Looking Back, February 2025
By Mark Albertson
Putting the House in Order
Part IV: The Helicopter and Conventional War
The makeover of Army Aviation in the wake of the Second Indochina War was actually a continuation of a process that had been ongoing during the 1950s; when the U.S. Army, seeking to make itself useful on the nuclear battlefield of Europe, attempted the use of light aircraft and helicopters to shuttle ground troops to and from various quarters of the battlefield; along the lines of the Marine Corps with the Vertical Assault Concept, but which unlike the Army, was acclimating amphibious warfare to the nuclear age.
But the Army’s effort in Europe was interrupted by President John F. Kennedy’s military doctrine of Flexible Response; to which was sought a more balanced military response to pursuing the Nation’s national interests. So for twelve years the Army was focused on a counterinsurgency/jungle warfare effort in Southeast Asia. Then by 1973, the Army had to do a 180-degree turn, back to conventional warfare following Vietnam. In addition to the fact that Army Aviation, like the rest of the armed forces, were now going to have to pay for the political failures of Vietnam and learn to operate in a fiscal environment of, Less is More.
But with the focus on the conventional mode of warfare, aircraft that perhaps proved effective in Vietnam would have to be replaced; and/or, new tactics and modes of operation so as to operate in environments other than the jungle. And for this, the Army will again consult the lessons available from the Yom Kippur War. For instance, the Sinai front in the south, . . .
“. . . the Egyptians began the war with three armies of which the Second and Third Armies would be deployed for the operation. Under the command of Lieutenant General Saad El Shazli, the Egyptian Army forces which were employed in the crossing included 5 infantry divisions, 2 mechanized and 2 armored divisions and 9 separate brigades. Altogether, the Egyptian Army had approximately 1,500 tanks committed to the operation. In addition, having experienced the ability of the Israeli Air Force to provide overwhelming close air support and battle interdiction, the Egyptians assembled over 200 batteries of SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6 surface-to-air missiles to provide an integrated air defense umbrella over the theater. The ADA umbrella was intended to deny the Israeli Air Force (IAF) the air supremacy which had been a critical element of Israeli victory in the 1967 war; and which the Egyptians had identified as the single greatest threat to a surprise crossing of the canal.”[1]
General Hamilton H. Howze referred to the above with his viewpoints on Army Aviation, as it prepared to continue its existence in the post-Second Indochina War era:
“Right after the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, General Paled, the Chief-of-Staff of the Israeli Air Force, was quoted by unbelievers[2] as saying that the helicopter could not be employed at the forward edge of the battle of the Suez Canal. No doubt he was right—neither could any kind of aircraft, including fighters. In the extremely intense anti-aircraft environment that prevailed on that very short front, but which would not have prevailed had the front been moved a few miles to the east or west, as it was about to do when the ceasefire came.
“Shortly after the war, General Paled came to the United States. Why? To buy helicopters, particularly, Cobras, for the Israeli Air Force.”[3}
For the United States, though, “The extensive combat experience of Vietnam does not ‘prove’ the effectiveness of the weapons helo in Europe. The biggest area of doubt, of course, is vulnerability. This being so, it is probably a good idea to face up to the matter at once.”[4] To which he continues . . .
. . . “In Vietnam the prime threat to the helicopter, armed or unarmed, was the fire of enemy small arms, and this I think would be true in Europe. Undoubtedly, some helicopters will fall prey to larger enemy weapons, but proper helo tactics will keep machines very low in the nap of the earth, beneath enemy radar, and in the field of view of very few gunners at any given time. And since the helicopter will usually operate only against the outside edges of the enemy array of forces, it will not be visible to the crews of the heavier aircraft weapons.”[5]
Howze offered as well the maneuverability of the helicopter, its ability to operate close to the ground, fire and move. The helicopter, then, can provide a challenging target for enemy gunners. And he states, “The proximity timer fuse won’t work in flat trajectory direct fire, for it will explode the projectile prematurely.”[6] But the helicopter in Europe would be working in concert with the tank.
