Not only were they viable, but they were used. The plan to liberate Kuwait bears startling resemblance to Fall Gelb, the German plan for the invasion of France in 1940.

In Fall Gelb, the German Army Group B invaded Holland and Belgium with the intention of engaging French and British forces and holding them there whilst the heavily armoured vanguard of Army Group A advanced through the Ardennes, crossed the Meuse at Sedan and outflanked the British and French. In DESERT STORM the US Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF) and a combined Arab mechanised infantry division engaged Iraqi forces in southern Kuwait as a diversion for an armoured thrust by the coalition VII Armoured Corps (arguably the most heavily armoured force ever assembled) with the aim of encircling Iraqi forces.

In both cases military planning benefitted from an intimate understanding of the enemy’s intentions. In 1940, the Germans knew that the Allies’ defensive plan expected an advance through the Low Countries and was based on holding a series of defensive lines along Belgian rivers and canals. In DESERT STORM, coalition planners knew that the Iraqis expected a direct assault on Kuwait City and so had prepared defensive lines in southern Kuwait and held the elite Republican Guard in reserve to respond to the offensive. In both cases, therefore, plans were developed to reinforce the enemy’s assumptions and prevent them from responding to the main effort when it occurred.

The term Blitzkrieg was only seriously coined after the success of Fall Gelb was seized upon by German propaganda after which it very quickly entered the lexicon of a number of countries (notably the UK where German air attacks were referred to as the Blitz), as a result the name is no longer common in modern doctrine, but the concepts laid down by German planners in the inter-war years remain:

• Schwerpunkt is the point of main effort. Linked to Clausewitz’s concept of a “culminating point”, the schwerpunkt is the point in time and space at which the maximum possible force is concentrated. In Fall Gelb there were two schwerpunkt: Gembloux in central Belgium for Army Group B, and the Meuse crossing at Sedan in Eastern France for Army Group A. In DESERT STORM the schwerpunkt were Iraqi defences south of Kuwait City for the MEF/Arab division and the Republican Guard formations north of Kuwait City for VII Corps.

• Flachen and Luchen - Surfaces and Gaps are how breakthrough points are identified within a schwerpunkt. Surfaces are areas where enemy formations are present or defensive positions have been established. Gaps are the areas between enemy formations or defences where the enemy is weakest and forces can break through. In Fall Gelb, the Gembloux Gap was a lightly defended space between two river lines on the boundary of two French sectors – a gap both literally and figuratively; at Sedan there was a gap between the fixed defences of the Maginot Line and the southern end of the French forces advancing into Belgium which was lightly defended by the reserve soldiers of the Frenh 7^th Army. In DESERT STORM the surfaces were the fixed defensive positions of Iraqi forces which in many cases were simply avoided by the forward echelons of coalition forces leading to them being surrounded and either mopped up or forced to surrender by follow on forces.

• Kesselschlacht - literally meaning cauldron battle is the phase after a breakthrough where the enemy is encircled and destroyed. In Fall Gelb the aim was to completely encircle Allied forces in Belgium, cut them off form the Channel ports and annihilate them. The kesselschlacht was never realised because Army Group B was too successful: the allies were pushed out of Belgium before Army Group A could complete the encirclement and they were able to fall back on the one remaining port at Dunkirk. In DESERT STORM the encirclement was completed, but not before a general retreat of Iraqi forces along the road to Basra during which a number of units were annihilated in a controversial series of air attacks.

That’s it for similarities, the next post will cover differences.