Lifeline From The Sky: The Doctrinal Implications Of Supplying An Enclave From The Air

John Steven Brunhaver

• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781786253972
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This paper seeks to answer the following question: What are the doctrinal imperatives of providing effective airlift support to enclaves? Doctrinal imperatives are those necessary and sufficient propositions that describe the optimal way to employ airlift forces in support of an enclave. In short, this paper attempts to determine the best way to conduct airlift operations to support enclaves.
The primary conclusion of this paper is that four fundamental factors influence airlift operations: requirement to capability ratio, threat, support infrastructure, and weather. The second conclusion is that there are two basic methods to employ airlift forces: continuous flow and surge methods. The additional doctrinal imperatives contained in the conclusion relate to the interactions among the four factors affecting airlift operations to support enclaves and the ways in which they influence the two employment methods.
Evidence used to derive the doctrinal propositions came from the Luftwaffe's attempt to resupply the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad from the air, the Berlin Airlift, and the airlift to the Khe Sanh garrison in the Vietnam War.

CHAPTER 1—INTRODUCTION

“Without supplies no army is brave.”—Fredrick the Great, Instructions for his Generals, 1747

In November 1993 a small group of US Air Force (USAF) officers were gathered in the basement of the Pentagon attempting to develop solutions to the troubles in Bosnia-Herzegovina for the chief of staff. This effort was given urgency not only by the deteriorating situation in the Balkans but also by the fact that President William J. Clinton had campaigned on a platform that advocated stronger American action in the region. After taking office, however, the Clinton administration quickly ruled out use of American ground forces and turned to airpower to provide humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of Bosnia-Herzegovina. That decision led to USAF C-130s dropping food and medical supplies to Bosnian government towns whose ground supply routes had been interdicted by the Bosnian Serb Army. This incident highlights the propensity of government leaders to use airpower, as opposed to surface forces, to achieve a desired political effect with minimum casualties. It also serves as an example of the utility of military forces in support of humanitarian missions. While these events in Bosnia illuminated the use of airpower to supply enclaves, the practice dates back to the very dawn of military airpower during the British Mesopotamian campaign of World War I.

In July 1915 the British army advanced northwest along the Tigris River to secure oil fields and pipelines in Mesopotamia. For years prior to the outbreak of war, Britain had exercised a protectorate over the sheikdoms of Kuwait and Mohammera. This influence became vital as the British became more dependent on oil.{1} While attempting to push the Turkish army out of the region, British forces met stiff resistance and were forced to withdraw to the town of Kut al Amara. The Turkish army quickly laid siege and constructed 31 miles of trenches surrounding the city. In order to support the beleaguered garrison and the civilian population, the Royal Air Service dropped 250-pound bags of flour and other foodstuffs to Kut. The officer commanding the aviation service in the theater determined that the best way to supply Kut would be to fly each aircraft over the town three times. Much of the flour and other foodstuffs dropped by British BE-2s landed in an unusable condition or in an inaccessible area, beyond the reach of British forces. In the end the resupply effort was not successful and the British commander was forced to surrender his garrison due to the lack of food. On 29 April 1916, Col Nizam Bey, a Turkish regimental commander, lead his unit into Kut to accept the surrender of 13,300 British and Indian soldiers. Although the use of airpower to supply the Kut garrison clearly stretched the Royal Air Service beyond its capacity, this episode demonstrates the birth of an idea.

Both the Kut example and the more recent use of airpower to support Muslim enclaves in Bosnia-Herzegovina illustrate the point that the support of isolated garrisons is an important mission for the USAF. Because of this importance, it naturally follows that the doctrinal precepts to guide airlift operations supporting enclaves are worthy of serious investigation. This paper, therefore, seeks to answer the following question: What are the doctrinal imperatives of providing effective airlift support to enclaves? Doctrinal imperatives are those necessary and sufficient propositions that describe the optimal way to employ airlift forces in support of an enclave. In short, this paper attempts to determine the best way to conduct airlift operations to support enclaves.

Terms Used

In order to establish a lexicon for this paper, the following key words or phrases will be used as indicated:

The word enclave comes from the French word enclaver, which means to enclose. Webster’s defines an enclave as a country or part of a country within the boundaries of another country, or a minority group preserving its own distinct culture while living within a larger group. Additionally, an enclave is a location that is completely surrounded by hostile forces. This location may be occupied by friendly forces, by non-combatants, or by both.

