Conventional Attack
In every form of existence warfare has happened. It continues to happen, and will happen to all
things. The human species is no different. Contrary to popular opinion, war and its violencedoes give a solution to a problem – though it may not be the best or correct solution.
The table above gives numerous reasons for wars that the human species has waged and will
continue to wage. When a nation attacks another it will be for one of the reasons above and at
times for several of the reasons listed.
“The object in war is to attain a better peace, even if only from your own point of view”
-Unknown
Oddly enough the war is the apex of a long list of precursors and without these, the attack will
falter and the attacker will become the attacked. An attack upon one country implies the other
country is on the defensive. Additionally, the country on the defensive does not want the
benefits of the attacking country. Following is a list of questions that will provide many of the
precursors to launching an attack.
Those who are in a defensive posture need to study these as well. In both cases, offensive or
defensive, not knowing the answers to these questions can bring disaster.
1. Why is this war needed? See above table
2. What is the geography of a land war? Highways, weather patterns, seasons, railroads,
waterways, natural barriers, terrain for primary battlefield strategies and tactics, resupply,
staging areas, etc.
3. What is the status of your armed forces? Active duty, reserves, inactive reserves, prior
service veterans, civilian population pool of draft pool range, draft pool range in age,
nationality, ethnicity, race and religious characteristics, the equipment on hand, its age,
effectiveness, ability to repair or replace.
4. What is the air dimension of an air war? Battlefield strategies and tactics for area, assembly
lines to produce and or replace aircraft, pilots on hand and ability and speed to produce new
pilots, location of airfield, resupply and support, depth, range and flight time to target
aspects, anti-aircraft defense of targets and cities, aircraft and equipment on hand, its age,
effectiveness, ability to repair or replace.
5. What is the naval dimension of a naval war? Battle area strategies and tactics for area,
oceanography elements of the various seas and oceans volatility, shipping supply life lines for
critical imports and resupply exports, air power at sea, types of ships and equipment on hands,
their age, effectiveness, and ability to repair or replace.
6. What is your economic ability? War production potential, stockpile and wartime reserves of
metals, textiles, food, chemicals, etc., industrial capacity, capacity to retool and re-die, time
from concept to delivery of new systems, availability of industrial labor pool, exposure of
industrial complexes and centers of industrial activity to attack, sabotage, industrial
espionage.
7. Can you be blockaded or have trade sanctions imposed against you? Is there another country you
can conquer prior to you main engagement to serve as a wartime material reservoir, an ally who
can provide wartime supplies uninterrupted, strong enough to destroy blockades? Can you destroy
the blockages or have enough assets to protect the shipments of critical supplies?
8. What are your strategic raw materials, without which the war is lost?
9. What are your vital weaknesses in raw material imports critical to the war?
10. What are your current stored national food supply and the effects that a war will have on
seed availability, fertilizer, planting, growth, harvest and movement of food to population? One
month, six month, one year, three year, five year and ten year projections.
11. How current is your merchant shipping fleet? Do you have enough ships, worldwide purchasing
power sufficient for merchants? How will a war affect these? Who will blockade you and is your
fleet fast enough to run them? Do you have sufficient staff to negotiate with neutrals?
12. How do you plan to pay for this war? Controlling inflation or deflation, maintaining the
value of your currency, distribution of the financial burden to industry, corporate, banks or
taxes. Who will carry the burden of the debt? What will your national, state and local tax bases
be?
13. Do you have an adequate propaganda campaign strategy planned? The home front, the enemy front
and the world front. Established elementary rules, identified the noble cause, developed a
vicious enemy perception, established certain victory, boosted morale on the masses, undermined
the enemies position with allies, won over the neutrals, plan to enlist the clergy, academia,
business owners, blue collar and white collar workers, plane to deal with citizens who are
opposed to the war, plan to evoke the patriotic zeal of the nation, plan to enable the mass media
to your cause and mastered the art of the political lie.
14. How is your wartime industry base? Labor including health and welfare of workers, medicine
and surgery including general sanitation, engineering and public education, munitions manufacture
and industrial relations between companies, raw material, minerals and metals supply and
availability.
15. What are your material requirement and available resources? Mining, transporting, refining,
production, delivery, recovery, repairs and scrap metal.
16. How will you discipline your nation? Priorities of food, metal and materials, essential vs.
non-essential of manufacture and industry, military needs and wants vs. civilian wants and needs,
policy of industry, corporation and manufacture awarding bids and contracts, design competition,
industrial standardization of parts, components, systems and delivered items.
17. How will you control prices? Public justice and price fixing, production for war; raw
materials are needed at expense of civilians, price regulation, checking rising prices,
black-market issues, rationing and items to be rationed.
18. How will you balance supply and demand? Essential vs. non-essential, psychologically soothing
“needs” like jewelry and cars, augmenting male dominated trades who are called up to war such as
construction, mechanics, law enforcement, etc., seeking out hoarded goods, controlling
transportation interstates and railroads.
