Allied Victory Credited to ‘Audacious Strategic Design’ : Assessment: British and NATO experts study how outnumbered forces at the limits of their logistics won the ground war in 100 hours.

The British commander in the Persian Gulf, Lt. Gen. Peter de la Billiere, has described the allied operation as “possibly the most complete victory in the history of war.”

British and North Atlantic Treaty Organization experts have been analyzing that victory and examining the reasons behind the stunning result, a battle in which numerically inferior forces operated at the limit of their logistics, yet won the ground war in 100 hours.

Military historian John Keegan said that the bold plan of the U.S. commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, to envelop the entire Iraqi force in the theater “was one of audacious strategic design.”

Retired Gen. Anthony Farrar-Hockley commented that “Gen. Schwarzkopf followed the classic principle of modern warfare--first win the air battle.” Accomplishing that, said Farrar-Hockley, a former British paratroop commander, gave the allies full view of Iraqi deployments while leaving the enemy blind to coalition maneuvers.

The next step in Schwarzkopf’s plan was deception--his feints that disguised where the main body of his attack would hit.

Schwarzkopf encouraged the Iraqis to believe that the allies would attack mainly along the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf, supported by U.S. Marine amphibious forces.

In this, Britain’s 1st Armored Division played a leading role by conducting a series of maneuvers along the eastern Kuwaiti border, which was also the apparent target of U.S. Marines.

But the division, keeping radio silence, moved westward along the Saudi border with Iraq and helped lead the breakthrough of the U.S. Army’s VII Corps heavy armor in the great, sweeping, flanking movement to the west and north.

“The allies preserved radio silence and mounted a deception scheme of great effectiveness,” historian Keegan said.

The breakthrough was achieved, he said, “because allied artillery engaged and silenced the Iraqi artillery, destroyed tanks and strong points behind the (Iraqi) obstacle zone.”

Then the elements of speed and maneuver took over, with lighter, air-mobile forces leapfrogging north to cut off the Iraqis at the Euphrates River while the heavy armored units wheeled east to shoot their way through Iraqi armored divisions.

The strategy, according to military experts, was to create a solid but imaginative operations plan, to build up forces and supplies, to confuse and destroy antiaircraft defenses with electronic equipment, and to employ state-of-the-art weaponry--particularly precision-guided missiles and bombs.

Once the attack was launched, the use of heavy, accurate artillery and rockets and the ability of allied tanks to fight at night with special optical equipment was decisive.

The fact that American and British forces are all-volunteer also helped, military specialists said, because it was unnecessary to rotate draftees back home at inopportune times.

At the end, the whole operation seemed like one great mopping-up action, a NATO officer here said.

Retired Gen. Ken Perkins, who has commanded British and Omani troops in desert fighting, and other analysts complimented President Bush for his central role in leading and coordinating the coalition.

“This was a great political victory,” Perkins said. “Bush’s timing was impeccable. He waited until the last minute to do the most damage from the air, thereby battering the enemy and reducing allied casualties, and just when it seemed that (Soviet President) Mikhail Gorbachev and (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein might pull the rug out with a peace deal, he ordered the attack.”

Strategists here also pointed out that, without detracting from the enormous victory, central elements of great battles in the past were lacking.

“Some of the ingredients of proving military genius were absent,” a senior NATO officer here said. “Elements of great generalship--like being up against your qualitative equal and the need to decide when and how to commit your reserves to win the battle--were lacking.”

Further, some of Iraq’s moves were inexplicable and fatally damaging--for example, the failure of its air force to fight, even to the extent of supporting hard-pressed Iraqi troops in the ground war.

But all analysts agreed that, in the words of Gen. Perkins, “There were three overall political aims: to liberate Kuwait, destroy Saddam’s military machine and keep allied casualties to a minimum.

“Bush’s strategic leadership and Schwarzkopf’s tactical plan and execution achieved exactly those objectives.”