“There is nothing abnormal in any army fighting vehicle which does not, in ones and twos, penetrate an enemy position. Even tanks penetrate only in quantity, and not in the course of penetration police up the area as they move through. In a sense, therefore, the tank, even in exploitation, shoots from friendly territory (which the tanks just made friendly by overrunning it) into enemy territory. So too will the armed helicopter which will incidentally, be the most valuable companion to the exploiting tank.”[7]
General Howze added that helicopters, whether troop-carriers or attack types, would never be able to violate enemy territory which, as he states, actually depends on the fluidity of the battlefield; in addition to that, the functionality of the helicopter, let alone its survivability, depends in part with its coordination with other weapons systems, such as artillery, mortars and tanks, and even heavy machine guns, as well as missiles and jet aircraft such as fighter-bombers.
With regards to the survivability of the helicopter, it presents a target hard to hit owing to its svelte signature, in comparison to fighters and bombers. Indeed, nocturnal operations would increase the survival rate of helicopters; though missiles could prove an issue. Such could require frequent base changes near the front lines to insure continued availability. Reminiscent of the L-4 Cub in World War II, the helicopter can operate on soft ground as opposed to fighter-bombers and many other fixed wing types which require hard-surfaced strips.
And the atomic battlefield? Can the helicopter survive? Again Howze brings up the point, that within range of the blast, the helicopters would be destroyed, as will mortars, machine guns, trucks, buildings, fighter-bombers, communications, . . . This revisits, of course, the 1950s, where the Army was seeking to insure continued employment within the defense establishment—in what was seen by some experts, as a nuclear-dominated military environment—in which the Army experimented with light planes and helicopters so as to shuttle troops around a nuclear battlefield in Europe.
But, if a massive conventional conflict broke out in Europe, would a nuclear exchange be the result? Such is not what resulted in World War II; to which, of course, here we are not referring to atomic ordnance, but chemical weapons, and quite specifically, nerve gas. For the Germans had the monopoly unlike the Allies. In fact, the Allies did not know that such a capability even existed. Yet, the Germans, who had many thousands of tons of this breakthrough in chemical weaponry never employed same, even in the darkest hours.[8]
In western Poland, at a place known as Dyhernfurth, construction of a plant unique, thus far in the war, commenced in January 1940. Its lot in life was the production of nerve gas, 1,000 tons of Tabun per month, with a capacity three times that number. Some 3,000 workers labored at the plant, all Germans. Since the Allies were not cognizant of the existence of nerve gas, they therefore, had no defense. Yet when Germany’s fortunes fell into decline, “three of the most fanatical Nazi leaders, Martin Bormann, Joseph Goebbels and Robert Ley, repeatedly urged Hitler to unleash nerve gas. Goebbels wanted to bathe British cities in revenge for the destruction of Dresden. Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments in the Third Reich, recalled a secret conversation with labor leader, Robert Ley, who by profession, was a chemist, held in a special railroad car. Ley’s increased stammering betrayed his agitation: ‘You know we have this new poison gas—I’ve heard about. The Fuhrer must do it. He must use it, now he has to do it. What else!’”[9]
Obvious question here is, why didn’t Hitler resort to his nerve gas? “The reason he failed to do so probably had much to do with a conversation at the Wolf’s Lair, his headquarters in East Prussia, back in May 1943. After the collapse at Stalingrad, both Speer and his chemical warfare expert, Otto Ambros, were summoned to a special conference by Hitler to discuss using gas to stem the Russian advance. Ambros began by saying that the Allies could out-produce Germany in chemical weapons. Hitler interrupted to say that he understood that might be true of the conventional gases—‘but Germany has a special gas, Tabun, in this case we have the monopoly.’
