German and French

views concerning the trafficability of the Ardennes and the time it would

take the panzers to reach the Meuse, see also Robert A. Doughty, The

Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940 (New York: Archon

Books, 1990), 77-79.

59. Cooper, The German Air Force, 112 . Other sources give different

figures .

60. See British Air Ministry, The Rise and Fall of the German Air

Force, 1933-1945 (London: H. M. Stationary Office, 1948), 66.

61. Passing an airfield near Rotterdam on the evening of 9 May 1940,

the author's grandfather, Louis Wyler, noted that the airfield had been

evacuated.

59
62. An excellent overview of German doctrine in this respect is David

Thomas, "The Importance of Commando Operations in Modern Warfare,

1939-1942," Journal of Contemporary History 18 (October 1983): 689-711.

63. See GMR, T-314/478/001188-1195, as well as T-315/1010/000436ff ,

for the official German reports on these operations; for a secondary

account, see Walther Melzer, Albert Kanal and Eben Emael (Heidelberg:

Vowinckel, 1957).

64. See, for example, the after-action reports of the 10th Armored

Division, 3 October 1939, GMR, T-314/614/00632ff. On 2 September 1939

Goering had to issue an order to his pilots warning them against attack

on friendly tanks. Also see T-971/50/000578-9 .

65. For details, see R. R. Muller, "The German Air Force and the

Campaign against the Soviet Union, 1941-1945" (PhD diss., Ohio State

University, 1990), 46ff.

66. Von Rohden, "Die Deutsche Luftwaffe im Kriege gegen Russland,"

GMR, T-971/26/000241 .

67. Doughty, 267-68.

68. For example, on 12 May two French convoys coming from the

south were shot up . See Florian K. Rothbrust, Guderian's XIXth Panzer

Corps and the Battle ofFrance (New York: Praeger, 1990), 68.

69. Horne, 428.

70. On this strange episode, see Doughty, 132ff.

71. See Murray, Strategy for Defeat, 37; and Muller, 49-50, for the details.

72. For a graphic description of the bombardment, see Home, 189.

73. See Lionel F. Ellis, The War in France and Flanders, 1939-1940

(London: H.M. Stationary Office, 1953), 54.

74. See Cooper, The German Air Force, 113 .

75. Doughty, 295ff.

76. Rothbrust, 86-88.

77. For the story of these hesitations, see above all Cooper, The

German Army, 202ff.

78. See Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler's Headquarters, 1939-1945

(London: Weidenfeldt and Nicolson, 1962), 71 ; also see Maier, Germany

and the Second World War, vol. 2, 291ff.

79. For example, Kampfgeschwader "Hindenburg" was only moved to

bases in France after the fall of Dunkirk; even so, supplies were so short

that it was only partly operational . See Spohr, "Kriegschronik des

Kampfgeschwaders 'Hindenburg' von Beginn des Polen-Feldzug bis zur

Aufloesung des Geschwaders," GMR, T-971/50/000962ff./21 .

80. See Chef/Generalstab der 8. (Kriegswissenschaftliche) Abteilung,

"Vorstudien zum Luftkrieg," 15 December 1944, ibid., T-971/36/000926ff.

60
Chapter 3

Maneuver Warfare in Action

The German 1941 Campaign in Russia

This chapter opens with a brief discussion of the development of the German plans for invading Russia as well as the

strategic problems involved. Next, it analyzes the role

assigned to the Luftwaffe in these plans. It then describes

the participation of the Luftwaffe in the campaign by

focusing first on the left (northern) wing of the German

advance, then on the right (southern) wing, and finally on the

center, where the decisive attack against Moscow took place .

The starting point for the campaign was Hitler's

long-standing intention to invade and conquer the Soviet

Union, the origins of which were not rooted solely in

military or political strategy but rather in his national

socialist weltanschauung, or "world view."' Hitler had

always been clear in his own mind that one day he would

carry out the operation; the question, as far as he was

concerned, was not if but when, under what circumstances,

and how. The early campaigns for the establishment of

German hegemony in Europe, particularly the victory over

France, had proceeded much more rapidly and decisively

than the Germans themselves had anticipated. 2 A month

had not yet passed since the surrender of France, when

Hitler's thoughts returned to the ideologically inspired

"master plan" outlined in Mein Kampf and his so-called

secret book of 1928. German self-confidence was at its peak,

even to the point of contemplating the possibility of

attacking the Soviet Union that very autumn . 3

The role of the Russian campaign in Hitler's politicomilitary strategy, as well as the way in which it interacted

with his conduct of the war as a whole, need not concern us

here. 4 Suffice it to say that as early as the first week of

August 1940, preliminary plans for a military campaign

61
were being drawn up independently from each other at the

Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der

Wehrmacht-OKW) and the Ground Army High Command

(Oberkommando des Heeres-OKH). After some hesitation,

both plans concluded that the center of gravity ought to be

on the northern side of the Pripet Marshes, which bisected

the front. Other than that, they differed widely. The officer

responsible at OKW was a Lt Col Bernard von Lossberg. He

saw the campaign's objective as seizure of Leningradconsidered the capital of Bolshevism-in the north and

Ukrainian economic resources, including wheat, oil and

steel, in the south . By contrast, the OKH planner, Gen Erich

von Marcks, put greater emphasis on a direct advance by

the shortest route to Moscow. This was because Marcks and

his immediate superiors considered the city vital both as the

center of the Soviet state and as the one objective that the

Red Army would not be able to give up and so could be

destroyed in front of it. 5

During the autumn of 1940, the two approaches were

worked out in some detail. On 5 December Hitler met with

the heads of OKH-Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch,

army commander in chief, and Gen Franz Halder, chief of

staff. Having listened to their presentations, he next saw the

deputy head of OKW, Gen Alfred Jodl, who throughout the

war acted as his principal adviser on strategy. Directive No.

21, Operation Barbarossa, constituting the fundamental

campaign plan and embodying the conflicting views of these

organizations, was issued 18 December 1940 .6 The directive

conformed to OKH's wishes insofar as it placed the strongest

German forces, in the form of Army Group Center, north of

the marshes on the direct "historical" route to Moscow. On

the other hand, the views of OKW were accepted in that

there was no provision for proceeding all the way to that city.

Instead, the directive indicated that once the forces had

reached as far as Smolensk (on the far side of the Dnieper

and approximately two-thirds of the way to Moscow), Hitler

reserved for himself the right to turn them north and south

62
in order to assist in the capture of Leningrad and the

Ukraine, respectively.

The plan divided the 144 German divisions earmarked for

the operation-117 if the 16 held in reserve and the 11

employed in Finland are excluded-into three army groups .

From left to right, these were Army Group North (Field

Marshal Wilhelm von Leeb) with 26 divisions, including

three armored and three motorized; Army Group Center

(Field Marshal Fedor von Bock) with 50 divisions, including

nine armored and six motorized; and Army Group South

(Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt) with 41 divisions,

including five armored and three motorized. Starting from

East Prussia, Army Group North was to cut off the Soviet

forces in the Baltic countries, advance to Leningrad, and

provide protection to the left flank of Army Group Centerthree objectives that proved incompatible to some extent.

Army Group Center was to attack on a 300-mile front,

sending out two prongs north and south of Bialystok. The

northern prong was to proceed from Suwalki to Vilna and

Vitebsk, the southern one from Brest Litovsk along the

northern edge of the Pripet Marshes to Bobruisk. The orders

of Army Group South were to strike east from Lublin,

keeping south of the marshes and aiming at Kiev, from

where it was to proceed southeastward along the right bank

of the Dnieper. Further to the south, another part of this

army group was to attack from Galicia towards Lemberg

and, from there, east to Tarnopol .

From the operativ point of view, the campaign presented

the Gerrnans with some unusual problems. Distances in

Russia were much larger than in any of the campaigns

fought by the Wehrmacht thus far. Whereas in 1939-40 no

enemy capital had been more than 200 miles away from the

German starting positions, Leningrad was situated 500 miles

from East Prussia and Moscow 650 miles from the river

Bug, which served as the Soviet-German frontier in Poland .

Rostov on the Don, which Hitler, following the plan of

General Marcks, had marked down as the objective of the

63
advance in the southeast, was even farther away. The

Russians' ability to utilize these distances, avoid battle, and

withdraw into the depths of their endless country had been

demonstrated before, indeed to the point where Clausewitz's

concept of the culminating point probably stemmed from

his observation of the 1812 campaign in which he had

taken part.

To add to the problem of strategic depth, the theater grew

laterally as the Germans pressed east, expanding funnellike from almost 1,000 miles to about 1,500. The terrain was

almost entirely flat, though dotted by forests, marshes and,

in the north, lakes. With one or two exceptions, the rivers

flowed either to the north or to the south. Though currents

were seldom very strong, many of them were broad, deep,

and marked by steep banks on the eastern side, which made

them more difficult to cross in this direction. In this terrain,

railways and especially roads were comparatively far

between, few in number, and in some ways, of doubtful

quality.? Overall, the 579,150 square miles of Soviet

territory west of the Leningrad-Moscow-Rostov line gave

both sides almost unlimited opportunities to maneuver. For

that very reason, it was only by rapid and successful

maneuver that the Germans could hope to prevent the

enemy from withdrawing and to overcome him in a

blitzkrieg campaign.

As the German forces were being assembled in the eastslowly at first and then more rapidly from February 1941,

when the real buildup began8-the Luftwaffe was still

engaged in fighting England. Its first move consisted of an

attempt to destroy the Royal Air Force's (RAF) Fighter

Command and gain air superiority in order to pave the way

for a seaborne invasion. The Luftwaffe was unsuccessful,

however, both because the Germans appear to have failed to

realize the importance of sustained attacks on the opposing

radar system and because the RAF, favored by geography

that allowed it to withdraw its aircraft beyond the range of

the German fighters, was able to dictate the pace of the

64
battle as it saw fit. 9 From the end of September 1940, the

Germans, confronted by growing opposition, changed their

tactics . First, they shifted to daytime bombardment of

British "strategic" objectives . When that proved too

expensive-again and again in World War 11, it was shown

that unaccompanied bombers stood little chance against

modern fighters-they concentrated on nighttime attacks

directed, insofar as any center of gravity can be detected,

against aircraft factories and harbors. Britain's cities,

particularly London, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool,

Glasgow, and Coventry suffered heavily. Nevertheless, the

Luftwaffe, its twin-engined light and medium bombers

designed for participation in operativ warfare and not for

waging an independent strategic campaign, never came

close to forcing the British to their knees. Indeed, the

realization of this fact was one of the factors that finally

drove Hitler to decide to turn east.

The Luftwaffe received with mixed feelings the news that

Germany was about to invade Russia. Many of its leaders,

including Hermann Goering and his deputy, Eberhard

Milch, tried to warn Hitler against waging a two-front war

because of the inevitable dissipation of forces that would

follow. 10 Others, however, expressed relief at the anticipated

return from independent "strategic" warfare to the more

congenial operativ form of war to be waged in conjunction

with the rest of the Wehrmacht. "Finally, a real campaign"

was the comment of Chief of Staff Hans Jeschonnek.l i

Directive No. 21 had charged the Wehrmacht with

"destroying the Soviet forces in a rapid campaign" in order

to prevent their withdrawal into the interior. Within this

general framework, the task of the Luftwaffe was defined as

(1) knocking out the Soviet air force in order to obtain and

maintain air superiority over the theater of operations ; (2)

supporting the operations of Army Group Center and, in a

more selective form (Schwerpunktmaessig, literally "by way

of forming centers of gravity"), those of the other army

groups; (3) disrupting the Soviet railway net in order to
prevent reinforcement on the one hand and withdrawal on

the other; and (4) capturing important transportation

bottlenecks such as bridges ahead of friendly forces by using

parachutists and gliders. 12 "In order to use all available

forces in support of the Army," the directive went on, "the

enemy's armaments industry should not be targeted during

the main campaign," meaning that the German forces would

be directed against the regular Soviet forces rather than at

whatever resistance would remain after the destruction of

those forces . Only after the end of the mobile phase of

operations would attacks on the Soviet armaments industry,

chiefly in the Urals, get under way.

In preparation for the campaign, the Luftwaffe divided its

forces into three Luftlotten. (The forces that operated in

support of the Finns in the far north will not be considered

here, since there was little opportunity for maneuver

warfare there.) Each was clearly earmarked for the support

of one army group, although from the command and control

point of view, there was no question of subordinating air

force units to ground headquarters-but rather only of

cooperation between them . In the north, Luftflotte 1 was

commanded by Gen Alfred Keller. His flying units,

consisting merely of a single air corps, Fliegerkorps I, and a

few smaller forces, possessed a total of 592 transport and

combat aircraft (453 operational), plus 176 reconnaissance

and liaison machines (143 operational). In the center, Field

Marshal Albert Kesselring's Luftlotte 2 was much stronger

with two Fliegerkorps (II and VIII)-1,367 transport and

combat aircraft (994 operational) and 224 reconnaissance

and liaison machines (200 operational). Finally, Gen

Alexander Loehr's Luftlotte 4, with two air corps

(Fliegerkorps IV and V), supported Army Group South. Its

forces consisted of transport and combat aircraft (694

operational), plus 239 reconnaissance and liaison machines

(208 operational) . The total number of combat aircraft

(bombers, fighters, and close support) was 2,713, of which

2,080 were operational . Thus, in spite of the huge task with

66
which it was faced militarily as well as geographically, the

German air force in the east had a strength no greater than

it had been during the French campaign in the previous

year. This reflected the fact that fully one-third of its forces

had to be left to fight in the west, the north (Norway), or the

Mediterranean; qualitatively, too, the forces on the eastern

front were not the most modern since obsolescent aircraft no

longer capable of serving against Britain were still

considered fit to confront the Soviets . 13

Throughout the first half of 1941, the Luftwaffe was hard

at work preparing for the campaign. The aircraft industry

and training facilities were expanded until they were

considered able to keep up with anticipated losses, but no

more . Luftwaffe units flew numerous photoreconnaissance

missions inside Soviet territory, and the list of targets

within a 200-mile zone from the frontier had been completed

by the end of April 1941 . Meanwhile, many new airfields

were built and existing ones improved, the necessary ground

organization put in place, and the required reserves of POL,

ammunition, and equipment assembled . The last stage,

starting towards the end of May, was to bring in the flying

units themselves under a heavy cloak of secrecy.

In Hitler's own words, the German ability to win this most

ambitious of all campaigns rapidly and decisively depended

on tanks and aircraft working together in order to "break

the Russian." 14 Thus, the importance of a smooth system for

air-to-ground cooperation was greater than ever; yet, when

hostilities broke out, the organizational problems of securing

it had by no means been solved in spite of many suggestions

raised by Richthofen and other key Luftwaffe commanders . 15

The system that divided responsibility between the

Kolufts on the one hand and the Flivos on the other

remained in force. A process of decentralization took place

as both types of officers were increased in numbers until,

instead of there being one for each army and corps, one of

each could be assigned to every division. Towards the end of

1941, the Flivos even started accompanying some individual

67
regiments, although there were never enough of them to

expand this system to the army as a whole. 16 Each air corps

(instead of air fleet, as formerly) headquarters now included

a Nahkampfuehrer. His task was to coordinate all Luftwaffe

support for the army, for which purpose he was given

operational control over all units available for that mission.

Some progress was also made in providing ground and air

units with common radio apparatus to enable them to

communicate directly with each other. At Fliegerkorps VIII,

experienced Stuka pilots were now riding in Mark III tanks

and acting as forward air controllers . Nevertheless, the

German army as a whole still depended on various

agreed-on, rather primitive, visual recognition signals to

prevent attacks on friendly troops . Above all, Goering

steadfastly refused any measures that would have assigned

the army any control over the sorties flown by Luftwaffe

combat units, and the Germans had to wait until 1944 for a

real solution for that problem. 17

Like the Soviet Union in general, the Red Air Force at this

time was something of a mystery to the Germans.

18 The

chief of intelligence at the Luftwaffe General Staff was Gen

Joseph Schmidt, an opinionated officer whose estimates of

the situation reflected his Nazi prejudices . He put total

enemy strength at approximately 10,500 machines,

including 7,500 in Europe. Supposedly the Soviets had 1,360

reconnaissance aircraft and bombers, plus perhaps 2,200

fighters (including those added during the first half of 1941).

Most of the machines were supposed (correctly as it turned

out) to be inferior to their German equivalents both in

general flying characteristics and, to an even greater extent,

in specialized instruments such as radio and navigational

aids. The Germans assumed the mass of the Soviet air force

personnel, including pilots, to be primitive and ill-trained by

Western standards and their organization as a whole to be

heavy-handed and inflexible . They believed that once the

Germans occupied the industrial centers in European

Russia, the Soviets would not be able to keep up their

68
strength in aircraft and would be reduced to fighting in

uncoordinated remnants-a belief that turned out to be

grossly mistaken.

At 0300, 22 June 1941, the Luftwaffe opened the campaign

by the now-standard method of a surprise strike at the

enemy's airfields . The weather that day was almost

perfect-warm and sunny with a slight haze that cleared up

later during the day. For reasons that remain inexplicable to

this day, the Soviets had made no preparations to oppose

the aggressors. The German pilots found Red aircraft by the

hundreds lined up wingtip-to-wingtip on the aprons, and

they reported very little opposition on the ground or in the

air. 19 According to whether they consisted of bombers,

fighters, or dive bombers, German units flew as many as

four, five, six, or even eight missions per day-astonishing

figures attributable to the simplicity of the machines, the

often short distances that had to be covered, the excellence

of the ground organization (including a specially developed

apparatus that allowed nine aircraft to be refueled

simultaneously), and the unparalleled determination of the

crews. The first attack was carried out by 637 bombers

(including dive bombers) and 231 fighters . Reportedly it hit

31 airfields, three suspected billets of high-level staffs, two

barracks, two artillery positions, a bunker system, and an

oil depot, all at the cost of two fighters missing. By the

evening of the first day, some 1,800 Soviet aircraft were

reported destroyed, the great majority on the ground but

322 of them shot down as they rose to meet the German

machines. (This disproportion was to prove important later

on because Soviet aircrews had not been affected and would

survive to fight another day.)

Meanwhile, photoreconnaissance was being conducted on

a grand scale . It disclosed the existence of numerous

additional airfields, 130 of which were identified and

attacked during the next few days. By the end of the first

week, the Armed Forces High Command was able to report

the destruction of 4,017 Soviet aircraft against a loss of only

69
150 German ones . 2By 12 July Soviet losses had risen to

about 6,850. This included entire bomber squadrons flying

obsolescent machines without fighter cover that were shot

down like turkeys as they hurled themselves at the invading

German columns.

After the first few days, Soviet air operations were

reduced to scattered attacks by small numbers of aircraft

that appeared out of nowhere, dropped or fired their

ordnance, and made off as best they could. Having achieved

air superiority to the point that they could command the sky

whenever and wherever they wanted, the Germans on 25

June felt that the time had come to shift the center of

gravity to support their own ground forces . In so doing, they

soon discovered that the number of aircraft available was

never really sufficient to cover the vast theater of

operations ; this in itself made a coordinated system of

operativ warfare difficult since the constant demands for air

support tended to disrupt planning, dissipate the available

forces, and hinder the creation of Schwerpunkte. Russian

roads, often consisting of mere tracks, were difficult to

attack because they were usually easy to repair or bypass.

Attacks on Russian villages, designed to reduce houses to

rubble and thus block the communications passing between

them, seldom led to lasting results owing to the wide

distances separating the houses and to the wood used in

their construction . In the north, as well as on the fringes of

the Pripet Marshes, extensive forests enabled even large

units, particularly those consisting of infantry or cavalry, to

escape observation from the air.

Still, in other ways the Russian countryside offered

advantages to the attacker from the air. The density of the

railway network was relatively low, there being only 52,000

miles of track (many of them single) in the entire gigantic

country. Hence, the task of disrupting the lines and bringing

traffic to a standstill did not appear as insoluble as it would

have been if the USSR had been a developed Western

country with many intersecting, parallel, and redundant

70
lines of communication and numerous technically advanced

facilities for repair and maintenance. In the center and

south, the open, flat, almost treeless terrain-much like the

American Midwest-made it nearly impossible for ground

units to find cover against air attack except by utilizing the

occasional ravines. A well-planned campaign should have

exploited these advantages and avoided the obstacles .

However, this was something that the Germans, operating

with only relatively small forces and trying to achieve too

many things at once, were never really able to do.

The Luftwaffe's central archives were destroyed at the

end of the war, and no good information is forthcoming from

the Soviet side. Therefore, what little quantitative data can

be found on the impact of the German air attacks on the

Soviet ground forces, transportation system, and logistics

have to be put together from the scattered surviving records

of individual Luftwaffe units. These show that Ju-88 light

bombers of a single Kampfgeschwader (bomber group)

belonging to Fliegerkorps II claimed to have destroyed 356

trains and 14 bridges, interrupted railway traffic 322 times,

and flown 200 sorties against troop concentrations,

barracks, and supply depots in support of Army Group

Center in "indirect" operations between 22 June and 9

September. During the same period, and acting in "direct"

support of the army, the same unit claimed to have

destroyed 30 tanks and 488 motor vehicles in addition to

flying some 90 sorties against artillery positions. The

Me-110s (twin-engined fighters) of another group claimed to

have destroyed only 50 trains and 4 bridges between 22

June and 27 September but compensated by scoring 148

tanks, 166 guns, and 3,280 vehicles of all kinds.

As the records of many ground units show, Soviet

opposition in the air during this period was so weak as to be

almost negligible . This permitted even single-engined

fighters to be diverted away from the escort role to attacking

ground targets, and so one Jagdgeschwader (fighter group)

flying in support of Army Group Center was able to report

71
142 tanks and armored cars, 16 guns, 34 locomotives, 432

trucks and one train destroyed. 21 Certain entries in the

diary of the chief of the German Army General Staff-who

himself relied on information originating in the Luftwaffeshow that these attacks were not without effect on ground

operations . On individual occasions, they deprived the Soviet

armies of supplies, blocked reinforcements, and created

congestion on the Ukrainian railroads in particular. 22

However, the available evidence does not permit a detailed

reconstruction of the impact of these operations on the

campaign as a whole.

In the north, the German ground operations had three

aims (fig. 3). They were to surround and cut off the Soviet

forces in the Baltic countries (Eighteenth Army on the left),

advance on the shortest line to Leningrad (4th Panzer

Group in the center), and cover the right flank while

keeping in touch with Army Group Center (Sixteenth Army

on the right) . 23 These diverging objectives, imposed on Army

Group North by Hitler himself, are open to criticism;

however, because the terrain in this theater, as in Russia as

a whole, became more open as the attacking army advanced

further toward the east, gaps were bound to appear on the

flanks of the advancing spearheads .

The German system of maneuver warfare was by now

fully developed. Its consistent aim was to drive deep wedges

into the enemy and to encircle his forces (consisting, as of 10

July, of 31 divisions and six independent mechanized

brigades grouped together under Soviet Field Marshal

Kliment Voroshilov's Northwestern Front). The speed of the

advance was spectacular, reaching 40 miles per day during

the first few days. Nevertheless, Army Group North never

really succeeded in cutting off the main Soviet forces as it

had planned to do . Nor did it have the infantry needed to

seal what pockets that were formed; many Red Army units,

though isolated from each other, remained intact or, at any

rate, sufficiently cohesive to continue fighting, especially

since the dense forests afforded plenty of room for them to
hide . It fell to the Luftwaffe to leap into the breach and to

identify and prevent counterattacks from developing into

dangerous threats . This caused its independence to be

gradually eroded until finally it was reduced to the role of a

mobile fire brigade, just the kind of thing Luftwaffe leaders

had always wanted to avoid.
For example, on 27 June units of Fliegerkorps I were

instrumental in beating back a Soviet counteroffensive near

Shaulyai (Schaulen), Latvia, where approximately 200

enemy tanks were destroyed. 24 On 2 and 3 July the same

units first helped breach the fortifications along the old

border and then, switching back to operativ warfare,

attacked the bridges over the Dvina River in order to

prevent the Soviets from making good their escape to the

northeast. 25 In this they were only partly successful. On 6

July it was the turn of the Red Air Force to try and wreck

the bridges over the Dvina in order to slow down the

German pursuit. This enabled General Keller's Luftflotte 1

fighters to shoot down 65 out of 73 attacking aircraft, thus

putting an end to large-scale enemy attempts to interfere

with ground operations in this sector. Units of Luftflotte 1

also assisted in supplying Sixteenth Army during its

advance, given the single road (in reality, little better than a

forest track) leading from Pskov toward Narva had not yet

been cleared and was dominated by isolated Red Army

units. 26

Thus, during the first two weeks of the campaign, all the

ways in which an air force might assist maneuver warfare

were displayed to the fullest. 27 As flying units were moved

forward onto newly captured Soviet airfields, the distances

between them and their targets diminished. Beginning in

the second week of July, this permitted the Luftwaffe to

mount repeated attacks on the Moscow-Leningrad railway

with the aim of severing communications between Russia's

two most important cities . 28 Like others after them, however,

the Germans were to learn that railways, while not difficult

to disrupt, were not difficult to repair. 29 Though traffic

suffered, the line could not be completely cut until the

ground forces had advanced sufficiently to throw a ring

around the city.

Beginning in the last week of July, Luftflotte 1 was

reinforced by Gen Wolfram von Richthofen's Fliegerkorps

VIII, which was detached from its original assignment to

74
Army Group Center and brought up to the newly occupied

Baltic airfields . Acting in his favorite role as a close-support

expert, Richthofen repeatedly massed his forces to deliver

concentrated blows at key targets . 3° On 15 August they

assisted Sixteenth Army in the capture of Novgorod. On 24

August their intervention was decisive in beating back a

Soviet counteroffensive against the left wing of Army Group

North at Staraya Russa. On 28 August they helped bring

the attack on Tallinn (Reval) to a successful conclusion.

However, despite repeated attempts and many hits on both

warships and freighters,31 Luftflotte 1 was unable to prevent

the bulk of the Red Fleet from retreating to Kronstadt and

Leningrad. In a sort of mini-Dunkirk, the Soviets succeeded

in evacuating some of their troops in the Baltic, and these

were later instrumental in the defense of Leningrad.

Fliegerkorps VIII was still available when the offensive

against Leningrad got under way on 26 September. Against

strong antiaircraft fire, it helped the units of Fliegerkorps I

attack targets within the city as well as ships in the harbor;

a Soviet counterattack in the direction of Lake Ladoga was

beaten off, and the ring around "the capital of Bolshevism"

closed. However, only a few days later, Richthofen's units

were taken away and sent back to support the offensive of

Army Group Center against Moscow. Army Group North

itself had now been deprived of the bulk of Fourth Panzer

Army, which was also sent to the Moscow area. Relying on a

single motorized corps (X=X), it was still able to carry out

a last offensive effort, crossing the Volkhov River in the

direction of Tikhvin, where it hoped to link up with the

Finns on the river Svir. Though its aircraft (Ju-88s) were

not really suited to the task, especially in view of the

densely wooded nature of the terrain, Fliegerkorps I flew

missions directly supporting the operation as well as

attacking railway lines leading into the area. After bitter

fighting, Tikhvin fell on 9 November . However, the battle

was by no means at an end, and the Germans, finding

themselves counterattacked by three Soviet armies under

75
Gen K. A. Meretskov, were forced to evacuate it a month

later. By this time, bad weather, including persistent winter

fog, affected the operations of Luftflotte 1 to the point where

it was unable to reconnoiter effectively, let alone mount

coordinated attacks on what targets could still be identified .

The operations of Army Group North became essentially

static and were destined to remain so until the siege of the

city was lifted in January 1944.

In this siege, Luftflotte 1, its forces much reduced by losses

and by the limited availability of aircraft, was assigned the

task of attacking military targets within the city as well as

the supply routes leading to it. 32 In spite of the reported

destruction (by 23 August) of 2,541 enemy aircraft plus 433

probable kills, Soviet opposition began reviving in the

autumn, and by the end of the year the city was defended by

several hundred fighters, 300 balloons, and 600 antiaircraft

artillery barrels. Although the Germans never lost the

ability to gain air superiority where and when they wanted,

they were unable to make much headway in capturing

Leningrad. From September through December 1941, the

Luftwaffe dropped a total of 1,500 tons of bombs on targets

in and around Leningrad; this was less than the amount

dropped by Allied air forces on a single German city in a single

night in 1944-45. As a result, the lifeline to Leningrad,

which as of 18 November consisted of motor convoys (later a

railway as well) crossing over frozen Lake Ladoga, could never

be completely severed for any length of time .

As 1941 drew to an end, the troops of Luftlotte 1, living

under impossible conditions and prevented by the weather

from flying much of the time, were drowning their sorrows

in alcohol . 33 Meanwhile, far to the south, Army Group South

advanced from Poland. Its left wing was formed by Sixth

Army, acting as a flank guard against possible counterattacks coming from the Pripet Marshes; next, from north to

south, came 1st Panzer Group, Seventeenth Army, and,

emerging from Rumania on 2 July, Eleventh Army operating

in conjunction with some Rumanian forces (fig. 4) . As usual,

the planners at OKH had staked their main hopes for

operativ warfare on 1st Panzer Group, though not to the

extent of freeing it from subordination to Sixth Army.

(Throughout the summer of 1941, German panzer groups

continued to be under the orders of infantry armies in order

to prevent them from wandering off on their own.) The 1st

Panzer Group was expected to break through the frontier

defenses and advance very fast, its mission being to outflank

the Soviet forces on its right until, by turning southward to

the Black Sea, it could crush them in a Kesselschlacht

against Eleventh Army coming from its Rumanian

"balcony." This strategy in turn rendered the south flank of

the panzer army open to attack . As always, there were wide

gaps between the advancing German columns, and

Fliegerkorps V had already been instrumental in beating

back a corps-sized Soviet counterattack on 26 June in the

area between Lutsk and Rovno. 34

It soon became clear that the Soviet forces in this area,

which formed the Southwestern Front under Gen M. P.

Kirponos, were better commanded than elsewhere . In the

sector of Seventeenth Army, they slowed down the German

advance, did not allow themselves to be disrupted, and,

fighting for as long as the situation permitted, made what

were on the whole well-ordered retreats (fig . 5). Some of Gen

M. I. Potapov's Fifth Army withdrew into the marshes to the

north, where the Luftwaffe was unable to find them and

from which they were to emerge later in the campaign.

Others fell back on the Stalin line and, after that line was

breached, tried to cross the Dnieper to safety. It was the

task of Fliegerkorps V, attached to the left wing of the army

group, to prevent the retreat. At first it did so with some

success by attacking roads, railroads, and transportation

centers in Lvov, Brody, Zlotuv, Zhitomir, Berdicev,

Starokonstantinov, Belaya Tserkov, and Kazatin. Other

than an occasional thunderstorm, the weather was good and

the country completely open. Hence, these attacks, which

went on day and night, were as successful as any that the

78

Luftwaffe mounted in Russia throughout the campaign . A

high point was reached on 30 June when two or three Soviet

motorized columns, moving four abreast, were caught near

Lvov and subjected to what amounted almost to a

slaughter. 35 However, Fliegerkorps V did not have divebombing units under its command. It was instrumental in

keeping the air clear of Soviet aircraft, but its ability to offer

direct support to First Panzer Army was limited. This was

one factor that caused the advance of that unit to be

considerably slower at first than had been planned.

Penetrating farther to the east, the Germans faced

different problems. Whereas the nature of the terrain in the

north had caused the advance to proceed along the forest

tracks, the countryside in the Ukraine presented no

limitations. Under such circumstances, it did not take long

before Luftflotte 4, like Army Group South as a whole, found

its forces threatened by lack of cohesion . The problem was

made worse by the almost complete absence of roads . This

caused the army and air force to compete for the few

available roadways in order to bring supplies forward. At

times it became necessary to supply the forward units of the

Luftwaffe by air, always a very costly operation. As a result,

the bombers were increasingly left behind, the fighters could

not reach the front at all, and only the attack aircraft got

proper logistic support. Although bridges on the Dnieper

were repeatedly hit by sorties flown by Fliegerkorps V,

traffic over them was never completely halted because they

proved difficult to destroy. Attacks were also made on the

railway network east of the river in the Konotop-GlukhovGorodishche-Priluki-Bakhmach region . Tactical results were

very good, with some 1,000 railroad cars destroyed,36 but

again the withdrawal of at least some Soviet forces in front

of 1st Panzer Group could not be prevented.

Meanwhile, having reached the Dnieper on 10 July, 1st

Panzer Group was forbidden by Hitler from crossing it.

Thereupon the Germans turned their armored spearheads

towards the southeast, keeping west of the river . This

80
brought them into the rear of the Soviet armies that were

slowly falling back in front of the German Seventeenth

Army and led to the creation of the pocket at Uman. Here

Fliegerkorps V was more successful than before in helping

the ground forces seal off the pocket and prevent the escape

of the Soviet forces, particularly since it was assisted by

units of Fliegerkorps IV coming from Rumania in support of

the German Eleventh Army. However, this meant that Sixth

Army in the north had to be left completely unsupported.

That army accordingly had to beat off the Soviet Fifth Army

coming out of the Pripet Marshes and directing its attack

against the exposed rear of 1st Panzer Group. It did so,

but at the cost of slowing its own advance to a snail's pace

and thereby laying-even though unintentionally-the

foundations for the subsequent vast Kesselschlacht of Kiev.

When Army Group South had finished clearing the Uman

pocket and was preparing to cross the Dnieper on 7 August,

it found itself exposed to a sudden counterattack by the

Soviet Twenty-sixth Army on the right flank of the German

Sixth Army. This, had it succeeded, might have cut the army

group in two or at least driven a deep wedge between the

widely separated German forces . As usual, the only force

immediately available to hold off the threat was the

Luftwaffe; and, as was often the case during this period, it

did so quickly and effectively, though at the cost of switching

to battlefield operations for which many of its aircraft were

not really suitable. A week was to pass before the German

forces coming from the north and the south simultaneously

(one of 1st Panzer Group's armored divisions had to turn

around and retrace its previous movement) were able to halt

the Soviets and throw them back across the river. During the

first decisive days, Fliegerkorps V, throwing in every available

unit and forced by unfavorable weather to fly at altitudes as

low as 50-100 meters, fought on its own and later claimed to

have destroyed 94 tanks and 184 motor vehicles . 37

By the middle of August, although isolated pockets of enemy

resistance remained, the situation west of the Dnieper could

81
be regarded as stabilized. From 17 August on, Luftflotte 4

accordingly moved its efforts farther to the east, hitting the

communications center of Dnepropetrovsk day and night in

the hope of preventing the Soviets from making further

withdrawals and preparing for the Germans' own forthcoming offensive. Owing partly to distance and partly to

sheer wear and tear, the number of fighters available to

Fliegerkorps V was down to 44 . Although these fighters

performed marvels (on 30 August, there was an announcement

that 1,000 Soviet aircraft had been shot down in air-to-air

combat), they could not be everywhere at once . Hence, a

Soviet attack on the bridge across the Dnieper at

Gornostaypol, which the Germans had taken in a coup de

main, was successful in delaying the advance of Sixth Army

once again. Fliegerkorps V was, however, able to protect the

first bridgehead built by 1st Panzer Group across the

Dnieper on 8 September against determined Soviet attempts

to attack it from the air.

Throughout this period, Fliegerkorps IV, with its weaker

forces, continued to fly missions in support of Eleventh

Army, which was approaching the Crimea. It attacked the

bridges across the Dniester to prevent Soviet reinforcements

and to prevent the escape of Soviet forces from the Uman

pocket. The center of gravity gradually shifted eastward

until Odessa, used by the Soviets in an attempt to evacuate

their forces by sea, became the most important target. 38

When the Rumanians crossed the Dniester in the middle of

July, Fliegerkorps IV typically switched back to close

support. The same pattern was thus revealed in this

somewhat separate theater as everywhere else . If only

because not even Richthofen's close support experts could

respond to the army's demands in less than two hours, the

Luftwaffe's normal preference was for what the Germans

called operativ warfare and what we would call

behind-the-front interdiction. At least during the early

phases of the campaign, close support came into its own only

when a clear geographical line divided the forces on both

82
sides or else when a Soviet counterattack created an

emergency.

Even as these operations were going on, the most

important part of the drama was taking place neither in the

Baltic nor in the Ukraine but with Army Group Center

north of the Pripet Marshes in Belorussia. The armored

forces, forming the spearheads of the army group, were put

on its wings: 3d Panzer Group (Gen Hermann Hoth) on the

left and 2d Panzer Group (Gen Heinz Guderian) on the

right. Setting out from Suwalki and Brest Litovsk,

respectively-the distance separating them was about 200

miles-these spearheads were to converge on Minsk, some

250 miles inside Soviet territory, in order to form a gigantic

pocket. Between the two armored spearheads marched the

infantry armies-Ninth Army to the north and Fourth Army

to the south . This well-thought-out plan, which gave the

German forces shorter distances to cover and enabled them

to participate in the campaign by sealing off the pocket

formed by the armored spearheads, was designed to allow

them to form a second and smaller pocket inside the larger

one by meeting at a point on the Bialystok-Minsk road some

100 miles to the east of their starting positions . As usual in

maneuver warfare, everything depended on speed and

boldness in finding the weak spot and then, having burst

through it, striking deep into the enemy's rear. As usual,

this could only be achieved by presenting to the enemy long,

open flanks that the Luftwaffe had the task of holding and

protecting.

The starting positions of Guderian's tanks were on the

river Bug. As usual, when there was a river to be crossed,

the effect was to divert the Luftwaffe units on the spot

(Fliegerkorps II) from deep strikes to close support,

especially since the crossing sites could be dominated by the

guns in the ancient fortress of Brest Litovsk. Fliegerkorps II

was accordingly directed to this task even before it could

achieve full air superiority; its "rolling attacks" (rollende

Einsatz), a kind of operation already familiar from the

83
Battle of the Meuse in 1940, afforded Guderian's rear

echelons a safe passage until the fortress finally

surrendered. 39 Next, on 23 June units of Luftflotte 2 were

instrumental in beating back a furious Soviet counteroffensive at Grodno. It was only after these operations were

over that the weight of the attack could be shifted farther to

the east. It now fell on the railroads leading into the area of

the prospective pocket (interdiction) and also on the roads

leading out of them through the Belorussian forest.