19. What conservation programs should you establish? Reduce surplus by moving closer to the
front, encourage voluntary cooperation, curtailing spendthrift and materialistic mentalities,
encourage paper, metal etc. drives by children, scouts and schools, establish salvage areas by
convenience and ease to the masses.
20. How easy can your industry convert? Including moving to another region and even retooling to
manufacture different items.
21. How can you control labor? Avoiding or suppressing strikes, obtaining workers for war
industries from women, handicapped and prisoners, salvaging wasted manpower and materials from
welfare, unemployed, collage students and military rejections, controlling the commodity sections
of trade, controlling the stock market, controlling war critical industries.
22. Can you enter price agreements on metals, minerals and resources? Can you procure these by
purchasing, taking or smuggling from various countries and control the supply?
23. Can you control basic building materials for warehouse, docks, concrete and construction
equipment?
24. Can you establish control over industry and corporate leaders to avoid price gouging, price
manipulation and black-marketing?
25. What is your gearing up for war (mobilization plan) including propaganda, industry, draft,
formation of reserve forces, placement of forward supply elements, forward bases, etc?
26. What is your gearing down from war (demobilization plan) including propaganda, industry,
indoctrination of soldiers back to civilian life, including intimate relations, financial/job
opportunities, veterans assistance, housing, educational opportunities, etc?
27. What is your national defense plan (in case you screw up and loose the offensive), including
protection of critical industries, critical resources, critical imports, shipping lanes, coastal
areas, 5th columnists, spies and saboteurs?
28. What is your Civil Defense plan including full time, part time, mandatory adult and child
training, voluntary training and the equipment issued?
29. What is your protection from international sanctions including political exclusion from
international bodies, diplomatic isolation, economic isolation, trade sanctions, arms embargos,
no fly zones, freezing monetary assets in foreign accounts, merchants not able to purchase on
credit world wide, threat of other nations joining to enemy as protection?
30. How will you handle the hidden results of war including inflation, fiscal deficits,
proposed/imposed new taxes, labor shortages, civilians becoming insubordinate and unruly,
veterans returning to find little work and the dramatic increase of crime and despotism?
31. How effective is your transportation system to move equipment, resources, supplies and
personnel from one end to another in your nation, and to other areas including roads and
railroads, waterways, air transportation, and ocean systems?
32. What nation(s) provides economic aid, foreign assistance, and military aid to the country you
are attacking?
33. What would the diplomatic, trade, economic and treaty obligation repercussions be for
attacking the country?
34. How will you deal with the refugees in the area and those fleeing the area?
35. How will you deal with prisoners of war, including their repatriation after the war?
36. How will you rebuild the country after it has been defeated?
These questions need to be answered preferably before you invade another country. Attacking, or
more correctly, invading, a country is as much an art as it is a science. Entire books have been written dealing exclusively on conducting wars that describe all aspects in some detail.
Conducting an invasion has its own specific mission concepts and they are given here in sequential order.
Invasion Mission Concepts
Spy Missions
Identify targets, recruit 5th columnist, and identify Major Supply Routes (MSRs), tides and
underwater geography, other covert activities.
Special Operations Group Missions
Outfit and train 5th columnists
Clandestine activities for reconnaissance and other missions
Collect and analyze intelligence ferreted by spies, 5th columnists and other special operations
groups in area.
Increase 5th columnist loyalty by building clinics, fresh water, crop growth, medical aid,
etc.
Link up with 5th columnists for sabotage of key C³I facilities
Assassination of key leaders
Destruction of key bridges, railroads, airports
Aircraft Missions
Close support-destroy Air Defense Artillery sites, Air Defense Missile sites and supporting radar
sites.
Fighters-destroy key enemy fighters, interceptors and airfields
Drive/draw away or destroy enemy warships
Bombers-hit military and civilian airfields, bridges, and roads, financial centers, fuel
terminals, power relays, communications relays, food production, food storage, medical storage,
medical equipment production (NOT hospitals), ground forces, law enforcement centers and prisons,
and bomb beaches for beachhead.
Naval Missions
Preliminary bombardment by heavy cruisers and battleships
Minesweepers clear lanes into beachhead
Aircraft (close support) strike targets of opportunity
Aerial carpet-bombing
Airborne and Air-mobile troops secure strategic points
Shelling by destroyers, cruisers and battleships coming as close as drafts allow
Assault by landing craft
Clear beach of enemy troops
Marine and naval forces secure beachheads and ports
Land invasion force
Subsequent waves bring more equipment, logistics, supplies and personnel
Resupply of ammunition, water, food, casualty removal to hospital ships
Artillery rolling barrage
Armor/tank assault
Infantry
Self-propelled artillery, engineers and medical
Provide fire support, build or repair roads, bridges and airfields
Establish land supply dumps
Transportation units to move supplies from docks to land supply dumps, and then forward to
division supply points.
Establish railroad operations to move supplies.
Security teams to secure, maintain and transport refugees and POWs
Reconstruction teams to rebuild governmental infrastructure, establish Continuity of Government
operations (COG).
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