“Ambros shook his head. ‘I have justified reason to assume that Tabun, too, is known abroad (which it was not—author). According to Ambros, the essential nature of Tabun and Sarin had been disclosed in technical journals as long ago as 1902, and like many German scientists he could not believe that the chemical warfare experts at Parton Down and Edgehill Arsenal had failed to develop them.[10] Whether Ambros genuinely believed that the Allies had nerve gases, or if he was trying to put Hitler off from resorting to these lethal poisons, the result was the same: Hitler turned on his heels and abruptly left the meeting.”[11]
In a trick of fortune, perhaps, a forlorn Hitler never did resort to his monopoly. Yet contemplate for a moment the carnage that might have been inflicted upon the British citizenry as the result of Tabun and Sarin in the warheads of V-1s and V-2s. Consider, too, the vulnerability of the Allied landing force, paratroopers and glider-borne troops with the mass employment of these gases at Normandy on June 6, 1944; to which must be added the said exposure of the defenseless French populace inhabiting this battlefield environment.
The above does give rise to the lesson offered by Marine Corps Lieutenant General Roy S. Geiger, after he had witnessed the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, July 1946; and that of Major General James M. Gavin, with his movement of troops in the Third Dimension with light planes and helicopters. Perhaps bolstered here, too, by General Hamilton H. Howze, was quite with bringing up the German example; that is, Hitler’s dilemma of not being sure as to whether he had the chemical warfare monopoly or not.
But in the 1970s and 1980s, with a “parity” existing between the superpowers, with regards to nuclear weaponry, one needs to consider whether such an option would have been employed, depending, of course, on what was happening on the conventional battlefield. But unlike 1944, the ability to move troops over wider vistas and in a shorter period of time now existed in the 1970s. This certainly makes the helicopter, both transport and attack types, certainly relevant.
Yet General Howze goes on to clarify, that the helicopter “is in no sense a competitor with the fighter-bomber or the fighter recon aircraft . . . “[12]
That the helicopter is a ground fighter’s weapon and taxi, provides that potential for striking the enemy’s front, rear and flanks; while at the same time accomplishing same in finer fashion than competing ground-tied mediums of mobility and transportation by overcoming such impediments as rivers, hills, blown bridges and minefields. “It is enough to say that the armed helicopter platoon (three or four aircraft) may be attached to armored cavalry, tank and infantry battalions and brigades, and will aid those units materially in the performance of their assigned missions.”[13]
“In defense against tank attack, one common helicopter tactic (by two or three ships as a rule) will be simple ambush. Even at the beginning of an enemy armored attack, when his tanks are moving generally abreast on a wide front, normal terrain found in Europe provides countless positions in which helicopters can lurk against the moment at which they can rise to attack, usually flanking fire against advancing tanks. The aircraft can position themselves in small woods or clearings, in villages, behind streams, or in rough ground and other terrain impassable for tanks. . .
“One might contend that enemy infantry may force helos from these positions. This, of course, is possible, but if a general Soviet assault can be slowed to the pace of infantry combing all the forests and by-ways, then the shooting helo would be justified by that accomplishment alone. The very rapid armored sweeps by the Germans in 1940 and 1941 and by the Allies in 1944 and 1945, were confined mostly to the roads—enemy infantry in the woods and fields were by-passed in the interests of speed. The helo would put a stop to that tactic.”[14]
Howze also brought up the factor of mines, alluding to the time factor of perhaps weeks required to plant anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, and in quantities sufficient to adversely impact a massive offensive. Here, though, the helicopter(s) could prove that medium of delaying an enemy thrust by saturating suspected avenues of attack with mines. Mine-laying rotary wing aircraft, quite possibly, could channel the enemy thrust into areas of a front more agreeable to the defender, in addition to inflicting losses on the attacker with the AT and AP mines.
Attack helicopters, operating close to the front (and perhaps operating off cow pasture type fields like L-4 Cubs in World War II), provide that quick reaction force unlike fighter-bombers operating off hard-surfaced strips. But at the same time, control of the air by the Air Force, could only accentuate the potential of the attack helicopter in helping to break up an armored attack.