Even at this early point in the campaign, growing

distances were already creating a situation where the

long-range reconnaissance and bomber units could not be

brought up fast enough for the latter to attack targets

identified by the former. With the results of photoreconnaissance often many hours out of date, it became necessary

to resort to armed reconnaissance by having the bombers act

in both roles at once and attack targets of opportunity, a

method that proved wasteful in terms of the time that the

units could spend on mission. Acting in this way,

Fliegerkorps II was able to obstruct but not entirely prevent

the attempts by forces of the Soviet West Front (Gen D. G.

Pavlov) to retreat and break out of the pocket; also, since it

could not be everywhere at once, it was unable to intervene

against the sorties flown by the Red Air Force against the

German cavalry division forming the extreme right flank of

Army Group Center. 40 Further north, Fliegerkorps VIII was

instrumental in beating off a Soviet counterattack launched

against Hoth's flank on 24-25 June in the Kuznica-Odel'skGrodno-Dembrovo area. Since roads in this area were few

and far between, it also airlifted supplies to the rapidly

advanced 3d Panzer Group . By means of all these

operations, the Luftwaffe contributed substantially to the

closing of the pocket at Minsk, the first great German

victory in this new campaign.

The Battle of Minsk was concluded on 3 July, when the

Soviet forces inside the pocket formally surrendered,

although it was another five days before resistance came to

84
an end and 290,000 Russian prisoners had fallen into

German hands. Meanwhile, the arrival of the infantry had

enabled the armor to be disengaged and resupplied . On 9

July, Guderian and Hoth were off again. This time the goal

was to close the jaws at Smolensk, 400 miles from the

starting positions, thus building another one of those

gigantic pockets that were the specialty of the blitzkrieg. 41

The Luftwaffe's principal task was to prevent the Red Air

Force from disrupting German preparations for the crossing

of the Dnieper, which it did most effectively but not without

causing some friendly casualties. 42 On 23 July the pincers

met and trapped a mass of Russians (fig.6). As one might

expect from the vast distances, however, the pincers were at

first rather thin . The German infantry divisions, though

marching hard, had been left far behind by the panzers.

Consequently, it again fell to Luftflotte 2 to do its best to

hold the pocket until they could arrive . It did so with only

partial success ; unlike the French in the previous year, the

Russians for the most part did not surrender simply because

the map showed that their units had been cut off. Using the

wooded terrain to hide during the day, many of them were

able to break out at night. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring

of Luftflotte 2 later estimated that 100,000 Soviet troops had

made good their escape in this way, albeit at the cost of

leaving their heavy equipment behind and watching their

large units disintegrate . 43

Although it was not until 5 August that the pocket west of

Smolensk could be regarded as properly closed-and even

then gaps remainedFliegerkorps VIII had already been

taken away from Luftlotte 2. By Hitler's orders, it joined

Fliegerkorps I in its attack towards Leningrad. The

remaining formation, Fliegerkorps II, now found its forces

strung out thinly across the hundreds of miles forming the

front of Army Group Center and attempting to protect its

flanks . It had to assist in sealing off the pocket, but at the

same time it had to beat off a series of determined Soviet

counterattacks against the exposed Yelnya salient across

RS

the Dnieper (occupied by Guderian

s troops). To add to its

trouble, it was called upon to operate far in the south, using

Stukas to strike at Soviet armored boats that appeared

unexpectedly on the northern edges of the Pripet Marshes

and inflicted stinging losses on the German cavalry division

there . By this time, the Red Air Force had found its bearings

to the extent that it was able to join in the army's attacks on

the Yelnya salient. Unable to be everywhere at once, the

fighters of Fliegerkorps II were often too late to interfere .

Attempting to pursue the low-flying, heavily armored Soviet

attack aircraft, they were fired at from the ground by every

possible weapon. As a result, an order went out to the

German ground troops to imitate the Soviets and defend

themselves against air attack with machine guns. This was

OKH's first admission that, in these enormous spaces, the

army no longer had nor could hope to have all the friendly

command of the air it desired. 44

As the German forces consolidated their hold at Smolensk

on the Dnieper, Hitler and the Army High Command

engaged in the famous debate as to which objective, Moscow

or the Ukraine, should be given priority. On Hitler's orders,

Hoth's 3d Panzer Group now followed Fliegerkorps VIII in

turning to the assistance of Army Group North, though

without much success since the country between Smolensk

and Leningrad contains some of the largest and densest

forests in the whole of Russia . We cannot debate here

whether or not it was feasible, let alone desirable, to pursue

the offensive against Moscow at this time. Suffice it to say

that this author's research indicates that the logistic basis

for this action was not available since the railways

supplying the German infantry forces in particular (unlike

the armored groups, they did not have their own motorized

transport capable of bringing up supplies from the rear) had

been left hundreds of miles behind . 45

Up to this point, the Luftwaffe's task in the east had

consisted almost exclusively of operativ warfare in indirect

or increasingly direct support of the army. Indeed, Hitler's

87
Directive No. 21 had explicitly ordered attacks on Soviet

"strategic" targets such as arms manufacturers to be

postponed until after the Archangelsk-Volga-Astrakhan line

would be reached. However, the need to consolidate the

Smolensk pocket, as well as the inability of the German

High Command to make up its mind concerning the next

objective, created some breathing space. Working day and

night, the Luftwaffe brought its ground organization

forward, a task that was already being made difficult by the

operations of scattered Red Army units as well as the first

partisan forces . It was only about 250 miles from the

Dnieper to Moscow, making it possible to mount a series of

raids against the Soviet capita1. 46 The first and largest attack

was launched on the night of 21-22 July and was carried out

by 195 bombers; of these, 127 reached their targets and

dropped 104 tons of high explosives as well as 46,000 small

incendiary bombs. From then until 5 December-the day the

final German attack on Moscow opened-75 more raids were

mounted, all by night and the great majority by forces

numbering fewer than 50 aircraft each. 47 The 1,000 Soviet

antiaircraft guns concentrated in the city, as well as

opposition from Red Air Force fighters, forced the Luftwaffe

to operate mainly by night. Even if their bombers had been

capable of accurately hitting their targets, which they were

not, this was not nearly enough to make an impression. The

Soviets later put the total number of dead at 1,088,48

comparable to the figure killed at Rotterdam in the previous

year but a small fraction of those destroyed by the vast

Allied raids on German cities later in the war.

As for maneuver warfare, the raids on Moscow

undoubtedly constituted a wasteful diversion of effort away

from the main task, which was and remained the

destruction of the Soviet armed forces. However, it should be

remembered that, owing partly to logistic reasons and partly

to the need to clear up the still-seething Smolensk pocket,

ground operations on the central front were almost at a

standstill at this time. While Luftflotte 2's attack aircraft

22
took part in preventing the Soviets from breaking out of the

pocket, its bombers were not very suitable for this task.

They were therefore used on other missions even if the value

of those missions proved disappointing in the end. When

large-scale operativ warfare was resumed late in August, the

raids on Moscow continued but were greatly reduced until

they only represented a small fraction of the German effort.

To the Soviets, they were never more than a nuisance, but

they probably did tie down greater forces committed to

defending the city than were ever committed to attacking it.

By the end of August, after almost a month of stationary

fighting, Army Group Center had its supply situation

improved to the extent that the railway supporting its

southern flank now reached the city of Gomel. 49 This

enabled Guderian's Panzer Group 2, supported by the newly

created Second Army, to start its drive southward into the

Ukraine, where it acted in conjunction with Gen Ewald von

Kleist's Panzer Group 1 coming up from Kiev. The Germans

thought they were operating against only the Soviet Fifth

Army; however, the entire enemy force consisted of parts of

several other armies as well, so that the operation took

longer and yielded far more prisoners and booty than

originally expected. As usual, the missions ofFliegerkorps II

and Fliegerkorps V, supporting the two panzer groups, were

to gain and maintain air superiority, isolate the pocket

against counterattacks from the outside, and attack the

encircled Soviet forces until they laid down their arms.

Beginning on 28 August, Fliegerkorps II supported

Guderian's crossing of the river Desna by blasting away at

the Soviet artillery positions on the other side. 50 It next flew

missions against the Soviet railways on Guderian's exposed

left flank while using its dive bombers to blast a way for the

panzers on their way south, helping them to advance rapidly

and preventing the bulk of the Soviet forces from

withdrawing. 51 Simultaneously, Fliegerkorps V launched

attacks on roads and railroads in the Romodan-Poltava

area, prevented a counterattack by Soviet forces coming

89
from the Lubny-Lokhvitsa-Priluki-Yagotin area, helped the

army capture Kiev ("to be reduced to rubble and ashes,"

according to Hitler's order52 ), and in general bombed the

encircled Soviet forces, making them ready for surrender.

The war diary of this corps for the period is one of the few

documents to survive the war, making a quantitative

analysis of these operations possible . 53 It shows that the

forces of Fliegerkorps V flew 1,422 sorties between 12 and 21

September alone, losing 17 aircraft destroyed, 14 damaged,

nine soldiers dead, 18 missing, and five wounded. In return,

they dropped 577 tons of bombs and 96 cases of incendiaries

(presumably over Kiev) and destroyed 65 enemy aircraft in

the air and 42 on the ground. They also destroyed 23 tanks;

2,171 motor vehicles ; six antiaircraft batteries; 52 trains; 28

locomotives (this apart from 335 motor vehicles and 36

trains damaged) ; demolished one bridge ; and interrupted 18

railway lines . To the extent that these figures mean

anything at all, it seems that the Schwerpunkt during this,

as during all German mobile operations, was on interdiction;

this is indicated by the small number of tanks destroyed as

well as the absence from the list of major weapons such as

ground artillery.

Meanwhile, along the Dnieper on both sides of Smolensk,

the rebuilding of the railways and their conversion to

standard gauge was proceeding apace. Fliegerkorps VIII, its

mission in the north only half accomplished, was brought

back under the command of Luftflotte 2 . Panzer Group 3 was

taken from Army Group North and returned to its original

position on the left of Army Group Center, where it was

subordinated to the Ninth Army; these were thus the same

forces that had formed the northern arm in the battles of

Minsk and Smolensk . To compensate for the loss of

Guderian, Hitler ordered Gen Erich Hoepner's Panzer

Group 4 to be used as well . In this way, it operated under

the command of Fourth Army at Roslavl on the south flank

of Army Group Center, where Guderian had previously

been. Meanwhile, Guderian himself was to create a third

90
prong by driving due north-northwest through Bryansk

towards Tula . The German forces now totaled 70 divisions,

including four armored and eight motorized; average actual

strength was probably around 70 percent, up from 50

percent five weeks earlier . Opposing them were 83 Soviet

divisions of the western theater, commanded by Gen Georgi

Zhukov. Its principal parts, from north to south, were the

West Front, the Reserve Front and, facing Guderian, the

Bryansk Front (fig. 7).

Guderian's offensive opened on 30 September, and the

remaining German armies following two days later. At first,

the new offensive promised to become as successful as

anything in the past; on 10 October, forward units of Panzer

Group 3 and Panzer Group 4 met at Vyazma, trapping some

300,000 Soviet troops . Meanwhile, Panzer Group 2 (now

redesignated Second Panzer Army), operating in conjunction

with Second Army on its left, came up from the south and

succeeded in working its way behind Gen A. I. Eremenko's

Bryansk Front. At this time, the weather broke and the

autumn rains began. The entire countryside turned into a

vast sea of mud that prevented wheeled vehicles from

moving at all and caused tracked ones to move forward only

slowly and at an enormous cost in fuel.

As the offensive began, the Luftwaffe's raids on Moscow

were reduced in scale until they became of nuisance value

only. Luftflotte 2 went back to its usual role of interdiction

behind the front; on 4 and 5 October, it was able to achieve

very good results against Soviet rail transport, including the

destruction of no fewer than 10 trains loaded with tanks. 54

However, when the weather broke, it too found itself

reduced to flying isolated sorties against such targets as

could still be identified . There were even days when the

entire air fleet, its ground organization suffering grievously

under the impossible conditions, was only able to get one or

two reconnaissance aircraft into the air . Red Air Force

resistance, favored by prepared airfields and short lines of

communications, was stiffening and had to be held down.

91

Under such circumstances, Fliegerkorps II was only able to

achieve isolated successes, such as preventing a bridge over

the river Snopot from being blown up until German armored

units could arrive on the scene. 55 Farther to the south, it

was all it could do to keep the supply routes of Second

Panzer Army open against the usual remnants of Soviet

forces that, though outflanked on the map and supposedly

defeated, had not been destroyed. In doing so, it suffered

many losses due to the bad weather.

The tremendous German success in the autumn battles

had left Hitler and the OKH in an optimistic mood. The

double encirclement at Vyazma and Bryansk had yielded as

many as 350,000 prisoners, though even this huge figure did

not account for many Soviet forces that had made good their

escape on the southern part of the front. The continuation of

the offensive had originally been ordered for 17 November.

However, a few days after this date, the weather brought

snow and fog with temperatures sinking to below zero

centigrade. Fliegerkorps II was taken out of the line and

sent to the Mediterranean, where the British had driven

Rommel back from Tobruk and were threatening

Tripolitania. With them went the commander of Luftflotte 2,

Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, who was destined to spend

the rest of his career commanding the German forces in the

Mediterranean theater. All that was left in front of Moscow

was Fliegerkorps VIII, whose commander, Gen Wolfram von

Richthofen, took over from Kesselring on 30 November. By

this time, the airfields used by the Germans were scarcely

serviceable, and the few units that were still able to advance

at all were being overwhelmed by the cold. On 8 December,

faced by a massive Soviet counterattack that threatened the

flanks of Army Group Center on both sides of Moscow,

Hitler reluctantly ordered the offensive to be abandoned. 56

Seen in retrospect, the German campaign in Russia in

1941 was the greatest display of maneuver warfare in

history, and it will likely remain so in the future . In point of

preparedness, doctrine, numbers available for the offensive,

93
and leadership, the German armed forces had peaked

during the summer. These qualities enabled them to storm

forward, advancing over 600 miles in less than six months

while fighting against an opponent who was numerically at

least equal, and to conquer territory about twice as large as

Germany itself. The key to this unparalleled achievement

was operativ warfare, now waged with the aid of armored

and mechanized units and honed into the blitzkrieg. Its

essence consisted of never taking on the enemy in a frontal

attack if it could be helped; instead, massive forces were

concentrated on very narrow fronts in order to achieve a

breakthrough, after which they would move forward to drive

deep wedges into the enemy, pulverize (zerstuekeln),

outflank, encircle, and annihilate him in a Kesselschlacht

with inverted fronts whenever possible . Coordinated

mobility, even more than firepower, formed the key to this

method of warfare, and indeed the entire German system of

organization and C3 were specifically designed to assist

large separated forces in coordinating their movements

against a single enemy. As a glance at the map shows, the

campaign consisted of first breaking up the enemy front into

separate sectors and then building a series of huge

cauldrons, each of which contained several hundred

thousand Red Army troops (fig. 8) . In point of sheer

operational brilliance, it has no parallel.

This above does not mean that the German conduct of the

war, even if narrowed down to the 1941 campaign alone and

even if regarded from a purely operativ standpoint, was

perfect. Having underestimated both the power of their

opponents and the difficulties posed by distance, terrain,

and climate, the Germans did not have sufficient troops for

the campaign and logistically their preparations for it were

rather sketchy. 57 Once the invasion got under way, the

funnel shape of the theater of war meant that the number of

objectives was forever increasing. This should have acted as

a spur to the German High Command (Hitler in particular)

to decide priorities and to create Schwerpunkte. Instead,

94
they often chose to scatter their forces and "send them off

along a growing number of diverging axes in order to, from

left to right (or north to south), link up with the Finns,

capture Leningrad," keep in touch with Army Group Center,

capture Moscow, keep in touch with Army Group South,

overrun the Ukraine, and invade the Crimea . Whether the

Germans could have won the war by imitating Napoleon and

marching straight for Moscow is doubtful, given that the fall
of the city would not necessarily have caused the Soviet

Union to break up .58 Also, it is not clear whether such a

thrust could have been logistically supported using the road

system in Belorussia. 59 As it was, this strategy was never

put to the test.

As these pages have shown, the contribution that the

Luftwaffe made to the campaign was enormous. It was able

to secure air superiority and protect friendly forces against

attack, although its ability to carry out the latter mission

diminished as time passed. Next, its forces used every

means at its disposal to help the army move forward.

Luftwaffe units reconnoitered the enemy ahead of the army

and often helped the latter's commanders decide on the best

direction in which to mount their operativ thrusts . They flew

supplies to army units that could not be reached in any

other way. They protected the long, exposed flanks that

naturally resulted from the blitzkrieg style of war, forming

Schwerpunkte wherever and whenever the enemy showed

signs of preparing a counterattack. They helped prevent the

withdrawal of trapped Soviet forces and launched punishing

attacks on those that had been cut off inside the pockets

created by the army's operativ thrusts. Whenever a river

was to be crossed or an important city to be captured, the

Luftwaffe was certain to be found flying close-support

missions even to the point where it literally dropped its

bombs at the German infantryman's feet.

Though the achievements of the Luftwaffe were thus

considerable, it became increasingly clear that the available

forces were not really sufficient to master the enormous

spaces involved. This was particularly true in view of the

equally enormous difficulties involved in having to operate

from bases that were primitive, far from home, and often

connected to each other, the rear, and the ground forces only

by the most tenuous of communications. The farther east

the Germans went, the more difficult it became to keep the

Luftwaffe units supplied and their aircraft operational. The

more intensive the fighting, the greater the army's tendency

96
to call in the air force wherever an advance was to be made

or whenever a local crisis took place . This combination of

circumstances had the effect of gradually bringing operativ

warfare to an end. The Luftwaffe was forced more and more

to act as flying artillery, a role for which the majority of its

aircraft were not well suited and in which they took

correspondingly heavy losses.

In Russia, as in Poland and France, the Luftwaffe was

originally forbidden from attacking strategic targets, it

being assumed that such attacks would be a waste of effort

and that the campaign hopefully would be over before the

effects of such attacks could be felt. However, just as the

army tended to divide its efforts between many objectives, so

the Luftwaffe had to go beyond this strict line of reasoning.

Beginning in the second half of July, some of its forces were

diverted from interdiction in order to attack industrial

targets in Moscow, Rharkov, Rostov, Orel, Tula, Voronezh,

Bryansk, and a number of other places. In the absence of a

heavy four-engined bomber fleet (which, given their overall

economic situation, the Germans probably could not have

created even if the necessary prototypes had been available),

strategic warfare had to be carried out by two-engined

medium and light bombers . However, even these were only

capable of hitting individual targets more or less by accident.

It is therefore not surprising that such warfare remained

without any noticeable effect, of nuisance value at best and

a waste of resources at worst. The only thing that can be

said in its favor is that it probably did not seriously impact

on whatever chances the Germans stood to gain a victory,

given that during the would-be decisive advance on Moscow

the effort that went to operations other than mittelbare

(indirect) and unmittelbare Unterstuetzung (direct support)

was not very great.

All in all, the strengths and weaknesses of the Luftwaffe

in this period reflected those of the German armed forces as

a whole. Unequalled determination and sheer Schwung

(elan) was based on the unlimited Einsatzbereitschaft

97
(initiative) of air crews and ground personnel. The Germans

were unmatched in their grasp of operativ warfare, but only

at the expense of weaknesses in logistics (sustainability in

particular) and a somewhat uncertain overall strategy that

caused them to go after too many different objectives at

once . As the twentieth century draws to an end, there is still

much to learn from the Luftwaffe's methods of waging war.

There is also much to avoid.

Notes

1. For an account of "ideological" versus "strategic" factors in

Hitler's decision to invade the Soviet Union, see Andreas Hillgruber,

Hiders Strategie: Politik and Kriegfuehrung, 1940-1941 (Frankfurt am

Main: Bernhard and Graefe, 1965), 564-78 .

2 . Hitler had originally expected the war for Lebensraum to come no

earlier than 1943-45 ; see the so-called Hossbach Memorandum, 5

November 1937, printed in Documents on German Foreign Policy

(London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1949), series D, vol. 1, no. 19, 29-30.

3 . Franz Halder, Kriegstagebuch (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,. 1962),

vol. 2, 49 .

4. See, however, Martin van Creveld, Hitler's Strategy 1940-1941:

The Balkan Clue (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 69ff.

5 . For these strategic debates, see especially Albert Seaton, The

Russo-German War, 1941-1945 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,

1971), chap. 4.

6. For the text, see H. R. Trevor-Roper, Hitler's War Directives,

1939-1945 (London: Sidwick and Jackson, 1964), 49-52.

7 . The quality of the Russian roads was, and remains, notorious ;

among those shown on German maps, some turned out to be mere

unpaved tracks whereas others did not exist at all . The railroads were

better, but the tracks were wider than the international standard and

the lines unsuited to German trains in some other ways as well. See

Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton

(Cambridge Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1985), 153, 155-57.

8. For the details, see van Creveld, Hitler's Strategy, 164ff.

9. See Richard Hough and Denis Richards, The Battle of Britain:

The Greatest Air Battle of World War II (New York: Norton, 1990),

250-51,309-10.

10. Matthew Cooper, The German Air Force, 1933-1945: An Anatomy

of Failure (London: Jane's, 1981), 218-19 ; Hermann Plocher, The

German Air Force versus Russia, 1941, USAF Historical Study 153

(Maxwell AFB, Ala. : USAF Historical Division, Air University, 1965), 6-7.

98
11. Quoted in Horst Boog et al., Das deutsche Reich and der Zweite

Weltkrieg, vol. 4, Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion (Stuttgart: Deutsche

Verlags-Anstalt, 1983), 286.

12 . This task was later omitted following the heavy losses suffered by

the airborne troops in the battle of Crete.

13. For the German order of battle, see Boog, vol . 4, 307ff.

14. Halder, vol. 2, 336, entry for 30 March 1941.

15. See R. R. Muller, "The German Air Force and the Campaign

against the Soviet Union" (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1990), 80ff.

16. See XLII. Armeekorps, la, "Erfahrungsbericht ueber den Einsatz

des Flieger-Verbindungsoffiziers," German military records (herinafter

cited as GMR), in the Collection of Seized Enemy Records, 1941-, Record

Group 242, National Archives, Washington, D .C. (microfilm), Microfilm

Publication T-314, roll 997, frame 000114 (T-314/997/000114) .

17 . Ibid., 85 .

18 . See Boog, 290ff. and Plocher, 16ff.

19 . See, for example, the account by one young Me-109 pilot: Franz

Kurowski, Balkenkreuz and roter Stern: der Luftkrieg ueber Russland,

1941-1944 (Friedberg: Podzun, 1984), 57; also a Colonel von Riesen,

quoted in Klaus Uebe, Russian Reactions to German Airpower in World

War II, USAF Historical Study 176 (Maxwell AFB, Ala . : USAF

Historical Division, 1964), 41-42 .

20. Figures from Plocher, 41 ; for a detailed analysis of the attack, see

also Generalstab der Luftwaffe, 8. (Kriegswissenschaftliche) Abteilung,

"Der Luftkrieg im Osten," GMR/T-971/18/000795ff.

21. Cooper, 226.

22 . Halder, vol. 3, 56, 61, 64, 67, entries for 9, 10, 11, and 12 July 1941.

23 . Seaton, 102ff.

24. Boog, 663ff

25. Plocher, 144 ; also see "Kriegschroniek des Kampfgeschwader

'Hindenburg'," GMR, T-971/50/41.

26 . Plocher, 145.

27 . The Germans in Russia did not, however, employ gliders and

parachutists to seize objectives ahead of the army. Following the heavy

losses suffered by the airborne troops in Crete, it was felt that such

descents were too vulnerable to Soviet counterattacks ; instead, the role

of can openers fell to commando units that used underhand means in

order to carry out coups de main. See David Thomas, "The Importance of

Commando Operations in Modern Warfare, 1939-82," Journal of

Contempory History 18 (October 1983) : 639.

28 . "Kriegschroniek des Kampfgeschwader 'Hindenburg'," GMR,

T-971/50/42 .

29. Uebe, 85.

99
30 . See Europaische Beitrage zur Geschichte des Zweiten Weltkrieg,

Heft (book) 1, "Die Deutsche Luftwaffe im Kriege gegen Russland,

1941-1945," ibid., T-971/26/000001ff./8 .

31. For details see Generalstab der Luftwaffe, 8. (Kriegswissenschaftliche)

Abteilung, "Der Luftkrieg im Osten, 1941," ibid., T-971/18/00079511:/18;

also "Kriegschroniek des Kampfgeschwader `Hindenberg'," 45.

32. "Kriegschroniek des Kampfgeschwader `Hindenberg'," 46.

33 . Ibid., 50.

34. See Plocher, 52-53, for details.

35. "Der Luftkrieg im Osten, 1941," 15 ; and Plocher, 54.

36. Plocher, 59.

37. Ibid., 72-73.

38. Ibid., 16.

39. "Der Luftkrieg im Osten, 1941," 3; and Plocher, 87.

40. Seaton, 121.

41 . The commander of Army Group Center had originally wanted to

make Smolensk his first objective, so that there would have been one

pocket instead of three . Hitler, however, regarded this as overly

ambitious, and, given the Germans' subsequent difficulties in preventing

Soviet breakouts, one can only conclude he was right. See Heinz

Guderian, Panzer Leader (London: Joseph, 1953), 158-66; and Hermann

Hoth, Panzeroperationen (Heidelberg: Vowinckel, 1956), 51, 62.

42. Guderian, xxx.

43. Boog, 659; and Albert Kesselring, Kesselring: A Soldier's Record

(New York: William Morrow and Co., 1954), 100.

44. As early as the middle of July, the chief of the Army General Staff'

noted that Soviet air activity was reviving and that German air

superiority at all times and places was no longer assured. Halder, vol. 3,

85, 102, entries for 17 July and 22 July 1941; Plocher, 103 .

45. See van Creveld, Supplying War, 166ff.

46. Hitler's order for mounting the raids was contained in "Directive

No. 33" of 19 July 1941, printed in H. R. Trevor-Roper, ed., Hitler's War

Directives, 1939-1945 (London: Sidwick and Jackson, 1964), 139-45.

47. For details, see Boog, 693.

48 . Henry C. Cassidy, Moscow Dateline, 1941-1943 (Boston :

Houghton Mifflin, 1943), 94. The figure may be unreliable, however, as

the same source, quoting the chairman of the Moscow Soviet, puts the

number of German aircraft downed over the city at no less than 1,100.

49. See van Creveld, Supplying War, 170-71, and Boog, 978-79, for

the details of the German supply situation at this time.

50 . Plocher, 133. As so often, after-action investigations showed that

the Stukas had been less accurate than expected and that the defenders

had not been seriously hit; all the Luftwaffe was really able to do was to

force them to keep their heads down. See also Uebe, 70.

100
51. Guderian, xx.

52. Halder, vol. 3, 186, entry for 8 August 1941.

53. Plocher, 131-32 .

54. "Der Luftkrieg im Osten," 13 .

55. Ibid.

56. See Percy Ernst Schramm, ed., Kriegstagebuch des Oberkornmando

der Wehrmacht (Frankfurt am Main : Bernard and Graefe, 1965), vol . 1,

1081, entry for 8 December 1941 .

57 . See especially Boog, 959-88 .

58 . Seaton, 214-15.

59. See van Creveld, Supplying War, 176.

101







Chapter 4

Maneuver Warfare in Action

The Soviet Version

The second military with extensive experience in

maneuver warfare and the operational art is the Soviet one.

The Soviet military is, or at any rate was, of obvious

interest. They have been and, if reconstituted, could once

again become America's principal opponent, or at least a

major player in the international strategic arena. Though

Soviet equipment and doctrine have been widely exported, it

should be explicitly noted that no third world country has

developed the expertise to exercise and orchestrate Soviet

operational practice. Many such countries have gained

political advantage by holding large tank inventories.

Militarily, however, few have done much more than drive

these vehicles about.

Though the cold war may be dead and buried, there are

four reasons why Soviet ideas on, and experience with,

maneuver warfare remain of military and intellectual

interest. First, the Soviets, like the Germans, managed to

generate very high firepower (both infantry and artillery)

while still maintaining a relatively small logistic

infrastructure and small, lean units.' Second, unlike most

Western armies (the German one in particular), they were

able to practice maneuver warfare even without possessing

the high-quality manpower and low-level tactical excellence

that are normally considered essential for the purpose.

Third, in maneuver warfare as well as elsewhere, the Soviet

approach to command, control, communications, and

intelligence (C31) was centralized rather than decentralized. 2

Fourth, the scale, sweep, and rates of advance of their

operations (table 3) were without equal in history. In 1945,

they deployed 560 divisions along a front of 3,200 kilometers

as compared to 91 Anglo-American divisions deployed along

109
a front of 400 kilometers. 3 The Vistula-Oder operations took

only three weeks to cover a distance equal to that between

the old East-West German border and London, and the rate

of advance in their Manchurian operation was even higher.

These operations give some measure of the scope of Soviet

maneuver warfare and of the speed with which relevant

forces, should they be reconstituted, might again appear on

the Oder. Those interested in making maneuver warfare

work must study Soviet maneuver warfare operations .

This chapter first of all outlines the peculiar historical

circumstances that gave rise to the Soviet system of

operational warfare. Next, it examines the scientific basis of

Soviet maneuver warfare and its cardinal principles, including

some that pertain to air power. Next, the chapter discusses the

evolution of Soviet operational methods during World War II in

terms of the three grand phases : initial defense, the shift to the

defensive-offensive mode of war, and the grand offenses

thereafter. The concluding section analyzes the role played by

the Red Air Force in the maneuver scheme .

Campaign

Table 3

Rates of Advance of Tank Armies in the Third

Period of the Great Patriotic War (GPW)

Depth of

Army Advance in km

Max Rate

km per 24 hrs

Lvov-Sandomir 1 GTA* 400 60

3GTA 300 60

4GTA 350 55

Vistula-Oder 1 GTA 610 75

2GTA 705 90

3GTA 480 50

4TA 400 60

Berlin 1 GTA 110 20

2GTA 130 25

3GTA 130 50

4GTA 170 50

*GTA = Guards Tank Army

Source: Christopher N. Donnelly, Red Banner., The Soviet Military System in Peace and War (London:

Jane's Information Group, 1988), 226.

110
An issue of intellectual concern that also serves as the

backdrop for appraising Soviet operational practice is the

question, Who fathered deep-operation warfare? Was it

Heinz Guderian, as has been frequently claimed in the West,

or was it M. N. Tukhachevsky, as was claimed in the USSR

and by some Western analysts? In fact, both men began by

rejecting the indecisive conflict manifested in World War I

and the futility of merely pushing the enemy back .

Tukhachevsky was the most prominent of a group of young

czarist officers who rose quickly to the very top in the chaos

of the early Bolshevik period. Guderian was the insightful

technician who amalgamated the emerged technology of the

period . With his jaeger infantry and signals background, he

pulled together tank, fighter, and signals to forge a diverse

combined arms team . 4 His task was to develop a means to

transform the German infiltration/ penetration tactical skills

developed in 1917-18 into a larger operational framework.

The operational framework in which he embedded his

technical innovations had existed since Helmuth von Moltke

revitalized the General Staff in the 1860s.

By the late nineteenth century, and as demonstrated most

convincingly in the Boer War and Russo-Japanese War

(1899-1902 and 1904-5, respectively), new technologies had

caused infantry to go to ground. The Germans in 1870-71

had learned that firepower prevented Napoleonic column

tactics, (i .e ., frontal attacks). But advances by overlapping

infantry on external lines (where the enemy is pinned to the

front while one's own flanks are extended to creep around

the pinned defender) remained possible, and so did

maneuvers with separate corps in the Napoleonic manner.

These considerations led German planners to the Schlieffen

Plan of 1914, which was essentially an attempt to apply the

lessons of 1870-71 on a larger scale . When that maneuver

failed, trench warfare made its appearance from

Switzerland to the English Channel . Flanks disappeared,

and warfare became static. Firepower in the form of artillery

and machine guns dominated the attack and the defense. As

III
related in a previous chapter, the Germans subsequently

learned to cope with firepower by developing high-quality

Stosstruppen (shock-troop) infiltration tactics for the attack.

The role of cavalry in all this was zero .

By contrast, on the vast Eastern Front in World War I,

continuous static fronts never really took hold. However

long and elaborate a defensive system, its flanks were

almost always open and hence susceptible to being turned

by wide, sweeping movements. Advances of scores of miles

in an offensive were common; even advances of a hundred or

more miles took place on occasion. Thus, while the Western

Front was tactically oriented and the pace so slow as to

preclude a transition to the operational level, on the Eastern

Front operational goals were preeminent. The Russians

never felt the need to develop German-style shock troops

and infiltration tactics; given the low levels of training and

education characteristic of the czarist rank and file

(including the critically important noncommissioned officer

corps), it is questionable whether they could have done so

even if they had tried. Be that as it may, it was never and

still is not the Soviet operational style.

In 1914, German generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich

Ludendorff won the Battle of Tannenberg-the modern

Cannae-and thereby exemplified maneuver warfare at its

superb best. This was followed by a whole series of other

successful maneuver operations including the Battle of the

Masurian Lakes, the Gorlice-Tarnow breakthrough of 1915,

and-on the Russian side-the Brusilov offensive of 1916.

While the fortunes of war swung in either direction, all

these campaigns showed that on the Eastern Front, as

distinct from the western one, large-scale operational

maneuver warfare such as had been practiced by Moltke

(and in the American Civil War by Robert E. Lee) was far

from dead. Indeed, so vast were the spaces over which the

war unfolded, and consequently so thin on the ground the

modern weapons needed to saturate them with defensive

firepower, that even cavalry was able to play a useful role.

112
Against this background, Soviet-style operational art had

its origins after World War I (e .g., in the Russian Civil War,

during foreign intervention, and in the Polish wars of

1917-20). 5 In these wars, the Soviets successfully developed

a fluid style of war dominated by an offensively oriented

mobile arm in the form of cavalry sweeps. True, infantry

remained the main arm; it was still indispensable on the

defense, and a strong infantry center remained the

prerequisite for cavalry envelopments against stronger

opponents . Neglect of this historical maxim and

"interworking of arms" (the Soviet meaning of combined

arms) led to defeat in a war against Poland that up to that

point had been successful. As the Soviet cavalry pincers

were about to close, the Poles attacked through the weakly

held center and unhinged the Russian offensive in a classic

maneuver on internal lines. This turn of events "mesmerized

the Red commanders for a decade ."s

Cavalry was ill suited for defense or for launching frontal

attacks against entrenched infantry. It was eminently

suited as a strike arm for deep raids and also for rushing

from sector to sector as an operational reserve to cope

sequentially with uncoordinated opponents. In some

respects, this use of cavalry was a reversion to an earlier

period when forces were small relative to spaces in which

they operated and the firepower content of the battle was

low. Put in other words, what was valid for the Russian

Civil War would not have been valid only a few years earlier

against well-supported regular forces and was totally

outdated in the West.

The USSR's Marxist-Leninist leaders, civilian as well as

military, have always prided themselves on their use of the

dialectic method and its solid scientific basis in the study of

history. Hence, just as they were to do for the Great

Patriotic War (World War II), they dissected their Civil War

experience and generalized it into a new appreciation of

warfare on a grand scale with a particular affinity for deep

113
operations well behind the opponent's principal forces .

According to Christopher Donnelly,

analysis of "front" [army group] and "army" [corps] operations of

that period was incorporated into a field manual in 1924 and into

the Field Regulations of 1925 and 1929 . The term "operational

art" was first used in 1922, and the division of Soviet military art

into strategy, operational art, and tactics was laid down officially

in 1926 . The development of the theory of "deep operation"

during the 1930s is seen as the major conceptual development of

Soviet military art between the wars. The 1941-45 war saw the

development of operational concepts for army and front, air and

naval operations, and their associated air defence. 7

Nevertheless, the Soviets did realize that their experience

had to some extent been an anomaly. While they tended to

berate Western commanders for their unimaginative

operations in France, they were aware of the differences

between their own and Western forces and in the

force-to-space ratios involved. They were proud of their

achievements with mobile cavalry but recognized that the

horse would have to be replaced eventually by the

internal-combustion engine. The horse could not operate in

a firepower-swept environment; the tank could. The need to

protect the proletarian revolution by possessing an

industrial base capable of producing the new weapons of war

was perhaps the major motivator underlying Stalin's crash

industrial programs and five-year plans.

In 1922, the Treaty of Rapallo between Germany and the

Soviet Union gave the Soviets a chance to work with the

Germans and to gain a firsthand look at German

armaments technology, particularly the tanks and aircraft

that the Germans themselves were forbidden to have . Until

Adolf Hitler ended it in 1933, this arrangement also exposed

the Soviets to German experiences and doctrinal ideas .

However, the guiding operational framework for both the

Germans and the Soviets had already been set. Soviet

officers like Tukhachevsky who came into contact with the

Germans were much impressed by German military

techniques ;$ nevertheless, documents such as the Field

114
Regulations of the Red Army, 1929 suggest that the German

influence was minimal. 9 And contrary to what is sometimes

claimed by Soviet apologists, the Soviet experience was not

germane to German needs and seemed quaint. 10 For the

Germans, cavalry was no longer a serious arm. Indeed, the

principal technological innovation of the Russian Civil

War-the so-called Tachanka, which was a machine gun

team mounted on a fast, horse-drawn carriage-itself

illustrates the regressive qualities of the Soviet experience.

Still, although their respective versions of deep operations

were developed from opposite ends, Soviet and German

methods converge and have many similarities. As Col V. Y.

Savkin writes:

Military actions during the period of foreign intervention and

civil war (1917-20) were an important phase in the development

of principles of military art. They were conducted on a weak

economic base, in the absence of new military-technological

means, and [at] an enormous deficiency in trained commanders.

Red Army operations . . . were distinguished from operations

during the period of World War I by the decisiveness of goals,

low operational and tactical densities, great scope and creative

application of the principles of massing, activeness, surprise, and

mobility."

Accordingly, the Russian Civil War experience, while

ethnocentric, did lay the foundations for the development of

a concept of "deep operations," one on which the leading

theoreticians were to base their projections in the late

1920s. The idea that a lightning thrust, splitting or

outflanking major enemy groupings and penetrating into

the enemy's deep rear, could accomplish a rapid military

and political collapse of the enemy became a key theme in

Soviet operational and strategic thinking and remains so to

this day.

12

Air power played little part in the wars of 1917-20. The

aircraft available to the Soviets and their opponents were

scarce in number, primitive, short-ranged, and difficult to

maintain. Their main use was probably for reconnaissance,

although their limited firepower was enough to wreak havoc

115
upon cavalry caught in the open. The role of logistics was

also limited during this formative period. Demands upon

artillery resupply were light; in the immense, flat, and

sparsely occupied spaces, there was a tendency to use

artillery for direct-sight firing, a method that calls for much

less ammunition than indirect area fire . Since motorization

was insignificant, there was little demand for petroleum, oil,

and lubricants. Most supplies could be obtained locally, a

traditional practice for armies everywhere . 13 The supplies

that were needed could be brought by rail. Here the Soviets

held a critical asymmetrical advantage over their opponents .