Webster’s also defines airlift as a system of transporting troops or supplies by air, frequently when surface routes are obstructed or inaccessible. In this paper, airlift includes the use of both fixed and rotary winged aircraft and both airland and airdrop means of delivery.

The term threat includes multiple aspects of military force that can be applied against airlift forces. The threat from the air would include air to-air fighters threatening airlift aircraft en route as well as bombers and fighter bombers attacking airlift bases and logistics centers. The threat from the ground would include antiaircraft artillery (AAA) and surface-to-air missiles (SAM) attacking airlift aircraft en route as well as enemy ground forces threatening airfields both in the enclave and in the rear areas.

The enclave’s airlift requirement is the total amount of provisions that must be delivered by air for it to survive. It is usually expressed in tons per day.

The requirement to capability ratio is a term designed to relate the airlift requirement and airlift capability. In an attempt to treat these factors independently, this term is defined narrowly. The requirement is defined above, and the capability is the amount of provisions that can be delivered flying each airlift aircraft at its designed utilization rate. An example of a high requirement to capabilities ratio is a case where the daily requirement is 300 tons per day and the airlift force structure can only transport 200 tons per day. An example of a low requirement to capabilities ratio is a case where the requirements is 200 tons per day and the airlift capability is 300 tons per day.

The support infrastructure includes all those support facilities and functions that ensure the transport aircraft are ready for operations and are loaded and off loaded. This includes maintenance, supply, transportation, aerial port, billeting, messing, air traffic control (ATC), and command and control. The condition and effectiveness of these facilities and organizations directly affect the number of productive sorties flown each day.

Weather pertains to the conditions that influence the airlift effort in total. This includes not only the weather conditions at the airfields and en route that impinge upon the flight operations but also the conditions that affect the support infrastructure.

Methods of employing airlift forces fall into two categories: surge operations and continuous flow operations. The surge method of employing airlift force involves an effort to concentrate the arrival of the airlift forces into an objective area in a short period of time. This could be done at regular or irregular intervals throughout the day. This method is used to take advantage of breaks in the weather, fighter escort, or AAA/SAM suppression. Flying formations to multiple drop zones (DZ) or landing zones (LZ) with concentrated times on target (TOT) is an example of the surge method. On the other hand, the continuous flow method involves a flow of aircraft into the objective area at regular intervals. Aircraft arriving at an airfield every three minutes, 24 hours a day is an example of the continuous method. The continuous method promotes efficiency.

Evidence

This paper begins by investigating the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. The focus of this case is the Luftwaffe’s attempt to resupply the German Sixth Army while it was encircled by the Soviets. The Stalingrad case is characterized by a challenging requirement for supplies from Sixth Army and an equally challenging threat from the Soviet ground and air forces. Following the Battle of Stalingrad, this paper will assess one of the most important events of the Cold War, the Berlin Airlift. Here the Western Allies supplied the non-combatant occupants of West Berlin while the Allied surface corridors to the city were interdicted by the Soviets. The Berlin Airlift’s most important characteristic was a very demanding daily requirement for tonnage to be delivered. The final case is an examination of the American resupply of US forces at Khe Sanh. Khe Sanh focuses on a high threat environment and the use of a robust airlift force structure to counter it. These examples were selected to present diverse threat environments, airlift capabilities, demands, and outcomes. They were also selected to present a cross section of significant airlift efforts from modern aviation history.

The sources consulted for this study include a wide variety of primary accounts and secondary analyses. The primary evidence for the Stalingrad case study is centered on Gen Fritz Morzik’s personal accounts of the Luftwaffe’s airlift operations during World War II and Generalleutnant Herman Plocher’s description of the Luftwaffe’s operations, The German Air Force Versus Russia, 1942.{2} Generals Morzik and Plocher were both Luftwaffe commanders on the Eastern Front. Dr. Richard Muller’s The German Air War in Russia and Von Hardesty’s Red Phoenix round out the evidence for the Stalingrad case.{3} The evidence on Berlin Airlift operations is drawn from the Combined Airlift Task Force’s preliminary report on Operation Vittles, the US Army Transportation Corps’s report on Operation Vittles, Dudley Barker’s Berlin Air Lift: Special Study of Operation “Vittles,” and Gen William H. Tunner’s Over the Hump.{4} Over the Hump is a first-hand account that provides a detailed perspective of the operations from the task force commander. John Prados and Ray Stubbe’s book, Valley of Decision: The Siege of Khe Sanh provides the background of that battle, but the primary evidence for this study is found in the Contemporary Historical Evaluation of Combat Operations (CHECO) reports, situation reports, interviews, and numerous unit histories of the airlift units that participated in the relief effort.{5}