However a rosier picture was presented from a different quarter. In his “Aviation is the key,” General George S. Blanchard, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Army in Europe, expressed how excited he was about the future of Army Aviation in Europe and in the Army itself. He did relay the feelings of Army Aviators, when he first arrived in Europe, of their disappointment and even dejection, that after all they had accomplished in Southeast Asia, that they were no longer needed, a lament shared by warrant offices and down through the enlisted and maintenance personnel. That their presence in Europe, as well as in NATO, was no longer required.
Five years later, the turning point had been reached, according to General Blanchard. “The Battalion and Brigade Commanders came to recognize that Army Aviation is a force multiplier of very major proportions, and in the process of the build up we’re at the point of having some 1,100 aircraft in all the battalions of the command. Some 230 of these were Cobras, and our tank-killing capability, both from the standpoint of actual capability of the aircraft and the weapons system and the people who fly, has increased tremendously.
“All of our Divisions have Combat Aviation Battalions, including 42 TOW Cobras each. Our ACRs have two Aviation Troops, including 21 TOW Cobras each. This provides 12 more attack aircraft in the 4th.”[15]
He noted, too, that Army Aviation would operate in conjunction with A-10s, F4s and other U.S. Air Force elements to deal with, as he calls it, “the very dangerous air defense envelope in which Soviet forces practice and plan to use their forces.”[16] To which he added . . . the multi-national effort of the British, Germans, Dutch and Belgians provide, both ground and air, accentuating NATO’s ability in destroying Warsaw Pact armor. The united effort, he suggests, is required because we cannot go it alone. A reality that not only transcends military requirements solely, but economic as well, understanding as General Blanchard does, apparently, the imposition bloated military budgets have on the civilian economy. Noting, too, as he does that the Soviets spend “forty percent or more in dollars, or equivalent, into their (defense) programs for total Army, Navy and Air Force equipment hardware.”[17] Hence the reliance on the multinational approach.[18]
But General Blanchard noted, too, a development that would send practitioners of airmobility into apoplexy. “We have to give up our Air Cav Troop in the process, and we can discuss this at a later time because I am sure there is great interest in what we’re going to do for the future. We’re going to reinstate Air Cav, perhaps in a different configuration somewhat as time goes by, and we hope to get it moving by 1985 at a minimum, or hopefully before then.”[19]
General Howze leveled criticism at just this sort of development the previous year in Army Aviation. “We ended the Vietnam War with two airmobile divisions; we now have one, and that faces major cuts in strength. We have only one so-called air cavalry combat brigade, which is really not air cavalry, but an aerial tank-destroying force. It has considerable capability in that role, but along with the airmobile division it may also feel the chop.
“I recently had access to the Army’s new operations manual, FM 100-5. There is periodic acknowledgment therein the usefulness of light aircraft, but it is a patch job, with paragraphs apparently being added to an earlier but recent version. Quite obviously Army Aviation is not contemplated in the manual as a basic tool—as strong, added, available and sometimes decisive capability, as it emphatically should be.”[20]
And to add insult to injury, General Howze infers, “And a few months ago I talked to a number of young officers who were just graduating from the Advanced Class at the Artillery School. I asked the group what the course had included about the techniques of artillery support of airmobile operations. The answer: Nothing.
“I am guessing now, but I venture to say that Fort Sill has developed no special technique for the purpose. I am not guessing when I say that such a technique will be different from the normal, will require special training, and will be very applicable to winning battles.”[21]
General Howze goes on to make the argument that Army enthusiasm for airmobility had chilled and seemed more enamored with “ground mechanization of practically everything.” To which he added, that the Army was committing a monumental error in judgment. Yet, at this stage, when reading General Howze’s criticisms, which, too, are to be considered legitimate concerns, there is the reality alluded to, not many pages back. That the Army went from 1,570,000 in 1958 to 784,000 in 1974. And that it was more than thirty years beyond America being the only game in town.[22]
Again, returning to the burgeoning American-Israeli relationship following the Yom Kippur War, was not merely based on rapport, but the fact that the Israeli armed forces had enjoyed a measure of success which could no longer be ignored. From 1948, which by comparison was a military establishment which made do with hand-me-downs and the goodwill approach to gathering arms and equipment, to learning, honing and employment of a military doctrine of mobile warfare which, by the 1967 and 1973 wars, showcased the IDF as one of the globe’s most professional of military forces. So, from the American perspective, why not?