In a land with no meaningful highway and river/canal

communications, they sat in Moscow at the hub of the

sparse Russian rail net.

At the core of the Soviet experience, however, was

centralized command, anathema to the normal theory of

maneuver warfare: centralized command. This type of

control was due in part to the all-embracing Communist

command system. There was also military logic. By holding

Moscow during their civil war, the Soviets held the

advantage of interior lines. A central staff could mete out

forces and run them down the rail lines as conditions

warranted. In addition, in a war where competence was low

on all sides, there was merit in pulling the best officers back

to the central staff for planning. The various fronts would

then execute these plans . In major operations, fronts would

be reinforced with centrally held reserves and their actions

supervised and coordinated by central staff representatives

sent out for the purpose. This model was followed repeatedly

in World War II . For example, at Stalingrad, field marshals

Georgi Zhukov and Alexander Vasilevsky were responsible

for planning the operation in Moscow, but they also locally

supervised its unfolding when sent out as representatives of

Stavka (staff) of the Supreme High Command.

At their base, the German and Soviet versions of deep

operations had a common denominator: the ultimate objective

of encircling and destroying large enemy groupings made

116
increasingly less coherent in their actions . Differences are in

scale and in tactical implementation. The Soviets stress mass;

the Germans, tactical finesse . Though both were tempered

by their own experiences, Western military history is the

source on which they both draw. The Soviets studied the

same Great Captains whose campaigns are taught in the

military history courses at the Kriegsakadamie, West Point,

and the Air Force Academy. They paid particular attention

to the Napoleonic wars because Napoleon rightly has been

called the inventor of strategy . 14 The divergence was due in

part to choosing between two great thinkers on military

strategy: Henri de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz. Of the

two, Jomini is the more formal. He developed principles of

war, or strategy, which in some variant or another most

countries follow. The Germans are the notable exception.

They follow Clausewitz's distillation . His logic is

encapsulated in a number of concepts like Schwerpunkt,

which has a rough equivalence to the favorite Soviet

principle of mass or concentration. Which interpretation is

better is perhaps a matter of preference.

The Soviets chose Jomini. This may have been because

Jomini, having left Napoleon's service in 1813, spent the

remainder of his long career as a general officer in Russia,

where he founded the St. Petersburg Staff College. Most

important, however, while the Soviets do value Clausewitz

for his Hegelian logic and his establishment of the tie

between war and politics, they also subscribe to objective,

scientific laws whose validity was vigorously denied by

Clausewitz. Instead, Clausewitz stresses friction, uncertainty,

and chance, seeing the outcome of combat as partly random .

Worse still-from a Soviet point of view- was the emphasis

that Clausewitz put on the importance of individual talent

and genius . This was considered bourgeois and therefore

anathema to a classless society where objective laws, not

subjective views, pertain.

In the Soviet view, the principles of the military art, while

historical, are nevertheless scientifically derived and still

117
valid. The Soviets laid greater stress on these principles

than did other military establishments, and their methods

and organizational practice can be understood through

them. There have been seven such principles, and the

requirements of nuclear warfare have added an eighth

(table 4). Still, these principles are not much different from

those distilled by Jomini nearly two centuries ago. But, as

the Soviets assert, their meaning does evolve in content and

form as changes in the underlying conditions and character

of combat occur. It is the latter that forms the mind-set for

interpreting these principles ; therefore, armies with totally

different styles of war pay homage to identical principles.

The first principle behind Soviet-style maneuver warfare

was mobility and high tempo of combat operations upon

which the whole notion of maneuver and deep operations

Table 4

The Soviet Principles of Warfare at

the Operational and Tactical Levels*

1 . Speed : The achievement of mobility and the maintenance of a high tempo of

combat operations.

2. The concentration of the main effort and the creation thereby of superiority in men

and equipment over the enemy at the decisive place and time.

3. Surprise.

4. Aggressiveness in battle-no letup in the attack, breakthrough, and pursuit .

5. The preservation of combat effectiveness among one's own troops by (a) being

properly prepared and efficiently organized, (b) maintaining at all times efficient

command and control over one's forces, and (c) maintaining morale and the will to

fight amongst the troops.

6. Realistic planning : Ensuring that the aim and plan of any operation conform to the

realities of the situation, attempting neither too much nor too little .

7. Ensuring cooperation of all arms of the service and ensuring the coordination of

effect towards achieving the main objectives.

8. Depth: Attempting simultaneous action upon the enemy to the entire depth of his

deployment and upon objectives deep in his rear, including action to weaken his

morale.

`Soviet principles of warfare at all levels stress the primacy of the offensive as a

means of waging war.

Source : C. N. Donnelly, 'The Development of Soviet Military Doctrine," International Defense Review,

December 1981, 1595.

118
rests . The Soviets stressed maintaining high tempos, by

which they meant rates of advance (kilometers per day) into

the defender's depth. The more rapid the movement and the

more decisive the results, the fewer their own losses and the

lighter the logistical burden (table 1). Rapid movement was

required by all arms and services . In World War II, this

could not always be accomplished because much of the

artillery was towed and also because much of the forces still

depended on horse transport. Consequently, air power, and

the Ilyushin I1-2 Shturmovik in particular, necessarily

played a critical role in providing firepower support for lead

units lacking accompanying artillery.

Once the defender's front was pierced or flanked, the

operational object of Soviet deep operations was to preempt

coherent reactions by the defender. Defending frontal units

were to be isolated and cut off from the command strings

coordinating their actions and the umbilical cords

sustaining them. 15 Successive defense lines had to be

penetrated before they could be occupied in strength .

Similarly, key junctures had to be seized to facilitate

subsequent movement. Often these tasks were entrusted to

forward detachments operating many tens of kilometers

forward of already-advanced main thrusts . These

detachments acted in the German flowing-water manner by

taking advantage of intervals and gaps in the enemy's combat

formation; not becoming involved in lengthy battles; and widely

employing maneuver for the purpose of enveloping enemy strong

points, thus supporting the successful advance of the remaining

forces . . . . In the past war, forward detachments were created

primarily to capture the most important operational-tactical

objectives or positions in the depth of the enemy's defense and to

hold them until the approach of the main body.

16

These movement-facilitating units had little artillery

support. They had a priority call on air support, but such

support was difficult because of range limitations of period

aircraft and the vulnerability of Il-2s within the depths of the

German front, where even local air superiority was tenuous.

>»
The danger to the thrust-line forces was the defending

operational reserves. Before nuclear weapons, these were the

only enemy forces that could destroy the mobile units and

block accomplishment of the deep operation. A static defense

could block but not destroy the mobile units since these

could back off or maneuver around the block. The best

method of countering opposing mobile reserves was to

disjoint or dislocate them. This prevented coordinated

counterattacks and created the opportunity for defeating

them piecemeal . Once the operational reserves had been

eliminated-and after the Battle of Kursk in July 1943, the

Germans were always pressed in scraping them togetherthen little could stop the Soviet thrusts until they literally

outran the ability of their supply columns to maintain the pace.

Thus, operationally speaking, disruption translated into

compartmentalizing enemy reserves to prevent their mutual

support. This resulted in Soviet air power sometimes being

used in bridge attacks (normally planned missions) and,

much more commonly, large-scale "free hunt" search-anddestroy missions against moving tank columns as well as

their supporting artillery, infantry, and antitank units.

Therefore, disruption was the priority within the priority

mission for Soviet tactical aviation .

Countering operational reserves is the "meeting

engagement," which for decades formed the single most

discussed tactic by far in the Soviet literature. It was the

preferred tactic in spatial battles or when forces must

disperse because of the threat of nuclear weapons. These

engagements are analogous to two columns of radarless

destroyers coming together on a misty morning. The side

that maneuvers faster to pin the other's front and hit his

flank likely wins . Since these tend to be battalion and

regimental engagements, the Soviets believe fast response

and practiced performance is best achieved by the use of

standardized drills that can be carried out automatically, so

to speak, without requiring prolonged thought on the part of

the commander or innovation on that of the troops.

120
The scientific justification for drill is admittedly

questionable . The historical example most frequently quoted

in this context is that of Frederick the Great. His method

consisted of employing his units in a machine-like manner,

pointing them towards a prescribed objective and relying on

excellent training and ferocious discipline to achieve speed

and precision in movement as well as great firepower (volley

firing) even at the expense of accuracy. Soviet commanders

tend to gloss over the fact that this method succeeded only

during the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and was later

rendered out of date by both Napoleon and his imitators in

other countries.

While the scientific basis of the Soviet orientation towards

drills might have been questionable, the logic behind it was

both consistent and practical. In a military that expected

high personnel turnover owing to a combination of short-term

conscript service and heavy casualties, it was necessary. In a

flat, featureless countryside that allowed little room for

tactical cleverness, it was also practical. Above all, however,

both during the Great Patriotic War and thereafter the

Soviets believed in speed and mass . Speed meant

overwhelming the opponent with numbers rather than with

the kind of tactical finesse sought by the Germans. Moving

numbers rapidly meant that everyone had to act together

while following familiar drills. It did not require original

thinking by subordinate leaders, and indeed such thought

was often regarded as harmful since it contributed little but

delay as leaders went through the time-consuming planning

and troop-leading processes.

The second principle governing Soviet-style maneuver

warfare is usually known as mass and, more elaborately, as

the principle of unequal distribution of forces along the front

line with the aim of concentrating forces for the main blow

on the decisive sector. 17 Generally, the intent was to attack

a weak place in the enemy's defense and move rapidly to the

rear areas and flanks of his main shock grouping and to

121
terrain where combat forces, primarily task teams, could

exploit success.

18

In the Great Patriotic War, mass was the chief principle

upon which the Soviets operated to make their heavy-handed

breakthroughs and, by overwhelming rearward forces, to

gain tempo and momentum thereafter. Up to 60-80 percent

of the artillery and 90-100 percent of tanks and aviation

available to a given front were concentrated on breakthrough

sectors comprising 3-15 percent of the front. Such concentrations on the axis of the main attack gave the Soviets a

superiority over the enemy of three to six times in infantry,

three to 10 times in artillery, four to 10 times in tanks, and

two to 10 times in aviation. 19 Success in breakthroughs, the

tempo thereafter, and even the casualties and required

logistics have been positively correlated with concentration. 2o

Nevertheless, the Soviets now consider mass obsolete. In its

place they have put an analogous notion of focal effort :

An essential feature of the deliberate attack is the concentration

of troops and weapons on relatively small frontages to achieve

superiority at the point of attack. Note, however, that

concentration of this type is a carry-over from World War II

tactics [emphasis added] and, in the present view, a deliberate

attack would only be used when a success of a hasty attack

cannot be foreseen.

21

It will be recalled that on the Western Front in World War I,

overt infantry attacks, however strongly supported by artillery,

normally failed. But such attacks, supported by only a few

tanks operating with the infantry, did succeed when the

Soviets mounted them in World War II . The Soviets

themselves are proud of their success . They are quick to

attribute it to their own clever ability to mass overwhelming

numbers and to utilize to good advantage the remaining

principles of war such as surprise and combined arms .

There were, to be sure, other reasons for the Soviet

successes . First was the Germans' overall weakness, which

placed them in a dilemma since they could not match Soviet

concentrations and any attempt to do so would merely have

122
created weak spots on their flanks (as at Stalingrad) and

made it easy for the Soviets to fight a Kesselschlacht, or

battle of encirclement. Second, Soviet concentrations of

artillery and, in particular, the intensity of their use greatly

exceeded that of in World War I . Third, by late 1944 the

Soviets had developed their own offensive method by

attacking with only one infantry battalion on the lead in

each divisional sector, thus leaving them enough room

(generally about 1 .5 kilometers) to maneuver in and

enabling all artillery support to be concentrated at a single

spot, which simultaneously saved ammunition and

lightened the logistic burden. 22 Fourth, and most pertinent

in the present context, air power added a new dimension to

the battlefield. It became possible to combine the ground

offensive with simultaneous attacks along the breakthrough

axis to tactical-operational depths .

Given an equally strong opponent with adequate

intelligence, concentrations of the type the Soviets achieved

and prided themselves upon would not have been viable. On

the Western Front in World War I, such tactics led to the

attacking infantry being blown away by defending artillery.

In World War II, the same tactics led to the envelopment of

the attacking wedge by the defense's operational reserves.

This could be done by allowing the attacker to wedge into

the defense in the defensive-offensive mode as the Soviets

attempted at Kursk or by a preemptive, double-enveloping

counterstroke as at Stalingrad. In the early postwar period,

when the nuclear threshold was low, the use or threat of

nuclear weapons made this style of attack infeasible .

As World War II progressed, significant changes were

made in the use of artillery in the breakthrough . Most

obvious was the ever-larger concentration of supporting

tubes (table 5) . Even more important was the change in

artillery preparation, which was shortened from many days

in World War I to several hours and finally to only 25-30

minutes by the end of World War II. Rocket artillery was

added, increasing salvo weight by an order of magnitude for

123
short periods and consuming up to 45 percent of the total

ammunition tonnage for breakthroughs . 23 Rather than

relying on prolonged fire to weaken the defender, the Soviets

had opted for short, intense blows. This stunned entrenched

defenders, and it minimized both their ability to disengage

or reinforce before the onslaught and the ability of higher

commands to maneuver tactical or operational reserves. As

A. A. Sidorenko writes,

With the neutralization of the enemy in a short time and with a

high density of fire, tactical surprise was assured, large material

losses were inflicted on the enemy at once, a strong morale effect

was attained, troop control was disrupted, and the defender was in

no condition to restore the combat effectiveness of his troops

quickly and adopt any effective measures to counteract the blow. 2

The third principle is surprise . It is a supportive principle;

therefore, unlike tempo and mass, it has little derivative

effect upon Soviet operational doctrine and organizational

practice. Surprise fits into the overall scheme by enhancing

tempo and reducing numbers for an equivalent effect. It is

124

Table 5

Average Densities of Manpower and Weapons in Breakthrough

Sectors during the Great Patriotic War

Manpower Average Density on 1 km of Breakthrough Sector

and Weapons 1 st Period 2d Period 3d Period

June 1941- January 1943- June 1944-

December 1942 June 1944 May 1945

infantry km to one 4-5 2.5-3 1 .2-2 .5

rifle division

guns and mortars 20-80 120-220 200-300

tanks and self 3-12 18-40 70-85

-propelled guns

(tanks and self (3-6) (10-20) (12-30)

-propelled guns in

close support of infantry)

Source: Royal Military Academy, The Sustainability of the Soviet Army in Battle (Sandhurst, England : Soviet

Studies Research Centre, September 1986), 441, and annexes .
thus a force multiplier. In stressing centralized control of air

operations and sheer numbers, Col I. V. Timokhovich states,

With mass came maneuver as Soviet aviation was committed to

the support of ground troops, facilitating flexibility and

promoting successful surprise. Deception combined with rapid

re-grouping led to further success, assisted in turn by extensive

use of decoy airfields, strict radio disciplines and constant

improvements in technology .

25

In the nuclear era, the downgrading of mass has caused a

corresponding increase in the importance of surprise .

Mobility and activeness are one of the bases for surprise and

are considered to multiply its effectiveness many times. 2s

The Soviet definition of military surprise is a maneuver

definition:

Tactical surprise comes from undertaking an action when and

where least expected. It is not considered essential that the

enemy be taken wholly unaware-only that he become aware too

late to react effectively.

27

The Soviets combine surprise with the analogous principle

of security, seeing them as two sides of the same coin.

Secrecy in one's own actions facilitates gaining surprise .

First the Russians, and then the Bolsheviks, had a wellknown, historically rooted obsession with secrecy. A spin-off

from this obsession was the concept of maskirovka, a term

that covers the ideas of hiding, concealment, camouflage,

and active deception. It includes all means of covering one's

tracks and improving secrecy. In a land of steppes with few

natural means of cover, the importance of maskirovka as a

major means of achieving surprise in battle and war cannot

be overemphasized. The Soviets are widely acknowledged

masters of maskirovka at every level, from unit tactics to

grand strategy of the state.

28 In the days before the breakup

of the Soviet Union, it was often argued that such secrecy

was an inherent Soviet advantage relative to Western

societies and market economies that cannot function in that

environment.

125
Unexpectedness in all its forms-new weapons, new uses

of existing weapons, new tactics and most particularly

numbers, and maskirovka-were the principal ways the

Soviets sought surprise, while mobility and activeness

multiplied its effects. 29 Unexpectedness implies avoidance of

stereotyping. The Soviets claim to have achieved this, but

the evidence suggests otherwise. 3o

As far as the Soviet air force was concerned, one very

important way to implement maskirovka consisted of

choosing the right moment for introducing new weapons. To

delay the deployment of advanced aircraft always implies a

certain callousness . It means that active units have to make

do as best they can with existing types even though they may

already be obsolescent; on the other hand, it does allow one's

reserve units time for training and familiarization. The

Soviet method was to hold their best equipment back until

large numbers had become available and then use them for

the first time in focal point operations-meaning either a

stroke or a counterstroke-so as to gain decisive results.

The Soviets also prided themselves on their ability to mask

the withdrawal of ground and air units from secondary

sectors so as to surprise the Germans with overwhelming

force ratios on the chosen axes of advance that were

deployed into narrow frontages at the last moment. This, in

fact, may have worked at Stalingrad, where the Soviet

offensive-the first of its kind-came as a total surprise to

their opponents. Later in the war, however, the Germans

generally knew both that the Soviet concentrations were

taking place and what their general orientation was, though

the precise time and place of attack remained obscure. The

most obvious move that telegraphed Soviet intentions was

often the Red Air Force's denuding of secondary sectors,

establishing crude airfields in close proximity to the chosen

axis, and flying in special fighter corps to cover the assembly

of the ground formations . Generally, two days before the

offensive, German defenses would be hit by intense artillery

and by large numbers of ground-attack aircraft covered by

126
equally large numbers of fighters. 31 Soviet claims to the

contrary, it seems that they were about as deceptive as the

Germans were at Kursk, which is to say not deceptive at all.

The German problem was lack of options brought about by

the growing disparity in forces and the inability to move

large forces quickly enough.

The fourth principle is combat activeness, or, to use

American military jargon, having the offensive spirit and

gaining the initiative . But whereas linearly deployed armies

tend to pay lip service to this principle and are actually

passive in the defense and partly so in the delay, maneuver

armies like those of Germany, the Soviet Union, and Israel

base all actions upon the counterattack. Indeed, defense and

delay are merely means to set up counterattacks.

Activeness in the defense is implemented by screening

and strong-pointing the front and placing the resultant

savings into operational reserves . In both the defense and

offense, "activeness" creates the conditions for a "conformity

of the organization of the rear with the character of armed

conflict and methods of conducting combat operations." The

key consists of skimming away logistical assets from

secondary sectors and assigning them to logistical focal

efforts in order to support the decisive thrusts at the right

time and place. 32 Tactical aviation is similarly deployed.

Aviation is cycled to peak its sorties during decisive

moments-counterattacks in the defense and major thrusts

in the offense-and to recharge its strength in other periods .

Efficiency in air allocation and military effectiveness of air

allocation thus do not correlate in the Soviet use of aviation.

The fifth principle, the concept of preservation of combat

effectiveness, had a significant impact on the organization of

Soviet formations and helps explain their relatively small

divisional slice . Soviet divisions were designed to attack and

fight until their resources were depleted. They minimized

organizational maintenance assets and had a very limited

ability to recover or repair damaged armored fighting

vehicles . Higher-level formations collected and repaired

127
damaged vehicles that were then used to reconstitute

depleted divisions . During World War II, worn-down

divisions were often designated as a composite brigade and

subsequently used as a reserve formation during the

offensive.

Soviet air force regiments were treated similarly to

ground force formations . They depended on higher-level

maintenance and logistics support and were deployed and

reconstituted as necessary.

The sixth principle is realistic planning. Soviet planning

during and since World War II was, in their view, based

upon realistically calculated norms and drills on training

ranges that fully and effectively reflected the impact of the

"fog of war." Therefore, in defining required levels of fire,

force levels, logistic supply requirements and rates of

advance, Soviet plans were generally empirically based.

Soviet plans fully reflected and acknowledged the tactical

quality of the opponent. However, Soviet planning proved

inadequate when Soviet forces were faced with conditions

for which they had no prior bases for developing an

approach. An example is their relatively poor performance

during the campaign in the Carpathian Mountains. Their

drills, norms, and plans proved totally unrealistic for

preparing Soviet troops for warfare in mountainous terrain.

The seventh principle is coordination . This bears some

similarity to the American principle of unity of command;

however, the Soviet meaning also includes the concept of the

interworking of the various arms. The latter gives a

dynamic meaning to the more static term combined arms.

The importance that the Soviets put on combined-arms

combat cannot be overemphasized, even if their definition of

the term is opaque and often sounds vacuous. Linearly

oriented armies often try to maximize firepower by striving

towards homogeneous armaments and effecting logistic

savings by cutting overhead. By contrast, the Soviets have

never tired of repeating that combat power is generated by

the interaction of different arms in such a way that each

128
brings out the attributes of the rest but masks its own

shortcomings . Thus, diversity-which linearly oriented

forces consider a logistic and operational weaknessactually becomes a strength to be exploited . This applies

even to arms such as motorcycle reconnaissance, whose

contribution to firepower is little or nil. Aviation enters the

Soviet scheme primarily because the operations of ground

forces will cause the enemy to move and expose himself to

air. Conversely, the task of air is to disrupt his tempo and

even bring his movements to a halt, thus enabling friendly

ground forces to pin, envelop, and destroy him.

During World War II, the Soviets considered tactical

aviation as an arm, comparable to artillery . Its task was to

deliver firepower and at the same time provide air cover by

preventing enemy delivery of firepower. Its importance was

actually less than that of its sister on the ground. Whereas

artillery in the last years of the war accounted for 60 percent

of hostile casualties on the Eastern Front, air power only

produced up to 6.5 percent of casualties in some battles and

somewhat more in tank losses . 33 From this perspective,

aviation was a minor arm. It could not compete with

artillery for that which artillery does best. Artillery also

gained some leverage by the way the Soviets deployed itwith great concentration and fire intensity along decisive axes.

Deploying tactical aviation, the Soviets aimed at even

greater leverage . Secondary sectors were bled of all but

perfunctory support so that aviation could be conserved for

decisive events . Air armies of secondary fronts were reduced

to single composite divisions . Much was brought back into

Stavka reserve or reallocated directly to the air armies of

fronts designated for the next main thrust. From 30 to 50

percent of the overall number of aircraft sorties (tactical

aviation and bombers) were expended on launching strikes

against enemy troops in the tactical and near operational

depth. 34 Some were used to reinforce artillery fires in order

to break forward units by adding to the intensity of the

overall fire (note : this is not American-style close air

129
support). Most were used to attack targets difficult for

artillery, such as opposing artillery and command posts, and

to isolate the sector under attack; it was less a question of

destroying them individually than of breaking the ties that

held them together. Up through 1943, the targets considered

suitable for Soviet aviation tended to be within 10

kilometers of the front lines because of the fear of German

fighters . By limiting their operations in this way, Soviet

aircraft could quickly run for home. Experienced pilots could

be recovered if shot down, and German fighters might be

lured into antiaircraft traps. After 1943, strikes at greater

depth and attacks on various rear installations became more

common, though the focus always remained on facilitating

operational tempo.

The unique roles for aviation, as opposed to the artillery,

were to support the thrusts of mobile groups and their

attempts to bring about encirclements in the defender's

operational depth. While mobile thrusts, once they have

broken through, may need little artillery support overall,

they do need considerable fire support at critical junctures.

This is a role that artillery had difficulty fulfilling, especially

since tracked guns were scarce and resupply volume along

primitive roads was unpredictable. Tactical aviation, with

its great mobility and its own "eyes" filled this role . Without

this assistance (including also the maintenance of air

superiority), the Soviet mobile groups would have gone

nowhere. They would have been destroyed by the Luftwaffe

and by counterattacking Wehrmacht panzers. 35

Once the enemy had been encircled, aviation played

several critical roles. A. A. Sidorenko writes,

It launched powerful strikes against the encircled force and, in

some operations, played the leading role in their destruction;

frustrated enemy attempts to supply the encircled force by air or

to break out of the encirclement; held up the approach of enemy

reserves from the rear; and covered friendly troops, conducted

aerial reconnaissance, and accomplished other missions.

36

130
Had aviation not performed the above, it is conceivable that

the Germans might have eased out of their Stalingrad

disaster, which many consider to be the turning point of the

war in the East. Instead, they lost heavily in men and

equipment, to say nothing of the attrition inflicted on

Luftwaffe pilots as they desperately tried to fly supplies into

the pocket. From this point on, the Germans were no longer

able to launch full-scale offensives; they were left always

scraping for reserves.

Since they used tactical aviation in this (operational)

manner, the Soviets naturally did not have much left for

other missions such as supply interdiction, reconnaissance,

normal air cover for secondary sectors comprising 90 percent

of the frontage, and so on. 37 On the other hand, the above

analysis shows that aviation was integrated into the overall

scheme of operations and was considered a full part of the

combat arms to an extent that has never been equaled in

the West. Air may have been subordinate to the ground arm,

but it could also be claimed that this integration got the

most from the air arm in implementing the Soviet

operational method and in winning the war.

The eighth principle, depth, was not a full-fledged

operable principle in World War II . Its coming of age reflects

post-World War II weaponry, including most particularly

nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles. Though the

Soviets did use tactical aviation to operational-tactical

depths during the war, its payloads and range were

inherently limited. The role of long-range aviation was

minor. It was expensive and inaccurate but did have some

existential value in that it raised morale and added to the

demands facing the Luftwaffe for home defense .

The campaign on the Eastern Front can be grouped into

three phases. During the first phase, lasting from June 1941

to the bitter defense of Stalingrad in October 1942, the

Germans were generally on the offensive, whereas the

Soviets lost the entire Ukraine and only narrowly succeeded

in holding on to Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad. This

131
period also incorporates the famous Russian counterattack

around Moscow, during which Hitler's insistence on

hedgehogging (building well-fortified defensive strongholds)

around vital centers proved correct but ultimately put an

end to German hopes for victory. As we shall soon see, the

Soviets during most of this period violated their own

principles so elaborately developed in the interwar period. It

was only after the winter offensives of 1941-42 that they

began reorganizing along prepurge lines.

Phase two lasted from November 1942 to October 1943 . By

this time, the Soviets had learned their lesson and reorganized.

This enabled them to mount the highly successful

counteroffensive at Stalingrad, which in turn was followed

by Gen Erich von Manstein's brilliant German counterstroke, the Battle of Kursk, and the first Soviet summer

offensive . All these campaigns were fought in the southcentral part of the front. At the end of the period, the

Germans had been thrown back to the Dnieper River, and

the initiative firmly shifted from the Wehrmacht to the Red

Army. 38 Though the period saw both sides waging operativ

warfare, their methods in doing so were somewhat different.

The Soviets stressed numbers and the operational-strategic

level ; the Germans, tactical excellence and the operationaltactical level. Another characteristic of the period was the

loss of whatever technological superiority the Germans had

enjoyed. This was especially true in the air, where the

Soviets deployed new models and the Germans, forced to use

their updated models in the West, could only oppose them

with older models.

Phase three lasted from January 1944 to the fall of Berlin

in April 1945. This was a period of ever-increasing and more

concentrated Soviet blows delivered across the entire Eastern

Front, while the Germans were pressed in every theater and

in every dimension of war except tactical expertise and

technological excellence. The former factor was offset by the

growing Soviet superiority at the operational-strategic level ;

the latter, by the Allied bombing campaign that disrupted

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the German war economy and prevented the new weapons

(particularly heavy tanks) from being deployed in large

numbers. To cap it all, Hitler insisted on a strategy that

compounded the German weakness . Instead of pulling his

infantry back and concentrating his panzers and fighter aircraft

where it mattered most-along the Moscow-Warsaw-Berlin

axis-he attempted to defend along the entire front from the

Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, with the result that the front

was weak everywhere and was repeatedly broken through.

Stalin himself was to blame for the early disasters . The

Red Army purges of 1936-39 had decimated the officer corps

and done away with three-quarters of its senior ranks. The

remainder were terrified and demoralized. Tukhachevsky,

the founding father of Soviet maneuver warfare, was among

the early victims . His demise caused his ideas and his

associates-those who survived-to be discredited. Nor were

the Soviets helped by their experiences during the Spanish

Civil War, which, as explained earlier in this volume, was in

many ways a special case. Stalin's conclusion from that

experience had been that strategic bombing was too

inaccurate and that short-range attack aircraft were more

appropriate, a decision that dictated the tactical thinking of

the Red Air Force's strategists for years to come and made

ground attack into the most highly developed form of Soviet

aviation. In the nick of time, it was to provide the Soviet

Union with the world's most formidable short-range attack

aircraft, the IL-2 Shturmovik, an aircraft not unlike the

USAF's A-10. 39

Meanwhile, however, the results were mainly adverse.

The Spanish experience had led Stalin to disband his mobile

striking forces, with aircraft as well as tanks being

dispersed to the various armies . To add to the confusion, the

German blitzkrieg successes in Poland, France, and the

Balkans, as well as the Red Army's own poor performance in

Finland, caused Stalin to reassess his position once again.

Just as the Soviet forces were beginning to rethink interwar

concepts, the Germans struck.

133
In 1941, the deployment of the Soviet forces was also

faulty. Stalin placed his forces in the manner of the

politician rather than in that of the military strategist,

going squarely against the classicist education of the Soviet

General Staff. In an effort to create a buffer space between

himself and Hitler and to defend as far forward as possible

from the Soviet heartland, he greedily acceded to a partition

of Poland and subsequently grabbed the Baltic republics .

The space thus gained was valuable in itself, but to move

the Soviet army 200 kilometers forward (in the north, right

up to the borders of East Prussia itself) was an error. It

enabled the Germans to use their own territory-complete

with its developed infrastructure-as a springboard for their

eastward offensive .

Moreover, the "lessons learned" in Spain caused the Red

Army to be deployed in a linear, cordon defense . Aircraft,

like tanks, were grouped in relatively small units (no larger

than divisions consisting of approximately 100 aircraft) and

penny packeted along the front. 40 A mere 50 kilometers

behind that front were the impassable Pripet Marshes;

consequently, the first defeats quickly cut the defenders into

nonsupporting halves and forced them into diverging

withdrawal axes along rail lines radiating out from

German-occupied Warsaw. In the months just prior to the

German invasion, Stalin was afraid of provoking Hitler. He

therefore tolerated frequent German reconnaissance

intrusions into Russian air space. In addition, the Soviet

garrisons were not in a high state of readiness even though

intelligence reported German intentions. The end result of

all these factors was to present Hitler with an opportunity

he could not refuse : to encircle the Red Army before it could

retreat into the trackless spaces of Mother Russia.

As 22 June dawned, the Soviet air force, as already

related, was caught totally by surprise. Main airfields were

hit by special air intruders who coordinated their missions

with the first artillery fire. Shortly thereafter, airfields across

the front were struck. Most Soviet aircraft were caught

134
neatly parked. They were wrecked by special fragmenting

cluster munitions. Within hours some 2,000 Soviet aircraft

belonging to the forward armies were destroyed, and

another 1,500 were lost in the following days. Within days

the base organization of the Soviet air force was lost as the

panzers sliced into the front and launched large and small

Kesselschlachten, netting nearly 2million Soviet troops before

mud-making rains in October and early cold in November

brought the German advance to a halt. Base personnel and

equipment were among those trapped. What occurred can be

summarized as follows :

Almost parallel with and at a distance of not more than 50

kilometers from the border, all fighters, ground-attack and

tactical reconnaissance units were in position on airfields in

almost linear disposition, without any organization in depth,

without outposts, without defined areas of main effort, and with

their sub-units loosely distributed . The disposition of the heavier

air forces was very similar, in areas between 100 and 150

kilometers farther back. Even the services farther in the rear,

the reserve and training units, and the industrial air services,

showed clear signs of rigid schematism. The results of this

defective plan of concentration are generally known; with the

first two weeks of war they were to cost the Soviet air forces

more than 50 percent of their total front-line strength and were

to lead later to almost complete annihilation .

41

Within this disaster, two fortuitous events stood out. Since

the Soviet air force was mostly destroyed on the ground, few

pilots were lost ; furthermore, the main victims of the

German surprise attack were old planes (I-15 biplanes for

ground attack and I-16 Ratas for fighters) in the process of

being replaced. Their replacements (i .e., early model Il-2

Shturmoviks, I-18s and 26s [MiG-3 and Yak-11, and LaGG-3s)

were considerably better. Even so, lack of ancillary equipment such as radio and navigation aids meant that the

newer Soviet planes remained much inferior to equivalent

German aircraft.

Although the Red Air Force was no match for the Luftwaffe

in terms of materiel, training, tactics, and logistical support135
and, after the attack, numbers-it doggedly fought on,

scoring occasional minor successes in reconnaissance and in

ground attack against German armor in the open steppes in

the south. But the cost of confronting the Luftwaffe was

high . The Soviets lost most of their trained pilots and many

of their remaining aircraft.

The Soviet High Command, recognizing the Soviets'

absolute inferiority, ordered survival tactics for their fighter

and ground attack aircraft . Most fighter actions were

defensive. The advancing German columns might not see a

Soviet aircraft for days and then, just as they would

approach some strategic bridge, watch it being attacked by

an entire Soviet squadron consisting of I-15s or some other

obsolete aircraft employing suicide tactics . To evade the

superior German fighters, minimize aircraft losses, and

enable downed pilots to be rescued, the Red Air Force

generally limited its attacks to within 10 kilometers of

friendly lines,42 a method that had the further advantage of

helping draw the enemy into antiaircraft fire traps. To the

extent that 90 percent of Soviet aircraft downed during this

period (the summer and autumn of 1941) were lost over

Soviet territory, these tactics worked. 43 On the other hand,

most German combat losses were caused by ground air

defense.

Soviet aircraft caught by German fighters generally

attempted to escape by flying down "into the weeds ."

Alternatively, they would form a tight horizontal defensive

circle that would whirl like a cyclone back to their own lines .

The tactic reflected both a weakness of Russian aircrafttheir obsolete engine would not give them climbing power

for more diverse tactics-and their excellent maneuverability.

The Germans often found it difficult to break up the circle; if

they succeeded, however, confusion reigned and most Soviet

pilots foundered. 44

If there was a success story in 1941, it was the baptism in

August of the renowned I1-2. This excellent aircraft was used

in ground attack, which was the most logically developed

136
and employed arm of the Soviet air forces . Even so, early

Il-2s were vulnerable since they had no rear gunner. The

cover provided them by protecting fighters was almost

uniformly poor, whereas the then-prevailing organization

made concentrated blows difficult or impossible to deliver.

By late 1941, the Luftwaffe had virtually eliminated the

Soviet air forces from the skies . What saved them, or at

least provided a breathing space and a respite from

continued hemorrhaging losses, was the arrival of winter in

November . During the respite from November 1941 until

the next German offensive began in May 1942, the Russians

began receiving the new production from the relocated

factories behind the Urals and rehabilitating and retraining

their fighter and ground-attack units. By spring, when they

were aided by the fact that some of the German forces had

been moved to the Mediterranean, they once again had

numerical superiority. While still inferior to the Luftwaffe

overall, and even more so unit to unit, they had corrected

their greatest deficiencies in flying ability, operational

procedures, and command, control, communication, and

intelligence (C31).

In particular, centralization of aviation was reimposed in

April 1942 . Taking a leaf from their German opponents,45

the Soviets started pulling air units away from the ground

armies/corps to which they had been organically assigned

and which had hindered their concentration at focal efforts.

Air corps and air armies were created, and these were

allocated to fronts and Stavka reserve. By the time of the

Battle of Stalingrad, the latter had grown from a handful of

air groups to a third of Soviet aviation; by 1945, it comprised

43 percent of all aviation. In theory, all air corps belonged to

Stavka reserve and were allocated in accordance with the

Stavka's strategic planning. Although tactical control was

exercised by the air army to which they were attached, these

air corps were to be used for major air operations only and

withdrawn for regrouping and reequipping once these

operations were completed. 46

137
Under the new system, each front was assigned an air

army with a variable number of air divisions. An air army

provided a flexible framework under operational command

of front commanders but subordinate in all other matters to

the Air Force Central Administration in Moscow. This

arrangement forged a close working relationship with the

army, but at the same time allowed air units to conduct

their own operations with relative independence under their

own chain of command. 47 For ground-attack units, cooperation

and information exchange with the army generally worked

quite well . This was the case when air units were

subordinate to the ground for specific missions (e .g .,

exploiting tank armies) and also when they coordinated

their missions, the latter being the more customary. 48

Henceforward, fronts positioned in secondary sectors

might be assigned only a single composite air division.

Meanwhile, fronts designated for main offensives would be

variably reinforced with several air corps composed of three

or four air divisions each, plus additional air divisions and

miscellany. By 1945, air armies occasionally held as many

as 30 air divisions.

Logistically speaking, responsibility for supporting

assigned air divisions fell to the air armies . The air corps

was a purely tactical headquarters . Early in the war, air

divisions operated permanently assigned mobile base groups

for their flying regiments. After the reorganization, base

construction, operation, and backup maintenance were air

army responsibilities. Even when the flying divisions were

elsewhere, preparations were made for their subsequent

return. In this way, divisions and regiments could be mobile

and rapidly shifted about the front as required.

The manning levels of Soviet 30-plane regiments were

very low. Regiments, responsible for crew and limited

maintenance support, had strengths of 34 pilots, 130

technicians, and 15 other personnel for a total of 179 for 30

aircraft. 49 Regiments were dependent on separate air base

associated units for organizational-level maintenance and

138
consumable support. This organization greatly facilitated

the flexibility of Soviet air power. Given their relatively

short range, most tactical Soviet aircraft had to be relocated

laterally and then forward to be able to support concentrated

ground offensives. Had squadrons been large units with

extensive ground support equipment, rapid relocation of air

power would have been impossible.

