burned. I quickly learned that no matter what had happened between these ethnic groups in the past, the Serbs were clearly the oppressors now. So the first time I was called on to attack a convoy of Serb military vehicles, just outside a barracks in central Kosovo, I had no moral problems at all. I rolled in, put my pipper on the target, pickled off my bombs, pulled up, spit out some flares, and climbed back into the sun to protect myself from heat-seeking missiles. Just like that.
Due to my younger son’s health, I was allowed to return home on the first available transport after the fighting ended. It was a great flight—not in the normal sense, of course, since C-130s are notoriously uncomfortable. No, it was a great flight because I had made it! I had survived the confusing politics, five months of deployment, and almost three months of sustained combat. Not only had I survived, but I had proven to myself that I could perform in combat. That might not seem like much—after all, we fighter pilots like to act like nothing can stop us. But there’s always that nagging question, “Do I have what it takes?” I knew the answer, and it felt good!
I returned to Spangdahlem late at night. Our parent wing, the 52d AEW, had been launching, flying, and recovering F-16CJ and F-117 Nighthawk combat sorties during virtually the entire conflict. I figured that this base would know just how big a deal the fighting had really been. As I drove in the gate, I saw the “Welcome to Spangdahlem” sign. Below it was a message that, for me, truly typified the public’s awareness of the combat we had experienced in Kosovo:
Chapter 5
TARGET IDENTIFICATION AND RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Introduction
We wrote this chapter with a little trepidation, since it addresses some sensitive and potentially controversial topics. Nevertheless, we think it is important to discuss how the air campaign against fielded ground forces was guided and executed at the tactical level so that readers understand and appreciate the essential war- fighter lessons from our OAF experiences. The authors neither examined all aspects of the air campaign nor attempted to analyze and draw conclusions about the instructions that originated at higher levels of command. We only describe how the ROEs affected our operations—without speculation on the decision-making process that developed them. We discuss how ROEs can best serve an air campaign’s objectives, particularly in low- to medium- intensity air operations against ground forces. Our observations and conclusions are from a tactical perspective; from that perspective and at various times, we found the ROEs operationally constraining and war extending.
As the campaign’s first AFACs (and the ones who spent the most time over Kosovo), we detected, identified, selected, and engaged most of the fielded Serb forces that NATO engaged. We discuss target identification and ROEs in the same chapter because they had the greatest in-flight influence on determining which targets to leave alone and which to destroy.
Target Identification
Target identification was the critical process through which AFACs located potential targets and determined whether or not they were valid. We used many methods. First, we received a daily list from the CAOC that contained possible targets and their locations, such as “four tanks at coordinates yyyy North and xxxx East.” The list was developed during the 12 hours prior to its release, using the best available information. Even so, we quickly learned that it was hopelessly outdated and generally useless. While some of the information may have been incorrect from the start, it was more likely that the Serb forces had moved during the 12–24 hours it took for the data to be gathered, analyzed, and disseminated—and for us to launch, get overhead, and maneuver into a position to attack. The US Army’s Hunter UAVs were a much better source of timely information. Their usefulness, however, was still a function of the elapsed time from their observation to our getting overhead.
The crews on the E-8 JSTARS aircraft provided the location of vehicles or convoys that were moving in the KEZ. We found these crews to be very professional and accurate in their assessments of convoy size, makeup, and location. Initially we relied heavily on JSTARS for target information and found ourselves rushing (as fast as a Hog can rush) across Kosovo to identify all convoys, discovering that the vast majority of them were civilian vehicles. The Serbs quickly countered the JSTARS capability by hiding their armored vehicles and mixing their other military vehicles in among the civilian cars, trucks, and tractors that made up the large refugee convoys. Often we were called to identify a convoy while in the process of setting up to attack a valid target. We would abort that attack, fly to the convoy, confirm it was limited to refugee vehicles, run out of gas, and be forced to return to base or go to the tanker. That approach left the original valid targets undamaged. We agreed within the first two weeks to change tactics. The JSTARS crew members would give us an initial target-area briefing, and then we would “pull” information rather than have them “push” it—unless, of course, they saw a particularly interesting target.
There were too few JSTARS aircraft in-theater to provide around-the-clock coverage. The CAOC directed JSTARS to support daylight KEZ operations, which left the night uncovered. We later concluded that the E-8 would have been much more productive had it flown at night. The Serbs generally stopped moving equipment during the day because we had been successful in acquiring them visually and picking them off. However, they became very active at night—moving and digging like crazy. Every morning artillery had been moved to new pits; more revetments, tunnels, and dugouts had been constructed to protect APCs; and the wreckage of the armor and artillery that we destroyed the day before had been recovered and moved.
Our proposal to switch JSTARS from day to night operations was passed to the CAOC. We reasoned that the JSTARS crews would be able to observe the Serbs’ nightly movements and inform us where they had relocated their weaponry, so that at daybreak we could
The lack of satellites or drone imagery was also a serious void in our tool kit for locating targets. We did not have a dedicated imagery-production process to provide our unit with photos of the Serbs’ fielded forces. Perhaps those targets did not have sufficient priority or had been deemed “too hard” to locate. Whatever the reason, the CAOC provided imagery on only a few occasions.
The 40th EOG’s operations-intelligence section contained some of the unsung heroes in the A-10’s OAF success. This outstanding group was comprised of elements from the 52d FW at Spang and the 23d Fighter Group at Pope, and was well led by 1st Lt Stephen “Al” Smith and Capt Kenneth R. “Ken” Uhler. Their creative response to the imagery problem provided us with many good pictures that resulted in numerous confirmed kills. They fought hard to acquire the equipment necessary to access the Web sites that contained classified US imagery and then spent two to three hours every night searching and downloading satellite target pictures of Serbian forces in the KEZ. They also built a solid working relationship with the British intelligence section located across the street from our operations building. Their GR-7 Harriers often carried photoreconnaissance pods, and our intel counterparts would process the morning’s film, analyze and enlarge the best prospects, and then bring them over to our unit. From these two sources, Al and Ken built the eagerly anticipated “Hog menu of the day” target list. Some days were richer than others, but the Hog menu usually included at least three and as many as seven targets.