Yet while resorting to the wealth of data available to be sifted, a constant needed to be understood: That despite the fact that the Arab forces used Soviet weaponry and adopted Soviet training, they were not Soviet formations; had not waged war in Europe and, had not the long-term benefit of having fought against the likes of Heinz Guderian, Erich von Manstein, Ewald von Kliest and Hasso von Manteuffel on the Eastern Front, like the Soviets had.
In returning to generals Starry and DePuy, both believed that concerns about the tank’s obsolescence were overblown and that the tank simply needed adequate combined arms support to enable its continued preeminence in ground combat.[23]
General DePuy, in his report, “Implications of the Middle East War on U.S. Army Tactics, Doctrines and Systems,” included analysis of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. A chart was “included depicting the tank’s continued centrality with air defense, mechanized infantry, close air support, and field artillery in support. This represented four of what would become the ‘Big Five’: The Abrams main battle tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Apache Attack Helicopter and the Patriot air defense system. The unmentioned fifth capability, the Black Hawk helicopter, reflected Starry’s views about rapid transport of troops around and between close and deep areas.”[24]
“Historians have criticized Starry and other officers for a selective and overly rosy portrayal of the IDF’s performance in the war. For one thing, Starry focused heavily on the theater of war in the Golan Heights while paying less attention to the decisive front in the Sinai Peninsula. More broadly, the American generals’ reports on the war’s lessons paid scant attention to the IDF’s many errors, including suffering surprise at its outset. But this was a strategic failure, and TRADOC’s interest in the war was not about strategy but rather tactics, campaigning, and modernization. What may look like a selective or dishonest analysis to a trained historian was, from Starry’s perspective, a focus on what was important to the U.S. Army of the 1970s.”[25]
Major of the Infantry, Paul H. Herbert, in his 1988 study of General William E. DePuy and his version of FM 100-5, intimated that as a result of the Vietnam War that “This erosion of the Army’s physical strength coincided with a major reassessment of U.S. strategic policy with profound implications for the Army. The conclusion drawn in the early 1970s was that the American capacity to repel or deter aggression anywhere in the world was limited and that, therefore, the American means to resist must be allocated to regions of the world according to the priority of U.S. security interests. As a result, many Third World nations resisting aggression would have to handle their own security, with only indirect U.S. assistance and perhaps assistance from major U.S. allied nations within the region. Therefore, in paring down the defense establishment and budget, the United States assumed a ‘1.5 war’ contingency instead of the ‘2.5 war’ contingency that had prevailed in the 1960s.[26] This meant that the United States would be prepared to fight one general war and one minor war, but it would not fight two general wars simultaneously. This interpretation of U.S. security interests, first enunciated as the Nixon and Guam Doctrine in 1969, and later called the ‘strategy of realistic deterrence,” required that strategic planners shift their attention from, Asia to NATO Europe, with a ½ war glance at the Middle East, especially the security of Israel and the access routes to Persian Gulf oil.”[27]
Major Herbert continues his analysis by the degree of change in 1976. Indeed, “Because these earlier editions of FM 100-5 were not agents of change, they shared the quality of anonymous authorship. Not so within the 1976 edition. No officer on active duty in 1976 could fail to identify its author as General William E. DePuy. As the nineteenth century drill manuals tended to bear the authors’ names (Henry W. Halleck, William J. Hardee, Silas Casey, Emory Upton), so too would the 1976 edition be known as the DePuy manual. This is because the DePuy manual was an attempt to change the thinking, not the organization, of the entire United States Army.
