Vortices - Summer 2003

To maintain an effective deterrent, the posture of the strategic force must be updated continuously. At the same time, we must have the capability to meet requirements for conflicts of lesser magnitude than general war.

––Gen Curtis E. LeMay

Direct Attack—A Counterland Mission

A B-52 circling over Afghanistan is loaded with Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM). Its crew receives the coordinates of Taliban military positions from an Air Force controller operating on the ground as part of a special operations forces (SOF) team. The B-52 releases the precision-guided bombs that hit with pinpoint accuracy and decimate- one by one- the Taliban positions. This impressive display of airpower demonstrates the flexibility and all-weather capability of Global Positioning System (GPS) munitions- a capability that has justifiably captured the imagination of airpower enthusiasts. Still, a gnawing question remains: What mission is the B-52 performing? This attack on enemy fielded forces is best termed direct attack and does not fit neatly into the description of either the close air support (CAS) mission or the air interdiction (AI) mission as defined by current Air Force counterland doctrine.¹

In the recent air operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan, US airpower has been employed against enemy armies independent of friendly ground operations. Yet the Air Force doctrinal description of how it fights does not reflect this reality of modern combat. Traditional thinking holds steadfast to the supporting role of airpower in counterland operations. Until the Air Force acknowledges the direct attack of fielded forces as a counterland mission and assumes the responsibilities of this role, it will continue to have difficulty in organizing, training, and equipping for the task.

The relevance of counterland operations should be addressed before examining specific air operations against fielded forces. Some USAF strategic airpower theorists argue that the targeting of fielded forces is of marginal importance.² These theorists note that since World War II, most of the Air Force force structure and doctrine had been developed to counter the modern, industrialized nations of the Warsaw Pact. Yet they fail to recognize that US airpower has been primarily employed against underdeveloped, authoritarian states. Such states have been controlled by leaders reliant on the backing of the military as their primary source of power and as an instrument of their ambition. The United States has enjoyed the advantage of air superiority over these small states, which have not been able to afford and train a modern and sophisticated air force.³ They turn instead to their conventional armies, ranging from large armored divisions to small groups of lightly armed militia, to provide both internal and external security. Airpower’s ability to attack such armies is a significant contribution to the defeat of these states.

Combat operations in Kuwait, Kosovo, and Afghanistan have highlighted the importance of direct attack. Yet Air Force counterland doctrine has not adequately addressed these operations. The doctrine’s fundamental flaw continues to be the assumption of simultaneous air and land operations. Today, counterland airpower operations are classified as either CAS or AI missions.⁴ While CAS deals specifically with air operations in the close proximity of friendly ground troops and requires detailed coordination, AI engages the enemy before it reaches the battlefield. According to Air Force doctrine, AI is employed "to destroy, disrupt, divert, or delay the enemy’s surface military potential before it can be used effectively against friendly forces."⁵ Both the CAS and AI definitions assume that friendly ground forces exist and are involved on the battlefield.

History does not support the underlying assumption of simultaneous air and land operations. From Normandy to Afghanistan, airpower has typically been used prior to the introduction of ground forces. The routine choice to employ airpower first could be explained by its greater mobility, the result of political considerations, or simply sound military planning. Early Air Corps doctrine advocated a period of time, prior to the engagement of ground troops, in which airpower would attack various targets, including enemy ground forces.⁶ Current Air Force doctrine, however, does not adequately address the use of airpower to attack enemy ground forces in the absence of friendly land forces. When required to do so, the Air Force finds itself ill prepared and must take an ad hoc approach to such key tasks as overall command and control of the battlespace⁷ and target identification and prioritization.

Airpower’s Historical Support of Counterland Operations

This article has discussed the current counterland doctrine of AI and CAS, and will now look at how airpower has actually been employed. The objective is to reveal shortcomings in current Air Force thinking and doctrine and to recommend changes to improve the employment of airpower in the direct attack of a fielded army.

The support of ground operations has been a primary role of airpower since its inception. In World War I, Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers inadvertently introduced aerial interdiction. They had been unable to locate their primary targets and instead attacked German railheads in France; in so doing, they disrupted the flow of equipment and supplies to the German front.⁸ In the three months leading to D day in World War II, the RAF and Eighth Air Force redirected their energies from strategic bombing to a sustained air interdiction operation against the German transportation system in France.⁹ Gen George S. Patton and his Third Army relied heavily on CAS sorties from the fighter-bombers of the Ninth Air Force to punch their way across France. Patton placed experienced pilots in his lead tanks, using radios to control strikes. Likewise, in the Pacific, CAS proved to be a key element in the amphibious operations of the island-hopping campaign. In fact, the air attacks at Rabaul were so effective that it was deemed unnecessary to launch ground operations at all.

