Can a battle plan to be too well laid out? A recent documentary Battle Plan: Flank Attack on the Military Channel suggests this is entirely possible.
US Army Commander Norman Schwarzkopf's Strategy to Flank the Enemy
During the Persian Gulf War, General Norman Schwarzkopf’s objective was to drive the massive Iraqi army out of Kuwait. Before this could happen, Schwarzkopf needed to devise a strategy to deal with an army that outnumbered his own, also referred to in Battle Plan as the “force-ratio” dilemma. Gulf War planners devised a solution: engage the army from the front in southern Iraq, thereby fixing its attention; while the remainder of allied forces maneuver to the west and north to strike the flank (side), thus “trapping, encircling, and destroying” Iraqi forces in a giant “pincer movement.”
Fixing Iraqi Attention While Manuvering Allied Forces Inside Enemy Territory Undetected
Before this deception plan could be put in place, several key details needed to be ironed out. One main obstacle was the initial disposition of the Iraqi army. From the outset, Iraqi forces were split into two separate groups, one in southern Kuwait, the other long the Iraq-Kuwait border. A successful flank attack required the Iraqi army in southern Kuwait to have its attention focused on the front, thus it would be completely unaware Allied flanking forces were moving to the west and north, inside Iraq. The second concern was how to maneuver the second Iraqi force away from its initial position in Iraq and deep inside Kuwait, toward where it could be easily flanked from the west. In addition, Battle Plan mentioned a third problem: how do these same allied flanking forces move secretly inside Iraq, while remaining completely undetected by Iraqi intelligence?
The Plan to Destroy Saddam Hussein's Army and Liberate Kuwait
Iraq’s attention was purposely focused on the front via buildup of Allied forces along the southern border of Kuwait. In addition, coalition airstrikes pounded Iraqi frontal units repeatedly. Iraq’s forces in the west were maneuvered away from the Iraq-Kuwait border through a series of fictitious amphibious landings in the Gulf. The objective with these feigned attacks was to make Iraq’s Military Dictator Saddam Hussein think the “main allied thrust” would be an amphibious assault off the coast of Kuwait in the east, instead of a land-based assault from the west. To solve the third problem of maintaining forces inside Iraq undetected, Battle Plan explains false rumors were spread by the military. The idea was to make Iraq’s forces think Allied units would only move their forces inside Kuwait provided there was no violation of Iraq’s territorial integrity. In addition, coalition units inside Iraq would only move at nighttime to remain unseen. Before daybreak, Allied vehicles would have camouflage tarps placed over them and their tracks covered. Now that the details were put in place, the only thing left was the “execution phase.”
Execution - US AirPower and Ground forces Force a Hasty Iraqi Retreat
How well did the plan work? Coalition armor and airpower engaged Iraqi units in the south as planned. The phantom landing in the gulf began. Iraqi forces along the Iraq Kuwait border began to move deep into Kuwait to intercept the phantom landing, just as the allies hoped they would.
However, Battle Plan suggests the frontal assault succeeded almost too well. The initial strategy was to keep Iraqi forces temporarily fixed in place until allied flanking forces could trap Saddam’s troops in the “pincer movement.” However, Iraqi forces began to retreat very rapidly from the main frontal-Allied assault, which actually created a problem. How does success become a problem? Iraq’s army was retreating too fast in the initial frontal assault. Coalition flanking forces had difficulty sweeping around them. The reason for this occurrence had to do with initial assumptions. Although Saddam’s forces outnumbered the Allies, this numerical advantage is what Saddam merely had “on paper.” In reality, the much better training of US forces and partners and their technological superiority, combined with overwhelming air-power advantage, “more than made up” for any “difference in numbers.”
As a result, many of the Iraqi forces were able to escape to the north. This is a scenario where a well thought-out plan almost goes “too well.”
Source:
The Military Channel: Battle Plan, Flank Attack. Copyright November 6, 2007. BCI, a Navarre Corporation Company.
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