“Published in striking, camouflage-patterned covers and thoroughly illustrated with colored charts and realistic depictions of Army units in combat, the new manuals were to effect a break with the past—especially the Vietnam War—and to prepare the Army doctrinally to win the next war, not the last.”[28]
Major Herbert, in his analysis, bolsters General Starry’s view on the tank. “According to the manual, the U.S. Army must be prepared to fight outnumbered and win and to win the first battle, points that the author acknowledged were not part of the Army’s historical tradition.[29] Also emphasized was that the tank was the ‘decisive weapon’ of ground combat, but that it could not survive on a ‘modern battlefield’ except as a part of a ‘combined arms team’ that included all the other branches of the Army and tactical air forces.’ FM 100-5 accepted ‘force ratios’ as a primary determinant in battle and specified that successful defense required a 6-to-1 superiority. The manual stressed that cover (protection from enemy fire), concealment (protection from enemy observation), suppression (disruption of the enemy’s fire with one’s own fire), and teamwork (cooperation between the branches of the Army and between the Army and Air Force) were essential to victory on the battlefield.”[30]
Added to the discussion is the reality that weapons have increased in lethality owing to advances in technology. And so while basic military doctrine may remain consistent—concentration of force, mobility, supply and training. . .—the helicopter did not exist in World War II as a decisive presence as it did in Vietnam and afterwards. “Consistent with this focus on weapons systems, FM 100-5 recognized emerging technological capabilities such as remotely controlled drones for collecting intelligence and identifying targets; special sights and goggles expected to give the Army full night vision capability; and the soon-to-be fielded M1 main battle tank, the M2 mechanized infantry combat vehicle, and an advanced attack helicopter. It attempted to present concepts and techniques that could be implemented using equipment currently on hand but that would allow the Army to practice a style of warfare consistent with the possession of new equipment.[31] Again Major Herbert, with his analysis, observed FM 100-5’s emphasis on armored warfare, Soviet weapons systems, emerging technology, and U.S. numerical inferiority all reflected its deliberate focus on the defense of NATO Europe. The manual even included a chapter each on fighting alongside NATO allies and fighting in cities, both contributed by U.S. Army, Europe. It stated that the defense of NATO Europe was the U.S. Army’s most important and most dangerous contingency and that an army prepared to fight Warsaw Pact forces in Europe could probably fight successfully in other areas of the world against other enemies with little modification to its doctrine. FM 100-5 relied heavily on the October 1973 Arab-Israeli War to assert that contingency missions outside NATO were likely to pit the Army against enemies organized, trained and equipped in the Soviet style in any case.[32]
“. . . the 1976 edition of FM 100-5 introduced the term “Air-Land Battle’ for the first time. The chapter titled ‘Air-Land Battle’ only described the joint procedures agreed to by the Air Force and Army for cooperating in areas of mutual interest, such as airspace management, air logistics, aerial reconnaissance, and electronic warfare. The use of this term and the dedication of a chapter to its discussion signaled the Army’s strong interest in a new concept of theater warfare that recognized the total interdependency of the Army and Air Force and that sought to describe their activities within the theater in a single, unified battle.[33]
“In each of these particulars, the 1976 edition of FM 100-5 was distinctly different from its predecessors. It was a deliberate attempt to change the way the U.S. Army thought about and prepared for war.”[34]
Much of the aforementioned analysis by Major Ethan Orwin and Major Paul H. Herbert is borne out by what is actually written in FM 100-5. For instance:
“The war in the Middle East in 1973 might well portend the nature of modern battle. Arabs and Israelis were armed with the latest weapons, and the conflict approached a destructiveness once attributed to nuclear arms. Use of aircraft for close support of advancing armor, in the fashion generally practiced since 1940, was greatly reduced by advancing surface-to-air missiles and air defense guns. In clashes of massed armor such as the world has not witnessed for 30 years, both sides sustained devastating losses, approaching 50 percent in less than two weeks of combat. These statistics are of serious import for U.S. Army commanders.” And . . .
