Engineers and Combined Arms Commanders
First of all, I need to keep this note in perspective. It has being written 40 years after commanding a combat engineer battalion and 35 years after commanding a combat engineer brigade. Plus, I am aware that technology and tactics certainly have changed during this time.
So what is my point?
My point is that engineers, especially combat engineers, need to ensure that infantry and armor combined arms commanders appreciate how engineers can contribute to combat operations.
Perhaps the classic example of this occurred during the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. The spearhead of the assault was a unit that would become synonymous with the Ardennes offensive, Kampfgruppe Peiper (KG). Named after its commanding officer, Jochen Peiper, KG Peiper was the most powerful force in the entire German offensive in the north, a mechanized brigade-sized command formed to be the striking arm of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. However, the KG Peiper attack was stalled by US Army engineers. Peiper, who kept his engineer bridging assets at the rear of his column, could not get them forward fast enough to bridge rivers where American engineers had demolished bridges, right in the face of his advance. This held up his attack which had, as one objective, capturing American fuel depots so that German armor and other vehicles could be fueled for the push to the port at Antwerp.
assets upfront was a huge mistake - a significant failure IMHO on his part.)
Let me share with you, how, in my day, many combined, arms exercises addressed the placement of inch and or obstacles. Usually this was with white engineer tape, offset from the obstacle area (Can't block a road, can we?) and "guarded" by junior combat engineer soldiers. The response of the opposing force to these "obstacles" was usually to blow by them without slowing down or stopping at all, and giving a one finger gesture to the hapless obstacle guards.
So please let me change subjects, and I promise to return to combat engineering shortly.
In peacetime, it is a given that a major component of field artillery training is firing, live rounds. These rounds (hopefully) fall into a designated impact area. Since artillery rounds are made to do lots of damage, impact areas are characterized by numerous craters and broken trees, as well as an abundance of shrapnel.
So in the same sense I would respectfully submit that engineers - as part of the combined arms team - need to be able to create craters and break some trees as part of their training.
However, differing from the artillery, engineers need to be able to perform these obstacle functions within the combined arms training area as opposed to some designated impact area or at the demolitions range.
Q: Will triple standard concertina across a road stop a tank?
A: Yes, if the crew doesn't want to be pulling barbed tape concertina out of its tank sprockets.
A: No, if the crew wants to bull through and address a maintenance mess afterwards.
Q: Will steel hedge hogs across a road stop a tank?
A: Yes, if the crew doesn't want its beautiful tank marred by a bunch of scrapes and dents
A: No, if the crew wants to bull through and possible damage the tank but surely alter the tank's "looks" until repaired.
Q: Will a tank be stopped by a road crater?
A: Yes!
Q: Will a tank be stopped by an abatis or by timber and logs placed across a road and tied together by barb wire?
A: Yes!
Note that this discussion does need to be framed into some realistic factors concerning training land. One cannot just allow engineers to crater all the roads in the training area. But they can permit the actual blockage of training area roads using barbed wire, hedge hogs, and log obstacles laced together with barbed wire. They might even allow small tank ditches in fields with the proviso that the ditches be filled in post-exercise.
In summary, we need combined arms commanders who have seen how engineers can truly be a force multiplier. To accomplish this task engineers need the freedom to demonstrate their skills in the most realistic manner possible.
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