Isegoria

The Arab-Israeli War provided a marvelous springboard for reviewing and updating our own doctrine, Gen. DePuy notes:

Some of the evidence coming out of that war was awesome. For example, the losses of equipment that occurred in a short period of time, and the fact that the Israelis ran more tanks through their maintenance system than the total number of tanks they possessed at the beginning of the very short war. The lethality and range of weapons and the tremendous importance of well-trained crews and tactical commanders, as evidenced by the performance in certain areas of small numbers of Israelis against large numbers of say, Syrians. It also fed into our training philosophy which I discussed earlier — the training of a platoon leader, a tank commander, a gunner, and a battalion commander. It helped us argue for more training within the Army establishment.

Now, as far as “how to fight” goes, the big lessons applied to the lower echelons: the crew drills of the Israeli armored force; the mine-clearing techniques; and the assault of fortified positions. There wasn’t anything that happened in the Arab-Israeli War that is in conflict with the doctrine which now has been published; but, it would be incorrect to say that the Arab-Israeli War was the sole foundation upon which that doctrine was built. In fact, there are aspects of the current US Army doctrine which the Israelis do not consider directly applicable to their tactical situation, one being elasticity or the active defense. They believe that they are perfectly able to defend on their frontiers and although they had trouble doing so in the Sinai, they essentially pulled it off in the Golan region. So, there are differences.

FM 100-5, therefore, partakes of the lessons of the Arab-Israeli War primarily in terms of the importance of weapons and weapons operators’ proficiency and performance. As for the overall tactics, they are drawn much more from the very unique environment of NATO, which involves a two-to-one or three-to-one enemy superiority, the requirement for forward defense because of the political dynamics involved, particularly in West Germany — the fact of the matter is, there isn’t much depth of terrain to fight on and there isn’t much terrain to give away — and lastly, as I have described more than once, the fact that the reserves in the Soviet Union are a lot closer than the reserves in the United States, and the Soviet Union’s reserves are much larger. So, from the moment the battle starts, we are at a disadvantage, and as the war goes on it gets worse, not better, as far as force ratios. So, FM 100-5 tries to express a unifying concept behind all of the new doctrine. It starts out and discusses at great length, weapons characteristics. Next, it talks at some length about the tactics of the Russians.

When FM 100-5 was written it was just before the current emphasis on a broad front attack, or a single echelon attack, or a daring thrust, whatever you want to call it. In those days most people were thinking about the classic breakthrough operation. It has since become very clear that there are other options and that the Russians may well use a broad front attack and what now are called Operational Maneuver Groups (OMGs). It really doesn’t change what you have to do, but it does make it more difficult. FM 100-5 says that the first thing you have to do is understand the enemy. You have to understand his weapons and you have to understand his tactics. Also, you have to understand your own weapons, and how to use them to their absolute maximum, and to try to minimize your vulnerability to his weapons. It says that you have to have superior intelligence or information on the enemy if you are outnumbered. You have to have intelligence good enough and soon enough so that you have at least a slight jump on your enemy, something that is very difficult to accomplish. As he concentrates, whether in five big concentrations, or 30 little concentrations, or even 120 little concentrations, you know through your sensors and reconnaissance, and your target acquisition systems, at least the general location of his mass and the direction of his movement. Then, using your own mobility, you can begin to concentrate to defeat each of your enemy’s concentrations. To do that you need all of your ground mobility, all of your air mobility, all of the TAC AIR, and all the flexibility of your artillery, missiles and rockets. That is all concentration. And, the manual describes, and I think correctly and clearly, that concentration is primarily the business of division and corps commanders. The business of getting the Army on the right part of the battlefield and acquiring the intelligence which is needed in order to do that is the job of the generals at division and corps and above. Now, if you have been able to concentrate an adequate force quickly, then perhaps you can stop him and then counterattack to destroy him, and you can accomplish this mission well forward, which, of course, is what the Germans hope will happen.

If, on the other hand, there has been some glitch in the intelligence, some hesitation in the concentration, some deception on the enemy’s part, or just a mistake on our part, and he hits our small force with a very hard blow, from a very large force, then the doctrine says that we have to trade a little bit of space for time and casualties. It describes how we can, in fact, fight a very stubborn action in a very small area, against a very large force, if we are very good at it, very well-trained, have good control, understand weapons, and use those weapons at their optimum engagement ranges, and then, move so that we are always fighting battles where they are most advantageous to us and least advantageous to the other side. There are many other things that need to be done including the synchronization of maneuver, air defense, fire support, electronic warfare, and all of the combat service support, through good command and control.

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