The post–World War II reduction in military forces and the early focus on strategic bombardment had reduced the Air Force’s counterland capabilities by the time of the outbreak of the Korean War. Although short of airfields and tactical aircraft, US airmen neutralized the Korean rail network, forcing the North Koreans to move supplies by convoy across already overextended supply lines. During the day, USAF F-80s and F-51s were successfully employed against truck convoys. Their success limited the North Koreans to nighttime movement.¹⁰Further, airborne forward air controllers (FAC) flew propeller-driven aircraft (such as the T-6 Texan) in visual-reconnaissance and strike-control missions and greatly enhanced the effectiveness of CAS operations.

March 1965 marked the beginning of the Rolling Thunder air campaign, which was designed to interdict the flow of men and supplies to the Vietcong in the South and convince the North Vietnamese to withdraw support. However, by July of that year, President Johnson had concluded that a victory in Vietnam would require a protracted campaign with emphasis on military action in South Vietnam.¹¹ These ground operations relied heavily on CAS.¹² For the next seven years, the Air Force mastered the execution of CAS and fully integrated it into its doctrine. This included the maturation of the Tactical Air Control System (TACS) network and the widespread integration of airborne FACs. By the end of the Vietnam War, most of the airmen in Tactical Air Command and many in Strategic Air Command were well versed in CAS.

Even during the Korean and the Vietnam wars, the primary focus of the US military remained on Europe and the threat of an invasion by the Soviet Union. During the late ’70s and ’80s, the US Army and Air Force worked to develop the AirLand Battle doctrine, a joint vision for integrating air and land operations. CAS and AI were essential elements of AirLand Battle. Also, battlefield air interdiction (BAI), a NATO term, was expanded to include follow-on forces attack (FOFA), the interdiction of enemy second-echelon ground forces moving toward, but not yet engaged with, friendly ground forces.¹³

The fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989 and the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union left the United States victorious but lacking a threat- similar to that provided by the Soviets during the Cold War- on which to base its military force structure and AirLand Battle doctrine. As the United States began to reduce its overall force structure, dismantle its forces in Europe, and help establish a new world order, interest abruptly shifted to Southwest Asia on 2 August 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Operation Desert Storm provided the opportunity to test AirLand Battle against the large Iraqi army. Airpower writers have generally focused on the Instant Thunder portion of the air campaign, which introduced the American public to the effective use of stealth and precision munitions.¹⁴ However, Desert Storm was primarily a counterland operation with over 75 percent of all strike missions directed against the Iraqi army.¹⁵ Only a small portion of these missions were flown as traditional CAS.

CAS sorties were limited for three reasons. First, CAS was only flown during the four days of coalition ground operations while the majority of strikes were conducted during the 38 days prior to those operations. Second, the US Army did not require much CAS, as it already had sufficient organic firepower (artillery, rotary-wing aviation, and M1A1 tanks) to handle the Iraqi army. Finally, the fast-paced nature of the ground invasion increased the risk of fratricide. It proved difficult for ground commanders to know the precise location of their forward line of own troops (FLOT). Further, it was challenging for pilots to navigate precisely and be certain of the FLOT location in the featureless Kuwaiti desert. Instead of flying CAS missions, strikers were typically pushed forward to conduct armed reconnaissance against deeper Iraqi units who were not yet engaged by the Army.

While traditional CAS had a limited impact in the war, direct attack sorties against Iraqi units proved to be very effective and the most widely employed method of attack. The best example is the Battle of Khafji, in which the battle for control of the Saudi Arabian border town was decided not by the small ground skirmishes within the village but by the devastating air strikes against massed Iraqi armor after its assembly and movement was detected.