In this mode of operations, consumables (fuel and ordnance)

were predeployed long before the onset of an offensive. The

size of the forces deployed on airfields, which in World War

II were any reasonably flat, smooth surfaces (most often

compacted farm fields), could rapidly swell . The personnel

required at each base for organizational-level maintenance

and consumables was relatively limited, given the Soviet

tendency to repair by replacement and the limited ordnancedelivery capability and fuel consumption of each aircraft. 5o

During most of 1942, the Soviet air force remained

defensively oriented so as to conserve its strength and, in the

fall, to build reserves for the planned Stalingrad counteroffensive . Its increased effectiveness was largely due to a

corresponding attrition in German strength. The further east

the Germans advanced and the larger the extent of territory

that they occupied, the more overextended the Luftwaffe

became. Consequently, it was forced to adopt measures and

dispositions that reduced its effectiveness, such as providing

stronger escorts for attacking Stukas and bombers. 51

During the respite offered by the winter of 1942-43,

fighter aviation-distinct from ground-attack aviation-was

made into an elite arm in order to create the attributes

necessary for success in air combat. Increasingly, the Soviets

adopted German and Western practices for air-to-air tactics

in lieu of more primitive indigenous practices. The basic

formation now became the German two-ship flight in a fourship Gruppe, and the "wing man" idea for mutual fighter

protection and better attack coordination was adopted. 52 To

instill esprit, Guard units were formed, and these drew on

the best pilots and most modern aircraft.

139
The missions assigned to fighter units were mostly indirect.

They consisted of creating pronounced concentrations over

the immediate front and the close rear so as to protect the

assembly of ground and air forces prior to an offensive, to

seal off the battle area during major engagements, and to

provide cover for other types of aircraft and the armored

forces spearheading the attack. These units were committed

at the points of the main effort of the ground battle, while

lesser fighter units were employed along less active sectors.

In 1942 and 1943, most campaigning took place in southern

Russia . The central and northern fronts were relatively

quiet until 1944. 53

Starting with the Stalingrad counteroffensive in November

1942, Soviet air operations were virtually coextensive with

events on the ground, as would be expected from the style of

these operations . Like artillery and tanks, and mirroring

logistic support, air power was increasingly concentrated

(table 6) at points of main effort. Infantry, artillery, and air

power were the instruments whereby breakthroughs were

made; and tanks and air power formed the instruments of

exploitation. Soviet air forces were required to adapt their

operations to the requirements of these circumstances . Their

mounting strength enabled them to do so, but it nevertheless implied that air warfare almost exclusively restricted

itself to those areas in which ground operations were in

progress, while air activities came to a complete standstill

elsewhere. 54

In 1943, the Soviets gained equality in the air. But it was

not until the following year, by which time parity had

turned into superiority, that their units as a whole began to

show the aggressiveness corresponding to their newfound

power. Guard fighter units-composed of the best and most

experienced pilots-displayed these characteristics from

their formation in December 1941 . Other units required

more time because of the high losses and because the Guard

units were drained of pilots displaying the sought-after

characteristics of versatility, aggressiveness, and self-discipline .

1 an
Accordingly, to the very end of the war, Soviet fighters as a

rule remained cautious in the presence of German aircraft

and air defense artillery in spite of very great improvements

in terms of numbers, training, standards, morale,

experience, and better aircraft and tactics. 55

Even in 1945, when the Soviet superiority had become much

greater, the contrast between air superiority in the East and

West was sharp. Western air forces were able to dominate

the sky to such an extent that supply routes were practically

impassable for German columns during daylight. On the

Eastern Front, German supply traffic in the rear areas

proceeded almost undisturbed. German fighters operating

in the West generally found themselves engaged in combat

almost as soon as they left the ground and consequently were

Table 6

Average Aviation Densities on

of Attack in the Fronts

Operation and Fronts

Axes

Aircraft Density

per Kilometer of

Breakthrough Sector

Belorussia

First Belorussian Front:

Rogachev Axis 96

Parichi Axis 53

Second Belorussian Front 45

Third Belorussian Front:

Borgushevsk Axis 43

Orsha-Minsk Axis 93

Lvov-Sandomierz

First Ukrainian Front (RavaRusskaya and Lvov axes) 129

Yassy-Kishinev

Second Ukrainian Front 57

Third Ukrainian Front 58

Visla [Vistula]-Oder

First Belorussian Front 57

First Ukrainian Front 73

Berlin

First Belorussian Front 126

Source: Vasiliy Y. Savkin, The Basic Principles of Operational Art and Tactics: (A Soviet View),

translated and published under the auspices of the US Air Force (Washington, D.C . : Government Printing

Office, 1974), 222.

141
unable to execute their assigned missions. In the East, they

generally still found it possible to execute their missions,

although within limited areas and subject to limitations in

time. Air units of the Western Allies were in evidence at all

times of the day, in all combat areas and over Germany. The

Soviets endeavored only to achieve and maintain air

superiority at and near the front and to destroy the German

frontline army units. 56

Throughout the war, the workhorse of Soviet aviation

remained the ground-attack arm. It was not elite. It was

considered expendable, and condemned personnel were often

assigned to its units. Still, the pilots won the respect of their

German opponents for their sheer courage. Fortuitously, the

Red Air Force possessed the armored Il-2, which did much to

contain otherwise heavy losses. From late 1943, it became

common for Shturmoviks to operate in regimental or even

divisional strength in subgroups of six to a dozen aircraft,

while pairs undertook "free-hunt" sorties, attacking targets

of opportunity at treetop level and using contours of the

landscape for surprise and escape . 57 Like their German

opponents, the Soviets were able to fly as many as eight to

10 sorties per aircraft per day during the most intense

periods. To achieve this, fighters and attack aviation units

operated from so-called springboard airstrips located as

close as 10 kilometers from the original line of contact. 58

Apart from the early desperate days (when Soviet air units

often attacked their own bridges in an effort to stem the

German advance), the first priority of Soviet aviation during

most of the war was given to operations in the main battle

areas. The targets of choice consisted of tanks, assault guns,

heavy infantry weapons, and field fortifications. It was only

as secondary considerations that attacks were directed

against targets in the rear areas such as rail traffic and

installations, vehicle and troop columns on the march,

Luftwaffe installations, and so on . 59 To the extent that the

latter type of targets became more salient from mid-1944 on,

fighters tended to attack them in the role of fighter-bombers

142
in "free hunt" operations rather than in systematic interdiction

campaigns. Attacks on the German rear never achieved the

significance of the attacks in the battle area. Still, there

were occasions where they produced very noticeable results,

as for example at the time of the collapse of German Army

Group Center (June 1944), when ground- attack forces

attacked traffic bottlenecks on the bridges over the Berezina

River. 6° Their greatest contribution was that of providing

cover and support for their advancing mobile groups .

However, they were often inattentive or their efforts poor in

interfering with German withdrawal movements after the

breakthrough was completed and the pursuit had begun. 61

Whereas Soviet ground-attack and fighter arms steadily

improved from the winter of 1941 up through 1944,

rehabilitation of bomber and reconnaissance arms lagged.

Heavy bombers had been a favorite of the Soviet air force up

through the Spanish Civil War, where they had proved

ineffective owing to poor aiming techniques. 62 Moreover,

these arms were less central to the ground orientation of the

Soviet High Command. Bombers with multiple engines were

expensive to build, whereas reconnaissance required a high

degree of technical expertise. It was only after the Soviets

had achieved overwhelming superiority in numbers,

technological equality, and a measure of experience in the

fighter and ground-attack arms that they began to redress

the imbalances in the remaining aspects of air power. Even

then, the emphasis on ground operations/combined arms

continued to make itself felt. To the very end of the war, the

major role of Soviet bombers was that of continuous,

concentrated attacks in the near German rear at points of

main effort. Indeed, beginning with the June 1944 offensive,

the long-range bomber arm was redeployed from reserve in

the Moscow region, brought forward, and employed in

concentration in those areas in which the Soviet High

Command launched its major attacks. 63 About this time, all

Soviet aviation edged deeper in its attacks as it gained air

superiority, confidence, and surfeit capability.

143
In the years since 1945, the Soviet air force's role in World

War II has been much criticized in the West for having been

little more than an appendage of Soviet artillery. It did not

engage in strategic bombing against the enemy's homeland.

It did not pursue air superiority in a comprehensive

manner, and it virtually neglected supply interdiction.

To gain a realistic appreciation, however, one must look at

these shortcomings against the mode of Soviet air operations.

At bottom, it was the same as that of the Germans-operativ

warfare waged by the air forces in conjunction with the

army and aimed at outmaneuvering, encircling, disrupting,

and destroying the enemy's armed forces . To be sure, the

problems confronting the Germans and the Soviets differed

in three critical respects. First, the longer the war, the more

the Germans were forced by Anglo-American strategic

bombing to become an air defense air force against strategic

attacks, whereas the process worked just the reverse for the

Soviets . Second, devastating initial losses and a continuing

unit-by-unit inferiority vis-a-vis the Germans limited Soviet

freedom of action until the last year of the war. Third, the

Russian and Soviet style of war has always tended towards

numbers and mass rather than towards tactical and technological excellence, as favored by Germany (and the West).

These factors meant that during most of the war, the

Soviets could not afford to attack far beyond the edge of

the forward line of own troops (FLOT). To have done so

would merely have aggravated already high loss rates and

prevented the accumulation of experience for more

demanding use of air power. Nevertheless, though the

sacrifice was huge, the Soviets did what had to be done . As

early as 1942-43, their deep-penetrating mobile groups were

covered and supported by swarms of fighters and

ground-attack Il-2s .

The argument that focusing on operativ warfare led to the

neglect of long-range bombing may have a certain validity

when applied to the Germans. Had the Luftwaffe possessed

such a capability during the early days of the war on the

144
Eastern Front, it might have obstructed the relocation of

Soviet industry, although whether the opportunity was

worth the cost is unanswerable. In the Soviet case, however,

the argument has to be considered invalid. Any independent

long-range air arm that the USSR could have afforded

during these years would have been a pale shadow of

American and British capabilities and not worth the effort.

The famous Strategic Bombing Survey conducted after

World War II suggests that the main accomplishment of

American and British long-range bombing was the diversion

of German resources into air defense, giving the Soviets a

free ride on this account.

Given these limitations, the really interesting comparison

is between the styles of the Soviet and Anglo-American

tactical air forces. The particular irony is that while Soviet

aviation was distinguished by its usage in the near

battlefield area, it was an operativ air force. However,

Anglo-American tactical aviation, though deep ranging,

remained tactical to the very end. This was not a question of

organization and command. The RAF and the Luftwaffe

were independent services, whereas the US Army Air Corps

and Soviet air armies were army components under army

command. Nor is it a question of not wishing to provide

support to the ground forces. Though the emphasis differed

from one case to another, at bottom all sought to do so .

What is at issue is not organization but doctrine. Both the

RAF and the USAAF subscribed to the Douhet theory of

strategic bombing. Hence, they were both committed to

fighting the air battle for its own sake . Equally, both sought

air superiority and interdiction of enemy supplies and

reinforcements as goals in themselves . The German and

Soviet air forces did not. Both focused on supporting deeppenetrating battles and upon the other's countering reserves .

Two central issues are involved: the nature of combinedarms warfare and the notion of Schwerpunkt. Both the

German and Soviet military visualized combined arms in

terms of the impact of the diversity of arms, including air

1 115
power. In the West, by contrast, like forces have tended to

fight like forces both on the ground and in the air.

Even more important than combined arms is the question

of focal effort. Are the available forces dispersed linearly and

do they fight continuously? Or are most of them concentrated

and fight only in a surge manner? The first of these methods

leads to across-the-front, static, attrition warfare with

emphasis on built-in organic support and heavy demands on

artillery and logistic support. Interdiction of supplies is

important; interdiction of forces is not important because

large reserves are nonexistent and the defense is based on

firepower, not on the maneuvering counterattack.

The characteristics associated with the second method are

just the opposite . When the focus is on the tempo of

operations, interdiction of supplies is not critical, and indeed

there is little to interdict except during periods of focal

efforts. Those who so regard this method must conclude that

the Soviet air force's mode of operations was appropriate for

the Soviet style of operativ warfare. It would not have been

appropriate-nor did the Soviets have the air assets-to

execute the American and British style of linear, attrition

warfare with its requirement for generalized across-the-front

air superiority and ground support. Conversely, while the

Western air forces had the assets, they would have had to

recast their mode of operations to support Soviet-style focal

effort warfare.

These considerations explain why Soviet aviation, unlike

Western aviation and more like the Luftwaffe, did little in

the way of supply interdiction and still less in long-range

bombing. Instead, Soviet aviation, including most bomber

units and even the Long-Range Air Force, focused on

supporting deep ground operations. First, it helped break

the tactical defense; then it covered and supported the

breakthrough forces as the latter destroyed encircled enemy

forces before exhausting themselves 200-300 kilometers

into the German operational-strategic depths. Helping these

forces maintain a rapid tempo was air's principal goal.

146
Although counterair was important, here also the Soviet

practice differed from the Western one. Air base attack

normally began only in the immediate days before the

offensive and did not aim at achieving complete command of

the air, a condition which, given German technical and

tactical superiority until late in the war, could not have been

achieved on the Eastern Front. Instead, the Soviets had to

content themselves with tenuous local air superiority. The

normal method was to stand back and then fill the void as

soon as the German fighters left . Somewhat more

aggressively, some Soviet aircraft might preoccupy the

German fighters while others went after what the Soviets

considered the real targets-the Stukas and bombers.

Had the Soviets preceded each major offensive with a

prolonged battle for air supremacy, the effect would have

been simply to give the game away and cause the Germans

to bring up their own forces from other and quieter sectors.

The Soviets would have been drawn into an air attrition

battle that they could not have won in the early years and

that was not in their interest afterwards . In combined arms,

the purpose of arms is not forces fighting like forces but

rather that of contributing to the overall battle-in this

case, the success of the deep operation and the shattering of

the enemy. Soviet fighters were supposed to protect their own

tanks against Ju-87 Stukas and their E-2 Shturmoviks against

Me-109s, not to win some vague air superiority battle. 64

Finally, attacking supply lines did not fit into this

operational conception either. Interdiction would have

required more aircraft than the Soviets had available until

the end of the war; forced them to operate deep in the enemy's

rear, where they would have been at a disadvantage vis-a-vis

the Luftwaffe and where the chances of recovering downed

pilots were minimal; destroyed bridges and other

bottlenecks that the Soviet forces themselves might want to

use; and, in the case of railways, wasted precious assets on a

job that could often be done more easily and more cheaply by

partisans. The Germans could and did minimize the effects

147
of interdiction by moving at night. Last, but not least, given

the fact that the German style of war itself was based on

maneuver rather than attrition, the supplies to be

interdicted were often neither very extensive nor by any

means easy to find. 65

To sum up, one must conclude that much of the criticism

heaped upon the Soviet air force in World War II is based on

a failure to appreciate the difficult circumstances facing the

Soviet Union as well as the demands made by a different

style of war. The irony is that the tables have been turned.

From 1980 on, the United States military has officially

studied the style of war practiced by the USSR in World

War II. Operativ warfare is now part of the requirement for

US forces. The air forces of the Soviet Union were among

those most experienced in this style of war in World War II.

Some of the practices once criticized must now be adopted,

and some practices long dear to the USAF must

correspondingly be dropped.

Notes

1 . In World War II, Soviet divisional slices were only one-third of

Western ones. Yet not only was Soviet infantry able to bring more

firepower to bear but, thanks to the system of maintaining a central

park, artillery also was available in greater quantities during

breakthrough battles . See John A. English, A Perspective on Infantry

(New York: Praeger, 1981), 176-77.

2. See Christopher Donnelly, "The Development of Soviet Military

Doctrine," International Defense Review, no. 12 (1981): 1589-96.

3. Data from Christopher Donnelly, Red Banner: The Soviet Military

System in Peace and War (London: Jane's Information Group, 1988), 223.

4. Jaeger infantry is a special high-quality light infantry operating in

especially difficult conditions such as mountains and forests. It survives

by stealth and fights by stalking its opponent. By the nature of the

terrain, it normally fights in relatively small units. Virtually all the

famous German panzer commanders in World War II had a jaeger or

scout cavalry background. In many ways, German panzer operations are

a scaled-up version in time and space of jaeger infantry tactics . This is

best seen by comparing Erwin Rommel's tactics as a captain of mountain

infantry-see his Attacks (Vienna, Va. : Athena Press, 1979)-with his

performance as a "desert fox" in North Africa.

148
The jaeger background explains why maneuver warfare has been a

"bottom-up" affair in Germany whereby juniors set up the play for

observing seniors to exploit with their reserves . By contrast, the Soviet

practice has been "top down." Wise men from above set the operation,

and subordinates choose the best implementing tactics from a menu

prescribed by these wise men.

5 . The foreign intervention forces did not come with the full

paraphernalia of combat. In addition, they were small and tied to the

rail lines; while tactically strong and strategically important, they lacked

"operational" content.

6. John Erickson, The Soviet High Command: A Military-Political

History, 1918-1941 (Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, 1984), 92.

7. Donnelly, Red Banner, 220.

8. Erickson, 327 .

9. Ibid., 282.

10. Alexander Boyd, The Soviet Air Force since 1918 (New York: Stein

and Day, 1977), 25.

11. Vasiliy Y. Savkin, The Basic Principles of Operational Arts and

Tactics: (A Soviet View), translated and published under the auspices of

the US Air Force (Washington, D.C. : Government Printing Office, 1974), 40.

12. Donnelly, Red Banner, 70.

13 . See Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from

Wallenstein to Patton (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), chapter 1.

14. See Martin van Creveld, Command in War (Cambridge, Mass . :

Harvard University Press, 1985), chapter 2 .

15. While overrunning soft artillery and logistical support is a task of

penetrating armor, this is mainly a task along the thrust axes. Closing

pincers will normally be well behind defending artillery.

16. A. A. Sidorenko, The Offensive: (A Soviet View), translated and

published under the auspices of the US Air Force (Washington, D.C. :

Government Printing Office, 1973), 104.

17. This principle, first demonstrated by Epaminondas, Theban

general and statesman, contains a number of subtleties. One is the

principle of economy of force. Another is the notion of screening. Still

another is echeloning whereby the opponent's forces are pinned in place

while one's own are effectively held back so as to double as a reserve.

Observing these subtleties was a princely hostage in Epaminondas's

entourage named Phillip, who, by adding cavalry and the interworking

of arms, forged a new-style army for his son Alexander.

18. Savkin, 219.

19. Ibid.

20. Royal Military Academy, The Sustainability of the Soviet Army in

Battle (Sandhurst, England: Soviet Studies Research Centre, September

1986), 93, 95, and 103.

149
21 . John Erickson, Lynn Hansen, and William Schneider, Soviet

Ground Forces: An Operational Assessment (Boulder, Colo. : Westview

Press, 1986), 53 .

The Germans came to the same conclusion in 1917. In their view, the

act of concentrating telegraphed one's intentions while actual

concentration was vulnerable to opposing artillery . This was combined

with the observation that communications allowed high commanders to

monitor developing situations and to subsequently reinforce the most

promising penetrations . Thus in their scheme, high quality

troops-Stosstruppen in World War I and panzers in World War IIreplaced the need for mass and close control .

Four decades later with the advent of nuclear weapons, the Soviets

have evolved to a similar concept. Nuclear weapons substitute for the need

to concentrate and make concentration too risky. Concentrated

penetrations have been replaced by multiple probes with reserves

standing by for quick concentration through a gap and subsequent

dispersal so as to capitalize upon the success of the more promising probes.

22 . Sidorenko, 25-26.

23 . Ibid., 24.

24. Ibid., 23.

25. Boyd, xviii .

26. Savkin, 240.

27. Erickson, Hanson, and Schneider, 53.

28. Donnelly, Red Banner, 43.

29. Ibid.

30. See for example, Walter Schwabedissen, The Russian Air Force in

the Eyes of the German Commanders, USAF Historical Study no. 175

(Maxwell AFB, Ala. : USAF Historical Division, Air University, 1960);

and Klaus Uebe, Russian Reactions to German Airpower in World War

II, USAF Historical Study no. 176 (Maxwell AFB, Ala. : USAF Historical

Division, Aerospace Studies Institute, 1964). The Schwabedissen account

is a particularly detailed and unbiased account that tracks well with the

conceptual framework outlined in this chapter.

31 . Schwabedissen, 224.

32. Ibid., 157.

33. Sidorenko, 20; and Erickson, Hanson, and Schneider, 13, credit

air with inflicting tank losses from .5 to 17.7 percent in various

campaigns. Both attribute roughly 75 percent of tank losses to artillery .

This high number is explained by the fact that Soviet divisional artillery

was principally guns that doubled as antitank guns.

34. Ibid., 28.

35. An interesting statistic is that 11 percent of German counterattacks were in the battle for the first position, 58 percent for the second,

and 30 percent for the third position. Thus, about 89 percent of the

150
counterattacks had to be repelled beyond the limits of the first position,

that is, where the enemy reserves were not dependably neutralized by

fire during the period of artillery preparation . Ibid.

36. Ibid., 37.

37. Ground-attack missions accounted for 38 percent of the sorties,

air superiority 28 percent, naval aviation 9 percent, reconnaissance 9

percent, air defense 7 percent, deep interdiction 4 percent, partisan

support 3 percent, and strategic bombing 2 percent. Oleg Hoeffding,

Soviet Interdiction Operations, 1941-1945, Rand Report R-556PR (Santa

Monica, Calif : Rand Corporation, 1970), 5, 8.

Within the ground-attack statistic, from 78 to 91 percent of all

ground-attack and bomber sorties each year were expended for close

support on the battlefield . Boyd, xviii .

The reconnaissance statistic is misleading. The Soviets held the

philosophy that reconnaissance was a second task of air missions. This

led to poor results that were tolerable only because the Soviets had such

good intelligence from their partisans . By 1944, as the Soviets were less

pressed and as fighting passed from their territory, reconnaissance was

upgraded and German and Western practices adopted.

38. Erich von Manstein, Lost Victories (London: Methuen, 1958), 367-442.

39 . Some 35,000 of these highly successful aircraft in various models

were produced during the war. Robert Jackson, The Red Falcons: The

Soviet Air Force in Action, 1919-1969 (Brighton, Mass. : Clifton Books,

1970), 56, 78.

40. Soviet aviation throughout the war was organized in squadrons of

about 10 aircraft, three or four squadrons per regiment, and three

regiments per air division. Regiments had single-type aircraft, whereas

divisions might be either pure or composite.

41 . Schwabedissen, 70-71.

42. Ten kilometers is not restrictive when considering the fact that

the Russians were mostly concerned about protecting their own troops

from the Luftwaffe and from the very beginning focused their ground

attack upon the thrusting German tank pincers (often ignoring marching

infantry). Ten kilometers could thus be from the deep flank as well as

the front.

43 . Schwabedissen, 87.

44. Ibid.

45. See Peter C . Smith, Close Air Support: An Illustrated History,

1914 to the Present (New York: Orion Books, 1990), 78.

46. Boyd, 141-43.

47. Schwabedissen, 179 .

48. Ibid., 224.

49. Ibid., 193. This statistic is cited because the USAF is shifting to

an expeditionary posture similar to that used by the US Marine Corps

151
(USMC) and which resembles Soviet practice. A USMC flying squadron

of 12 F-13 aircraft has 271 personnel, and one with all-weather aircraft

has 302 personnel. Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication (FMFRP)

1-11, Fleet Marine Force Organization, 1990, 5-26.

50. The Soviets today remain true to this basic operating concept.

Modern Soviet aircraft continue to have low-pressure tires, articulating

landing gears, protection against foreign body ingestion problems, and

limits on takeoff weights. Therefore, they can operate from unprepared

airfields, even gravel strips, frozen lakes, or open fields. Soviet aircraft

are very reliable and require minimal organizational maintenance. Each

tactical aircraft has an assigned truck with a two-man maintenance

team. The truck can tow aircraft on civil roads and has built-in test gear,

starter, and fuel transfer pumps. Aircraft will deploy from remote sites

near a main operating base, which provides consumables and

organizational maintenance support and replacement parts for them.

The advantages of the system were demonstrated in the Gulf, where the

Iraqi air force was similarly organized; it is estimated that about

one-half of their aircraft survived Operation Desert Storm because they

were moved into secure, remote locations.

51. Schwabedissen, 192.

52. Uebe, 30-31 .

53 . Schwabedissen, 190.

54. Ibid., 266-67 .

55. Ibid., 270 .

56. Ibid.

57. Boyd, 149.

58. Robert A. Kilmarx, A History of Soviet Air Power (New York:

Praeger, 1962), 183, 190.

59 . Schwabedissen, 336-37.

60. Ibid., 344-45.

61. John Greenwood and Von Hardesty, "Soviet Air Forces in World

War II," in The Soviet Air Forces, ed. Paul J. Murphy (Jefferson, N.C. :

McFarland and Co., 1984), 61 .

62. Kilmarx, 126-27.

63. Schwabedissen, 348-50.

64. Red Army Field Regulations (Moscow: RKKA, 1944), 172. Even

the concept of air supremacy did not emerge until halfway through the

war, and it was inextricably linked with ground force operations. It was

not seen as a strategic goal in itself but as a tool at the operational level

to enable the ground force to operate in an optimum environment. See R.

Pennington, "Pilot Initiative in the Soviet Air Forces" in Murphy, 149.

65. In World War II, a German armored division needed only 350 tons

of supplies per day to be fully operational, as against 600 to 650 tons for an

American division. See van Creveld, Supplying War, 185, 215 .

152
Chapter 5

Israel: Maneuver Warfare,

Air Power, and Logistics

After 1945, the locus classicus of large-scale, conventional,

modern warfare underwent a change. Whereas such warfare

previously had seen the armed forces of the most important

military powers engaged, it now tended to be waged by the

armies of countries that, initially at least, were third and

even fourth rate. Whereas previously it had tended to take

place in Europe, it now moved to the "rimlands" along the

southern borders of the Asian continent. Specifically, the

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have crossed swords with the

surrounding Arab states in 1947-48, 1956, 1967, 1973, and

1982 . Today, although there are some indications that peace

may finally be on its way, both Israel and its Arab enemies

remain heavily armed. Even as these words are being written,

they are preparing themselves for the next round of combat.

This chapter first of all presents a brief overview of

Israel's geographical and strategic position, a position that

is largely responsible for the decision of its armed forces to

adopt maneuver warfare as their modus operandi and to

become perhaps the current leading proponents of the art.

This overview is followed by a brief account of the 1967 war,

including planning, the role of the Israeli Air Force, ground

operations, and logistics. Next, there is a short discussion of

development between 1967 and 1973 as well as an analysis

of the 1973 war, first the war on the ground and then-this

being our main,field of interest-in the air. The chapter ends

with a retrospective look as well as some lessons learned.

In this case, as in most others, the key to military thought

is size and geographical position. Israel is an exceedingly

small state. (Even with the occupied territories, its total

area is only about 27,000 square kilometers-about the size

of the state of Maryland.) Except in the west, where it

1s-3
borders on the Mediterranean Sea, Israel was for the first 30

years of its existence surrounded on all sides by enemies

who significantly outnumbered it in terms of population,

resources, and numbers of military forces. It successfully

devised a way to overcome these significant strategic

disadvantages. To do this, it has turned itself into something

approaching an armed camp. It is currently one of the few

nation-states that has a true national doctrine for defense;

hence all elements of government and civil planning,

national resource allocations, and the defense organization

are synergistically interactive.

Since the inception of the state, Israel's military forces

have been based on the use of a professional cadre,

conscripts, and reserves that can be very rapidly called up

and operationally deployed in case of need. This system

allows the country to put nearly 20 percent of its total

Jewish/Druse population under arms within 48-72 hours of

mobilization . Of those forces, some two-thirds are organized

into combat formations belonging to the ground forces, the

air force, and the navy, whereas the rest (including some

women) are used for territorial defense, internal security,

and, increasingly, civil defense against possible Arab air and

missile attack directed at the civilian rear.

Unlike the United States, Israel has a single, centralized

General Staff that comes directly under the Minister of

Defense. Over the years, this organization has enabled the

country to react effectively to the evolution of technotactics,

to readjust resources between combat arms, or even to

change combat arm roles and missions . During wartime,

the General Staff functions as a general headquarters

allocating resources to Israel's six current operational

theater commands (North, Central, South, Air, Sea, and

Civil Defense), setting objectives and devising plans .

Even today, Israel's gross national product (GNP)

amounts to less than $40 billion, and its total mobilizable

population only numbers about four million people . Yet the

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) can field 18 large divisions,

154
including 13 armored and two elite multimission assault

infantries equipped with about 15,000 armored fighting

vehicles ; an unusually high-quality, technologically

advanced air force that includes about 700 fighter/attack

aircraft and 250 combat helicopters; a navy with 20 capable

fast-attack craft ; and nuclear forces with hundreds of

weapons, including thermonuclear warheads mounted on

advanced intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBM).

Using any measure of effectiveness, Israel's national defense

system is much more efficient than that of any North

Atlantic Treaty Organization country.'

Israel's strategic position is characterized by the fact that

it is surrounded by Moslem countries it cannot occupy or

unconditionally defeat. Hence, early on it developed a

politico-military doctrine with which its wars would be

fought as engagements. As in the case of Germany in the

period 1871-1941, its national objective has always been to

emerge from each war in a superior military, political, and

economic/social position relative to that of its defeated

adversaries . In so doing, it attempted to minimize friendly

casualties and to restrict the damage to its vital industrial

and social infrastructure . Full mobilization of its relatively

large force structure reduces the daily generation of

domestic GNP by about one quarter. Such mobilization also

increases daily defense expenditures by at least a factor of

three, escalating daily defense expenditures rapidly to the

equivalent of about 50 percent of the GNP. The impact of

any sustained period of full mobilization would be

economically devastating.

Moreover, in a small country like Israel, the cost of

military action is disproportionately high in both human

and economic terms. The very efficiency of Israel's defense

system creates its Achilles' heel . Approximately 20 percent

of the population are under arms and the best and brightest

go in harm's way. Therefore, absolute battlefield victories

can generate relatively high casualties . Also, over the

previous decade, each year as much as 10 percent of the

155
GNP was invested annually in the procurement of military

hardware . Therefore, the cumulative replacement value of

the IDF's kit is now well over a full year's GNP. Israel

cannot afford to replace substantial combat equipment

losses . Any war that is not short and relatively low in

material and personnel casualties is not acceptable .

Moreover, because its long-term objective is to live in peace

with its current enemies, Israel must attempt to minimize

the impact of any war on its defeated adversaries. To meet

this goal, it should not inflict disproportionate casualties on

Arab armies or societies. It must strive to fight "clean wars"

against the enemy's armed forces rather than his civilian

rear and to minimize the possibility that wars will escalate

to include attacks on strategic/economic targets.

The principles of maneuver warfare coincide with the

Israelis' need to fight short, clean wars, particularly in the

sense that Arab armies can be collapsed by using strategy

and tempo rather than direct and bloody attritional assault.

The Israelis first learned to substitute maneuver for assault

during the bitter 1947-49 war of independence, when they

lacked adequate suppressive firepower to overcome Arab

defensive positions. 2 Subsequently, long contact with their

Arab enemies convinced the Israelis that Arab armies

cannot sustain high-tempo operations . With its forces

fighting outnumbered, the Israeli General Staff has

generally been able to define the center of gravity and to use

space and time in order to concentrate adequate numbers of

its best troops, thus generating a decisively favorable local

correlation of forces. Because of their use of a reserve force

structure and a high/low material mix, Israeli formations vary

considerably in quality, in both human and technological

terms. Israeli success in combat has been highly dependent

on the General Staffs ability to selectively allocate combat

resources-that is, to ensure that its best personnel are

placed in position to most decisively influence the outcome of

any operation. This once again coincides with the principles

of maneuver warfare.

156
While the geostrategic disadvantages of a small country

are obvious, its small size can assist maneuver warfare.

Before 1967, the distance from Haifa on the Mediterranean

to the Syrian border on the eastern shore of the Sea of

Galilee was only about 80 kilometers . From the central

southern town of Beersheba to the Egyptian border it was

50 kilometers, whereas Tel Aviv itself was only about 23

kilometers away from the Jordanian border. Therefore, the

IDF was, and still is, in the advantageous position of having

short lines of communication. It was able to support its

forces from well-prepared "peacetime" bases and depots and

also to switch forces rapidly from one front to another while

making use of internal lines. To maximize these advantages,

the country's infrastructure has been built in such a way

that all civilian facilities could be mobilized for military use

following well-planned, regularly rehearsed procedures. For

example, in 1967 the most important hospitals already had

helicopter landing areas and could rapidly be converted to

handle military casualties.

The relatively small distances between fronts (250

kilometers between the Golan region and Negev border)

and the mountainous character of much of the terrain has

also meant that virtually all military units and supplies

move by road . However, the IDF has never procured

adequate numbers of specialized military transport

vehicles to support its fully mobilized force structure . To

this day, it owns less than 20 percent of the military

transport vehicles needed to support its full force

structure . Therefore, reserve divisions and most

high-level transport units depend on the use of mobilized

civilian vehicles for logistic support. Although the Israeli

civilian infrastructure now has a large number of modern

diesel-powered heavy trucks, it has few with effective

cross-country mobility. Therefore, the supply columns of

the IDF remain relatively roadbound. But conversely,

Israel has an adequate metalled road network to support

its military system primarily because the General Staff

I <7
influences the country's transportation planning. Thus, for

example, the new main road between Haifa and the Golan

Heights is wide enough to handle passing tank transporters,

and sections of the older, narrow, tree-shaded road have

been left intact as convoy resting areas.

Supplies are generally shifted from central depots by large

semitrailers or heavy trucks to distribution points located

relatively far forward. These supplies are then directly

loaded onto combat vehicles or transferred to the IDF's

limited number of military cross-country vehicles for

transshipment forward. There are now two exceptions to the

deficiency in specialized military transport. First, after

1973, the IDF procured a relatively large number of

specialized tank transporters. This enables the General

Staff to shift division-sized forces fairly rapidly over long

distances . Second, the IDF currently operates a relatively

large number of M-548 tracked cargo vehicles and updated

half-tracks that are used as armored resupply vehicles.

These vehicles are particularly useful for transferring

palletized, ready-service ammunition or fuel forward to

armored units in contact with the enemy.

Operation Desert Storm proved once again that in the

unique clear weather and open terrain of the Middle East,

air superiority is a prerequisite for military success in

conventional warfare. This is particularly true for Israel,

which depends on the smooth and rapid mobilization of its

reserves . Therefore, a high proportion of the Israeli Air

Force (IAF) consists of regular-manned squadrons that

are adequate in strength to ensure air supremacy over

Israel. Moreover, these regular squadrons can launch major

air attacks pending reinforcement by IAF reserves. Besides

permitting efficient mobilization and movement of reserve

forces, air superiority provides compensating firepower for

outnumbered IDF regular/conscript ground formations;

allows the Israeli General Staff to use the IAF to shape

and influence the battlefield; provides a highly mobile base

of firepower that can be readily allocated by the General

158
Staff in accordance with its priorities ; and provides both an

air defense umbrella and strategic deterrent against Arab

air attacks on Israel's vital civil/military infrastructure .

The instrument responsible for all these missions, the

IAF, is not and never has been a separate service. Rather, it

is a branch like armor or engineers. However, unlike the

ground force branches, the headquarters of the IAF also

functions as an operational wartime theater command in

addition to its peacetime administrative and force-building

roles . IAF headquarters is operationally responsible for air

defense, air supremacy, and all operational and strategic

missions. Control of all close air support/battlefield air

interdiction (CASBAI) strikes within a classified distance

from the forward edge of the battle area (FEBA) (estimated

to be 30 kilometers) is in the hands of the three ground force

theater commands, which effectively function as army-level

headquarters . The navy's headquarters functions also as the

fifth theater command. As directed by the General Staff,

IAF headquarters allocates squadrons to the area

commands for CASBAI.

Coordination of air and ground operations is currently

carried out by a special air operations office largely staffed

by IAF personnel within each of the area commands. This

office allocates sorties and determines the required

air-to-ground ordnance mix based on the requirements of

the area commander. For example, an A-4N Skyhawk

squadron with 20 operational aircraft might be able to

generate up to six sorties per day per aircraft. The area

commander, depending on the nature of the ground battle,

might require continuous strikes on a specific enemy

logistics axis or a mass strike on a prepared fortification. In

the former case, four flights carrying cluster munitions

might be spaced continuously about 24 minutes apart. In

the latter case, the entire squadron might hit a specific

target with delayed, fuzed iron bombs at a prearranged

time . Further down the ladder of command, Israeli corps,

divisions, and brigades have their own dedicated forward

159
air control units, also manned by IAF personnel, to provide

control of allocated sorties . 4

Finally, the IAF is also responsible for all Israeli

helicopter formations and all ground-based air defense

assets (including both guns and missiles), as well as for all

surface-to-surface missile systems used for the air operation.

Once again, tactical control of these systems can be

delegated to the theater area commands, corps, divisions or

brigades, as appropriate, or be maintained by IAF

headquarters . This decision is made by the General Staff in

accordance with its priorities .

Of all the wars waged by Israel, the Six-Day War of June

1967 was perhaps the most successful. The IDF fought three

separate campaigns, evicting the Egyptian army from the

Sinai Peninsula in four days, the Jordanian army from the

West Bank in two and one-half days, and the Syrian army

from the Golan Heights in just one and one-half days . As

part of the campaign, the Arab air forces were destroyed in

an air operation that lasted only about seven hours. These

victories are correctly viewed as outstanding examples of

maneuver warfare.

Both the Arabs and Israelis had about three weeks to

mobilize, deploy, and prepare their military forces for the

Six-Day War. Israel's Southern Command, which is the one

that concerns us here, deployed three division-sized task

forces (ugdas)-under generals Israel Tal, Ariel Sharon, and

Avraham Yoffe-as well as three independent brigades that

faced seven Egyptian divisions . About 650 Israeli tanks

faced about 960 Egyptian tanks. The IAF had about 230

French-built combat aircraft deployed at four to five main

bases. They included Mirage IIIc, Mystere and Super

Mystere fighters, Ouragan attack aircraft, and Vautour light

bombers . Except for the Vautours, none of these aircraft was

able to carry a significant load of ordnance. The relatively

low-powered fighters, while able to carry some bombs, were

rather unmaneuverable when fully loaded and thus not

really suited for the close-support mission. This left about 50

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operational straight-wing Ouragans-slow, easy-to-fly

platforms well suited for the ground attack role . However,

their ordnance-carrying capability was limited to less than

one ton (908 kilograms, to be exact) .

