Piercing the Fog - Air Force Historical Studies Office

Early Intelligence Organization
The RED attack scenario identified the U.S. electric power system as the heart
of its industrial system, followed, in order of priority, by transportation (chiefly
rai1roads);fuel refining and distribution, food distribution and preservation, and
steel manufacturing. Destruction of a number of highly concentrated factories
would add a crippling blow; these included electric generator, transformer,
switch gear, and motor manufacturing plants; locomotive manufacturing; and
aluminum and magnesium producers. To strike these targets effectively would
mean defeating the air defense forces. The best method of defeating the air
defense would entail attack on air bases, aircraft and engine factories, sources
of aviation fuel, and attrition through air combat attendant to these missions.48
On the basis of these preliminary studies, the ACTS study concluded that
the ideal objective for air attack would be an undefended vital element of an
enemy's national structure that consisted of only a few individual targets
concentrated within a relatively small area. Since G-2 was responsible for War
Department intelligence, the ACTS wanted G-2 to determine the three most
important vital elements in foreign countries against which war plans were
being prepared. This effort would be followed by the collection of detailed
information on the individual targets within each of the vital elements. The
detailed information then would be used to prepare objective folders that would
permit air commanders to plan and execute aerial attacks on the various targets
comprising each of the three vital elements. The school staff further asked that
all intelligence work be coordinated in terms of the most likely operations to be
undertaken on M-day.
In accordance with the projected strategic air concept, ACTS officers
considered the priority of operations, and hence of intelligence collection, to be
defense of the continental U.S.; defense of the Western Hemisphere; and
offensive operations against Japan, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, France, or
Russia."' However valuable such a study might have been as an educational
tool, or however potentially useful it might be in the event of war, in the middle
to late 1930s the work far exceeded the limited analytical capability of the MID.
In addition, neither the G-2 nor the War Department as a whole was committed
to the projected ofSeensive employment of aviation envisioned at ACTS.
Even with their collective efforts, it is doubtful that the attachts, G-2, and
the War Department could have satisfied the intelligence demands generated by
the concept of strategic air attack developed at the ACTS. To move from the
conceptual to the planning phase required a comprehensive yet detailed analysis
of the economic infrastructure of a potential adversary. Targets were, as always,
the central issue. Determining them first required identification and analysis of
the crucial target systems representing the adversary's economic structure.
Specific targets within the broader target system categories then could be
identified. Selection of targets for attack would require further analysis to
determine their degree of residual capability or cushion, their recuperative
capability, a country's dispersal potential, and a host of other factors. In short,
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