Operation Allied Force (OAF), the 1999 air war over Serbia, was conducted without the deployment of friendly ground forces. The counterland missions against the Serbian Third Army deployed in Kosovo were conducted as an independent air operation. Traditional CAS was not flown during that 78-day campaign. Instead, the majority of counterland strikes were flown with A-10 FACs assigned to locate and control direct attack strikes on the Serbian army in either of the two kill boxes in which Kosovo had been divided.¹⁶

These direct attack missions were clearly different from traditional CAS and AI. Following OAF, the Air Force moved to fill this void in its counterland doctrine. Air Force Doctrine Document 2-1.3, Counterland, expanded the scope of AI to read as follows: "Air interdiction, to include both lethal and nonlethal systems, is employed to destroy, disrupt, divert, or delay the enemy’s surface military potential before it can effectively engage friendly forces, or otherwise achieve its objectives" (emphasis added).¹⁷

The phrase "or otherwise achieve its objectives" acknowledged that airpower, as demonstrated over Kosovo, could be used to directly attack an army without the presence- or foreseeable presence- of friendly ground forces. However, this Band-Aid approach to redefine air interdiction doctrine to include direct attack did little to influence how the Air Force trained and equipped for the counterland missions it would later encounter in Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, the United States again relied heavily on the direct attack of enemy forces to gain victory. The Taliban crumbled once their military forces were targeted along the front with the help of the Northern Alliance. These air strikes could not be described as traditional AI or CAS missions. Airpower was not supporting a friendly ground force; rather the Northern Alliance supported US airpower by providing intelligence, assisting in targeting, and then occupying the ground vacated by the Taliban following US strikes.

Implications

Historically, the airpower role in counterland has proven critical, and the direct attack of enemy forces has been, and continues to be, an important part of that airpower mission. Unfortunately, the Air Force has not yet embraced direct attack as a separate counterland mission, and continues to only acknowledge the traditional missions of AI and CAS in its doctrine. The USAF would improve its direct attack and, therefore, its counterland capabilities if it would adopt the following recommendations.

It should adjust training and tactics to effectively prepare airmen to attack armies. An Air Force that does not train or develop such tactics will not have the requisite skills when confronted with those circumstances in combat. The old adage "fight the way you train" is true from two perspectives. First, it makes sense to develop and take into combat well-considered tactics and techniques that have been honed during peacetime. A second, more subtle, implication is that military force is generally employed in come-as-you-are conflicts and airmen have no other option but to fight the way they have trained. It is training that develops the tactical skills and the mind-set that define and refine a combat force’s capabilities. Two steps should be taken immediately: incorporating the direct attack of fielded forces into major USAF exercises, and rewriting Air Force Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (AFTTP) 3-series manuals to include the direct attack mission.

Current Air Force doctrine contains the underlying assumption that air strikes against fielded forces are always flown in support of land operations. Joint and Air Force doctrine must adjust to the reality of how US airpower is now sometimes employed and reclassify counterland to include direct attack as a separate mission.

Conclusion

This article’s purpose has been to show that direct attack of enemy ground forces is a primary airpower mission, distinct from AI and CAS, and can be conducted independently of, or supported by, friendly ground forces. The Air Force should acknowledge direct attack in its doctrine, and then it should appropriately man, train, and equip itself to better conduct counterland operations. n

1. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2-1.3, Counterland, 27 August 1999. Current Air Force doctrine limits the definition of counterland missions to air interdiction and close air support, and these missions are directly related to friendly ground forces.

2. Col John A. Warden III, "The Enemy as a System," Airpower Journal 9, no. 1 (spring 1995): 52.

3. These enemy states, however, have had sophisticated air defense weapons and integrated air defense systems (IADS).

6. US Army Air Corps, Field Manual 1-5, Employment of Aviation of the Army, 1940.

7. Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 12 April 2001, amended 7 May 2002, 51. Battlespace is a doctrine term that refers to the environment, factors, and conditions that must be understood to successfully apply combat power, protect the force, or complete the mission. This includes the air, land, sea, space, and the included enemy and friendly forces; facilities; weather; terrain; the electromagnetic spectrum; and the information environment within the operational areas and areas of interest.

8. John Buckley, Air Power in the Age of Total War (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1999), 60.

9. William Momyer, Air Power in Three Wars: World War II, Korea, and Vietnam (1978; reprint, Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1985), 164.

10. Eduard Mark, Aerial Interdiction: Air Power and the Land Battle in Three American Wars (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1994), 271–72.

11. Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York: Free Press, 1989), 60, 71. President Lyndon Johnson accepted Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s proposals, following a McNamara fact-finding trip in July 1965.

12. John Schlight, The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1988), 42.

13. Lt Gen Merrill A. McPeak, "TACAIR Missions and the Fire Support Coordination Line," Air University Review 36, no. 6 (September–October 1985): 70.

14. The F-117 stealth fighter was first flown operationally in Operation Just Cause, the December 1989 invasion of Panama. Precision-guided munitions likewise had been first used at the end of the Vietnam War. However, neither received much public appreciation until Desert Storm.

15. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey Summary Report (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1993), 65.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.