Opposing the IAF, the Egyptian air force had about twice

as many fighter/attack aircraft as did Israel. They included

SU-7, MiG-21, MiG-19, and MiG-17 fighter/interceptors as

well as 60 medium and light bombers capable of inflicting

serious damage on Israeli cities, or at least, presenting a

significant psychological threat. Thus, on paper, the "bean

count" was strongly against Israel ; moreover, the overall

technological quality of Egypt's Soviet military equipment

was probably superior to the hodgepodge of equipment

employed by Israel. The Egyptian air force also enjoyed

another advantage in that its airfields were more numerous

and less closely packed together, thus theoretically making

surprise attack difficult .

The unique terrain of the Sinai Peninsula dictated the

terms of Egyptian-Israeli combat. The peninsula's southern

triangle consists of untraversable mountainous areas. The

region along the Mediterranean coast consists of soft, sandy

dunes that are impassable to most wheeled or tracked

vehicles . A north-south ridge line runs some 30 kilometers

parallel to, and east of, the Suez Canal. There are only three

major routes that traverse this ridge line : one through Bir

Gifgafa on the sea, one through the Mitla Pass, and one

through the Gidi Pass. An interlocking series of hills, sand

seas, and wadis located in northeastern Sinai blocks

entrance to the central Sinai region, which is generally

traversable. Only three metalled routes cross the Sinai in an

east-west direction: one isolated route along the coast and

two routes through central Sinai. All three routes pass

through the northeastern part of the peninsula.

Military logic should have suggested that Egypt hold the

bulk of its concentrated armored forces in reserve along the

north-south ridge line in the western Sinai . This would have

forced Israeli units to fight their way through prepared

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fortifications set well forward in the northeast quadrant of

the Sinai before coming up against the main Egyptian units.

Egyptian armor would then have been in position to hold

overextended IDF forces at bay in a long attritional war that

Israel could not afford, circumstances permitting, to launch

a decisive counterattack against tired and ill-supplied IDF

units. However, the political events leading to the war did not

permit such a deployment, even if it had been considered .

Intra-Arab considerations forced the Egyptian army to

locate almost all of its forces well forward. Only one armored

division was held in operational reserve . Moreover, the

Egyptians did not concentrate their armor. Rather, each

Egyptian infantry division was allocated a small armored force .

The Egyptian center of gravity was in the south, where

forces were positioned to launch an offensive towards

Hebron to link up with Jordan and cut off the southern

Israeli city of Eilat. This deployment coincided with a major

Israeli deception plan indicating that the Israelis intended

to follow the same southern, indirect cross-country approach

used by Israeli paratroopers during the 1956 Sinai

campaign. In fact, however, the southern portion of the

Negev Desert was only defended by one IDF tank brigade.

Eilat did not even merit that, being defended only by

regional defense units made up of reservists. The IDF's

center of gravity was far to the north, opposite the strongly

fortified Egyptian-defended blocks on the routes leading to

the major east-west axes that traverse the Sinai.

The IDF's initial operational plan, drawn up by the

General Staff' under Lt Gen Yitzhak Rabin, was limited to

the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the El Arish-Rafa

fortified area . Subsequently, the plan was modified to

include the capture of the entire peninsula up to a line 15

kilometers from the canal and the destruction of the

Egyptian army. Even so, the nature of maneuver warfare

required that only the operations of the first day-leading to

an advance of some 40 kilometers-be planned in any detail.

The remainder of the campaign was left to circumstances as

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well as to the discretion of the front (corps) commander, Maj

Gen Yeshayahu Gavish.

Focusing on the first day, the IDF's plan was to break

through on two parallel axes (fig . 9). One division would

assault prepared Egyptian fortifications on each axis. The

assault on the coastal route was launched by the Tal Ugda,

which had about 250 high-quality tanks. Further south, the

major Egyptian fortified area covering Abu Ageila was to be

overcome by the Sharon Ugda, consisting of one armored

and two infantry brigades. One IDF armored brigade of the

Yoffe Ugda would pass between the two attack axes,

crossing difficult terrain that the Egyptians had considered

impassable; its mission was to block the line of advance that

any Egyptian counterstroke launched towards the coastal

route would have to follow. The other armored brigade of the

Yoffe Ugda would initially be held in Southern Command

reserve . El Arish was to be taken in a combined airborneamphibious night assault. Subsequently, the armored

elements of all three IDF divisions would meet in the center

of the peninsula at Jebel Libni where they would be rested,

resupplied, and reformed. They would then be in position to

meet the anticipated counterattack by Egyptian strategic

armored reserves, should it come. This plan was not

conditional on the outcome of the air operation, which was

to be conducted simultaneously with the ground attack. The

attack westward would have been conducted at night had

circumstances so dictated.

The IAF's attack on the Egyptian air force started at 0845

(Cairo time) on 5 June, the hour being dictated by the fact

that Israeli units (both air and ground) lacked effective

means to engage in night combat and also in the hope of

catching the enemy after the time of peak watchfulness

early in the mornings Taking an extreme risk by leaving

behind only about 4 percent of the available aircraft to

defend the country's own skies, the Israelis launched their entire

force on a highly prioritized target array-19 Egyptian air

bases holding bombers and high-quality fighter aircraft .

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Using battle-damage assessments, the Iraelis subsequent13

added other targets, including additional air bases holding

lower-priority aircraft and air search radar sites. The IM

attack was organized in two waves separated by a short

period that was required for assessment purposes. Eacl:

wave was organized into successive flight-sized echelonE

that were spaced seven to 10 minutes apart. Each flighi

made a single pass, dropping bombs to crater runways

and thus pinning down Egyptian aircraft . They ther

returned for multiple strafing attacks. First-priority

Egyptian air bases were therefore under almost continuous

attack until virtually all the grounded first-line aircrafl

were destroyed. Multiple-pass strafing runs maximized the

vulnerability of attacking IAF aircraft to Egyptiar

antiaircraft fire. But it was the only way feasible for the

IAF to kill large numbers of aircraft with the means a1

hand. In 1967 the IAF killed more than one aircraft or

the ground per attack sortie. During the Suez crisis in 1956

the more conservative British and French air forces, using

somewhat similar aircraft and weapons, had killed less than

one Egyptian aircraft for each five attack sorties during

their initial high-altitude raids .?

Owing to excellent training, repeated detailed rehearsals;

and the use of appropriate tactics and weapons, the Israeli

air operation was an immense success . In 347 total sorties,

the IAF destroyed 304 aircraft, including virtually the entire

Egyptian bomber force, and all but neutralized the enemy

ground-based air defense system by destroying 16 air search

radars. Israel's own losses numbered nine aircraft, which

was a very high loss rate of over 2.5 percent of missions flown

However, it was a price the General Staff and IAF Headquarters

were willing to pay to achieve their goal of air supremacy.$

Meanwhile, between H hour and H+9 hours, the advance

of the Tal Ugda proceeded faster than anticipated, largely

because of the high quality of the IDF's conscript/regular

elite 7th Armored and 202d Paratroop brigades, the latter

acting in the mechanized infantry role. The Tal Ugda had

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Israel's best troops and equipment. By sunset, one battalion

of Centurion tanks had broken through the heavily fortified

Giradi defile and arrived west of El Arish. So fast was the

advance that the planned night amphibious/paratroop

assault could be canceled. The tempo of IDF operations, as

well as the readiness of subordinate commanders to take

risks and display initiative in accordance with mission-type

orders, had shattered the opposing Egyptian infantry

divisiona9 The latter was not able to take advantage of poor

Israeli command and control at the divisional level10 and the

inability of the Israelis to rapidly resupply their exhausted

and strung out forces.

During the daylight hours of the first day of combat, the

Sharon Ugda closed on its target, overrunning outlying

defenses and moving up its relatively immobile infantry

and artillery across the dunes towards Abu Ageila . 11

General Sharon was given the choice of launching a night

attack or waiting until daylight, when he could attack with

the full support of the IAF. He opted for a combined arms

night attack, organizing a typically complicated operation

that combined a number of elements. First, blocks made up

of deeply inserted armored units were used to isolate the

battlefield from reinforcements coming from the north and

the south or west. Next, paratroopers were inserted by

helicopter to the rear of the Egyptian fortifications and

used to overrun artillery positions. 12 Third, artillery and

tank fire were used to suppress Egyptian trench lines,

enabling Sharon's own infantrymen-carrying colored lights

on their shoulders for identification by friendly units-to

overrun the trench lines. Meanwhile, engineers opened a

route through the mine fields and obstacles originally

covered by the trenches and artillery . Finally, armor

penetrated the defensive zone through the gaps made by the

engineers and engaged and defeated the Egyptian armor

that had been held in tactical reserve.

That night, as expected, the Egyptians launched a twobrigade counterstroke north from Jebel Libni towards El Arish.

166
It was the only one organized by them during the entire

campaign; however, it was held through the night by a

blocking Israeli tank battalion from the lead Yoffe brigade.

By H+24 hours, the IDF had overcome the Egyptian forces

in the northeastern Sinai and obtained access to the vital

and limited Sinai road network. Egypt's Sinai command had

been subject to a violent one-two punch. Within 24 hours,

their seemingly impregnable defenses in the northeastern

Sinai had collapsed, their counterstroke had been foiled, and

the IAF now owned the air above the Sinai Peninsula.

However, only about 200 of 960 Egyptian tanks had been

engaged, destroyed, or captured. Only one and one-half of its

seven divisions had been assaulted. The rest remained

largely in place. But at this point, the Egyptian high

command located in Cairo panicked and ordered the

evacuation of all Egyptian forces from the Sinai Peninsula .

This was a catastrophic error.

Between H+24 and H+36 hours, the Tal and Yoffe ugdas

easily penetrated the Bir Lahfan fortified area, which was

already in the process of being evacuated by the

defenders . They defeated the retreating counterstroke

force and captured Jebel Libni and Bir Hama, both of

which had already been largely evacuated. That night the

IDF correctly adjusted its battle plan. Without resting,

reorganizing, or resupplying, the five armored brigades of

the three IDF divisions were ordered to rapidly deploy

westward in order to put blocks in place along the

ridge-line passes in the western Sinai. This maneuver

combined the strategic offensive with the tactical

defensive. Although the IDF forces used for these blocks

were undersized and often short of supplies, they faced an

opponent that had lost all cohesion and totally lacked

effective command and control . Approaching the Mitla

and Gidi passes in their attempt to escape, the Egyptian

motorized columns were ambushed by Israeli armor and

devastated. This accomplished, the same Israeli units

penetrated further westward on the fourth day of the war

167
and reached the Suez Canal, even though their original

orders had been to stop on a line well short of it.

As the Tal Ugda stormed forward on the first day, it

received close air support from two squadrons of armed

Fouga Magister trainers-the only forces that the IAF,

engaged in its preemptive attack against the Egyptian air

force, had available for that purpose. The idea was to help

the armor forward by blasting the Egyptian artillery

formations; however, it turned out that the latter were too

well fortified and camouflaged. The Fougas themselves were

unarmored and did not even have ejector seats. Their sole

armament consisted of light 7 .62-mm machine guns and

68-mm/82-mm rockets. As a result, their effectiveness in

this role tended to be somewhat limited. 13

Later in the campaign, this situation changed. Having

successfully defeated the Jordanian, Syrian, and Iraqi air

forces in addition to the Egyptian one, 14 the IAF on the

second day of the war turned back to the Sinai, where it

enjoyed complete command of the air. Dakota and Nordatlas

transport aircraft played a vital role by supplying fuel to the

units from Tal's and Yoffe's ugdas. Had it not been for them,

the Egyptian breakout might conceivably have succeeded.

Air supply was also used to fill up the Sharon Ugda, which,

following its victory at Abu Ageila, moved southwest

towards Nakhle. Meanwhile, every type of combat aircraft

was used to interdict retreating Egyptian vehicle convoys.

The method selected was for Southern Area Command to set

moving bomb lines, which were constantly updated by rear

headquarters at Ze'elim, in the western Negev. All ground

forces beyond these bomb lines were considered to be hostile .

Generally, the IAF worked west to east against Egyptian

motorized columns, which being roadbound and having

limited mobile air defense assets, were easy to find in the

totally open terrain. Having found their quarry, IAF pilots could

loiter over the target area and make multiple pass attacks. 15

Postaction review of the battlefield showed that IAF

aircraft had great success against soft vehicles, thousands of

169
which littered the desert either as burned-out wrecks or

intact vehicles that had been deserted by their terrified

crews. However, IAF aircraft with their rockets, iron bombs,

and 30-mm low-velocity cannons were found to have almost

no capability against armored vehicles. Virtually none of the

890 tanks lost by the Egyptians were directly destroyed by

Israeli air power.l s It is also interesting to note that, as had

been the case during the German campaign of 1940, the IDF

made virtually no use of close-air-support sorties precisely

controlled by ground-based observers; instead, the IAF chose

the simpler method of operating well forward, concentrating

on the interdiction mission. As previously noted, the way at

least one Israeli commander saw the strengths and

limitations of his own air force was illustrated by General

Sharon. Given the choice of a daylight ground attack, with

the full participation of the IAF, or a night attack, he opted

for the latter. He thus expressed disbelief in the capability of

the IAF to destroy hard targets, a capability which in fact it

did not possess.

Finally, an unspectacular but very important way in

which the IAF supported maneuver warfare during the 1967

campaign was by providing protection for the operations of

the IDF's vulnerable motorized logistics columns. The three

ugdas deployed in the Sinai had only very small organic

transport vehicles that could be loaded with no more than

72 hours worth of ready service supplies . The convoys

coming up behind them were made up of roadbound,

requisitioned, civilian vehicles of every sort and description.

The nature of the terrain forced them to pass through

several narrow and dangerous defiles and the traffic

discipline of their civilian drivers was of the kind that can

only be learned on the streets of Tel Aviv. To cap it all, the

resources allocated by the IDF to mobile antiaircraft

protection were virtually nil . Had it not been for the IAF,

the supply columns would have represented ideal targets for

air attack, and scenes such as took place in 1956 when a

single such attack by the Egyptian air force scattered an

169
entire convoy might have been repeated. In the 1967 event,

the IAF's command of the air was almost absolute . By

permitting the Israeli supply columns to advance safely by

day as well as by night, it made another substantial

contribution to the outcome of the campaign.

The campaign ended with catastrophic results for Egypt.

The latter's armed forces had lost virtually all their aircraft

(though not their pilots, most of whom survived to fight

another day), about 890 of 960 deployed tanks, and a

proportionate quantity of other heavy equipment including

artillery, troop carriers, and trucks that could be seen in

Israeli depots for years after the campaign . An area 60,000

kilometers square, offering several excellent possibilities for

the defense, had been occupied . Egypt's casualties

reportedly numbered 11,000 fatalities . Israeli losses were

approximately 40 aircraft (including those lost on other

fronts) and 61 tanks, some of which were later salvaged. On

the Sinai front alone there were fewer than 300 fatalities,

most of them suffered during the tough breakthrough battles.

During the years 1967-73, the IAF was greatly reinforced

despite an ongoing French arms embargo started in 1967.

While its original French-built aircraft were slowly

becoming inoperable for lack of spare parts, it began to

substitute home-built Nesher aircraft that were really

austere Mirage Vs fitted with American engines. At the

same time, it received large numbers of capable, Americanmanufactured A-4 Skyhawk and F-4 Phantom aircraft. The

number of Israeli fighter bombers, which had been around

230 in 1967, rose to 410. Unlike the French aircraft,

moreover, the newly received American-built ones were well

suited for carrying considerable amounts of ordnance. The

total disposable payload (external fuel included) carried by

all IAF combat aircraft rose from approximately 570 tons to

2,000 tons. Meanwhile, the IAF's lethality against ground

targets improved by a factor of over 12-an increase partly

due to the fact that some of the newly acquired aircraft (the

Skyhawk A-4N) possessed computerized navigation attack

170
avionics that increased the accuracy of air-to-ground sortie

lethality by a factor of about three and one-half times. 17

As it fought the so-called war of attrition against the

Egyptians in 1969-70, Israel's perception of its air force

changed considerably . Whereas previously the IAF had been

used to cover and protect fast-moving troops engaged in

maneuver warfare, it now found itself used as flying

artillery in static attritional battles along the Suez Canal.

Previously it had avoided attacks on civilian targets in an

effort to break the Arab armed forces, but from late 1970 on

it was used as Israel's "long arm" in an attempt to topple

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser by flying missions

into the Egyptian rear and thus showing the population that

the regime was unable to protect them.

At first, the antiaircraft defense environment in which the

IAF operated was relatively benign, enabling the Israelis to

fly and bomb almost with impunity. However, Nasser went

to Moscow in January 1970 . He begged the Soviets to help

him rebuild his antiaircraft defenses, threatening to resign

if they did not, "which would prove that the Americans are

masters of the world." Thereupon the Kremlin sent

advanced aircraft and pilots, radars, SA-2, -3, -4, and -6

missiles, ZSU 23-4 antiaircraft guns, and several thousands

of its own technicians to maintain and operate them as well

as to instruct the Egyptians in their use. These measures

did not take long to have an effect . Within three months,

growing losses as well as the fear of bringing about a clash

with Soviet pilots who were flying missions over Egypt had

forced Israel to call off its deep strikes against Egypt.

Attacking targets such as troop concentrations, vehicles, and

artillery positions along the canal, the IAF was still able to

inflict heavy casualties but only at a mounting cost in

aircraft and crews. By the time the struggle ended in August

1970, both sides were thoroughly exhausted. Still, one may

argue that it was the Israelis who learned the wrong

lessons . Too arrogant to admit that their vaunted air force

had been fought to a standstill, they mistakenly thought

171
that they would still be able to operate as flying artillery at

acceptable costs.

By 1973, the new strategic situation on the ground along

the Suez Canal was no longer conducive to the bold

maneuver warfare so vividly illustrated during the 1967

campaign. As we saw, Israeli strategic requirements up to

1967 had led to a military policy preemption. The bulk of the

Egyptian army was located in the Nile Delta, and Jordanian

armored brigades were located east of the river Jordan and

the formidable geographical obstacle provided by the

mountains of Judea and Samaria. Both Arab countries

lacked a bolt-from-the-blue surprise attack option. Hence,

Israel would be provided with strategic warning by Arab

troop movements. It could mobilize and launch a preemptive

attack before these Arab deployments were complete, or

prompt mobilization could deter Arab force buildups and

compel the removal of forward-deployed Arab forces . In

1967, the Israeli government vacillated after Egypt deployed

into Sinai. Deterrence failed because the Arabs perceived

the Israeli government as being weak and indecisive .

Finally, after a great internal debate, the IDF was

politically freed to launch the preemptive attack. This attack

was expected by the Arabs. What the Arabs did not expect

was the magnitude and success of that attack.

By contrast, 1973 saw Arab and Israeli forces closely

engaged along the 1967 cease-fire lines . The Egyptian

military was separated from Israel proper by the relatively

wide Sinai Peninsula . Egypt's short-range Soviet strike

aircraft lacked the payload-range characteristics needed to

threaten LAY air bases from their bases in the Nile Delta.

The absence of such a threat made Israel feel secure. Israel

had become politically aligned with the United States,

whose power was needed to offset that of Soviet-backed

Egypt. The United States would not condone an Israeli

preemptive strategy. Therefore, the Israeli government led

by Golda Meir concluded that with the new borders, and under

the existing political conditions, a preemptive strategy was no

172
longer feasible. Israel planned to absorb the first blow before

launching a decisive and rapid counterattack. 18

Meanwhile, Israeli lines of communications, particularly

in the Southern Area Command, were vastly expanded. IDF

reserve depots (as opposed to those of the regular forces)

remained in the Negev Desert, located over 200 kilometers

from the Suez Canal. Israeli General Staff planning was

based on at least 48 hours of strategic warning, which

would enable it to mobilize and to deploy the reserves

forward. The Israeli plan was to have one reinforced,

forward-deployed, regular/conscript tank division

withstand the Egyptian cross-canal attack . Two reserve

IDF tank divisions would be called up and be deployed in

the Sinai. The three divisions together would launch a

cross-canal counterattack on the third day of the war. It

was assumed that during the first two days of the war the

IAF would be almost fully involved in an air operation

designed to neutralize the Egyptian air force and destroy

the ground-based Egyptian air defense system. The Israeli

cross-canal attack would therefore benefit from the full

support of the IAF. To rapidly cross. the canal, the Israelis

had developed preconstructed roller bridges. Crossing could

be accomplished from a prepared east bank in minutes, not

hours. In addition, Israeli tank units had been reorganized

since 1967. Instead of flexible ugdas, the three armored

divisions that were either in the Sinai or earmarked for it

had three tank brigades of three tank battalions each, plus

an artillery brigade. They lacked the combined-arms balance

of the 1967 Tal Ugda, which had four organic mechanized

infantry battalions and self-propelled 81-mm mortars at the

battalion level .

The Israeli intelligence service correctly estimated that

the Arabs could not militarily defeat Israel unless they could

decisively strike IAF airfields . They therefore concluded,

incorrectly, that Egypt and Syria would not go to war.

Obvious movements of Arab forces and other warning signs

reported by Israeli intelligence were ignored. Israel was

173
caught unprepared. The mobilization of Israel's reserves was

ordered only five hours before the onset of hostilities. 19

The Israeli defense plan for the Suez Canal had been

drawn up under the direction of Lt Gen Haim Bar Lev (chief

of staff, 1968-72). 20 It was decided to have an elite infantry

platoon together with a tank platoon in each of the forts

along the canal. The forts were to be provided fire support

from tank platoons or companies operating from prepared

elevated firing ramps located to the immediate rear. Tank

battalions were to be in tactical reserve with a tank brigade

held in operational reserve . The plan's main fault was that

these forces were tank heavy, lacking adequate infantry,

mortar, and artillery support. Correctly implemented,

however, the plan would have vastly slowed the Egyptian

crossing. Not executing the defensive plan was a great

mistake.

When the Egyptians launched their attack at 1400 hours

on 6 October, the Bar Lev line along the Suez Canal was for

all practical purposes undefended. Overconfidence among

the leadership at Southern Area Command (Maj Gen

Shmuel Gonen) had led to a situation where the forts were

only manned by approximately 460 second-line, largely

reserve infantry who were supported by fewer than 10

tanks. One tank brigade was 20-30 kilometers deep and two

others were 60 kilometers back. Two reserve tank divisions

were being hastily mobilized in the Negev. Egypt had

achieved strategic surprise, indeed to the point where it took

the Israeli General Staff some 48 hours to realize that this

was war and not just another one of those skirmishes that

had marked the canal front between 1967 and 1970 (on the

Syrian front until 1972). Surprise meant that Israeli

first-line armor was initially maldeployed and the rest was

200 kilometers away from the scene of hostilities.

Given a superiority of fire of about 50:1, Egyptian artillery

easily suppressed fortifications on the Israeli side of the

canal. Egyptian infantry were able to cross the canal

virtually unopposed. They immediately dug in, heavily

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reinforced by additional man-portable antitank systems,

within the range of the Egyptian antitank guns, tanks, and

antitank guided missile launchers still located on the west

bank of the cana1. 21 Israeli tanks were launched forward in

penny-packet platoon or company-sized units to link up with

Israeli forts. Israeli tanks lacked combined-arms support

from mechanized infantry, mortars, engineers, and artillery.

Like overripe fruit, the Israeli infantry, trapped in their

useless and bypassed fortifications, lured Israeli tankers,

intent on their rescue, forward to their destruction. Within

36 hours, the regular/conscript Israeli tank division had lost

about 65 percent of its tanks and had accomplished little . 22

The Egyptians were able to successfully consolidate their

now-continuous but shallow bridgehead. As Israel had done

in 1967, Egypt successfully combined the strategic offensive

with the tactical defensive .

On the third day of the war, the two deployed Israeli

reserve tank divisions attempted to regain the initiative.

But they had deployed without their artillery, which was

still on the roads into the Sinai. They were tank-heavy units

that lacked the combined-arms support needed to deal with

Egyptian infantry. The plan was for each Israeli division to

roll up one-half of the Egyptian forces along the canal by

attacking on a north-to-south line running just out of the

range of Egyptian antitank fire . The plan was flawed. The

Egyptian forces were still hard up against the canal, and

there was no flank to roll up . One division (Maj Gen

Avraham Adan) ultimately launched a series of frontal,

battalion-sized tank assaults . They were all decisively

defeated. 23 The other division (Major General Sharon),

holding vital ground east of the canal, was ordered to

disengage and move south, based on a totally erroneous

misreading of the ongoing battle by the leadership of the

Southern Area Command. The Israeli armored attacks had

failed because of inferior generalship, poor command and

control, and lack of combined-arms support. The Egyptians

were able to expand their shallow beachheads eastward

175
against the maldeployed and exhausted Israeli armor; even

so, they never advanced more than eight or so kilometers

east into the Sinai Peninsula.

During the 1968-70 war of attrition, Israel had built up a

valuable infrastructure in the western Sinai to support the

armored division permanently deployed there. Subsequently,

this infrastructure limited Israeli tactical options. Rather

than squander tanks in ill-advised assaults against

overwhelming antitank defenses, it would have been

preferable for the IDF to stretch the Egyptians out, draw

them away from their relatively static air defense network,

pin them down, outflank them, and destroy them by

superior Israeli armored formations in mobile battles deep

in Sinai-in short, engage in maneuver warfare. This was

not to be the case .

Between the fourth and eighth day of the conflict, the

Sinai front was relatively static. The IDF's three tank

divisions were resupplied, regrouped, and reinforced. Two

other composite Israeli divisions were formed and deployed.

The Egyptians, no doubt taken aback by their own success,24

consolidated and fortified their now five-division-strong

defensive zone. A strong operational reserve force of three

Egyptian armored and mechanized divisions remained on

the west bank of the canal, ready to react to any Israeli

cross-canal counterattack.

On the ninth day of the war, the Egyptians launched an

offensive to take the pressure off their Syrian ally, using the

armor of their infantry divisions and elements of two tank

reserve divisions, which had also crossed the canal. 25 The

Egyptians attacked on five major axes. IDF tankers met and

defeated their armor with a kill rate of 256:6 . The Egyptian

attack lacked a center of gravity. On none of the axes did the

Egyptians obtain an adequate correlation of forces necessary

to overcome qualitatively superior IDF armor. But the

Israeli defense was equally flawed. Too many Egyptian

tanks survived. The Israelis had an opportunity to draw

Egyptian armor deeper into the Sinai, to pin it with their air

176
power (operating outside the Egyptian air defense envelope),

and destroy it with a decisive counterstroke. The IDF very

successfully fought to defend sand and space that should

have been yielded in order to achieve more decisive results.

On the other hand, in shifting its armor eastward, Egypt

had catastrophically weakened its reserves . It was now

vulnerable to an Israeli cross-canal counterattack.

On the night of the tenth day of the war, the IDF

launched its long-awaited cross-canal counterattack. The

plan was to rapidly cross in the center at Ismailia north of the

Great Bitter Lake and to sweep south behind the Egyptian

Third Army, leaving its forces in Sinai without resupply (fig.

10). The reinforced Sharon Division made the attack with

the Adan Division in reserve. These two divisions had 60

percent of Israel's best armor. Once again, the more mobile

Israelis had been able to maneuver their forces, to the

center of gravity and thereby establish a favorable local

correlation of forces, although they were outnumbered

overall. Because of poor planning and traffic control-a

perennial Israeli weakness-it became clear that the IDF's

raft-like bridge sections could not be brought forward that

night. 26 But General Sharon declined to delay the start of

the operation because he did not trust his military or

political superiors, or so he later claimed. 27 Initially, the

unopposed Israeli flanking move through the open seam

between two Egyptian armies went well, but the lead Israeli

tank and mechanized infantry battalions ran into violent

opposition as they moved farther north. While this battle

raged, an Israeli paratroop brigade and an armored

battalion were ferried across the canal. They found the west

bank undefended. The Egyptians didn't know the Israelis

were there. The heartland ofEgypt was totally vulnerable.

Israel's Southern Area Command restrained General

Sharon, denying his request to shift additional armor

westward. They wanted a secure corridor to the canal and

firm bridges, not vulnerable ferries, in place . This decision

was a great error and totally at odds with the basic principles

177

of maneuver warfare. The reduced tank battalion across the

canal launched successful raids on nearby Egyptian

facilities, but a great strategic opportunity was lost. The IDF

had a unique opportunity to exploit a gap in the Egyptian

array. They had an opportunity to engage in mobile, fluid,

high-tempo operations. There is every reason to believe that

the Egyptian command and control system would have

collapsed, particularly if Israeli units had exploited

westward into the undefended Nile Delta against vulnerable

Egyptian depots and airfields .

Had an IDF force of 100-150 tanks broken out at midday

on the eleventh day of the war in six battalion-sized combat

teams, there is no way to estimate the magnitude of the

probable Egyptian collapse . But the Israeli General Staff

and its Southern Area Command read the wrong scale

maps. They worried over 2-4 kilometers of killing ground

around the northern flank of the Israeli corridor to the

canal, concerned that Sharon's bridgehead could be cut off.

It was a total misreading of the situation. The Sharon and

Adan divisions battled for another 48 hours to secure the

corridor and move the IDF's bridges forward. By then, the

Egyptians had brought their artillery to bear on the crossing

sites and moved limited reinforcements forward against the

Israeli bridgehead on the west bank. The Adan Division

battled its way out of the bridgehead and then slowly and

carefully moved south. The Egyptian chief of staff wanted to

pull back mobile forces from Sinai to the west bank to meet

the developing Israeli offensive. 28 He was overruled by the

minister of defense and the president . They correctly

concluded that such movements would have exposed the

Egyptian columns to IAF air attacks and would have led to

the collapse of the Egyptian army. Against limited

opposition, Israeli armor overran surface-to-air missile

bases, allowing the IAF to participate in the ground battle.

It took five days for IDF forces to battle their way southward

toward the city of Suez, and the last supply lines to the

Egyptian Third Army.

179
The war finally ended seven days after the Israelis

bridged the canal with the Egyptian Third Army enveloped

in Sinai. In the north, the main line of communications to

the Egyptian Second Army was also controlled by IDF fire .

Israel had lost about 600 tanks (300 of which could be

salvaged) and 1,700 personnel versus Egypt's estimated

losses of about 1,000 tanks (800 captured by Israel) and

12,000 personnel.

Between 1970 and 1973, the Egyptian military, violating

the cease-fire agreement, had been able to deploy a dense

ground-based air defense system to cover its deployed

ground forces, which had short, well-protected logistical

supply lines. In 1967 Egyptian aircraft had been neatly

drawn up on the runways, ready to be picked off; by 1973,

they were located in fortified hangarettes that offered

protection from strafing attacks. The hangarettes could only

be penetrated by direct hits from large bombs. Israeli

aircraft lacked the avionics needed to ensure such hits. As in

1967, the IAF still depended on artillery fire control observers

to control close-support sorties. While the allocation of

sorties was controlled by an air force cell in each area

command, there was only minimum air-ground joint

planning. IAF air-to-ground lethality generally depended on

operations in a benign air defense environment . IAF aircraft

still lacked an effective ability to engage armored vehicles . It

also lacked the real-time reconnaissance capability needed

to allocate attack sorties on a confused, dynamic battlefield.

Within hours of the mobilization order, the IAF was

prepared to launch a preemptive strike on Syrian air bases

and air defense sites. The political echelon then intervened,

ordering the IAF not to launch the strike. During prewar

planning sessions, the IAF had indicated to both the

political echelon and the General Staff that with the

technical means then at hand, air attacks on ground-based,

surface-to-air missile systems had to be precisely

orchestrated actions . Therefore, the Israeli government

decision not to order a preemptive strike significantly

180
impacted subsequent IAF operations during the Yom Kippur

War of 1973. During the first afternoon of the war, it was all

that the IAF could do to react defensively. It maintained strong

combat air patrols over Israel, successfully intercepted Syrian

and Egyptian attack aircraft and helicopters, and launched

a limited number of air-to-ground attacks on Egyptian forces.

Consistent with its prewar planning, the IAF planned to

launch a sustained air operation against Arab air forces and

air defense systems on the second day of the war, with

Egypt given first priority. However, as already noted, the

IAF did not generally have the means to effectively engage

aircraft within protected hangarettes. Runways could be

cratered and the aircraft pinned to the ground, but such

damage could be fairly rapidly repaired. The IAF found that

it could not repeat the dramatic success of its 1967-style

counterair operation. Though air superiority was ultimately

achieved, it was never quite complete.

Soon after the first wave of these attacks was launched

against Egypt, the Israeli General Staff ordered the IAF into

action against Syrian ground forces on the Golan Heights in

the CASBAI or close-air-support/battlefield air interdiction

role, before the Syrian air defense system was first attacked

and suppressed. The IAF was sent to fill the gaps in Israeli

defensive positions. Subsequently, it was ordered to conduct

similar missions against the bridges that the Egyptians had

thrown across the Suez Canal . This was a total

contradiction of prewar Israeli planning. IAF headquarters

recognized that the result would be relatively heavy losses

and came to realize that the IAF could only have a limited

impact on the ground battlefield. Nevertheless, caught by

strategic surprise and its prewar estimates of the correlation

of forces clearly wrong, the Israeli General Staff had no

immediate alternative . Somewhat like the Luftwaffe during

the later years of the Russian campaign, the IAF was being

shifted from front to front and from role to role in reaction to

immediate threats without implementing any cohesive air

operational plan .

181
By the fifth day of the war, Israel had lost 54 aircraft shot

down and probably had another 40 or so damaged aircraft

under repair. 29 These losses had been offset to some extent by

the return to service of fighter/attack aircraft in depot repair

at the onset of the war. Because the IAF was caught by

surprise, an estimated 85 percent of its aircraft were

operational at the beginning of the war (about 335 of 390). 30

Based on published loss rates and the knowledge that just

over two Israeli jets were severely damaged for each one

shot down, we can estimate that the IAF probably had only

about 280 operational fighter/attack aircraft-or about 70

percent of its initial inventory-left by the end of day five . It

was approaching its self-defined red line, the minimum

number of aircraft required to guarantee air supremacy over

Israel. While the LAY had achieved decisive air-to-air kill

ratios of about 20:131 and had acquired air supremacy over

the Sinai and Israel, it had neither successfully suppressed

Arab air defense systems nor destroyed Arab air forces on the

ground . Its air-to-ground attacks had been generally

ineffective.

For the next six days of the war, available data indicates

that the number of sorties generated was deliberately

constrained as the IAF husbanded its vital aircraft fleet and

developed technotactical responses to the Arab air defense

system. The decisive breakthrough battle fought along the

IDF's corridor to the Suez Canal, perhaps the bloodiest in

the entire war, was made with only limited IAF support. In

the final six days of the war, the Israeli sortie rate climbed

again. In part this reflected IAF confidence in newly

deployed electronic warfare systems, and in part it reflected

the fact that the number of operational Israeli aircraft

increased, thanks to rapid US air deliveries of replacement

Skyhawk and Phantom aircraft and Israeli combat repairs

of damaged aircraft. Moreover, the Israeli ugdas operating

in "Africa" had now made a dent in the Egyptian SAM

network along the canal. The result was a very substantial

reduction in the IAF loss rate. About 65 percent of the IAF's

182
operational sorties represented air-to-ground missions. Of

these, less than 10 percent were considered strategic strikes

against targets in the Nile Delta or Damascus region. Most

sorties were flown in the CASBAI roles and, on the whole,

were quite ineffective . 32

Published figures show that the IAF was only able to fly a

limited number of sorties on the first two days of the war.

On the third through sixth day of the war, the IDF

sustained a rate of about two sorties per day per operational

aircraft. Between the seventh and fifteenth days of the war

there was a period of reorganization during which the sortie

rate was cut nearly in half. Late in the war, the IAF was

once again able to generate nearly two sorties per

operational aircraft per day. 33 On Saturday, 13 October, it

was very effective in stopping an attempted Egyptian

advance along the southwestern shore of the Sinai-perhaps

its greatest tactical success of the entire war-once again

proving the vulnerability of motorized columns operating

outside an air defense umbrella . Between Monday and

Wednesday, 15-17 October, it secured the canal crossing,

though not to the extent of preventing all Egyptian air

attacks against the crowded access roads . 34 Its contribution

to the ground campaign, while considerable, was far from

decisive.

To sum up, by achieving strategic surprise, the

antagonists were able to prevent the LAY from launching a

preplanned surge attack like that on 6 June 1967 . During

the first two days of the conflict, the IAF mobilized its

largely reserve logistics system and recalled ground support

personnel and pilots . Meanwhile, it was able to generate

only 50 percent of its normal sortie rate and probably less

than 33 percent of a maximum surge effort. Furthermore, by

inflicting heavy losses at the outset of the war, the Arabs

were able to reduce the IAF's sortie rate by nearly 50

percent for nine vital days. Consequently, the IAF was able

to fly far fewer sorties during the war than it had planned.

This, combined with inadequate command and control and

183
limited per sortie lethality, considerably reduced the impact

of the IAF on the war as a whole.

Between 1967 and 1973, the IAF's fighter/attack aircraft

inventory increased by about 77 percent. The maximum

total deliverable payload grew by 350 percent, and

air-to-ground lethality by 1,250 percent. In 1967, the loss

rate per sortie was 0 .014; by comparison, in 1973 it was only

0.0093. Yet the IAF had a decisive impact on the military

outcome of the 1967 Six-Day War and far less impact in

1973. To derive any lessons from this comparison, we must

ask why this was the case.

In 1967, Israel took the initiative and achieved operational

surprise. In 1973, it was the Arabs who achieved strategic

surprise. As a result, in 1967 the IAF was able to proceed

with a high-tempo air operation that enabled it to rapidly

achieve air supremacy on the first day, throwing the enemy

off balance for the remainder of the war and preventing his

recovery. In 1973, the IAF was unable to launch a high-tempo

air operation, and it also lacked appropriate technotactical

responses to the Arab's use of protected hangarettes and dense

ground-based air defense systems. In 1967, the IAF operated

alongside Israeli ground forces that boldly executed the kind

of maneuver warfare in which their opponents were weak

and in which they themselves shone. Therefore, in 1967 the

IAF was primarily engaged in interdicting vulnerable

Egyptian motorized columns that were easily identifiable

and poorly defended. In 1973, the IAF fought in support of

Israeli ground forces that generally fought statically in

attritional battles in which the initiative was often taken by

the Arabs. Therefore, the IAF was primarily engaged in

close air support against well-fortified, well- defended Arab

ground forces on an often confused battlefield. Determination

and a readiness for sacrifice on the part of the pilots

notwithstanding, the IAF lacked the C31 capability, weapons,

and avionics needed to succeed in this type of environment.

