The Objectives of an Attacking Force
There are many reasons that an army or a nation will decide to attack another nation. The bottom line is for gain but there are various methods of attack which may be used depending on the objectives of the attacking force. The attacking force will normally want to take and control the sovereign territory of the other country and its indigenous people however the attack may also have another purpose. A good example of this is the expulsion of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. The purpose of that attack was two fold: First to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait and to destroy as much of their equipment as possible so that he would not be able to mount another attack against Kuwait or any other country in the Blitzkreig is an attack which is designed to take ground and get into the enemies rear area as quickly as possible so the objective is not necessarily to destroy people or equipment. As a matter of fact a blitzing unit will often avoid contact with enemy troops because engaging them will destroy its momentum and slow it down.
The objective of this type of attack is to cut off front line forces from rear elements which will in effect starve them to death. This is essentially the type of action which the US and NATO employed during this action.Speed and violence are the keys to this type of action and are also key in many other types of military action. Surprise is also essential for success. The attacking commander wants to achieve surprise as much as possible but this isn’t always practical. Sometimes a major buildup is necessary as was the case in the Persian Gulf War. In this situation the entire world knew that an attack was coming but no one knew the exact date and time. The way that our leaders compensated for this was to attack from an unexpected direction. This in essence functioned as a surprise attack because it caught the enemy totally off guard in the areas where they were good attacker will also attempt to overwhelm the enemies capability to respond by attacking in simultaneous areas at the same time. Another good example of this was the Persian Gulf War.The Iraqi command and control system was hit in every conceivable area possible all at the same time. Telephone communications were attacked as much as possible at the same time radio communication was jammed.
The goal was to cut off the communication of the commanders with their troops so that troops could not be given any kind of orders or directives to respond to the attack. This helped to maintain a level of confusion among the Iraqi troops. Do you remember seeing videos of the initial attack when the Iraqi air defense systems fired their ammunition wildly into the air because they did not have radar fixes on our aircraft. The reason for this was that we had successfully jammed their radar communication systems.A successful attack will use overwhelming force to attack the weakest point possible. The defender who has the mindset that an attacker’s goal is to seek him out and destroy him may mistakenly position too many of his forces too close. The smart attacker will bypass a large target such as this and deal with it only after he has used other methods to soften it up before he expends the manpower and equipment against it to destroy it. Tactical and political considerations serve to determine the methods that an attacking commander will use. Each one is effective in its own way and there are many variations which may be used. The commander who fixes his mind on one course of action can very easily make a tactical blunder and lose the battle. Military Ring Express