. . . “All great armies of the world rest their land combat power upon the tank. The armies of the Warsaw Pact, fashioned on the Soviet model, incorporate masses of tanks, backed by an impressive industrial base producing large numbers of quality armored fighting vehicles. Warsaw Pact doctrine anticipates use of nuclear weapons in the future war, but teaches preparedness to fight without them. For both conditions, it emphasizes heavy concentrations of armor.”[35]
The significance of and reliance on the tank is clearly evident in FM 100-05, as intimated earlier in the narrative, was bolstered, too, by such support units as modern anti-aircraft artillery and ground-launched anti-aircraft missiles. Both armor and A.A. defensive armaments were produced in aggregate quantities and quality that required the appropriate response. Hence the notion of the helicopter and its significance as a mobile platform in modern conventional warfare.
Endnotes
[1] See pages 6 and 7, Chapter 2, “Overview of the Sinai Campaign: 6 Oct. 1973-24 Oct. 1973,” Yom Kippur 1973: An Operational Analysis of the Sinai Campaign, by Arthur B. Loefstedt, III, Major, U.S. Army.
[2] Referring to those critical of using the helicopter on the conventional-nuclear battlefield.
[3] See page 55, “Airmobility, A New Board on Army Aviation is Fourteen Years Overdue.” By General Hamilton H. Howze, Army Aviation, August-September 1977. And, in addition, . . .
. . . “After the war was over, the IDF sought to learn its lessons and overcome its shortcomings by proceeding on a parallel three-track approach. First, it was necessary to replace war losses. Next, the size and quality of its force structure was considerably improved by the purchase of modern F-15 and F-16 fighter aircraft as well as Cobra attack helicopters armed with tube-launched, especially tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missiles. Finally, a concerted attempt was made to develop technological and tactical responses to Arab anti-armor and anti-aircraft capability, partly by purchasing avionics from the United States and partly by pushing indigenous solutions,” see page 185, Chapter 6, “Israel: Maneuver Warfare, Air Power, and Logistics,” Air Power and Maneuver Warfare, by Martin van Creveld with Steven L. Canby and Kenneth S, Brower.
[4] See page 9, “Combat Operations: The Armed Copter in the Defense of Europe,” by Hamilton H. Howze, Army Aviation, July 30, 1977.
[5] See page 10, General Hamilton H. Howze.
[6] See page 10, General Hamilton H. Howze.
[7] See page 10, General Hamilton H. Howze.
[8] Tabun, the initial version of nerve gas, was invented by Dr. Gerhard Schrader in 1936, followed four years later by Sarin. Soman followed in 1944.
[9] See page 68, Chapter Three, “Hitler’s Secret Weapon,” A Higher Form of Killing, by Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman.
[10] The British, by 1943-1944, had developed the N-Bomb, an anthrax weapon, testing same on Gruinard Island off the coast of Scotland.
[11] See page 69, Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman.
[12] See page 12, General Hamilton H. Howze.
[13] See page 12, General Hamilton H. Howze.
[14] See page 14, General Hamilton H. Howze.
[15] See pages 17 and 18, “Army Aviation on the Horizon: Aviation is the Key,” Army Aviation, by General George S. Blanchard, December 31, 1978.
[16] See page 19, General George R. Blanchard.
[17] See page 18, General George R. Blanchard.
[18] The point can be made here that an economy focused on military spending versus the civilian economy will eventually collapse or foster a popular backlash or both. Especially from the civilian perspective, that the military the people are wasting hard-earned money on cannot seem to win wars, at least within the parameters of how victory had been previously viewed and charted. In the Soviet case, the situation became acute in the wake of the debacle in Afghanistan. To which must be added, that the Muslims fought and won the last battlefield action of the Cold War and, played no small part in humbling the Soviet Union and bringing same down, a contribution to the effort that is virtually ignored by news pundits and foreign policy analysts in either public pronouncements or print. An effort, too, that cost the Muslims north of 1,000,000 souls.