The relative failures of the IAF in 1973 therefore reflect

certain doctrinal problems. First, the IAF was part of a

184
military force that was organized to fight the bold maneuver

battles that were no longer politically or militarily feasible.

Second, it was an air force that lacked the tightly integrated

air-to-ground and ground-to-air C3I system needed for

effective close-support operations . Finally, and perhaps

most significant, the IAF's brilliant success in the 1967

Six-Day War and the war of attrition, and its overriding

emphasis on air-to-air engagements, blinded it to its

technotactical needs versus Arab hangarettes and groundbased air defense systems.

After the war was over, the IDF sought to learn its lessons

and overcome its shortcomings by proceeding on a parallel

three-track approach. First, it was necessary to replace war

losses. Next, the size and quality of its force structure was

considerably improved by the purchase of modern F-15 and

F-16 fighter aircraft as well as Cobra attack helicopters

armed with tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided

(TOW) missiles. Finally, a concerted attempt was made to

develop technological and tactical responses to Arab

antiarmor and antiaircraft capability, partly by purchasing

avionics from the United States and partly by pushing

indigenous solutions.

The first of these objectives was accomplished numerically

within about three months, although the replacement of

trained tank crew and tactical leaders took considerably

longer. The second objective was substantially accomplished

within 18 months, although again the buildup continued at

an intense level for another two or three years . The third of

these objectives was the most difficult to achieve, in part

because technology did not yet exist to fulfill all Israeli operational requirements . To reconfirm its doctrine of maneuver

warfare, Israel had to reestablish the preeminence of the

tank and aircraft, whose effectiveness had been so

significantly blunted during the Yom Kippur War. The

answers were in part doctrinal, in part organizational, in

part tactical, and in part technological .

185
As for the IAF, it had learned a number of lessons from the

1973 war. First, near real-time intelligence, a tight command

and control cycle, closely coordinated planning between air and

ground staffs, and a dedicated command system are needed for

effective air-to-ground attacks in a dynamic battlefield

environment. Second, to be lethal, air-to-ground attacks

require suppression of medium- or high-altitude surface-to-air

missile systems by soft- and hard-kill systems, a task that in

the future would have to be carried out at least in part by

ground forces using long- range artillery and other means.

Third, it was necessary to acquire or develop advanced

navigation-attack systems that would allow aircraft to lethally

attack ground targets from altitudes above the effective range

of unsuppressible fire from short-range antiaircraft and

man-portable, surface-to- air missile systems. Fourth, precision

guided munitions are required to attack small fortified point

targets like hangarettes. Fifth, air forces must be capable of

24-hour operations. Sixth, an air force must be allowed to

conduct an antiair air operation prior to its full commitment to

the ground battle.

By the early 1980s, adequate technotactical responses

were at hand that fully reestablished, at least temporarily,

the preeminence of the tank and aircraft. As the IDF

marched into Lebanon in 1982, its forces-including the

IAF-were perhaps the most modern ever fielded by any

country up until then; yet, results did not altogether match

expectations. Using American-built airborne warning and

control system (AWACS) aircraft to direct high-performance

fighters, the IAF totally outclassed the Syrian air force and

was able to bring down 100 of its planes without suffering a

single loss in air-to-air combat. Its performance on the

air-to-ground mission was equally impressive since Syria's

entire Soviet-supplied surface-to-air defense system was

knocked out within a few hours against the loss of only one

IAF aircraft downed. Enjoying total command of the air, the

IAF should have been able to make mincemeat of its

opponents ; yet, by and large, this was not what happened.

186
As it turned out, the closed, mountainous, partly built-up

and cultivated Lebanese terrain was much less conducive to

air-to-ground operations than the open Sinai Desert (or,

incidentally, the totally flat terrain in and around Kuwait).

This helps account for the fact that the Syrian ground

forces, though defeated, were able to withdraw in good order

and to live to see their commander decorated for his

accomplishment . Next on the list of IAF's shortcomings was

a dangerous tendency towards fratricide . Although

air-to-ground communications were probably as good as was

technically feasible, this did not prevent a heavy air attack

on one of the IDF's own units. For the rest of the campaign,

these units draped themselves in conspicuous red cloth,

proof enough that they feared their own air force more than

that of the enemy. Finally, the opponent in this campaign

consisted largely of guerrillas belonging to the Palestinian

Liberation Organization and, later on, a host of other

organizations. These forces possessed neither clear troop

concentrations that could be destroyed nor lines of

communications that could be interdicted. Against them, the

operations of the IAF (and much of those of the ground

forces as well) proved to be almost totally irrelevant.

Today's official Israeli military doctrine remains committed

to the concepts of maneuver warfare-once again because it

hopefully enables wars to be concluded quickly at low cost. But

is it still feasible for Israel to execute maneuver warfare? Until

recently, Israel was deterred from launching surprise or

preemptive attack by its dependence on American support to

offset the Soviet threat. Today the Soviet threat to Israel may

have evaporated, but Israeli dependence on American financial

and political support has not. Therefore, Israeli military

options remain limited by America's strategic reliance on

cheap, accessible Middle Eastern oil and by American links to

the large and diverse Moslem world. Unless it should see its

very existence threatened-a situation made highly unlikely

by the nuclear deterrent that it possesses-Israel cannot

launch a preemptive attack without having at least the

187
passive support of the US government, influenced by US

public opinion .

On the operational level, Israel's primary military

adversary is Syria. But the Syrian military has grown in

size to such a degree that the Damascus-to-Golan region is

now the most heavily defended area anywhere in the world.

So long as Israel is engaged in a war with Syria, it will have

to make difficult breaching attacks through this fortified

area. Consequently, the IDF's ground forces have been

uniquely trained and equipped to conduct breaching

operations of fortified zones .

Israel has attempted to acquire decisively superior

technology and to generate the high-quality forces necessary

to ensure that such breaching attacks can be successfully

prosecuted. But the IDF fully recognizes that the cost of any

such attacks will inevitably be high even assuming there

will be effective IAF participation . Time and again, it has

found during maneuvers how difficult it is to sustain a high

tempo of operations when advancing through prepared

fortified areas. Moreover, the very closeness of Damascus to

the front will limit the IDF's maneuver and exploitation

options if and when the breakthrough is accomplished.

Under these circumstances, Israel will have to pay a severe

price without achieving an adequate benefit.

From a purely military viewpoint, the logical alternative

to costly frontal attacks would be broad flanking operations

around the Golan zone launched through the Bekaa Valley

of Lebanon or a thrust through less defended territory in

northern Jordan. However, neither alternative may be

politically feasible.

Hence, in Israel there are some who suggest that the IDF

combine the strategic offensive with the tactical defensive,

using air power alone to devastate Syria, while IDF ground

troops statically hold the Golan frontier. This is a viable,

minimal-risk approach, but one at odds with the aggressive

leaders of the Israeli armored units who, until very recently,

still dominated the General Staff. These officers regard it as

188
most likely that any future campaign will take place

between Israel and some larger coalition of Arab states, as

was the case in both 1967 and 1973 . 35 Such a coalition would

enable the IDF to launch broad enveloping attacks of the

Golan region .

In the longer term, nevertheless, the armor-heavy IDF is

being transformed. All available evidence suggests that the

Israeli General Staff recognizes that the roles and missions

currently assigned combat arms is being impacted by rapid

advances in technology, such as hypervelocity guns and

long-range, indirect-fire, top-attack, antivehicle missiles . 36

Consequently, in the conventional battlefield fighting

system that currently dominates the IDF, the traditional

components of maneuver warfare-armored mobile combinedarms team supported by fighter/attack aircraft-may soon

be no longer viable. This has already had a profound impact

on IDF force and investment planning for the 1990s. In the

longer term, it will continue to impact future Israeli force

structures and national defense strategies .

Notes

1 . Kenneth S . Brower, "The Economic Implications of Military

Doctrine and Weapons Decisions," in Royal Military Academy,

Gorbachev, Economics and Defence (Sandhurst, England: Soviet Studies

Research Centre, 1987), chap. 4.

2 . Yigael Yadin, "For by Wise Counsel Thou Shalt Make Thy War: A

Strategical Analysis of Last Year's Battles," appendix 2 to B. H. Liddell

Hart, Strategy (New York: Praeger, 1954), 386-404.

3. Ariel Sharon, Warrior: The Autobiography of Ariel Sharon: (New

York: Simon and Schuster, 1989), 119 ; and M. Illan, "The Use of

Surprise in the Sinai Campaign" Maarachot (Hebrew), October 1966,

23-7 . Both these writers emphasize that individually the Arab soldiers

fought well; therefore, the key to defeating them consisted of throwing

them off balance by moving rapidly and doing the unexpected.

4 . Yehuda Weinraub, "The Israeli Air Force and the Air Land

Battle" IDF Journal 3 (1986): 25.

5. On the planning process, see Martin van Creveld, Command in

War (Cambridge, Mass . : Harvard University Press, 1985), 200-201.

6. For the details of the air forces on both sides as well as the air

strike itself, see Edward N. Luttwak and Daniel Horowitz, The Israeli

189
Army (New York: Praeger, 1975), 222, 226-31; and also Robert Jackson,

The Israeli Air Force Story (London: Stacey, 1970), 176f., 185-96.

7. M. J. Armitage and R. A. Mason, Airpower in the Nuclear Age,

1945-84: Theory and Practice (New York: Macmillan, 1985), 114-23.

8. Moshe Dayan, Story of My Life (Boston, Mass. : William Morrow,

1976), 350-54.

9. See M. Bar-On, ed., Israel Defense Force in the Six Day War (Tel

Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1968), 38, for an explanation of the Israeli

view of mission-type orders as formulated by General Tal.

10. During this battle, General Tal lost control over his brigades, one

of which got lost in the dunes. See B. Amidror, "The Race for El Arish,"

Haolam Hazeh (Hebrew), 26 February 1975, 18-9.

11 . For the approach to Abu Ageila, see Sharon, 179-204; and also

the account in Yael Dayan, Israel Journal, June 1967 (New York:

McGraw-Hill, 1967), 37ft: Miss Dayan at that time was attached to

Sharon's headquarters .

12 . See the account of the helicopter squadron commander in Lon O.

Norden, Fighters over Israel : The Story of the Israeli's Air Force from the

War of Independence to the Bekaa Valley (New York: Orion Books, 1990)

74-75.

13 . Jackson, 180-81.

14. Ibid., 196-97.

15 . Norden, 78-79.

16. Steven J. Zaloga, Armor in the Middle East Wars, 1948-1973

(London: Asprey Publishing Ltd., 1981), 21 .

17 . Generally speaking, the lethality of aircraft using conventional

high-explosive iron bombs against ground targets is a linear function of

the weight of bombs dropped and an inverse square function of the

accuracy of the average miss distance of each bomb. Therefore, a new

attack aircraft carrying twice the bomb weight of the aircraft it replaces

would be twice as lethal . If the new attack aircraft is also equipped with

avionics that provide three times the accuracy, it becomes 18 times as

lethal . The overall lethality of an air force may be determined nondimensionally by multiplying the disposable payload weight of each

aircraft by the number of attack sorties generated daily by each aircraft

and by the square of its air-to-ground accuracy, divided by some baseline

number.

18 . See Michael I. Handel, Israel's Military-Political Doctrine

(Cambridge, Mass. : Center for International Affairs, Harvard University,

1973), for the details.

19 . H. Bartov, Dado: 48 Years and 20 Days (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv:

Ma'ariv Book Guild, 1981), 273-90.

190
20. Abraham Adan, On the Banks of the Suez : An Israeli Generals

Personal Account of the Yom Kippur War (London: Arms and Armor

Press, 1980), 42-59.

21. Saad Shazli, The Crossing of the Suez (San Francisco: Presidio

Press, 1980), 221-32 .

22. Adan, 16-34; and Trevor N. Dupuy, Elusive Victory: the ArabIsraeli Wars, 1947-1974 (New York: Harper and Row, 1978) 411-21.

23. Adan, 89ff.

24. Muhammed Haykal, The Road to Ramadan (London: Collins, 1975),

215.

25. Shazli, 166ff.

26. Adan, 285.

27. Sharon, 313.

28. Shazli, Crossing of the Suez, 253-65.

29. Norden, 146.

30. By international standards, the IAF's overall availability rate of

85 percent on 6 October 1973 was unusually high. Most NATO air forces

have overall availability rates of less than 50 percent, primarily because

they only deploy about two-thirds of their aircraft in operational

squadrons and only about 75 percent of these are generally available for

service . At the start of the October war, about 105 Phantoms, 185

Skyhawks, 75 Neshers and Mirages, 25 Super Mysteres, 30 Ouragans,

and 80 Fougas were active in service . The Ouragans and Fougas were

not used in combat during the 1973 war. They probably would have been

deployed if Jordan had entered the war because it had a far less capable

air defense system than Egypt or Syria.

31. Various sources quote different loss ratios. Norden claims 277

Arab versus 11 IAF air-to-air losses. D. Pawloski, "Changes in Threat:

Air Combat Doctrine and Force Structure" (General Dynamics, February

1992), claims 442 Arab kills versus 65 IAF losses. In either case, the IAF

scored overwhelming air-to-air victories .

32. "The War in the Air," Defense Update International, no. 42 (1983) :

16-23 . One-rethey were ineffective was that the IAF, instead of

attacking the Egyptian truck convoys massed for the invasion with

cluster-type munitions, went for the bridges across the canal; those,

however, proved very hard to kill without the guided munitions that, for

security reasons, could not be effectively used during the opening days.

33. There are three major reasons why average sortie rate for fighter

and attack aircraft during the 1973 war was only about 50 percent of

that achieved in 1967 . First, in 1967 the IAF had three weeks to prepare

for war, whereas in 1973 it was caught by surprise. Second, the number

of aircraft returning damaged was higher in 1973. Third, the F-4

Phantoms that formed the mainstay of the IAF in 1973 were notoriously

unreliable and maintenance-demanding aircraft.

19 1
34. Ibid., 324ff.

35. For one Arab's vision of such a coalition, see Saad Shazli, The

Arab Military Option (San Fernando, Calif. : American Mideast

Publishing, 1986), 186ff.

36 . The most detailed analysis of these technological developments

and their impact on the Middle Eastern battlefield is in S. Gordon,

"Technology, Doctrine and Israeli Military Power" (Hebrew) (PhD

dissertation submitted to the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1992) .

192
Chapter 6

Maneuver Warfare and

Air Power in the 1990s

Doctrinal, situational, and technological conditions that

have long restrained air power's potential are changing. The

technology of air attack has temporarily gained the upper

hand over the technology of air defense . In Europe, and for

most contingencies, wide spaces will generally separate the

forces of protagonists initially, providing time for air power

to demonstrate its potential for deterring and stopping

aggression before it is itself pressured by events to protect,

support, and interact with defending ground forces. Last but

not least, the US military has belatedly adopted a maneuver

style of war.

Past Limitations on Air Power

In World War II, air power came into its own at sea, but

ground-oriented tactical air forces did not have as great an

impact. Aircraft had limited range and payloads, equipment

was whimsical and not always reliable, and delivery

accuracy was erratic. Although the Soviets had the least

capable aircraft, provided the least support, and imitated

the air tactics of others, they nevertheless obtained the most

operational leverage for their effort . The reason for this

paradox is apparent from chapter 4. Soviet air was

integrated into ground operations as if, like tanks and

artillery, it was merely one of several combined arms . Its

purpose was not to fight "like" with "like" but to bring out an

enemy weakness that another Soviet arm could exploit.

Also, their air was concentrated and deployed principally for

and along focal efforts. Sorties were generated for military

effectiveness at the operational Schwerpunkt, not for efficiency

in the generation of sorties or even in the maximizing of the

193
quantities of ordnance dropped. And given the way that

aircraft numbers were deployed along focal efforts, the

concept of close air support was "macro" in nature ; that is, it

facilitated breakthroughs and exploitations . Destruction of

specific "micro" targets was the task of massed artillery and

direct-fire artillery guns organic to frontal units (instead of

howitzers) .

During World War II, fighter/attack aircraft generally had

limited range and payload. Bomb delivery accuracy either

required dive bombing or flying in low and close . Dive

bombers were especially vulnerable to enemy fighters and to

antiaircraft artillery fire because of their predictable flight

paths, while low-altitude operations increased vulnerability

to light-calibre AAA fire. Furthermore, World War II tactical

aircraft could only operate in clear weather. They were most

effective when strafing, but their guns had limited range

and limited lethality against all but soft targets. Standoff

range could be increased by using air-to-ground rockets, but

these were very inaccurate.

The German Luftwaffe was particularly effective in the

period of 1939-1941, in part because of its psychological

impact on unprepared enemy forces and in part because of

the paucity of resistance. However, subsequent analysis has

shown that the bark of German aircraft was often worse

than their bite . The Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber was initially

effective because of its ability to deliver ordnance on target

and because of the lack of opposing fighters and air defense.

This effectiveness proved short-lived. By the end of 1940, the

relevant squadrons had to be taken away from the Battle of

Britain and consigned to the less-demanding environment of

the eastern front. Even there, the Stuka's most important

role from 1942 on was that of low-level, tank-hunting

missions conducted with the aid of cannon, not bombs. By

the end of the war in Europe, none of the antagonists used

dive bombers widely.

For doctrinal reasons, both the Germans and Soviets

recognized the need for air power suitable for the operational

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role as opposed to the tactical/strategic one. But the technology

available met the requirement only to a limited extent,

Until very late in the war, single-engined fighter-bombers

generally lacked the range or payload to execute the mission

Twin-engined light bombers lacked the air-to-ground

accuracy to be used effectively unless they operated at low

altitude. But at low altitude, they were vulnerable to enemy

fighters and AAA fire. The requirement for accuracy

explains why all German bombers had to be able to dive

bomb. Without dive bombing, they were ineffective as

hard-kill systems for use in operational-level warfare.

World War II proved that under certain circumstances the

movement of enemy forces could be delayed by attacks on

transportation modes such as rail yards and bridges . In the

west, the United States and Great Britain allocated massive

air power resources to this problem, but since they did not

coordinate these attacks with maneuver on the ground, the

effects were generally limited. In the east, where air was

more keyed to ground operations, interdiction received less

emphasis and its payoffs were equally meager except at key

river crossings over difficult barriers. Interdiction was

countered by moving at night and in bad weather. In the

east, daylight movement of soft, vulnerable convoys was

common, but in the west such movements were impossible

in the face of continuous Allied air attacks.

After World War II, when the jet turbine replaced the

propeller, both the thrust-to-weight ratio of aircraft and the

absolute propulsion power available increased. At first, the

high specific fuel consumption of the jet turbine tended to

offset these advantages, but ultimately this too improved.

By the mid-1960s, the weight of tactical aircraft had

increased fivefold. The range and payload of these aircraft

had dramatically improved. But the problem of air-toground accuracy and all-weather operation remained ;

indeed, it may be said to have worsened, given that most jetpropelled aircraft were both much faster and considerably

less maneuverable than their predecessors .

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In the 1960s and 1970s, the balance between air defense

and air attack varied as surface-to-air missile systems and

radar-guided AAA weapons were deployed and countermeasures and tactics developed to neutralize them. Around

1970, the digital computer, modern avionics, and precision

guided munitions "solved" the air-to-ground accuracy issue

for aircraft. In the 1980s, synthetic aperture radars, forward

looking infrared radar (FLIR), and other technologies

transformed the tactical aircraft into a 24-hour fighting

machine . As was evidenced in the Bekaa Valley in 1982 and

Kuwait in 1991, the ground-based integrated air defense

system appeared to be neutralizable because of its

dependence on active radar emitters that could be jammed,

deceived, suppressed, or killed. But numerous optically

controlled AAA gun mounts and light man-portable and

medium mobile SAMs could not be fully suppressed. To

survive, aircraft had to stay high. In static conditions and

clear weather, air power could still find targets from an

altitude of 20,000 feet. In Europe and much of the rest of the

world, such conditions do not pertain. In Europe, war would

be too dynamic, armies would operate against a cluttered

background, and weather conditions would be generally

poor . In low-intensity conflict, conditions may not be

dynamic, but the environment is exceedingly complicated

and situations are often ambiguous.

These reasons, as well as the problem of friendly fire,

caused the Israeli Air Force to give up the CAS/BAI role.

That role has now been transferred to attack helicopters and

new-model rocket artillery . Air power will be used

operationally against clearly definable target sets in the

rear. Will other air forces do the same?

Air Power and New Developments

So far as large-scale conventional war is concerned, air

power for the next decade will shine in ways it has not done

before . In the last decade, new technologies have given air a

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jump over its ground opponents. The Israelis demonstrated

this in 1982, but Western air forces were unable to do so

because of the shackles imposed by the overall NATO

military context . These shackles have now been removed.

Should there be another war in Europe, the opposing forces

will initially be separated and air forces will no longer be

tied to supporting statically arrayed ground formations. As a

result, the room for maneuver will be much larger.

Fighter aircraft will, of course, not reign supreme forever.

No system does. But air almost assuredly will dominate

throughout the 1990s and into the next century. Indeed,

air-now benefiting from being at the top of a cyclical

oscillation between air and air defense-profits from the

current slowdown in research and development and the

deployment (and testing) of new systems. To be sure, other

technologies are waiting in the wings. One is hypervelocity

small cannon gunnery that will at least double the effective

range of optically controlled air defense guns that are

difficult to suppress. Thus, there will be a need for longer

standoff ranges for aircraft needing to bear in so as to

acquire tanks against the cluttered background that

characterizes land warfare except in deserts .

On the other hand, some military thinkers assert that a

tactical discontinuity on the battlefield is imminent .

Influential German, Israeli, and Russian military schools

argue that light infantry operating entirely within close

terrain but equipped with precision indirect-fire weapons

and having access to rapidly delivered mine fields and

barrage fires can dominate adjacent open terrain without

being vulnerable to enemy tanks. Should this assertion

prove true, then air forces can shift their focus from hard

point targets to various categories of soft targets (air

defense, infantry, artillery, engineers, and logistical units).

Hardware

War-fighting systems-the tank, the fighter, the battleship,

and the aircraft carrier-all have life cycles marked by a

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continuous contest with various counters . Sometimes these

gain the upper hand over a system, only to be recountered

with the particular system regaining dominance. Tactical

air power has witnessed large oscillations in the contest of

relative effectiveness. In the various Arab-Israeli wars,

offensive air power played a pivotal role in collapsing the

Egyptian army in 1967, was virtually neutralized in 1973,

and rendered enemy air defenses impotent in the Bekaa

Valley in 1982 . In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, offensive air

power was dominant against air defenses and ground targets,

but the record is clouded by the opposing side's passiveness

and seeming unfamiliarity with countermeasures .

Tactical aviation's increased effectiveness in the 1980s was

due to two groups of technologies: day-night, all-weather

accuracy of air-to-ground ordnance and the attacker's

ability to suppress radar. Still, it can be argued that these

changes-important as they are-would not have yielded

militarily significant benefits in a war like Vietnam (or, to

select a current example, Yugoslavia) and were not yielding

comparable benefits on the NATO central front. Right up to

the very time that the Berlin Wall collapsed and the Soviets

agreed to asymmetrical reductions, NATO had been under

great military pressure and was believed to be militarily

inferior by most students of the military balance.

Situational

Air power's potential could not be converted into military

advantage on the NATO central front. Most obviously, the

Warsaw Pact fielded a strong opposing air force and even

more formidable ground-to-air defenses . Equally daunting

were the military weaknesses imposed by NATO's military

strategy-the NATO layer cake . National forces were

employed in a linear, cordon defense. Such a defense may

have strategically strengthened nuclear deterrence, but

operationally it was the weakest form of conventional

defense . Since most divisions were on-line and reserves were

small, thrusting penetrations by Soviet armored spearheads

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and operational maneuver groups (OMG) could collapse the

entire NATO front.

Any collapse implied that air forces would soon lose their

bases. Alliance military doctrine, especially stressed in the

American corps sectors, also mandated air forces to support

forward forces in a way air forces were not well suited for: to

be used all along the front against enemy penetrations in

which friendly and enemy forces were interspersed . There

was little time for logistics interdiction, which would have

limited effect anyway because of the vast amount of stores

already accumulated forward, the relatively limited need for

logistical support after a penetration, and the telescoping of

time with the collapsing defense lacking reserves to mount

serious counterattacks .

All the above conditions no longer exist. Ground forces are

in balance, the cordon has been replaced by counterconcentration, and wider spacing now precludes meaningful

surprise . In the air, there is a special imbalance favoring the

US Air Force . For many years, there is unlikely to be any

opponent with strong opposing air forces and air defenses .

Also, few countries possess the technology to counter the

USAF's suppression and targeting technologies . The air

forces of the former Soviet Union could conceivably appear

once again. Even so, they will no longer be forward located.

Henceforth, a spacing of many hundreds of kilometers

must be crossed (a cordon sanitaire) before NATO and the

German border can be attacked from the east . This spacing

phenomenon will often exist in other areas of potential

conflict as well, especially in the Middle East . For example,

such spacing (plus minimal ground forces) is one method by

which Saudi Arabia could have been defended in the early

phases of the Gulf conflict, and it is a method the US

military could have used to strategically turn Iraqi forces in

Kuwait while actually avoiding combat . Such spacings

automatically change the nature of air power from tactical

to operational, and sometimes to strategic.

,44
Also, the US Air Force is unlikely to be constrained by the

dictates of linear, attrition warfare, with the possible

exception being in Korea. This constraint was partly an

accident of history . American deployments in both world

wars in Europe, in the island-hopping campaign in the

Pacific, and again in Korea were characterized by high

force-to-space ratios as well as tied-in flanks . This led to

linear warfare, in which the principal weapon is firepower.

Elsewhere in the world, the rule has been to "pin and flank,"

or, more simply, to seek and exploit gaps in the array of

opposing forces. This is a nonlinear version of war in which

the principal weapon is the tactic of maneuver.

The Cordon Sanitaire of Reconstruction

The former USSR could perhaps conceivably reform and

renege on aspects of its arms agreements and demand larger

compensatory payments from Germany and the West or

even reconstitute large and threatening military forces .

However, the principal features of many recent developments

are irreversible: the Warsaw Pact has collapsed, Soviet

equipment levels are down sharply, and Soviet troops are

unlikely to remain in Germany and Eastern Europe after

1994. Forward defense of Germany and NATO now begins

on the Oder/Neisse rivers . Small US, British, and other

multinational air and ground units will remain in Germany,

but none will relocate in peacetime farther east. A large

space will be permanently opened between the forces of East

and West. Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary have

declared a condition of armed neutrality. Their lands have

become a de facto cordon sanitaire between the former

Soviet and Western forces.

Wherever there is spacing, surprise attacks by conventional

means are virtually ruled out. Distances are too great for

surprise air attacks to be remunerative, while surprise

ground attacks are virtually impossible to mount; ground

attacks also now require moving forces 500 kilometers

forward and repositioning vast stores. This process requires

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time (from a few weeks as in the 1945 Vistula-Oder

campaign to what will involve months, according to the

intelligence community's lengthier estimates) and what in

the interim would provide a "target-rich environment."

Obviously, this implies increased opportunity and

importance of air forces and follow-on forces attack (FOFA).

The original formulation of FOFA was in itself somewhat

dubious because of the great demands it made upon

technology and because the USSR's best troops and largest

stocks were already well forward. However effective FOFA

targeting might be, its efforts would be for naught if enemy

forces and supplies already forward had been sufficient to

collapse NATO's defenses at the first shock. (This was the

German argument to the FOFA concept, drawn from their

experience which had brought them early victories in World

War II.) Ultimately, the FOFA technology was complicated

because its focus was upon targeting tanks (i .e., moving

hard points) with large missiles while they were still several

hundred kilometers from the front lines.l

By 1994, forces and stocks of the former Soviet Union will

all be withdrawn. In the presence of a cordon sanitaire and

wide separation of forces, FOFA becomes interdiction of first

forward echelons (IFFE). Its value becomes high for the

following reasons :

1 . Whereas interdiction of second echelons and stock

replacements might or might not buy time and disruption,

interdiction of returning first elements and their accompanying

supplies surely does. Given NATO's new organizing principle

of reconstitution to generate forces as world conditions

deteriorate, time can be important for activating, mobilizing,

and deploying forces .

2 . Once forward supply depots are emptied, refilling them

is demanding and time consuming. Without them, it is

difficult for modern armored armies to project themselves .

Modern tank armies only appear mobile. The fact is that

they have fallen into the same pitfall as the overweight

knights of the fourteenth century as they have sought

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protection against technical advances in penetrating weapons

by ever-better and heavier armor to the point of immobility. 2

Furthermore, their logistical demands are so large that they

have become tethered and tied to their umbilical cords, as

was recently demonstrated by the US VII Corps in Iraq.

Ensuring that there is fuel for supporting fast-breaking

operations is easier said than done given the scale of

demand. Moreover, disrupting any chain under stress-fuel

or ammunition-soon slows and even halts the operation.

3. A cordon sanitaire implies that en route ground-based

air defenses will be weak . This makes air-delivered

ordnance more attractive than missile delivery (which is

more or less proscribed anyway by the spirit of the

Intermediate-range Nuclear Force [INF] Treaty). The

attacker's response, since he can hardly allow his advancing

first echelon to be attacked with impunity, is to deploy

ground or air-based air defense along his transit corridors . If

cordon countries retain a resilient defense, the attacker's

attempts to secure his own air defense weapons could tie up

substantial numbers of invaders . Since these would likely be

deployed early-and from standing forces (if any type of

early warning advantage were to be gained)-the indirect

(virtual attrition) benefits of IFFE would be as large as the

direct benefits of interdiction. Standoff air weapons increase

this "troop absorption" effect by requiring the attack to

secure even larger areas so that air defense firing units can

be located therein.

4. IFFE is a quick-reaction method of assisting a cordon

country threatened by invasion or occupation. As such, it is

a crisis management tool and enhances deterrence, although

its effectiveness is less than direct targeting of the

aggressor's own territory.

5. Finally, if the tank does indeed lose its preeminence on

the battlefield and its status as the principal threat to

frontline defenders, then tanks no longer need be the focus

of interdiction. Rather, it becomes more important for air

power to strip away the soft elements composing the

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combined arms team. This drastically eases air-to-ground

targeting and ordnance demands. The effectiveness of air

power is correspondingly enhanced.

It is expected that these five reasons will significantly

enhance the importance of air power in any future defense of

Europe. They do not require departing from accepted practices,

but they do require changes in priorities and resource

allocation .

Clearly, the demands that maneuver warfare makes upon

air power are different from those made on it by static

warfare. Valued in both styles of warfare, of course, are the

essential characteristics of air power such as its ability to

mass and move large distances, the speed with which it can

be brought to bear, and its firepower. Maneuver warfare

particularly values air's ability to concentrate at focal efforts

and to interact with the ground arms so as to promote one's

own maneuver while slowing the opponent's reaction timetwo features missing from static, attrition warfare. The

objective is to orchestrate air's attributes to best accomplish

the theater commander's mission. To achieve this goal, the

usual system of mutual updating by means of situation

reports, liaison officers, and occasional contacts conducted

by wire or other technical means may not be good enough.

Often only face-to-face meetings between the ground and air

commanders will serve the purpose, and indeed both sides

will do well to take this need into account when determining

the sites of their respective headquarters and the ways in

which they function.

Differences in Styles of War for Air Power

The first difference between the styles of warfare is the

dynamics of time . In static warfare, timing is important; in

maneuver warfare, it is critical . Static warfare allows

protracted planning. In high-tempo maneuver, protracted

planning is often overtaken by events . Fighter pilots

recognize that the essence of air combat is described by

Boyd's OODA loop with its implementing technique of

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energy maneuverability. Maneuver requires generalizing this

approach to overall air operations so as to affect events on

the ground in a timely manner. Many opportunities are

fleeting. When tempo is critical for the ground element, so too

must it be for the air portion interacting with ground forces.

A second difference between the two styles of warfare is

the Schwerpunkt concept and sortie generation, which is

derived from it . In static warfare, targets are virtually

infinite in number and undifferentiated as to their

importance . Accordingly, the measure of merit is the

maximizing of kills in a target-rich setting. Therefore,

generating maximum sorties and allocating them daily

according to availability becomes the air commander's task.

In maneuver warfare, a "target-rich" environment is not a

relevant criterion for the use of air power. The important

criteria that must govern the use of air power are focus of

effort and surge rates . Applications of air power in other

areas and times are of no particular importance . Allocation

of sorties by availability may even undercut the overall

military effort by lowering the number of sorties that can be

surged at "the right time and right place." The measure of

merit is no longer the number of enemy killed and vehicles

destroyed but operational results obtained by all force

elements synergistically combined. A condition of maximum

kills is obtained by efficient allocation of sorties, whereas

"results obtained" seeks military effectiveness . Thus,

efficiency and effectiveness are not synonymous in attrition

and maneuver warfare. For example, 100 tanks killed in

secondary areas may be less important than an air offensive

that merely delays the juncture of two units so each can be

defeated in detail.

A corollary proposition is the allocation of missions among

tasks. Air commanders who are acting within the framework

of maneuver warfare must avoid the temptation of having

like fight like and giving the air battle priority over the

ground battle . Putting air superiority first makes eminent

sense if forces are initially separated or if there is a

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protracted war in which time is not so critical, as was

largely the case in Iraq. However, the concept makes no

sense if in the interim air bases have been overrun and

occupied and the coalition has collapsed. For instance,

effecting events on the ground by sortie suppression was the

real logic behind runway cratering in the early stages of a

NATO conflict. Conversely, if there is no ongoing ground

war and if enemy aircraft are well hidden or sheltered, it is

sometimes best to flush out enemy aircraft so they can be

destroyed early in the conflict. Measuring air power's

success by sorties flown or by its own loss rates is to use

input measures that may or may not have much relation to

the real outcome of the overall battle.

A third difference between the two styles is that in

maneuver warfare the air arm is truly part of the air-land

combat arms team . The question that commanders should

ask themselves is, What can air do that no other arm can do

that will have a decisive effect on the outcome of the ground

battle?3 What is unique about air power other than its

descriptive attributes of speed, range, and heavy loadcarrying capacity? If there are none, then air power's role as

a large and expensive organizational entity is relegated to

the life span of an endangered species.

In static, linear-oriented war, air power's roles are no

longer unique. In this form of warfare, air power's principal

roles in Europe would be reduced to obtaining and

maintaining air superiority over another air force, itself

of reduced importance, as well as to carrying out shared

tasks with other arms in which air has no particular

advantage to justify its own high costs . Against an opponent

with strong ground and air defenses, air forces will find CAS

and BAI difficult, while static warfare implies a prehostilities buildup that reduces the potential for supply

interdiction. Even when opposing air defenses are weak, air

has more difficulty than its army competitors in staying

abreast of the land battle and in acquiring clearly defined

ground targets-to say nothing of the problem of friendly

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fire, which can make air power as dangerous to one's own

side as it is to the enemy.

Maneuver warfare, by contrast, offers air power new

vistas. In terms of combined arms symbiosis, ground forces

compel enemy ground forces into reactive movements. As a

result, it is not necessary for friendly air to achieve many

kills ; all it must do is to slow down the enemy's tempo of

operations (by attrition, disruption, and prevention of timely

movements and junctures of units) so that friendly ground

forces can pin, envelop, and break up opposing forces .

Maneuver downgrades two of tactical air power's

traditional missions-CAS and close BAI-but endows it

with an additional ground-shared mission and two unique

missions. It shares a mission with tube artillery, multiple

launch rocket systems (MLRS), and attack helicopters by

providing immediate on-call fire support for the lead

elements of the forward-thrusting spearheads . The two

unique missions are (1) to protect the flanks of thrust-line

forces from blindsiding counterstrokes, and (2) to protect

against wide, circling envelopments from remote routes .

Ground forces could perform these missions by positioning

forces everywhere, but the resource cost would be considerable.

Only air power can screen and bring concentrated firepower

rapidly and accurately to bear.

In positional warfare, logistics interdiction, while rarely

successful except in special situations, held a certain appeal

because of the vast amount of supplies consumed by

linear-arrayed armies firing vast amounts of artillery and

laying extraordinary tonnages of mines. In maneuver warfare,

logistic strangleholds imposed by enveloping ground forces

(and by sea) are often decisive. By contrast, interdiction by

air rarely has been decisive . The general reasons are in the

great logistic support that such warfare requires, as well as

in the costs and difficulties involved by day and the great

possibilities of road repair and circumvention by night.

In the past, swarms of strafing and dive-bombing aircraft

were required to hit inexpensive trucks that were laden with

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cheap commodities and protected by opposing fighters and

ground air defenses . Rail lines were more remunerative

targets but they tended to fall outside the range of

contemporary German and Soviet fighters, while bombers

that had the range were extraordinarily inaccurate and

required fighter escorts . Period aircraft also had the problem

of being too short-legged to support fast-breaking maneuver.

In the defense, air bases were often overrun, while in the

offense spearheads outran the ability to rebase aircraft.

Today's aircraft have fewer limitations and fewer are

required, but the rest of the equation remains. Besides,

today's aircraft have become hyperexpensive and hence

relatively few in number.

Furthermore, the notion held by many that air could

impose logistic strangleholds comparable to those imposed

by ground forces contained a major logic flaw. Strategic

turning movements whereby ground forces maneuvered to

impose themselves across the defender's lines of

communications often were effective not so much because

supply lines had been cut by previous air attacks but

because the defender was dislocated and had to attack in the

wrong direction and under unfavorable circumstances. Air

interdiction lacks an important characteristic: it can

destroy, but it cannot envelop.

This is not to say that logistics interdiction by air does not

have its place in special situations. For the defender, this

situation occurs when an attacker has overextended himself,

has nearly exhausted his accompanying supplies, and is hit

by a counterattack. The subsequent exhaustion of his

supplies and his inability to respond by fire or movement

leads to his destruction. For an attacker, it occurs because

defending units will almost always have accumulated stocks

nearby . For logistics interdiction to be effective, the

defender's consumption rate has to exceed the logistics

inflow for a substantial period-which implies attrition, not

maneuver, warfare. Thus, achieving this result can be very

costly; the maneuver style of war seeks to avoid such costs.

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Conceptualizing maneuver as we have done in this book is

one thing. Carrying it out is much more difficult. Against a

sluggish and passive opponent, maneuver can be applied in

cookbook fashion. Against an equally adept and agile

opponent, it requires art of a very high order. History can

illustrate and provide a multitude of ideas. The difficulty

lies in application.

