Air War Debriefs 1991

General McPeak's Comments (15 March 1991)

• "My private conviction is that this is the first time in history that a field army has been

defeated by airpower"

• On D-Day the USAF had 652 fighter/attack aircraft, 87 other combat aircraft, and

394 support aircraft (total = 1133)

• At the start of the Ground War, the USAF had 747 fighter/attack aircraft or 10.4 full

fighter tactical wing equivalents, plus 161 other types of combat aircraft, and 463 support

aircraft on hand (total = 1371)

v USAF provided around 50% of the coalition air power

v 7440th Composite Wing at Incirlik, Turkey (145 aircraft)

... 24 x F-16C, 28 x F-15C, 18 x F-111E, 26 x F-4G + F-16C Weasel, 6 x EF-111A,

4 x F-4E Pave Tack, 3 x EC-130 Compass Call, 3 x AWACS E-3A, 8 x RF-4C, and 15 x KC-135

• The most critical period came in the first few minutes of 17 Jan 91 (Bagdad time

v the success of the opening minutes set the stage

... the Iraqi's never recovered from the shock

... "we took the initiative at the beginning, and we held it throughout..."

v all strategic targets were attacked by the coalition air forces

... electrical power

... communuications

... air defenses

... etc.

v at the heart of the attack was the F-117

... hit 37 major targets in Iraq & Kuwait on the first night

... never tracked by an enemy radar, operated for 43 days invulnerable

... these attacks made it possible to easily destroy the rest of the IADS

v success in the first hours also depended upon deception, old fashioned trickery

... 03:00 AM everything was made to appear "normal", i.e. AWACS + CAP's

... Allied "packages" were forming just beyond the range of Iraqi EW

... F-117's approached unseen and knocked out vital radars opening corridors

... hundreds of coalition aircraft then rushed through those holes

... [McPeak gives no credit to the Army Helos and Special Forces]

• Allies ran into an occassional problem, had to "call audibles"

v one audible was the unplanned merging into one gigantic operation what was originally

scheduled to be the three independent phases of the whole air campaign

v the original plan: around a 30 day operation

... 7-10 days to achieve air superiority

... 1 day to destroy mobile air defenses

... 3 weeks to demolish Iraqi armour, artillery, and other equipment

v in the weeks before D-Day, Gen Schwarzkopf decided to undertake all three phase

simultaneously because of the abundance of air power available.

... on 8 Nov 90, President Bush had ordered the near doubling of airpower

... there was no time from day 1 when Iraqi forces were not under air attack

• The Weather Played a Great Role

v for the entire war large swaths of Iraq and Kuwait lay hidden by thick cloud cover

and heavy rains, creating major, unexpected headaches for aircrews

v weather was as twice as bad as worse case estimates & the worst since 1977

v Air Campaign planners were forced to extend the 30 day campaign to 39 days

• The SCUD "Problem" changed Air Campaign emphasis on the run

v "What surprised us was that we put about three times the effort that we thought we

would into this job..."

v 2493 dedicated sorties fragged against SCUD's

... 100+ on each of the first six days

... SCUD launches averaged 5 per day for the 1st 10 days, 1 per day for the

last month, the total around 86

v Mobile SCUD launchers operated at night

... drove into these pre-surveyed launch-boxes and fired

... generally under 3000 ft overcast, note from Horner's briefing

... first attempts were to utilize low level road recce's but seceral

aircrat were lost (2 x F-15E, 2 x A-6)

v eventually teamed the F-15E with JSTARS

... JSTARS found moving SCUD's with MTI, passed target coordinates to F-15E

• Iraq was no Featherweight, but its Air Force was Defiately Out Classed

v gave them credit for around 1000 aircraft, widely dispersed

v 17,000 SAM's, 9-10000 AAA pieces, modern radars

v all lashed together with high-tech equipment

... computer data links

... fiber-optic connections

... hardened control nodes buried in concrete bunkers

v Iraqi pilots just could not stand up to the US equipment and weapons

... the Iraqi Air Force lost a generation of pilots

... most of the infrastructure was destroyed

... pre-war stats noted 750 fighter/attack plus 200 support aircraft

... 90 combat + 6 accidents + 16 from ground forces + 122 into Iran = 234 lost

v almost all of the 594 hardened shelters were attacked, 375 hit and were

damaged or destroyed (63%), killing around 141 aircraft inside

v for the first three days the Iraqi Air Force tried to fight, the next four they tried to

sit out the war in shelters, they as the shelters were being destroyed they fled to

Iran, first with the support aircraft, then the escorts stayed

... on day 9 the Iraqi Air Force stood down for maintenance

... on day 10 the first of two large groups ran to Iran

... USAF put CAP's up along the border, they stopped

... when the CAP's went down, they scurried out in small groups

• The Bombing Statistics:

v 210,800 "dumb" bombs (77,000 tons) dropped by USAF, USMC, and USN

v 15,500 precision guided munitions (7400 tons) by same

v around 90% of USAF LG munitions hit their targets

v coalition forces attacked 54 major bridges across the Tigris-Euphrates

... around 40 of the 54 (93%) were "in the water"

v USAF claims that all but 400 of Iraq's 4400 tnks and all artillery was destroyed

General Horner's Comments (20Jun91)

• The moon and the weather were considerations in the D&O selection

• There were doubts about the value of stealth before Desert Storm

• High praise about the President and his guidance, gave it and stood out of the way

• Appreciation for the support from the American People

• Amazed and delighted that things worked as advertised and planned

• The key events that effect the future:

- defense spending has returned to levels of the 1930's

- counter rotating CAP's were used over the air bases

- the F-22 had better be a great fighter

- first attacks ever on biological targets, not sure of contamination

- during the battle for Kafje, 70 tanks started down the roads, 3 got

there.....it became a real morale booster for the allies that Saddam was not ten ft tall

- SCUD Busting, they only launched when overcasts were below 3000 feet

- the preparation of the battlefield for the ground assault called "tank plinking"

• Gen Bill Ryder said "War is Logistics"

• The F-15E's stationed in Thumrait, Oman moved to Al Kharg overnight after

the first wave recovered

• The Big Winners were Stealth and High Technology

• Other aircraft were considered to be "Baseline Forces"

- Jaguar, F-5E, F-16, A-10, Alpha Jet, F-1, Mirage 2000, Buccaneer,

Tornado, F/A-18, AV-8B, etc...they "carried the coal"

- 82% of Iraqi tanks were "destroyed" (more like made ineffective)

80% of Iraqi artillery pieces were made unuseable

• Young soldiers expressed a selfless attitude of "Here til victory"

• The various air wings had the final scrubb on the frag

• The President and SecDef gave reasonable and achievable goals

• The lawyers also reviewed the targets for international law violations

• The American Aerospace Industry was vindicated

• It was the "Bomb Jammers" that overheated, not the ECM Jammers

• Technology finally caught up with Air Power Theory

• Going to Bagdad was not in the Guidance from the White House

• It was desired to stay out of the towns and cities (collateral casualties)

• Swarzkopf never said that he wanted to go to Bagdad

• It was the President who decided when to stop the War

• Came out in support of an aggressive FMS sales program to our allies

• It was a six week war, remember the tracers seen on CNN were 1 out of 9

• The Message now is: "Don't screw around...international Law has teeth"

• US proved to have the best motivated and trained people

• It's seven years to the next war and around eight to the next nuclear

capablility that might be hostile

• USAF and USN forces melded, Marine PPIF's were used for photo recce

because there was a need for real photo maps by the ground troops

Gulf War Chronology

Air War Debriefs 1991