[19] See page 18, General George R. Blanchard.
[20] See page 53, “Airmobility: A New Board on Army Aviation is Fourteen Years Overdue,” Army Aviation, by General Hamilton H, Howze, (Ret.), August-September 1977.
[21] See pages 53 and 54, General Hamilton H. Howze.
[22] The inference here is that unlike 1945, when the United States was economically peerless, in the world today, and at this writing, according to the Federal Reserve, third quarter, 2024, the GNP is, $29,384.064 trillion; GDP, $29,374.9 trillion; national debt: $35.46 trillion. And this is a multipolar world of more kibitzers vying for position and the growing impact of the de-dollarization movement.
[23] See page 49, “Not an Intellectual Exercise: Lessons from the U.S.-Israeli Institutional Army Cooperation, 1973-1982,” Military Review, by Major Ethan Orwin, U.S. Army.
[24] See pages 49 and 50, Major Ethan Orwin.
[25] See page 50, Major Ethan Orwin.
[26] An historical parallel here is 1941-1942, the Eastern Front. Hitler’s ambitious plan, Operation: BARBAROSSA, some 3,300,000 German soldiers in three large army groups invaded the Soviet Union. But by March 1942, with upwards of 1,000,000 casualties and large material losses (in only nine months), in addition to the growing Desert War in North Africa, Hitler no longer had the capability for such an expansive offensive in 1942. He consigned his attacks in Ukraine and the Caucasus, resulting in the epic battle of attrition known as Stalingrad.
[27] See page 5, Chapter 1, “Of Doctrines and Manuals,” Deciding What Has to be Done: General William E. DePuy and the 1976 Edition of FM 100-5, Operations, by Major Paul H. Herbert.
Worth a read here as to the Nixon Doctrine, is that written by Colonel Richard M. Jennings, U.S. Army, “The Thrust of the Nixon Doctrine,” Army University Press, February 1972. www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/military…
[28] See page 7, Major Paul H. Herbert.
[29] Grant, for instance, enlisted complaints from representatives and senators that had to be fielded by President Lincoln during the Civil War. “He takes too many casualties.” Lincoln: “But he wins.” General Grant knew about manpower advantage, resources, productive capacity and, of course, the financial backing of a superior financial structure, with which to wage America’s first industrialized war, Total War. Vietnam, however, was not an industrialized Total War, for the United States. After 1965-1966, it did for North Vietnam, favoring Levee en Masse, organizing the population and all its capabilities for war. America did not, and if anything, divorced the masses from the conflict. Hence, America went down to an embarrassing and even predictable defeat.
[30] See pages 7 and 8, Major Paul H. Herbert.
[31] See pages 8 and 9, Major Paul H. Herbert.
[32] With regards to taking on enemies outside Europe, equipped with Soviet weaponry, bolstered by the lessons of the October 1973 War, “with little modification of doctrine,” perhaps the 1991 short-lived Persian Gulf War comes to mind here. Evident was the use of powerful armored spearheads backed by interdiction-style and close air support by aircraft. And most important, first asserting absolute control of the air. Of course, though . . .
. . . following the collapse of the Soviet Union, America reverted to counterinsurgency forms of warfare, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Again a defeat in Iraq and defeat at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan showcased the repetition of history here by the United States.
This historian’s method of historical study, Horizontal Determinism, again had been vindicated by rostering the years of 1973-2021. The repeat of history is never exact; but, the basic repetition is undeniable.
[33] Here, perhaps, we see a return to the Schwerpunckt, the massing of armor at the point of attack, backed by the tactical use of aircraft in close cooperation with the armor. Schwerpunckt, then, is that “weight of effort.” Consult Milan Vego, Ph.D., “Clausewitz’s SCHWERPUNCKT,” Military Review, January-February 2007.
[34] See page 9, Major Paul H. Herbert.
[35] See page 2-2, Chapter 2, “Modern Weapons on the Modern Battlefield,” Operations, FM 100-05, 1 July 1976.
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