Armies that lack tempo and facility in coordinating arms

should limit themselves to static warfare with its stress on

firepower and attrition. Since the days of Croesus's campaign

against Cyrus the Great, attempts at maneuver by sluggish

armies against agile foes have ended in failure. Sluggish

maneuver creates vulnerabilities for the agile to opportunistically exploit. This is perhaps the main reason why armies

historically have tended to eschew maneuver for the "safe,"

prosaic frontal assault. That was much of Gen U. S. Grant's

great insight and led to his prescription for victory in the

American Civil War; General Lee never got a chance to

outmaneuver him.

In general, armies deficient in maneuver qualities should

avoid maneuvering against opponents strong in these

attributes. Deficient armies should seek their safety with

tied-in flanks, fortifications, and difficult obstacles to their

front, flanks, and rear . This was the formula of the

Egyptians in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War until they felt

compelled to shift to the offensive in order to relieve

pressure on the Syrians in the Golan. In spatial areas where

flanks cannot be locked in, static armies are at a severe

disadvantage unless they can induce the maneuvering army

into costly assaults, whether from front or rear. Stalingrad

and Kursk illustrate this phenomenon .

In the annals of war, contests between equally agile

opponents are rare. The wars of the Diadochi (Alexander's

successors) and of the Italian Condottiere in the fifteenth

century are the exception. These generals may have lacked

originality, but what they did was to conduct war like chess

masters. Most generals in history have not been so skilled .

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Indeed, while there were exceptions (as in the case of the

Byzantines), military schooling and the systematic study of

war at any level above the tactical is itself largely a

post-Napoleonic phenomenon. 4 Jomini and von Clausewitz

were among the first to verbalize and conceptualize the art

of war.

Presenting an additional obstacle to study, the great

classics that form the body of the study of military history

and the Great Captains have almost invariably been

one-sided . A great victory like Cannae takes both a

Hannibal and a Varro (Gaius Terentius Varro, the Roman

commander). Nevertheless, like the well-known quip about

the systems analyst who lost his car keys in the dark alley

but searches for them under the lamp post because that is

the only light, we are drawn to the classics in illustrating

the actual unfolding of maneuver and of the ways air power

might fit into this scheme .

As has been emphasized throughout this study, the

maneuver strategist attempts to win with minimum combat.

On the offense, he seeks to deceive the enemy concerning

the true location of the attack, as the Germans did in 1940.

He may try to bring the enemy to a situation where his

forces are overextended, as the Iraqi forces were on the eve

of Gen Norman Schwarzkopfs "Hail Mary" maneuver. He

may also attack the enemy at a point (or points) that is both

critically important and weakly held, as the Soviets did

during the Stalingrad campaign. He perhaps could surge

using narrowly concentrated and massive firepower to

paralyze enemy resistance long enough for his penetration

to occur (Sharon at Abu Ageila in 1967). He may also try to

outflank the enemy or create artificial flanks by deep

thrusts into his vitals (the 1939 German campaign in

Poland) . Finally, our strategist could disrupt enemy

cohesion and break him up into separate parts, each of

which can then be overwhelmed in turn.

The above options are admittedly schematic. Still, their

constituent parts can fit into almost any example of

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operational-scale maneuver, offensive or defensive. (The

chief difference between offense and defense consists of the

fact that, in the latter, the enemy attack may actually help

one's own maneuver by driving deeper and deeper into the

sack that defending forces have prepared for him.) Taking

the scheme offered by the above options as our starting

point on which all actual cases are merely variations, air

power can play the following roles in offensive maneuver:

1 . As was the case in the Ardennes in 1940 and during

the first day of the 1967 campaign, it provides air cover and

thereby assists in gaining surprise and maintaining

security .

2 . As was the case on the river Bzura in Poland in 1939,

it is a swing force capable of assisting a weak pinning force

should the need arise.

3 . As was the case during the fighting around Kiev in

1941 ) it helps seal the pocket or pockets created by the

ground forces .

4. As was the case during the race to the sea in 1940,

should the defender attempt to counterattack, then spacing

provides a minicordon sanitaire in which to attack moving,

and therefore exposed, ground formations.

5. As was the case during the same campaign, when the

opposing counterattack closes, air reduces its tempo and

helps set up a counter-counterattack .

6. Finally, during the deep penetration and turning

movement, air provides supporting firepower against

selected points, either killing the defenders or forcing them

to keep their heads down until artillery can deploy.

In addition, when used in a defensive-maneuver campaign,

air power can utilize its unique characteristics of speed and

concentration to play the following roles :

1 . As was the case of the Germans in the Netherlands in

1940, it may be used to induce further movement into the

sack by an otherwise inappropriate allocation to CAS so as

to draw the enemy's attention away from the main front.

21 0
2. If, as happened on the Golan Heights in 1973, the

bottom of the sack threatens to collapse, air must devote top

priority to shoring it up.

3. When the counterattack opens, air support is needed

for a quick start.

4. Air must be ever alert to the possibility that the

attacker is attempting to move around the shoulders of the

sack to envelop the defense as a whole.

5. - Even as the attacker's effectiveness collapses, air in

conjunction with artillery must administer a coup de grace

so as to preclude the enemy from mounting rescue operations

and to release the defending forces for combat elsewhere.

Notes

1 . FOFA generated a vast literature in the early to mid-1980x. The

case for FOFA is best outlined in the report of the European Security

Study, Strengthening Conventional Deterrence in Europe: Proposals for

the 1980s (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983). The widely republished

military and technical case against FOFA is in Steven L. Canby, The

Operational Limits of Emerging Technology, Adelphi Paper No. 198,

International Institute of Strategic Studies, Summer 1985. European

politico-military perceptions are best presented in Karsten Voight's

Conventional Defence in Europe: A Comprehensive Evaluation, North

Atlantic Assembly Papers, December 1985.

2. Civil restrictions on bridge-bearing weights limit tanks to 70 tons.

Soviet tanks can still add 20 tons, but Western tanks have already

reached this limit. Their armor can be redistributed but more cannot be

added.

3 . William S. Lind, "Maneuver Warfare and Marine Aviation,"

Marine Corps Gazette, May 1989, 58 .

4. Martin van Creveld, The Training of Officers : From Military

Professionalism to Irrelevance (New York: Free Press, 1990), chapter 1.

211

Appendix

Operation Desert Shield/Storm

It is too early to assess the recent conflict in the Gulf. The

facts are not all in . It has become apparent already that

many official pronouncements during and after the war

were hyperbole. Estimates of Iraqi strength have been

reduced by two-thirds. Vaunted fortifications and sand

berms did not exist. New technologies such as laser-guided

missiles and cruise missiles were less accurate than

originally claimed, and we know now that the Iraqis, while

excellent at old-fashioned camouflage, knew little about

high-technology countermeasures. And official assessments

released after the war are known to be skewed to influence

future budgetary battles on Capitol Hill.

Operation Desert Storm revealed many deficiencies. Any

number of "what ifs?" could have made a big difference in the

outcome of the conflict. Most obvious was the inability to

handle coups de main. Another was the vulnerability of

early-arriving light forces to Iraqi armor. Another shortfall

was the state of readiness of US military units. Though the

operational tempo of American units is high, unit cohesion

and training proficiency are not high because of continuous

personnel turnover. The personnel system caused other

deficiencies, like (1) the inability to maintain low-cost

political pressure upon Saddam Hussein by rotating out

acclimated units and returning them quickly should fighting

occur; and (2) the inability to sustain units in the region for

indefinite periods without losing their cutting edge as large

numbers of personnel pass through units in the same manner

as occurred a quarter of a century earlier in Vietnam.

Desert Storm: True Maneuver Warfare?

However, these and other questions relating to technology

and the political conduct of the war need not be addressed in

213
this appendix dealing with only one facet of the warmaneuver . The questions addressed here are narrow ones.

How well did the Hail Mary maneuver-the sweeping

movement of mobile forces from the extreme left of coalition

forces into southern Iraq--conform to the claim that it was a

maneuver-based envelopment of historical significance?

How well did tactical air power adapt to the new maneuver

doctrine advocated by the Army and Marine Corps? To

evaluate these questions, we use the criteria developed in

the case studies presented in this book.

Tempo

In Operation Desert Storm, units moved hundreds of

kilometers in a matter of days. This compares well with

Soviet operations in the latter part of World War II and in

Manchuria in August 1945. Desert Storm, however, was

more movement than maneuver, in part because the Iraqis

themselves proved so passive. Given their passivity, tempothe notion of entering into the enemy's observationorientation-decision-action (OODA) cycle-never came into

play. Tempo embodies the concept of acting before the other

can react. The concept does not have much meaning if the

other hardly reacts at all.

Evaluation is difficult when there has been no testing.

However, several markers should be noted. In Desert Storm,

Army units and one of the two Marine divisions attacked

abreast, which implies there may have been little room for

exercising tempo had the opportunity presented itself. At a

critical juncture, VII Corps was apparently more interested

in synchronizing the moves of its own components than in

vigorously exploiting battlefield success by sending spearheads forward. More ominous were air operations with their

lengthy preparations and complex tasking involving many

kinds of aircraft, all of which had to be coordinated with

each other. Air forces definitely were not oriented to the

tempo of operations required for maneuver warfare.

214
Schwerpunkt

On public television watched by hundreds of millions,

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf proclaimed his Hail Mary

maneuver as the equivalent of a modern Cannae. This is

hyperbole, for Hail Mary lacked the numerous subtleties

built into Hannibal's entrapment of the Romans. Instead,

the way Hail Mary was executed reminds one of the famous

Schlieffen Plan in 1914: an infantry wheel attack carried out

by mechanized formations . As such, the attack was linear

(rather than thrusting). It lacked a discernible center of

gravity, and operational reserves did not exist. An opponent

with suitable forces and suitable commanders would have

launched a major counterattack at the pivot between the

allied wings. With no reserves, such a counterattack could

have been extremely dangerous.

Had there been a center of gravity, where should the

attack have been launched? Apparently VII Corps in the

middle was considered the point of main effort. It is often

difficult to discern the point of main effort, but in this case it

was not The Iraqi military had grossly overextended itself

in and around Kuwait, and its complete lack of air cover

meant it could not have responded to allied strategic and

operational maneuvers. Given such circumstances, an

armored thrust to Nasiriyah on the Euphrates and

subsequently behind the large water barrier to Qurnah on

the Tigris would have placed a stranglehold on the Iraqis

(fig. 11). The block at Qurnah would have been difficult to

dislodge because of the peculiar terrain . The block at

Nasiriyah would have required an attack by Republican

Guard divisions moving 150 kilometers in open desert.

These divisions lacked air defense, and the Iraqi army has

never demonstrated combined-arms proficiency.

Nothing was gained by attacking with the VII Corps and

by moving the 24th Division along the road to Basrah except

the pleasure of "kicking ass ." In retrospect, this entire effort

may have been a major political mistake because the ease

215
with which the Iraqis were destroyed by the coalition so

panicked the Sunni Muslims fearful of increased Iranian

influence that the Saudis in turn pressed for a quick

cease-fire . The numerically smaller but politically dominant

Iraqi Sunnis were forced into backing Saddam, however

much they might have liked to have dumped him.

Alternatively, had the US forces been truly maneuver

oriented, they might have launched a strategic thrust on

Baghdad. This would have been successful because the

Iraqis had made a major mistake in the deployment of their

forces : the divergence between their militarily unprotected
strategic center of gravity (Baghdad) and their operational

center of gravity-the Republican Guard divisions

southwest of Basrah . Within Kuwait, Iraq's military position

appeared tactically and operationally strong as long as her

Republican Guards and main army were mutually

supporting. Had the Iraqis proved strong, it would have

been necessary to have drawn the Republican Guards away

and to have strung them out in the desert so as to expose

them to air attack and to break the mutual support, and

with it the coherence of their defense in Kuwait.

A thrust to Baghdad would have served multiple objectives.

It could have overthrown the regime, or it could simply have

forced the Iraqis to cover Baghdad by moving Republican

Guard divisions from Kuwait to Baghdad. One or the other

falls . Either accomplishes the mission.

Surprise

The Hail Mary maneuver was a definite surprise to

American television viewers at home. Everyone believed the

attack would come in the form of a frontal assault, which in

fact was the case to a limited extent. Both Marine divisions

and the Arab divisions did attack frontally. Apparently,

while the Iraqis thought the allies might attack in a narrow

hook along the Wadi al Batin, they did not expect a wide

flanking sweep. The desert was apparently thought to

preclude that possibility. Thus, Desert Storm ranks high by

this criterion. At the same time, since the sweep did take

several days to slide out and sweep in, the Iraqis must be

credited with poor intelligence and perhaps with a command

system that was reluctant to pass along unwanted news .

Combined Arms

The Army and Marines fought in their accustomed

combined-arms manner. Tactical air power was used as it

has always been used in the past. It was not integrated into

the ground maneuver scheme the same way as the Luftwaffe

217
and the Soviet air force were in World War II. It will be

recalled that the Soviet air force, which of all the air forces

in World War II was the most attuned to maneuver, only

brought air power into play days before a major campaign

was to begin.

In Desert Storm, a true maneuver orientation would have

implied unleashing the ground attack almost immediately

after air superiority was obtained. Air power would have

focused its efforts on the region in front of the planned

attack by VII Corps, thus ensuring that its moves would not

have been obstructed by Iraqi ground forces. The attacks

against Iraq's infrastructure would have been largely

dispensed with, thus obviating the need for a prolonged air

campaign that carried political risks.

If ever there were a case where tactical air power could

have been integrated into the theater commander's scheme

of maneuver for decisive effect, this was it. This effect would

have been decisive had the plan been a strategic thrust to

Baghdad. It would have been important, too, had the plan

been a strategic turning movement aimed at Nasiriyah.

These formulations would have given all services a

combined-arms play as follows :

(1) The Marines, both those ashore and those afloat,

would have pinned Iraqi infantry in place.

(2) Army heavy units would have served as the magnet to

induce Iraqi mobile and static forces to become separated

from each other by drawing the mobile arm into an exposed

march.

(3) Air power would have acted as the catalytic force . It

would have decimated exposed armor in movement and

spoiled Iraqi operational tempo so that the Republican

Guards themselves could have been pinned and enveloped

by the Army.

Flexibility

Thanks to the prolonged deployment period and the

suspension of the normal personnel replacement system, US

21 8
units were well trained, cohesive, and among the best ever

deployed by this country, especially in the opening phase.

Presumably, had they been tested by a proactive opponent,

they would have displayed flexibility . However, their

flexibility on the ground was never put to the test. Air

operations, as earlier mentioned, failed this test.

Decentralized Command

A central tenet in German-style maneuver was the

so-called Auftragstaktik, or mission-type orders . Each

commander from corps down to the squad is given the unit's

mission and allowed to plan and execute it himself.

Soviet-style operational warfare was, by contrast, highly

centralized. In Desert Storm, it appears that operations

remained more or less as they have in the past, which is to

say that they were centralized . Many senior officers,

however, argue the contrary. It is difficult to sort this

criterion out because at this time, "centralization" is too

much like the "half-filled glass of water." What one asserts

is mission orders is seen by another as a detailed directive.

Summary

To sum up, judged by maneuver warfare criteria, Operation

Desert Storm lacked the most important criterion-the kind

of interplay between opposing forces that an alert opponent

would have created. As a result, it only contained at best a

single and rather simple maneuver. That maneuver was

carried out by the main striking force (VII Corps) without

any clear thought concerning the role that other forces could

play in the scheme . Within VII Corps itself, a clear

Schwerpunkt was lacking. Apparently, there was more

thought given to keeping one's own units abreast of each

other than to rapid movement with the aim of penetrating

deep into the Iraqi rear. True maneuver warfare would

either have gone to Nasiriyah or sent a thrust to Baghdad,

219
thus forcing the Republican Guard to come out and fight ;

neither of these took place .

As to the air campaign, much of its month-long activity

focused on Iraq's infrastructure and was therefore irrelevant

to maneuver warfare. A maneuver-oriented air force would

have done much less against the Iraqi rear and also avoided

extensive strikes against Kuwait except, perhaps, as a way

of pinning down the enemy and misleading him as to the

location of the main effort. Instead, it would have waged a

brief and concentrated campaign to facilitate the task of VII

Corps; once the Hail Mary maneuver was under way, it

would have focused on preventing movement by the

Republican Guard or, should it have moved nevertheless,

tearing it to pieces in the open desert. None of this is to

criticize the performance of the USAF, which, as results

show, achieved very significant victories at exceedingly low

cost. It is, however, to say that Desert Storm was not a good

example of maneuver warfare and that an air force that had

this kind of warfare in mind would have acted differently

from the way the USAF did.

220
THE INSTITUTE RESPONDS

This US Air Force view of maneuver warfare as

described by author Martin van Creveld was

prepared by military doctrine analysts within the

Airpower Research Institute, an arm of Air

University at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

22 1
The preceding chapters and the appended analysis of

Operation Desert Storm represent a tremendous effort on

the part of Martin van Creveld and those who assisted him

in this study. It is useful in many ways, especially as a

carefully documented reference work which provides insight

into the synergies that can be created between various types

of military arms working together (combined arms

operations). The "rock-scissors-paper" illustration in chapter

1, "The Nature of the Beast," is particularly apt. If accepted

in the spirit intended, it highlights the very useful concept of

applying strength against weakness to obtain leverage at

the tactical level .

For the future, however, we agree with van Creveld that

the real "money" is to be made at the operational and

strategic levels. This is also the point at which our viewpoints begin to diverge. The bulk of this work is based on a

view of the battlefield "from the ground up." When viewed

this way, it is very logical that maneuver is something that

happens on the surface . Other realms, like the aerospace or

suboceanic regions, are only significant in terms of how they

affect surface action . It makes good sense from this

perspective to place air weapons at the disposal of the

surface commanders and to measure their performance in

terms of their impact on surface operations. This viewpoint,

usually blamed on Carl von Clausewitz, seems particularly

unfair since he wrote at a time when airborne action could

be only a dream at best and had no real relevance to

warfare. We will return to this point later.

The natural instinct of many airmen is to take immediate

exception and to insist instead upon a "top-down" view.

From this viewpoint, ground operations are insignificant

except in terms of the many things "down there" that are

destroyed or held at risk and certain human reactions to the

devastation achieved. "Command of the air" is everything

and will bring victory.' This visceral reaction is usually

interpreted as both arrogant and uninformed by those who

hold the ground-up view. What the two sides have managed

222
to achieve so far in this debate is to polarize the issue to such

an extent that only these two (very extreme) viewpoints are

recognized: air power2 is a supporting arm for ground

maneuver, or air power is the sole instrument of victory. As

is usual with extremes, both views miss the mark.

There is a third viewpoint-a central ground between the

two poles. The old idea of the battlefield, whether viewed

from the surface or from above the surface, tends to blind us

to this perspective. The battlefield, as we have customarily

viewed it, is a two-dimensional place, whereas modern war

is fought in at least three dimensions (not to mention the

impact of time, which is discussed elsewhere in this volume

in terms of tempo). To accommodate this reality, we must

learn to view the battle area in three dimensions. 3 We

suggest that this battle area should be understood as a globe

encompassing surface, subsurface (especially at sea), and

the aerospace. Actions within the globe are all interrelated.

None are, by nature, universally independent of, nor

dependent upon, the others.

What is even more important is to relate the battle area

and operations within the battle area to the ancient military

principle of the objective . It seems curious that van Creveld,

who has discussed a number of principles in terms of their

relationship to maneuver warfare (tempo, Schwerpunkt,

surprise, combined arms, flexibility, decentralized

command), fails to mention at all the relationship between

objective (one of the key principles of war recognized in all

US military doctrine) and operations . As most often happens

when war is viewed from the ground up, van Creveld seems

tacitly to assume that the primary objective of warfare is

always the defeat of the opposing army.

There are two vital flaws in this assumption. First, defeat

of the army is a military objective, not a political one. If, as

von Clausewitz contends, war is the "continuation of

political intercourse, carried on with other means,"4 then the

military objective of defeating the opposing army is cogent

only if it contributes to the political objectives . In other

223
words, this military objective should only be adopted if defeat

of the enemy army is required to achieve national goals .

For example, had the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong

persisted in attempting to defeat the US Army, they might

well have lost the war. Instead, they defeated first the will

of the US government and people (a political goal) while

mostly avoiding our armed forces (a military goal), and then

soundly trounced the isolated South Vietnamese army.

Therefore, the relevance of the surface army as a military

objective is clearly situation-dependent.

If we adopt a military doctrine (like maneuver warfare as

described in previous chapters) that commits us to the

pursuit of only one of many possible military objectives

(defeat of the enemy army), we will not have served our

nation well . Doctrine must be flexible enough to allow

pursuit of our political objectives by the most appropriate

means. The level of fixation on enemy surface (especially

ground) forces, which, as described herein, maneuver

warfare encourages, does not provide this kind of flexibility.

We should view it as one "tool," potentially useful in the

right set of circumstances but not as a prescription for

warfare in general.

The second problem with this fixation on the enemy army

is that it brings unreasoning orientation on control of

surface areas and a concomitant orientation on the progress

of our own surface forces. This orientation most frequently

manifests itself in obsession with the movement of flags and

arrows on a surface map (or "body counts" when flags and

arrows won't work). This obsession can be seen in most of

the works produced so far on the operations during

Operation Desert Storm. Forty-two days of warfare are most

often depicted and discussed in terms of the progress of

allied armies over the last four days . Relatively speaking,

the air campaign's contribution to the four stated US

political objectives of Desert Storm is not so obscure as this

would suggest. Nonetheless, it appears to be the best most

reporters of the war can do.
This obsession with flags and arrows drives us to do, on a

grander scale (at the operational level), precisely what van

Creveld eschews at the tactical level-force application of

like on like, our army versus their army. If this flawed view

is accepted at the operational level, it only makes sense that

all other types of arms be subordinated to the ground arm

since the only thing that really matters is what happens on

the ground.

If you ascribe to this view, surface forces are preeminent

because "only ground forces possess the power to exercise

direct, continuing and comprehensive control over land, its

resources, and its people." 5 This could (and will if we are not

careful) cause us to engage in unnecessary, and unnecessarily

costly, surface operations in future scenarios. What if the

political objective could be achieved, for instance, by

excluding use of the airspace over southern Iraq (as seems

true at the moment this is being written)? No level of effort

on the ground, short of conquering the entire nation, could

meet that objective.

This is not intended to be an argument about the

preeminence of one form of warfare over another but merely to

highlight the point that the objective is an important military

principle that can drastically alter one's view of a particular

type of warfare. If the method of conducting a war (or other

military operation) is not matched to the objectives (both

political and military), the outcome can be disastrous . Vietnam

should serve as a key reminder of this for Americans; 6

orienting on the opposing army without defining higher

objectives is wasteful and counterproductive .

This brings into question the entire discussion of maneuverversus-attrition warfare as presented in the balance of this

volume (though not the value of such discussions relative to

a potentially powerful tool we might use for political

objectives-a somewhat subtle difference we hope the reader

will readily see). From van Creveld's discussion, it seems

apparent that he deems maneuver warfare to be generally

more efficient and effective than attrition warfare.

225
Both the US Army and Marine Corps apparently are

attempting to commit to maneuver warfare rather than to

the attrition model. They seem to agree with van Creveld

that maneuver warfare is preferred over attrition, but once

again, certain key points may be overlooked in this analysis.

For example, what do you do if the adversary proves to be

better at maneuver warfare than you are but you possess

vastly greater resources? If your sole objective is to prosecute a

"clean war," then you might persist in attempting to

"outmaneuver" the opponent and simply accept defeat if you

fail.

Unfortunately, such persistence is almost a guaranteed

formula for defeat. It would seem more prudent in this

particular case to try to shift the struggle to an attrition

model because this course is the most likely to change your

fortunes . That is precisely what Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman

did with great success during the American Civil War.

Nor is it any fairer to accuse the American military of

blindly following the attrition model ever since. For

example, though most of the southwest Pacific theater of

operations in World War II was composed of water, US

operations represented classic maneuver warfare-moving

from key island to key island, bypassing the bulk of the

Japanese army in isolated positions and leaving them to "die

on the vine ." The ultimate success of this strategy was

avoidance of a horribly expensive force-on-force assault upon

the Japanese home islands .

At least portions of the campaigns in North Africa, Italy,

and Europe during World War II and the Korean War in the

1950s should not be ignored either. Certainly each of these

is debatable as an example of pure maneuver warfare, but

this debate completely ignores one key point: a "pure" example

of either style of warfare is a highly unlikely occurrence.

Surely attrition is a factor in maneuver warfare and

maneuver is a factor in attrition warfare. We are necessarily

talking emphasis and nuance here. It would seem to be

somewhat a priori, for example, to dismiss Desert Storm as

226
an example of maneuver warfare simply because the

military objective was inappropriately selected (the Basrah

area instead of Baghdad), if indeed it was. However we may

feel about other particular examples of the genre, it is

important to remember for the remainder of this discussion

that we are analyzing a very narrow data base. Van Creveld's

three fairly homogeneous examples (Germany in 1941-42,

the Soviet Union in World War II, and Israel in 1967 and

1973) can offer food for thought, but certainly not statistical

significance. Under such circumstances, it is all too easy to

learn lessons of limited applicability, a common danger of

the "lessons-learned" approach to military studies . The

greatest danger lies in applying such lessons too broadly.

The bottom line here is that the seeming American

propensity for attrition warfare may be more a result of our

comparative strengths and weaknesses relative to most

adversaries we have faced than to a blind reliance on "old

thinking." For most of our history, we have not maintained

large standing armed forces . Very rarely have such forces as

we have maintained been well organized, trained, or

equipped in the period immediately preceding a major war.

Usually we have had to build our forces mostly from scratch.

On the other hand, our adversaries have usually been well

organized, trained, and equipped at the time we have

entered the conflict . Our strength has been to produce, in a

relatively short time, very large and adequately trained

forces armed (at least initially) with marginally effective

equipment. In such a case, if defeat of the enemy army is a

key military objective, the attrition model would seem our

logical choice.

All of this suggests that adopting a "doctrine" of maneuver

warfare would be extremely dangerous, particularly at a

time when we are drawing down our forces as rapidly as we

are now doing. Van Creveld writes, "In general, armies

deficient in maneuver qualities should avoid maneuvering

against an opponent strong in these attributes" (p. 208). Only

in such cases where the enemy army is legitimately our chief

227
military objective and where we are better at maneuver-type

warfare than our adversary is it likely to produce

satisfactory results. If we are irrevocably committed to it

and either of these situations does not prevail, it will prove

decidedly unsatisfactory .

Van Creveld himself acknowledges that conditions do not

always favor maneuver warfare. "Spain offered few

opportunities for maneuver warfare" in the 1930s (p . 31); a

"combination of circumstances had the effect of gradually

bringing operativ warfare to an end" for the Germans in

Russia (p . 97); and, for Israel, maneuver warfare "may soon

be no longer viable" (p. 189) . There are several other

examples as well. All of this having been said, maneuver

warfare should be part of our military doctrine, but we must

reject it as a universal military doctrine. However, with that

understood, maneuver warfare remains a potentially useful

tool of any military, and we would like to continue this

discussion by offering some specific alternatives to other

portions of van Creveld's analysis.

Though van Creveld continually references the equality of

arms in combined arms operations, his ground-up view of

the battlefield leads to an analytic error that surfaceoriented thinkers often make. In fact, it is US Army

doctrine. According to Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations,

the Army's position is that since all services are "equal" and

work together to defeat the enemy, air support must be

coordinated with the main effort. This doesn't seem very

equal, and there is no quid pro quo. Never, except in

extremis, does the Army anticipate coordinating surface

maneuver with air operations.

While van Creveld appears to glimpse the alternative

view, we do not believe he carries it far enough. In reference

to the Israeli experiences of 1967 and 1973, his sixth

conclusion is that "an air force must be allowed to conduct

an antiair air operation prior to its full commitment to the

ground battle" (p . 186) . Presumably this means either that

the main effort (surface) must go unsupported (or less than

228
fully supported) by air operations while the air battle is

waged, or that the air forces would, at least temporarily, be

the main effort and should therefore be supported as

necessary by surface operations.

Following Desert Storm, the latter conclusion would seem

the more appropriate. Why not keep the surface troops out

of harm's way until the conditions for their success (air

superiority) are established? A more complete analysis of

Desert Storm (which we are still awaiting) will offer superb

examples of how surface forces could (and did) support the

main effort in the air . Beginning large-scale ground

operations during the air phase would cause unnecessary

dispersion of effort.

Many military strategists having observed the application

of modern technology to aerospace systems and weapons

now believe that success in the air and space is a necessary

precondition to success on the surface. The Russians have

rewritten their entire military doctrine based upon this

premise.$ Of course, this concept is not readily understood

when viewed from the two-dimensional battlefield, so our

understanding has been slowed even though this

precondition has existed for a long time.

If the progress of war is modeled with flags and arrows on

a surface map, the impact of strategic attack on C3 systems,

to offer just one example, has no readily apparent relevance

to the battle. How the surface forces flow across the

battlefield-whether they flank, turn, or sweep and how far

they progress in a day-these are the important "measures"

of operational success. Yet, if we are to accept Col John

Boyd's OODA loop, as van Creveld does in this text, then the

fact that the Iraqi decision cycle was extended to over 48

hours (the time it took for one message cycle between

Baghdad and the front) as a result of the air war must have

some relevance to the final outcome. It would seem to have

established conditions under which maneuvers by coalition

forces against the enemy were virtually guaranteed success .

It makes little difference that the adversary hardly reacted

229
at all (p. 214), particularly as it was precisely this strategic

disconnect (lack of operating C3) that made it largely

impossible for him to react.

Of course, a maneuver-oriented army organized with a

"decentralized command" structure would not have waited

for orders from Baghdad. They would have "launched a

major counterattack at the pivot between the allied wings"

(p. 215). The only problem is that they did not know there

were "allied wings," much less where they were.

The air campaign was deliberately planned to take away

this ability-not just in the area of the Schwerpunkt but

everywhere across the battlefield. This allowed surface

forces to operate anywhere with impunity (and with

phenomenally low casualties), while at the same time

concealing the Schwerpunkt. As a result, the center of

gravity of allied ground operations was not readily

discernible. 9 Wherever our surface forces went, they could

rest assured the enemy did not know they were coming. For

the air commanders, it was not a case of disrupting and

interfering with the enemy's tempo-they intended to

destroy it, and they did.

The kind of air battle that achieved these dramatic

results-an air battle designed to disconnect, disrupt, and

blind enemy forces at all levels from strategic to tactical-is

precisely what airmen have been propounding for most of

the last 70 years. It is a battle in which air power meets the

objective of maneuver-shattering "the enemy's cohesion,

organization, and psychological balance" without solely

focusing on the enemy's physical destruction.l0 This is not

the "Douhet theory of strategic bombing" (p . 145), though

much of what Douhet said (in the abstract, as opposed to the

particular) has come true.

In 1935, the US Army Air Corps Tactical School argued

that "even though air warfare may be waged simultaneously

against both the enemy armed forces and the enemy

national structure, the main purpose of the air offensive will

be to nullify the former so as to permit breaking down or

230
conclusively threatening the latter ."" This has no flavor of

the "air battle for its own sake" (p. 145). Nor did such a

flavor become pervasive over time in air doctrine, as is often

charged by critics of the USAF. Army Field Manual 100-20,

Command and Employment of Air Power, written in 1943 to

cement the hard lessons learned by Allied air forces in 1941

and 1942, said,

Air forces must be employed primarily against the enemy's air

forces until air superiority is obtained. In this way only can

destructive and demoralizing air attacks against land forces be

minimized and the inherent mobility of modern land and air

forces be exploited to the fullest. . . . The inherent flexibility of

air power is its greatest asset. This flexibility makes it possible

to employ the whole weight of the available air power against

selected areas in turn; such concentrated use of the air striking

force is a battle winning factor of the first importance.

12

The characterization of "basic tasks" in FM 100-20 makes

the point even clearer. They are :

a. Destroy hostile air forces. This will be accomplished by attacks

against aircraft in the air and on the ground, and against enemy

installations which he requires for the application of air power;

b. Deny the establishment (sic) and destroy existing hostile bases

from which an enemy can conduct operations on land, sea, or in

the air; c. Operate against hostile land or sea forces, the location

and strength of which are such as to threaten the vital interests

of the United States or its Allies; d. Wage offensive air warfare

against the sources of strength, military and economic, of the

enemies of the United States and its Allies, in the furtherance of

approved war policies; e. Operate as a part of the task forces in

the conduct of military operations ; f. Operate in conjunction with

or in lieu of naval forces. 3

While air superiority gets top billing in every case, never

does this basic doctrine manual of air power application seem

to imply either that it is "for its own sake" or that it alone

will defeat the enemy. Air superiority gets priority in FM

100-20 only because it is necessary to avoid "destructive and

demoralizing air attacks against land forces" and to exploit

"the inherent mobility of modern land and air forces. . . ."

Destruction of enemy air is one of the several things air can

231
do "that no other arm can do that will have a decisive effect

on the outcome of the ground battle" 14 (p. 205), if one is

necessary to achieve military and ultimately political

objectives . Though well-developed and integrated groundbased air defenses can provide limited (i.e ., limited both in

time and space) protection from even a powerful air force,

history has thus far favored the air weapon in virtually

every case. Given time, a ground-based system unsupported

by air will be broken down by air attacks, whether

supported from the ground or not.

Air superiority, then, is not its own object but a precondition to success in other operations-surface and air. Nor

have airmen forgotten the lessons that led to this articulation of FM 100-20. The current mission statement of the

USAF is "to defend the United States through the control

and exploitation of air and space. "15 This mission is

supported by current USAF doctrine:

Aerospace power can apply force against any facet of enemy

power. . . . Aerospace forces perform four basic roles : aerospace

control, force application, force enhancement, and force

support. . . . There is no universal formula for the proper

employment of aerospace power in a campaign. . . .

16

The latter statement is a direct acknowledgment that employment of military force (not just aerospace forces) must be

relevant to objectives-tactical, operational, and strategic. 17

This interpretation is very much in synch with the

operations of our maneuver-oriented examples. In nearly

every case (especially the successful ones), the Germans in

World War II began their offensives with efforts to gain air

ascendancy before concentrating on support of operativ

warfare. In fact, this is a well-recognized practice as reported

in this study: "At 0300, 22 June 1941, the Luftwaffe opened

the campaign by the now-standard method [emphasis

added] of a surprise strike at the enemy's airfields" (p. 69).

In fact, the Luftwaffe's overall tasking is reminiscent of FM

100-20:

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The task of the Luftwaffe was defined as (1) knocking out the

Soviet Air Force in order to obtain and maintain air superiority

over the theater of operations; (2) supporting the operations of

Army Group Center . . . (3) disrupting the Soviet railway net . . .

and (4) capturing important transportation bottlenecks.

18

It was air superiority first, not "for its own sake ."

The Soviets, never able to achieve such dominance in the

air, were reduced to limiting their activities to within 10

kilometers of the front. While van Creveld seems to imply

that this was a doctrinal imperative, it is only so in the

sense that the Soviets never possessed the resources to

claim total dominance in the air. What this meant for them

was that, while the "technological excellence" of the

Germans was "offset . . . by the Allied bombing campaign

which disrupted the German war economy and prevented

the new weapons (particularly heavy tanks) from being

deployed in large numbers" (pp. 132-33), the Soviets

continued to suffer at the hands of the Luftwaffe, which,

even in the later stages of the war, "still found it possible to

execute their missions" (p. 142). In Western Europe, on the

other hand, Luftwaffe crews were not able to execute

because "they found themselves engaged in combat almost

as soon as they left the ground" (p. 141) . Thus, it would

appear that the 10-kilometer limitation was more the

invention of necessity than design . It was also very costly in

terms of lost equipment, though often successful in saving

crew members from capture by the enemy (due to their

proximity to friendly surface forces).

In the Arab-Israeli wars, it is completely clear that the

Israelis have perceived the value of air superiority for more

than just its own sake. Their success in 1967 was directly

attributable to their ability to achieve air superiority. By

catching the Egyptian air force napping, they taught the

Egyptian army the consequences of operations without air

superiority. In 1973, the Israelis paid dearly for failing to

achieve the same kind of dominance at the outset. It is

worth noting, however, that over time they were able to

233
reassert their dominance over ground-based air defenses

and to effect a relatively favorable outcome.

The Israelis' total air dominance in 1967 enabled them to

have successes of all kinds, even the most improbable. A

good example was resupply of the ugdas by air with highly

vulnerable World War II-vintage aircraft . Without this

resupply, "the Egyptian breakout might conceivably have

succeeded" (p . 168) . Air dominance also enabled Israeli

convoys made up of "road-bound, requisitioned, civilian

vehicles of every sort and description" to succeed, while the

Egyptian retreat was interdicted by "every type of combat

aircraft" (p . 168) . Both scenes are reminiscent of Desert

Storm, where allied logistics convoys snaked in single file

over endless miles of desert, while the attempted breakout

from Kuwait City in "road-bound, requisitioned, civilian

vehicles" became the now famous "highway of death." It was

control and exploitation of air and space, not "an air battle

for its own sake."

The above reasoning should also dispel the accusation

that airmen wish to pursue the air superiority battle at the

expense of ground support. In fact, the air battle makes

interdiction and close air support (when it is necessary) even

more effective. Mission number one, discovered by US Army

Air Forces in North Africa in 1942, is to keep enemy air

forces off the backs of our own forces.l 9 This provides one of

several key reasons for prosecuting the air battle first and

foremost. There are others. For example, referring to the war

in 1967, van Creveld states, "Having successfully defeated

the Jordanian, Syrian, and Iraqi air forces in addition to the

Egyptian one, the IAF on the second day [emphasis added] of

the war turned back to the Sinai where it enjoyed complete

command of the air" (p. 168). As already mentioned, this

allowed the Israelis to resupply forward forces with obsolescent

transports and to attack road-bound Egyptian motorized

columns, "thousands of which littered the desert either as

burned-out wrecks or intact vehicles that had been deserted

by their terrified crews." This was possible because "IAF

234
pilots could loiter over the target area and make multiple pass

attacks" (p. 168) . In other words, they wreaked havoc

because they owned the air.

Contrast this picture with 1973, when, "though air superiority

was ultimately achieved, it was never quite complete" (p. 181).

In this case, it was necessary to shift the IAF "from front to

front, role to role, in reaction to immediate threats without

implementing any cohesive air operational plan" (p. 181).

The perceived operational imperatives which resulted

caused dispersion of the air effort to attempt intervention in

every crisis on the surface. Since they could not concentrate

their efforts anywhere, they wound up acting as the

proverbial "fire brigade." In the end, "about 65 percent of

the IAF's operational sorties represented air-to-ground

missions. . . . Most sorties were flown in the CASBAI roles

and, on the whole, were quite ineffective" (p. 183).