Methodology and Analytical Criteria

This paper uses an inductive approach. The conclusion of each case will develop doctrinal imperatives for supplying enclaves by air. These imperatives are derived by studying several factors that contributed to the success or failure of the airlift operation in the context of the political and military situation in which it was executed. The four factors that influence how airlift resources are employed and the outcome of the airlift operation are the threat, the requirements to capabilities ratio, the support infrastructure, and the weather. Each factor includes explicit reference to the ground situation as well as the air situation. The factors are each related to operational decisions made by the airlift planners. One of those decisions is how to employ the airlift forces. There are two basic ways to employ airlift forces: the surge method and the continuous flow method. From the results of the decisions made, each case derives specific doctrinal propositions related to a situational analysis of the airlift support to the enclave. The propositions from each case are then synthesized to determine preliminary conclusions based on their general historical applicability. These preliminary conclusions are evaluated for their continuing validity in light of contemporary changes affecting airlift support to enclaves, leading to the final conclusion. From this conclusion, implications will be drawn for future doctrine regarding aerial support to enclaves. We will now move to the frozen plains of Russia to analyze the first case: German airlift support to the beleaguered garrison at Stalingrad.

CHAPTER 2—THE LUFTWAFFE’S AERIAL RESUPPLY OF THE SIXTH ARMY AT STALINGRAD

“When the aircraft do not land, it means the death of the army.”—Generaloberst Friedrich Paulus, 20 January 1943

Confronting fierce combat and the ravages of starvation and intense cold on the bitter steppes of Russia, soldiers of the German Sixth Army surrendered only after they had become too weak to carry their weapons and found themselves without ammunition against numerically superior enemy forces. Over 90,000 men fell into Soviet captivity in the Stalingrad battles, few of whom lived to return.{6} This chapter will attempt to determine what doctrinal imperatives regarding aerial resupply of enclaves can be learned from the tragedy at Stalingrad. The first part of the study will be devoted to a discovery of the facts. The analysis will then trace effects back to their causes in terms of factors that influenced the airlift effort. Finally, we will investigate and evaluate the means employed leading to a determination of the doctrinal precepts to be derived from this case.

Analysis of the Stalingrad airlift will focus on the Sixth Army’s general situation, its requirements compared to the Luftwaffe’s capabilities, the Soviet threat to the Luftwaffe’s resupply efforts, the support infrastructure supporting the airlift operation, and the influence of weather on the operation.

Sixth Army’s General Situation

In the Russian summer campaign of 1942, Adolf Hitler’s objectives were governed chiefly by economic considerations. He therefore decided to advance in two different directions toward the Caucasus to secure oil and toward Stalingrad to sever the Volga River.{7} Stalingrad and the isthmus between the Don River and the Volga were important to the Soviets as a center of war industry and as a line of communications to the south. The Caucuses presented Hitler with the source of much needed oil to fuel the German war machine.{8} Fuehrer Directive No. 45 assigned Army Group B the mission of capturing Stalingrad and establishing a defensive line along the Don River, with plans for the capture of Astrakhan to be worked out after the conquest of Stalingrad.{9} In pursuit of these objectives, Hitler decided to abandon the steady and methodical offensive of the two army groups in Combat Zone South and to concentrate, instead, upon two separate efforts, one against Stalingrad and the Volga and the other a thr...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ABSTRACT
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• CHAPTER 1-INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 2-THE LUFTWAFFE’S AERIAL RESUPPLY OF THE SIXTH ARMY AT STALINGRAD
• CHAPTER 3-THE BERLIN AIRLIFT
• CHAPTER 4-KHE SANH, THE AMERICAN AERIAL RESUPPLY OF THE US MARINES
• CHAPTER 5-CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR THE FUTURE