Penetration Attack Could Launch Ground War : Tactics: The opening allied thrust could take a variety of forms. But a frontal assault is extremely unlikely.

At the strategic level in Washington and at the theater of war level in Riyadh, it’s called a strategic offensive, one under way since Jan. 17, when the air and naval campaign against Iraq began. But at the battlefield level, the ground campaign now in the offing is called the attack.

The first stages of that attack will be the movement of allied ground combat forces to contact. This includes movement of the main body, more than likely the armored forces of the U.S. Army’s VII Corps, as well as diversionary actions such as raids, feints and demonstrations to confuse the enemy and turn his attention away from the main effort.

It may include secondary attacks by the Arab forces, the XVIII Airborne Corps and the Marine Expeditionary Force. It most certainly will be marked by the delivery of preparatory fire--air strikes and artillery barrages--to pin down the enemy and destroy as much of his combat capability as possible.

VII Corps’ movement to contact will be screened by a covering force drawn from the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, whose three squadrons include armor, infantry and aviation troops and artillery batteries. Their mission will be to move aggressively and swiftly, ahead of the main body, to provide reconnaissance on how the enemy is deployed and how he is likely to react, then keep enemy troops pinned down in their trenches.

Meanwhile, the main body, consisting of the maneuver brigades of the attacking U.S. 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions, the 1st Infantry Division and perhaps the “Desert Rats” of the British 1st Armored Division, will advance on several fronts. Each brigade will be balanced with tank and mechanized infantry battalions supported by self-propelled field artillery.

The main body will advance far enough behind the covering force to preserve its freedom of action and not be caught up in the covering forces’ fight. It will use its own divisional armored cavalry squadrons to provide an advanced guard, screen its flanks (the sides of the column) and its rear and guard against surprise attack. Air Force fighters and Army attack helicopters will assist in screening the flanks and will provide an air cap over the advancing columns to protect against enemy air attack.

Once the covering force has made contact with the enemy, the main body moves into action. Already planned, the attack can take one of several forms. These include envelopment, the turning movement, infiltration, penetration, frontal attack or a combination.

Most analysts believe the main allied ground attack in the Gulf will be an envelopment or turning attack. Both have the goal of applying strength against weakness. As Field Manual 100-5, the Army’s primary war-fighting manual, describes the envelopment: “While fixing the defender’s attention forward by supporting or diversionary attacks, the attacker maneuvers his own main effort around or over the enemy’s defenses to strike at his flanks and rear.

“Single envelopments are directed at only one flank of the defending forces, while double envelopments attack both flanks,” the manual says. “Either variant can develop into an encirclement if the attacking force is able to sever the enemy’s lines of communication and prevent his reinforcement or escape.”

The turning movement is a variant of the envelopment in which the attack avoids enemy frontal defenses entirely and strikes deep in the enemy’s rear and along his lines of communication. Thus threatened, the enemy is “turned” out of his defensive positions and forced to counterattack rearward.

This is the tactic most discussed in the media. Strike deep with armored columns through the desert around and behind Saddam Hussein’s western flank and render his current entrenchments into a kind of latter-day Maginot Line.

But there are other ways. Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s invasion at Inchon in the Korean War was a classic turning movement, notes FM 100-5, which goes on to say that “amphibious, airborne and air assault forces”--all present in the Persian Gulf--”are uniquely valuable for conducting turning movements.”

The least likely form of attack, given Hussein’s formidable field fortifications, is infiltration or frontal assault. Infiltration involves the covert movement of all or part of the attacking force through enemy lines to a favorable position in their rear. Since infiltration would involve only dismounted infantry, even if the allies succeeded in such an attack they would not have the combat power to severely disrupt the Iraqis’ largely mechanized defending force.

And a frontal attack on Iraqi entrenchments could be disastrous. Usually employed only to overwhelm light defenses or against disorganized enemy forces, a frontal attack against fortified positions would make no sense whatsoever.

What would make sense is penetration, a form of attack not widely discussed, but one that has proven successful time and again against entrenched enemy forces. While an envelopment or turning movement is certainly to be preferred, they might not be possible.

As is often true in the convoluted logic of warfare, the “best” attack may turn out to be the worst. Since Hussein knows full well how effective those attacks would be, he almost certainly has re-fused his flanks--that is, used entrenchments or mines to ensure that the allies cannot get around and behind his lines.

Penetration attack is designed for just such an eventuality. It is used, as FM 100-5 says, “when enemy flanks are not assailable, (it) attempts to rupture enemy defenses on a narrow front and thereby create both assailable flanks and access to the enemy’s rear. Penetrations typically comprise three stages: initial rupture of enemy positions, roll-up of the flanks on either side of the gap, and exploitation to secure deep objectives.”

Rupturing enemy lines is the tough part. The full fury of allied fire--air power, including B-52 strikes and artillery--will be concentrated on the portion of the enemy line to be penetrated. Under cover of this fire, engineer mine-clearing teams and tanks equipped with flails and other such mine-clearing devices will breach the enemy minefield.

Close on their heels will be the assault forces. Supported by tanks, artillery and close air support, mechanized infantry in Bradley Fighting Vehicles will move in as close as possible, dismounting if necessary to clear the enemy trenches and create a gap. Allied control of the air provides a major advantage to the attackers.

Normally, as United Nations forces did in Korea in turning back the 27-division Chinese spring offensive in 1951, the way to deal with such an attack is to mass artillery--that is, bring the guns together and concentrate fire at the point of attack.

This could have been a major problem for allied attackers, for Hussein has an advantage in both numbers and range of artillery. But what he doesn’t have is air control and, if he brings his artillery out of their concealed positions, his guns risk destruction from allied air attack.

There is no way around it: Such an allied penetration attack would be a hard and bloody battle. But it would also be a decisive one, for once enemy lines are breached and allied forces pour through into the enemy’s rear areas, it will be the beginning of the end.