It is, in fact, not the attempt to achieve air superiority

that causes dispersion of effort away from surface support

but the failure to do so. The 14 May 1940 Allied air attack

against bridges in the Ardennes serves as an excellent

example: "By the evening, the smoking remains of 89 Allied

aircraft dotted the countryside around Sedan alone. It was

perhaps the decisive moment [emphasis added] of the entire

campaign" (p. 51). Air superiority, had it been achievable,

could have prevented this disaster for the Allies and this

"decisive moment" might have gone the other way.

Lack of air superiority appears to have forced the Soviets

in World War II to emphasize "close operations" (within 10

kilometers of the front) to the near exclusion of what we

would now call "deep operations ." This appears to be viewed

as doctrinally sound elsewhere in this study. Considering the

technical capability of the Soviets to do otherwise, this may

be fair, but as a universal doctrine of preference, it fails the

test.

Targets for Soviet aviation tended to be restricted within

this area "because of the fear of German fighters" (p. 130),

not because it was Soviet doctrine . "The Soviet High

235
Command, recognizing the Soviets' absolute inferiority,

ordered survival tactics for their fighter and ground attack

aircraft" (p . 136) . However, "after 1943, strikes at greater

depth and attacks on various rear installations became more

common" (p . 130). This was true, not because the Soviets

changed their thinking but because it became possible to do

so . The reason it became possible is that "the longer the war,

the more the Germans were forced by Anglo-American

strategic bombing to become an air defense air force against

strategic attacks" (p. 144). Thus, the successful concentration

of Anglo-American efforts on air superiority and strategic

bombing caused the dispersion of German resources from

which the Soviets indirectly benefited.

Another key example was the total air supremacy over

Normandy that allowed concentration on the bombing,

strafing, airdropping, and other integrated air operations

required by the massive Allied invasion of Western Europe .

The term integrated operations (air, land, sea, and space) is

the real key to an airman's perspective of the battle area .

The argument (which is somewhat expanded upon in the

bulk of this text) over which "tool" of air power is the greatest

contributor to surface operations is counterproductive to a

comprehensive understanding of the dominance air power

can have over the modern conventional battlefield when our

objectives require it and conditions are right.

For too long, air and land power enthusiasts have been

locked in a dichotomous debate over the uses of air power.

Which is the best use of air power-close air support or

counterair? The correct response to this question is not, as

van Creveld seems to imply, interdiction . The correct response

is, What are my objectives? Whatever the objectives are, air

power brings a comprehensive set of tools to the battle, and

the integrated application of the right combination of these

tools with those provided by surface forces should be the real

goal. This principle is amply demonstrated within this text.

In every case presented in this volume, the victor either

secured air superiority or used work-arounds until it was

236
decentralized command as characterizing maneuver warfare

in the opening chapter of this book. We have assumed our

political objectives translate logically into military objectives

that include defeat or destruction of the enemy army and

that we have a reasonable expectation of prevailing over the

specific enemy in a maneuver contest. 28 Having accepted

these assumptions, we can examine what air power can

contribute to the effort.

The first vital element identified in chapter 1 is tempo

(p . 3) . Van Creveld closely associates this element with Col

John Boyd's OODA loop. The objective is to get inside the

adversary's decision cycle. There are two basic approaches to

doing this . The first is pretty straightforward-cycle faster

than the adversary can. The second is perhaps less obvious,

mainly because in most cases it is more difficult to dodegrade the adversary's cycle until it is slower than yours.

Air power can contribute to both approaches .

The inherent speed, range, and flexibility of aircraft (the

same applies more and more clearly to spacecraft) make

them ideal contributors to the tempo of operations .

Achieving aerospace control "assures the friendly use of the

environment while denying its use to an enemy."29 In Desert

Storm, air supremacy allowed coalition forces to ensure

nearly constant observation of the entire area of operations.

Conversely, this complete control of the environment meant

the adversary, Iraq, had virtually no opportunity to observe

coalition preparations and operations above the tactical

level, and only rarely at that level. While we knew precisely

how and where Iraqi forces were deployed, they could only

guess at coalition deployments .

In the initial attack, coalition aircraft and missiles quickly

destroyed almost the entire Iraqi C3I network. They could

not see the battlefield beyond what they could observe visually

from static emplacements, nor could they communicate what

little they did know to others . Message traffic by courier, the

only means available to most units after D day, took 24 hours

238
secured. 2°USAF basic doctrine calls this function "aerospace

control" and posits that aerospace control "is a prerequisite

to accomplishing other aerospace roles and missions ."21

Aerospace control is not to be achieved "for its own sake."

Rather, it "assures the friendly use of the environment while

denying its use to an enemy." 22 This is in complete concert

with the Air Force's mission-the control and exploitation of

air and space. It is also in concert with every case presented

in this text. In each case, force application of all types was

enhanced by "command of the air" or degraded by the lack of

1t. 23

According to USAF doctrine, "force application brings

aerospace power to bear directly against surface targets."

This includes "strategic attack, interdiction, and close air

support." "Force enhancement increases the ability of

aerospace and surface forces to perform their missions ."

Force enhancement missions are such things as "airlift, air

refueling, spacelift, electronic combat, surveillance and

reconnaissance, and special operations ." Finally, "force

support must sustain operations if aerospace forces are to be

successful." 24 Examples of all these functions are well

represented, both in application and misapplication,

throughout this study. They are much too numerous to list,

so we leave it to the reader to ferret them out.

The point is that there is not one particular application of

air power that represents air power's chief strength. It is not

close air support, interdiction, strategic attack, counterair

operations, airlift, electronic combat, or any other element

that is decisive. It is the application of the appropriate ones

to the situation at hand in light of both the political and

military objectives that defines the utility of air power. Air

power can go it alone,25 lead,26 or follow,27 as the situation

demands.

The easiest way to demonstrate this is to evaluate the

utility of air power in van Creveld's own terms of the six

'`vital elements ." Van Creveld has identified tempo,

Schwerpunkt, surprise, combined arms, flexibility, and

917
or more to reach the rear area where it could be processed

and disseminated.

Orientation is nearly impossible when observation does

not occur. Most coalition decisions after D day were based on

minutes-to-hours-old information. Iraqi decisions were made

on information that was days to weeks old, and then could

not be coordinated between units. Our decision cycles were

measured in minutes; theirs in days . That explains why, in

many cases, coalition ground forces were shooting at Iraqi

forces that didn't even know the coalition forces were there,

much less from which direction they were coming.

When you have aerospace control, your aircraft can

transit dozens of miles in minutes, literally hundreds in an

hour, and affect the battle wherever and whenever you

choose . They can provide real-time information from any

battle area you wish. They can rush to any critical point in

the battle area, acting as a central reserve that is quickly

and easily redirected when necessary. They can provide

resupply to rapidly advancing or beleaguered forces

anywhere in the battle area. They can also protect rear

areas from attack and screen advancing or retreating forces

against surprise counterattacks . Each of the cases discussed

in this book contains examples of nearly every one of these

capabilities of air power. Air forces both operate at high

tempo and enhance the security of surface forces so that the

latter can increase their tempo. In short, used properly,

integrated air power is a preeminent tool for increasing

operations tempo.

As for the second theme of maneuver operations,

Schwerpunkt, it seems intuitive after all the preceding

discussion that air power represents a superior tool for

developing the necessary "force ratios" for breakthroughs

at critical points . Both the Germans and the Soviets

demonstrated this in their use of air forces as "can openers"

for ground offensives . In Operation Desert Storm, air forces

provided the initial Schwerpunkt to achieve the operational

leverage described in the above discussion of tempo.

239
In the future we can expect air forces again to be called upon

to provide the Schwerpunkt against C3I and air defenses, as

well as to be the "can openers" for surface breakthroughs.

Since discerning that the appropriate "fault line" for the

Schwerpunkt is critical, and since the "thrusting" nature of

an offensive maneuver leaves potentially vulnerable flanks

open to an aggressive enemy, air forces will continue to

provide a necessary "fire brigade" reserve for blunting

counterattacks. Again, both of these functions are well

represented in the cases discussed here.

Airlift provides means of quickly building and supplying

the necessary preponderance of surface forces to develop a

surface Schwerpunkt, as demonstrated by the phenomenal

buildup to the west for Desert Storm. Such buildups are

possible only when they are protected from air attack and

effective only when they are not observed and countered .

Both of these necessary conditions were provided in Desert

Storm by the coalition's complete control of the aerospace.

Once again, the real strength of air power is in the

integrated application of all its facets, not concentration on

any single one.

Air power's potential contribution to surprise, the third of

our principles of maneuver warfare, is also dramatic. To fall

upon the enemy "like a thunderbolt" is another of air

power's natural attributes. With speed, range, precision, and

now stealth, air forces can achieve tactical surprise with

ease in most scenarios . Only minor deception is then

required to achieve both operational and strategic surprise.

In Baghdad, antiaircraft gunners were usually shooting at

empty sky from which a stealth bomber had already exited.

The proof of this is clear. F-117s destroyed targets in

downtown Baghdad night after night without being touched

a single time by enemy fire . In the Kuwaiti theater of

operations, crews slept away from their tanks, which were

disintegrated without the slightest warning, victims of

attack by coalition aircraft flying so high they were invisible

to the soldiers .

240
Air power can also contribute to surprise, as it did in

Desert Storm, through control of the aerospace to deny

enemy observations, electronic warfare to degrade warning

and defense systems, movement of troops and supplies

faster than the enemy can react (airlift, airborne assault, air

assault landings), and the shift of the central axis of effort

faster than the enemy can compensate.

Any modern state is vulnerable to the kind of intense

surprise strategic assault mounted against Iraq in January

1991 . No army disconnected from central leadership and

disjointed from command structure, as the Iraqi army was,

can possibly operate at the operational or strategic level . Its

best tactical efforts, no matter how carefully it has cultured

a "decentralized command" system, will achieve nothing

operationally or strategically, unless by accident. The Iraqi

army was not helpless by nature ; it was rendered helpless

by an air assault that quickly reduced its tempo to almost

zero. The nearly complete surprise of the initial assault

increased the psychological, as well as the physical, impact.

As mentioned very early in this chapter, the rock-scissorspaper analogy seems very useful in describing the theme of

combined arms, but it is lacking in one way. In the game,

scissors always defeat paper, paper always defeats rock, and

rock always defeats scissors. In warfare that simply is not

true . Actually, artillery is not powerless against tanks, as

Erwin Rommel proved in North Africa by using the famous

German 88-millimeter antiaircraft artillery against tanks

with great success. For numerous reasons, artillery can be

at a severe disadvantage against tanks. However, when

conditions preclude direct fire, tanks are totally helpless

against artillery that can range them .

Warfare is never so neat as to allow the careful selection of a

weapon for each engagement. Just as with the rock-scissorspaper game, you must engage the enemy with whatever is at

hand when you meet him. Unlike the situation in the game,

however, the outcome is not foregone by this selection .

Tanks can kill artillery; artillery can kill tanks. Antitank

241
weapons can kill tanks; tanks can kill antitank weapons.

The objective is to engage in such a way as to gain relative

advantages over the adversary through the proper

coordination of combined arms.

For instance, tanks moving to contact are vulnerable to

artillery while they are still out of range of their objective.

The longer they are subjected to artillery fire before they can

achieve close contact, the better for the adversary. The

tankers' objective, then, should be to close fast enough to

turn it quickly into a direct-fire fight, where they have the

advantage. If they must transit areas where there are

enemy tanks, antitank weapons, and infantry, they will

never achieve a favorable condition unless they are

supported closely by the same. If they do continue an

unsupported attack in such a case, they are likely to be

destroyed-some by artillery, some by tanks, some by

antitank munitions, some by aircraft, and some even by

infantry. The objective of combined arms, then, should be to

create the conditions in which the defender in our example

found himself-facing an adversary of single arms with his

own integrated combined arms team.

In its modern incarnation, air power is possessed of the

unique capability of almost being its own combined arms

team. With modern avionics, targeting/surveillance systems,

and lethal/nonlethal weapons, aircraft are capable of both

direct and indirect fire (called "standoff" in the air business).

They can maneuver so rapidly as to close or stand off,

whichever is to their advantage. With a combination of

missiles, bombs, and guns, they have options that can

destroy or incapacitate almost any target they face. With

stealth, speed, or standoff munitions, they can shoot while

almost invulnerable to most counter systems because most

battlefield systems are essentially incapable of either

defending themselves against air or directly threatening

airborne systems. Additionally, with their speed and range,

aircraft can rapidly shift from one target set to another.

242
In the case of Desert Storm, aircraft destroyed a wide

spectrum of battlefield systems with relative invulnerability.

Literally thousands of tanks, armored personnel carriers,

artillery pieces, bunkers, and the like were destroyed at the

cost of a handful of airplanes . One is at a loss to understand

why, under such conditions, anyone would want to start a

ground war in the first few days of such an operation, when

waiting will reduce enemy capabilities (physical and

psychological) dramatically . Once the ground war does start,

however, integrated air power continues to be a powerful

combined-arms team member.

Air power can support ground maneuver by taking on any

type of target that is presenting problems to the surface

team. Aircraft can lead assaults by attacking opposing forces

of all types, help screen and protect flanks and rear areas of

maneuvering surface forces, carry or cover assault teams,

resupply forward or isolated forces, provide reconnaissance

information to surface force commanders, destroy isolated

forces that threaten the surface force, or do almost anything

you can think of to support surface maneuver. Again, the

speed, range, and flexibility of air power make it a superb

tool in creating the kind of synergy between friendly forces

that creates insoluble problems for the adversary's

commanders and produces lethal imbalances between your

combined-arms team and the adversary's forces .

Air power is a powerful contributor to combined-arms

flexibility. When you accept the integrated view of air power,

you readily see the tremendous synergies that can be

created by combining the many strengths of air power with

one another and with those of surface forces. The speed with

which aircraft transit battle areas allows them to be

redirected easily, especially when they are combined with

modern command and control systems-including airborne

systems like the airborne warning and control system

(AWACS), the airborne battlefield command and control

center (ABCCC), and the joint surveillance and target attack

radar system (JSTARS) . A combination of improved

243
technologies (avionics, stores attachments, targeting

systems, and the like) allows many aircraft to be easily

shifted from one role to another (F-16s from air defense to

interdiction to close air support, for instance) . Modern

systems design and maintenance practices allow aircraft to

be turned from one role to another quickly between

missions . Many can even be configured for multiple roles on

a single mission.

There were numerous cases during Desert Storm, for

example, where aircraft were diverted from one type mission

to another and at least one particular case where they were

deliberately planned to provide the option of diverting to

another mission. Gen Charles A. Horner developed an air

support system for the US Central Command (CENTCOM)

area of responsibility ground forces known as "Push-CAS."

In this system, aircraft were loaded and stood up on alert for

"immediate close-air-support" requirements . If they were

not needed within a particular period of time, they were

launched on preplanned interdiction missions. Even during

their ingress for the interdiction mission, they were subject

to diversion to immediate CAS requirements. Thus, both

immediate close-air-support and interdiction requirements

were met without loss of alert sorties to the unpredictability

of close-air-support requirements . Innovative thinking,

aerospace weapon systems, and modern C3I can create

incredible flexibility for the theater CINC. In the old days

we said, "Flexibility is the key to air power." It now seems

more correct to say, "Air power is the key to flexibility."

Finally, it is necessary to discuss the maneuver principle

of decentralized command. Van Creveld makes a major point

of the "anathema" of Soviet centralized command to

maneuver warfare. Yet in every case, what he describes as

decentralized command appears to us more in concert with

the USAF conceptualization of "centralized control/

decentralized execution." In AFM 1-1, this tenet of aerospace

power demands that

244
aerospace forces should be centrally controlled by an airman to

achieve advantageous synergies, establish effective priorities,

capitalize on unique strategic and operational flexibilities,

ensure unity of purpose, and minimize the potential for

conflicting objectives . Execution of aerospace missions should be

decentralized to achieve effective spans of control,

responsiveness, and tactical flexibility.

30

Again, this is not a new conceptualization or theory. It was

proven in combat and articulated in AFM 1-1's ancestral

predecessor, FM 100-20, which stated:

Control of available air power must be centralized and command

must be exercised through the Air Force Commander if this

inherent flexibility and ability to deliver a decisive blow are to be

fully exploited.

What van Creveld refers to as "decentralized command"

is, in fact, what the USAF calls "decentralized execution."

Decentralized execution is not in conflict with centralized

control; it enhances it. In fact, application of this concept

enhanced nearly all the successful maneuver operations

cited in this text.

The German command system is a prime example. German

armed forces A came under the unified command of the

German General Staff, which was subdivided into army groups,

and, in the case of air forces, further divided into Luftflotten

(numbered air forces) that comprised "a well-rounded, balanced

air force, complete in itself and capable of undertaking every

sort of mission" (p. 36) . Furthermore, van Creveld commends

the Germans for their "unified command system that enabled

them to share information throughout the forces and to shift

resources from one point to another as the leadership saw fit"

(emphasis added) (p. 43). This demonstrates precisely what

the USAF has in mind with the first half of the tenet,

"centralized control ."

On the other hand, each Luftflotte "was clearly earmarked

for the support of one army group, although . . . there was no

question of subordinating air force units to ground headquarters" (p . 66) . In the main, the Luftfotten were allowed

245
to execute'their missions as they felt necessary- decentralized

execution. In van Creveld's own words, "Lower levels must

be granted both the right and the means to exercise their

own initiative, adapt themselves to the situation, and seize

the opportune moment" (p. 7). This the Luftflotten (and

presumably their subordinate units) were allowed to do. It

worked well in numerous cases to exploit opportunities, yet

when their efforts were needed elsewhere, higher command

moved the Luffotten whether their initial tasking was

complete or not (centralized control) (pp. 88-89, 93). 32

The same applies to the Israeli Air Force, which "is not

and never has been a separate service. . . . [Yet it] also

functions as an operational wartime theater command. . . .

[Furthermore, it] allocates squadrons to the area commands

for CASBAI" (p. 159) . Tactical control of all IAF elements is

determined by the General Staff-centralized control/

decentralized execution. For that matter, far from being

anathema to maneuver warfare, the Soviet system of

centralized command actually represents one very functional

side of centralized control/decentralized execution, which

quite effectively contributes to maneuver warfare in every

case studied.

Having reviewed the potential of aerospace power to

contribute to national objectives under all circumstances, it

seems an inevitable conclusion that, in toto, integrated air

power (and space power) represents a very comprehensive

tool of national strategy, whether the subject is maneuver

warfare or not. If national objectives and national capabilities

can be effectively supported by maneuver warfare (which

must always be our first consideration), then aerospace

power is a natural for providing the kind of flexibility

required. It can strike the primary blows, screen surface

maneuver forces, destroy or delay enemy counterattacks,

support surface forces in contact, provide comprehensive

reconnaissance and surveillance, resupply isolated forces,

prevent resupply of enemy forces, insert surface forces at

critical points, and do just about anything else you can

246
imagine. In addition, it can shift from one of these roles to

another much more rapidly than any other type of force .

In sum, there is no single best way aerospace power

contributes-not close air support, not counterair, and not

even interdiction. The message of modern aerospace power

"missionaries" is that integrated aerospace power can do all

of these-and more-"to defend the United States through

control and exploitation of air and space." 33 It is this

comprehensive, integrated vision of aerospace power that

advocates embrace as we prepare for the twenty-first century.

Notes

1 . Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air, trans . Dino Ferrari (1942 ;

reprint, Washington, D.C. : Office of Air Force History, 1983), originally

published in 1921 . The reference here is, of course, to Douhet's

conceptualization that once "command of the air" was demonstrable and

the consequences were understood by an embattled nation, that nation

which had lost (or forfeited) it would be forced to capitulate . In his

construct, surface action would be totally irrelevant . Whether airmen

ascribe to this today or not, they are often saddled with the straw-man

accusation that they do.

2. As used in this response, the term air power is interchangeable

with aerospace power. We have continued to use the term air power

(having made this assumption) for continuity because van Creveld has

used it in the previous chapters without defining it specifically .

Aerospace power is both air and space power. We consider the aerospace

environment indivisible if it is to be fully exploited. See AFM 1-1, Basic

Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, March 1992, vol. 1, 5.

3. See Edward C. Mann, "Beyond AirLand Battle: Concepts for the

Future," Air Force Times, 16 December 1991, 31, for a discussion of the

limitations of our current view and the benefits of taking the more

comprehensive view envisioned here. This is also in concert with the

intent of Joint Publication 1, Joint Warfare of the US Armed Forces, 11

November 1991 .

4 . Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret

'Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 87.

5. Field Manual (FM) 100-1, The Army, 1981, 8. Emphasis in original.

6. Americans ought to learn from Vietnam that pursuing military

objectives that are unclearly defined and unrelated to discernible

political objectives is a prescription for agony, frustration, and defeat.

the Israelis ought to have learned the inverse lesson from their

experience in 1973 that political objectives can be achieved while

247
accepting military defeat as the cost. As van Creveld points out (p. 173),

the Israelis discounted the possibility of an Egyptian attack because both

countries were able to analyze the assurance of an Egyptian loss on the

battlefield. The Egyptians were willing to accept this cost, however, and

pursued their political objectives in the face of it . Ignoring this

possibility made the Israeli battlefield success much more costly than it

might have been otherwise.

7. See, for instance, FM 100-5, Operations, 1986, 23 : "A main effort

is always clearly designated and ground plans are thoroughly

coordinated with plans for air support." Lest there be any doubt of this

bias in US Army thinking, see also page 43 : "In a large-scale nuclear

conflict, fire support could become the principal means of destroying

enemy forces. The scheme of maneuver would then be designed

specifically to exploit the effects of the fire support" (emphasis added). In

other words, even when they are capable of seeing air as the main effort

(in the rarest of circumstances), they can't stop themselves from

continuing to view it as support of the surface force .

8. See Mary C. FitzGerald, Russia's New Military Doctrine

(Indianapolis: The Hudson Institute, Herman Kahn Center, 1992).

9. See appendix, 3. Apparently, it is possible to discern where the

Schwerpunkt should have been, however, since van Creveld suggests on

page 7 of the appendix that for it to have been a true example of

maneuver warfare, we ought to have focused efforts on "the region in

front of the planned attack by VII Corps."

10 . Fleet Marine Forces Manual (FMFM) 1, Warfighting, 29.

11. Air Corps Tactical School, Air Force, pt. 1, Air Warfare, 1 February

1938, 47, quoted in Robert F. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic

Thinking in the United States Air Force, vol. 1, 1907-1960 (Maxwell

AFB, Ala. : Air University Press, 1989), 88.

12. FM 100-20, Command and Employment of Air Power, 21 July

1943, 1, 2.

13 . Ibid., 6.

14. This is van Creveld's challenge to air commanders. Air theorists

welcome this challenge because we believe there are many such

opportunities for air. The problem, as van Creveld himself has pointed

out in his discussion of later German operations on the eastern front, is

to rank order them without them becoming a "fire brigade."

15. Gen Merrill A. McPeak, "Does the Air Force Have a Mission?"

speech, dining in, Maxwell AFB, Ala., 19 June 1992, 5.

16. AFM 1-1, vol. 1, 5, 6, 9 .

17. Ibid., 9.

18. FM 100-20, chaps . 3, 7, and 8 .

19 . This, of course, violates van Creveld's admonition against

"like-on-like" employments, but we have yet to find a more effective

248
counter to airplanes than airplanes . (The history of technological

advance would suggest that we will someday, but it is obviously still in

the future .) Fighting airplanes from the ground can impede their

effectiveness, but it has never yet been able to stop determined and

well-executed air attacks. According to van Creveld (p. 193), "The

technology of air attack has temporarily gained the upper hand over the

technology of air defense." As suggested, there is an interplay between

relative effectiveness of surface-to-air and air-to-surface combat, but we

are unaware of a single case where air action has been precluded by

surface-based air defense systems acting alone. There are numerous

cases of air action quickly and effectively destroying surface-to-air

systems-the Bekaa Valley in 1982 and Desert Storm's initial strikes

being key examples.

20. Air superiority in the case of Germany (p. 43) and Israel (p. 186) ;

and the lack of superiority in the case ofthe Soviet Union (p. 136).

21. AFM 1-1, vol. 2, 104.

22. Ibid., vol. 1, 6 .

23. Germany (pp. 28, 44, 50-51 ff.); Soviet Union (pp. 128, 134--35,

138-39); Israel (pp. 168-72, 181-85).

24. AFM 1-1, vol. 1, 6-7.

25. Page 81: "As usual, the only force immediately available to hold

off the threat was the Luftwaffe; and as was often the case during this

period, it did so quickly and effectively, though at the cost of switching to

battlefield operations for which many of its aircraft were not really

suitable."

26 . Bruce W. Watson, ed., Military Lessons of the Gulf War (London:

Greenhill Books, 1991), 77: "[T]he inescapable conclusion is that air

power virtually brought Iraq to its knees. . . ." Many have independently

come to the same conclusion. In this case, the destruction of the Iraqi

military was carried out primarily by air forces, supported in many ways

by surface forces.

27. Page 82 : "Throughout this period Fliegerkorps IV, with its weaker

forces . . . continued to fly missions in support of Eleventh Army, which

was approaching the Crimea."

28. If the first assumption is not true, we should reconsider our

military objective. In the second case, we should reconsider our approach

to achieving the military objective .

29. AFM 1-1, 6.

30 . Ibid., 8.

31. FM 100-20,2 .

32. Here the efforts of various Fliegerkorps were shifted as necessary

by higher command (even as high as Hitler himself, in at least one case),

though sometimes their first assigned mission was not complete.

249
33. McPeak, 10 . In this speech, the general challenged air power

advocates to become "today's missionaries" to "spread the word.

Articulate the mission. Discuss it . Argue about it ." The "new gospel" he

was talking about was "air power integration."

250
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258
Index

Abwehr: 44

Adan, Avraham : 177, 179

Airborne battlefield command and control center (ABCCC):

243-44

Airborne warning and control system (AWACS): 186, 243

Air Corps, German (Fliegerkorps)

I: K74-75, 85

11 : 50, 66, 71, 83-85, 87, 89, 93

IV: 66, 81-82

V: 66, 78 1 80-82 1 89-90

VIII: 53, 66, 68, 74-75, 84-85, 87, 90, 93

Air Corps Tactical School : 230

Aircraft

Egyptian

MiG 17/19/21: 161

Su-7 : 161

German

He-51 : 32

He-111 : 47

Hs-123 : 37

Ju-52 : 39

Ju-87 : 50, 147, 194

Ju-88 : 71, 75

Me-109 : 43, 52, 147

Me-110 : 71

Israeli

A-4N: 159, 170

Cobra : 185

F-15/16: 185

Fouga Magister: 168

Mirage IIIc: 160

Mirage V: 170

Mystere/Super Mystere: 160 .

Nesher: 170

Ouragan: 160-61

259
Vautour: 160

Soviet

1-16 : 32, 135, 148

I-18 : 136

I-26 : 136

Il-2 : 119, 133, 135

LaGG-3: 135

MiG-3 : 135

Yak-1: 135

United States

A-4 : 159, 170

A-10 : 133

F-4 : 170

F-15 : 185

F-16 : 185, 244

F-117 : 240

Air fleets, German (Luftflotten)

1 : 36, 66, 74-75

2: 41-42, 47, 53, 66, 85, 88, 90, 93

3: 431 50

4: 36, 38, 66, 80, 82

AirLand BattleFuture (Heavy) 2004. See Manuals and

directives, US Army

Air superiority : 204, 231-39

Arabs

Crusades : 5-6

Israeli wars: 153-55, 158, 161-62, 172-75, 184-85, 1981

2208 ) 235

Armies

Egyptian: 198

Second: 180

Third : 179, 180

French

Second: 41, 49

German : 6-7, 12-15, 27, 34, 68, 131-32

Eighth: 38-39

Eighteenth: 46, 72

260
Eleventh: 76, 78, 81

82

Fourth: 83, 90

Ninth: 83, 90

Seventeenth: 76-78, 81

Sixth: 51, 76-78, 81-82

Sixteenth : 51, 72, 74-75

Tenth: 39

Territorial : 17

Israeli Defense Forces (IDF): 154-55, 1580, 162, 164-65,

167-69, 171, 172-73) 177-79) 181-827 184-85,188-91

Japanese: 227

South Vietnamese: 224-27

Soviet: 13, 15

Fifth: 78, 81, 89

Twenty-sixth: 81

United States : 8, 13, 15-16, 18 1 145) 226, 228, 230

VII Corps : 202, 215-16, 218-20

24th Division: 215

Army Groups, German

A: 41, 43, 51, 55

B: 43, 46

Center: 62-63, 65, 71-72, 75, 83-85, 89-90, 93, 95, 143

First Panzer: 76-78, 80-82, 89

Fourth Panzer: 72, 75, 90, 91

North: 63, 72, 75-76, 87, 90

Second Panzer: 83, 89-91, 93

South : 63, 66, 76, 80-81, 95

Third Panzer: 83-84, 87, 90-91

Attrition warfare: 1, 8-19, 24-26, 171, 185, 226-29

Auftragstaktik: 219

Baghdad: 218-20, 240

Bar Lev, Haim: 174

Basrah : 217

al Batin, Wadi: 217

Beck, Ludwig: 27

Blau (Blue), Operation (Germany): 11

261
Blaskowitz, Johannes von: 38

Blitzkrieg : 40, 54-55, 85, 87-88, 90, 94, 96

Bock, Fedor von: 63

Boer War: 111

Boyd, John : 3, 203, 229, 238

British Expeditionary Force : 43

Bryansk Front: 91

Cannae, Battle of 12, 23, 112, 209, 215

Center of gravity (Schwerpunkt ) : 3-4, 32, 70, 82, 90, 94, 96,

117, 145, 193, 204, 215, 219) 230) 239-40

Civil War

American: 8, 112, 208, 226

Russian: 113-15

Spanish: 29-34, 133, 143

Clausewitz, Carl von: 10-11, 21-22, 28, 33, 64, 117, 209,

223-24

Combat effectiveness : 127

Combined arms : 5, 128, 1451 217-18 1 228-30 ) 242-44

Condor Legion: 29-30, 32

Coordination : 128-31

Decentralized command: 7-8, 219, 244-46

de Gaulle, Charles: 49

Depth: 131

Desert Storm, Operation. See Persian Gulf War

de Seversky, Alexander: 27

Die Luftkriegfuehrung. See Manuals and directives, German

Douhet, Giulio: 27, 230

Egyptian air force and Israeli combat: 163-72

Eremenko, A. I . : 91

Fleet Marine Forces Manual (FMFM) 1-3. See Manuals and

directives, Marine Corps, US

Flexibility: 6-7, 218-19, 243-44

Fliegerkorps . See Air Corps, German

262
() 

Fortresses

Brest Litovsk: 83

Eben Emael: 45-46

Holland: 45

Franco, Francisco: 29-31

Frederick the Great: 121

Fuehrer Directive 21 . See Manuals and directives, German

Fuehrung im Gefecht. See Manuals and directives, German

Gamelin, Maurice: 41

Gavish, Yeshayahu: 163

General Staff

German: 21, 27, 40, 68, 72

Israeli: 156, 158-62, 165, 173-74, 179-81, 189

Soviet (Stavka): 13, 116, 137

German High Commands

armed forces (OKW): 44, 62, 69-70, 88

ground army (OKH): 62, 78, 87, 93-94

Goering, Hermann: 48, 52, 65, 68

Gonen, Shmuel: 176

Gort, John: 43

Grant, Ulysses S. : 208, 226

Guderian, Heinz: 34, 41 1 50 ) 83-85, 87, 89-91, 111

Hail Mary maneuver: 209, 214-15, 217, 220

Halder, Franz: 41, 62

Hannibal : 23, 209, 215

Hindenburg, Paul von: 112

Hitler: 27-28, 33, 39-41, 51-52, 61-63, 65, 67 1 72 ) 80, 85,

87, K93-94) 114) 133, 134

Hoepner, Erich: 90

Horner, Charles A. : 244

Hoth, Hermann: 83-85, 87

Hussein, Saddam : 213

263
Israel

Air Force (IAF): 158-61, 163-66, 168-74, 179-88, 196, 235

armed forces adopt principles of maneuver warfare: 156

Southern Area Command: 160, 163, 168, 173-75, 177,179

1967 War: 160-70, 183-84, 227, 233

1973 War: 172-85

Italian campaign: 226

Jagdgeschwader (fighter group) : 71-72

Jeschonnek, Hans: 65

Jodl, Alfred : 62

Joint surveillance target attack radar system (JSTARS): 243

Jomini, Antoine: 22, 117-18, 209

Kampfgeschwader (bomber group) : 71

Keller, Alfred: 66, 74

Kesselring, Albert: 66, 85, 93

Kesselschlacht : 23, 26, 34, 40, 78, 81, 94, 123, 135

Kirponos, M. P. : 78

Kleist, Ewald von: 50-51, 89

Koenniggraetz, Battle of 23

Kolufts: 47-48, 67

Korean War: 228

Kriegsakadamie: 117

Kuechler, Georg von: 46

Kursk, Battle of 120, 123, 127, 132, 208

Lee, Robert E. : 112, 208

Leeb, Wilhelm von: 63

Leningrad : 63, 72, 75-76, 87, 95, 131

Liddell Hart, B. H. : 2

Lincoln, Abraham: 226

Loehr, Alexander: 66

Loerzer, Bruno: 50

Lossberg, Bernard von: 62

Ludendorff, Erich von: 27, 112

264
Luftgotten. See Air fleets, German

Luftwaffe: 64-65, 136, 194, 217-18

in France: 44-55

and Hitler: 27-28

land forces, in support of 28-29

in Polish campaign: 36-39

in Russian campaign: 66-98, 131, 232-33

in Spanish Civil War: 29-34

Manstein, Erich von: 11, 41, 132

Manuals and directives

German

Die Luftkriegfuehrung ("The Conduct of Air Warfare"):

28

Directive No. 21, Operation Barbarossa: 62, 65, 88

Fuehrung im Gefecht ("Command and Control in Battle"

or "Leadership in Combat"): 8

Truppenfuehrung (Forces Guidance) : 33

United States

(Air Force) AFM 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the

United States Air Force: 232, 237, 244-45

(Army), AirLand Battle-Future (Heavy) 2004: 8

Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations: 228

FM 100-20, Command and Employment ofAir Power.

231-32) 245

(Marine Corps ), Fleet Marine Forces Manual 1-3,

Tactics: 8

Marcks, Erich von: 62-64

Marine Corps, US: 8, 15-16, 217-18

Marne, Battle of 24

Maskirovka: 125-26

Mass : 121-24

Masurian Lakes, Battle of 112

Mein Kampf 61

Meir, Golda: 172-73

Meretskov, K. A. : 76

Meuse, Battle of 84

265
Milch, Eberhard : 65

Minsk, Battle of 84-85, 90

Moelders, Werner: 33

Moltke, Helmuth von: 21-23, 28, 40, 111, 112

Nahkampfuehrer: 68

Napoleon Bonaparte: 1-2, 95, 117, 121

Nasiriyah, Iraq : 215, 219-20

Nasser, Gamal Abdel: 171

Nationalists, in Spanish Civil War: 30-33

North African campaign: 226, 234-35

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) : 11-12, 16-17,

1559 197-2017 205

Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH). See High Commands,

German ground army

Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW). See High

Commands, German armed forces

OODA loop . See Boyd, John

Operational warfare

and air power: 196-211

German: 21-55, 63-98, 230

Israel : 156-60, 184-89, 228

NATO: 197-203, 207

Persian Gulf War: 213-20

Soviet: 110-48, 209

Patton, George S., Jr. : 2

Persian Gulf War (Desert Storm): 213-20, 222, 224,

226-272 229-30, 234-35 1 238-47

Potapov, M. I . : 78

Qurnah, Iraq: 215

Rabin, Yitzhak: 162

Rapallo, Treaty of 114

Realistic planning: 128

266
Red Air Force: 68, 74, 84-85, 87-88, 91

in the maneuver scheme, role of 127, 133-49

Soviet Long-Range Air Force: 146

Red Army: 62, 72, 74, 88, 94, 133

Republican Guard: 217, 219-20

Richthofen, Wolfram von: 29, 33-34, 36, 48, 53, 67, 74-75,

82, 93

Rivers

Berezina : 143

Bug: 83

Bzura: 38

Dnieper: 78, 80-82, 85, 87-88, 90

Dvina: 74

Dyle : 41

Ebro : 30-32

Meuse: 49

Neisse: 200

Oder : 110, 200-201

Vistula: 38-39, 110, 201

Volkhov: 75

Rommel, Erwin G. : 2, 241

Royal Air Force (RAF)/ Fighter Command: 51, 64

Royal Netherlands Air Force (Koninglijke Luchtmacht) : 44

Rundstedt, Gerd von: 51, 63

Russo-Japanese War: 111

Saudis : 216

Schlieffen, Alfred von: 23, 28, 111, 215

Schmidt, Joseph : 68

Schwarzkopf, H. Norman: 209, 215

Schwerpunkt. See Center of gravity

Sedan, Battle of 12, 23 , 41

Seeckt, Hans von: 26, 28

Senussi: 24

Sharon, Ariel : 160, 163, 166, 168-69, 175, 179) 209

Sherman, William T. : 228

Spanish Civil War. See Civil War, Spanish

267
Sperrle, Hugo : 29

Stalin, Joseph: 114, 134

Stalingrad: 116, 123, 126, 131-32, 209

Stavka. See General Staff, Soviet

Sun Tzu: 4-5, 19

Surprise : 4-5, 41, 125-27, 217, 240-41

Tal, Israel: 160, 165, 167-68, 173

Tallinn (Reval): 75

Tannenberg, Battle of 112

Tempo: 3, 15, 214, 238-39

Touchon, Robert: 51

Treitschke, Heinrich von : 23

Truppenfuehrung. See Manuals and directives, German

Tukhachevsky, M. N. : 111

Ugda (task force, Israel)

Sharon: 160, 163, 166, 168-69, 173, 182

Tal: 160, 165-69, 173, 182

Yoffe: 163, 167-68, 1731 182

United States Central Command (USCENTCOM): 244

Vasilevsky, Alexander: 116

Vidal, Emilio Mola : 30

Vietcong: 224

Vietnam: 225

Voroshilov, Kliment: 72

Warfare : 196-211, 213-20

Warsaw Pact: 17,198, 200

Wever, Walther: 28

Yoffe, Avraham : 160, 163, 167-68

Zhukov, Georgi: 116

268