Word: frontal
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...AirLand ground battle would bear little resemblance to the World War I- style frontal assault that Saddam Hussein's generals seem to be bracing to fight. "Don't give me a meat grinder," General Norman Schwarzkopf has repeatedly told his operations planners. Instead, AirLand doctrine calls for air attacks on the enemy's rear areas to cut off supply lines, destroy command-and-control centers, and strike at reinforcing units in order to isolate the battlefront...
...briefing en route to Saudi Arabia, however, Powell cautioned against the idea that the "ground campaign, as the night follows the day, means huge casualties." Saddam may be planning a Verdun in the sand, but ! allied commanders insist they are not going to oblige him by relying primarily on frontal attacks on the impressive Iraqi fortifications. The campaign instead is likely to combine a flanking maneuver around the lines in Kuwait, with paratroop drops and amphibious landings behind those lines...
...intensified air war. The likely meaning: the aim of all the assaults would be to draw the Iraqis out from their fortifications and into a war of maneuver. Iraqis are not considered good at such fighting, and, more important, they would be doing it without vital air cover. Frontal attacks, where they occurred, would be preceded by heavy aerial bombardment and would be aimed at piercing holes in the lines, which the Iraqis would have to try to seal off by counterattack. That would require them to come out into the open and expose themselves to pitiless bombing and strafing...
...strike the allied forces because his air force is in hiding or in exile, his insignificant navy is bottled up, and his Scud missiles are too inaccurate to pose much threat to military targets. He can only hope that the allied troops will come to him in a frontal assault on his fixed positions...
...probable U.S. and allied attack strategy: U.S. and Arab troops may stage frontal assaults to keep Iraqi troops pinned down and launch a secondary thrust along the Persian Gulf coast. But the main assault could be a left hook: an attack around the western tip of Kuwait into Iraq proper, looping back to cut off the dug-in troops. As for tactics, the primary way to breach the fortifications would be simply to try to blast a way through with aerial bombs. If that does not work, combat engineers would use "line charges" -- bombs thrown out on cables to form...