Sadly, there was another source of beautiful imagery for finding Serb army targets that we were unable to exploit. The French army operated ground-controlled reconnaissance drones and routinely collected imagery during the course of the conflict that could have been very valuable. We were unable to use it because we did not even know it existed. I first became aware of this capability a year after OAF while visiting a large open house in September 2000 that was hosted jointly by the French army and the French Joint Defense College. There I met members of the 61st Artillery Regiment as they displayed their CL 289 and Crecerelle optical and IR-imagery drones. They explained that their drones were able to take both day and night pictures, and that they also had data links for real-time imagery transmission. Curious, I asked their leader if they had participated in any recent operations. A lieutenant said, “Yes, Kosovo.” I then asked them from where, and they replied “Kumanovo”—which had been our Macedonian entry point into the eastern half of the KEZ. I asked them how they employed their drones, and they said they flew them daily to determine the positions of Serb army tanks, APCs, and artillery— exactly in the areas where we flew our missions. They normally flew them at night so that they would have a good ground order of battle for the beginning of the day. I asked if their operations had been effective. They said, “Yes,” and added that they got very good, if not complete, information on Serb army dispositions. I asked them to whom they sent their imagery, and they said to the normal French army-intelligence channels.
I was flabbergasted. As the sun went up each day, we were always the first AFACs across the border, and we desperately needed that kind of imagery to find targets. The French imagery would have been perfect for us since it could have been delivered close enough to real time that the enemy could not have moved his weaponry before we arrived overhead. Someone had it—but we didn’t. I can’t speculate on where it went or why it never got to us, but obviously every possibility for obtaining crucial target information should be exploited.
Another good source of current target information was the CAOC’s force-level execution (FLEX) targeting cell. The FLEX cell fused information gained from various sources, using a variety of methods, and was often able to determine the location of actively operating Serb army units and command posts. For example, when a Serb artillery unit fired on a Kosovar village, the US Army’s counterbattery radar could plot the Serbs’ position. Similarly, when a Serb command post transmitted orders on its radios, our electronic warfare (EW) folks could triangulate its location. The FLEX cell also received target information from Predator drones. The cell fused all of this information and passed it to the ABCCC, which would then contact the AFAC in the area nearest the suspected target. The AFAC would then take a look, and our experience confirmed that the FLEX information was usually quite accurate. The marriage of drones and AFACs to locate and engage targets was a first for either combat or training operations. Sometimes it worked well, and sometimes it didn’t. Our pioneering work with Predator is addressed more fully in chapter 7.
Even with all this high-tech help, we still located about 80 percent of the targets we engaged using our Mk-1 eyeballs, augmented by our trusty 12-power gyrostabilized binoculars. A typical OAF AFAC scenario would begin with thorough flight planning using the best target information available from all sources. After takeoff the AFAC would contact ABCCC and/or JSTARS and integrate their updates into his mission planning while en route to the KEZ. He would then proceed directly to the target areas. The AFAC would focus on either the highest priority target or the one that had the highest likelihood of being found. Failing to find anything to attack at the target coordinates and lacking any other good target information, the AFAC would proceed to areas where his experience suggested that he might find something worth attacking.
When AFACs looked for a particular target around a set of coordinates, their observant, naked eyes could often spot telltale signs of other targets—new revetments, tracks leading into the woods, and unusually configured shapes on a hillside. “Well, looky here!” was our normal reaction. The AFAC would then use his binoculars to get a closer look, and if it proved to be a valid target, he’d set up attacks. After our AFACs returned to the squadron, they compiled their own list of AFAC-located (but not destroyed) targets to be included in the daily mission reports to the CAOC and for follow-on AFACs to use in their flight planning.
Rules of Engagement
ROEs were proposed, developed, and changed at several levels within the command hierarchy. In our case, ROEs originated with and were reviewed by political authorities at the North Atlantic Council (NAC) in Brussels; SACEUR at Mons, Belgium; commander, AFSOUTH at Naples, Italy; commander, AIRSOUTH; and the CFACC. We understood that commander of AFSOUTH, at the operational level, was the chief ROE-setting authority.
NATO authorities “published” air-campaign ROEs in several documents that were then disseminated to subordinate headquarters and units. ROEs were published in the air operations directive and special instructions (SPINS). Additionally, because ROEs often changed, the CAOC dedicated a section of the daily ATO to list all of the ROEs applicable to that day’s sorties. All OAF units reviewed that dedicated section during their pre-mission preparation and found it very useful.
ROEs for KEZ operations fell into three general categories: altitude restrictions, restricted (no-attack) zones on the ground, and procedures to lower the risk of collateral damage. Altitude restrictions were designed to minimize the risk to aircrews from SAM and AAA threats. Higher altitude either puts the aircraft above the enemy’s effective capability or provides the aircrew with enough time to react and defeat the surface-to-air threats. On 30 March, at the outset of CAIFF operations, we were given the same minimum-altitude restriction as aircraft flying in interdiction packages—15,000 feet AGL. Although it kept us relatively safe, this altitude made identification of small military vehicles very difficult and rendered A-10 attacks practically impossible. By 6 April the mission-support elements of the standard KEZ package (SEAD, EW, ABCCC, NAEW, and combat air patrol [CAP]) had demonstrated their ability to suppress the most lethal Serb threats, and we were able to convince the CAOC to let AFACs descend to 10,000 feet AGL.
We operated with that minimum ROE altitude until 14 April—the tragic day when a civilian-vehicle convoy was incorrectly identified as a Serb military target and attacked by NATO aircraft. In reaction to this incident, the CAOC changed the minimum altitudes for KEZ operations to improve target confirmation. AFACs could descend to 5,000 feet AGL, and all fighters could descend to 8,000 feet AGL during target attack. These ROEs seemed backwards to us Hog drivers at Gioia. Most enemy missile launches occurred while the AFACs were searching for targets, focused on the ground, and doing very little maneuvering—not during weapons delivery. We immediately directed all of our pilots to conduct target search no lower than 10,000 feet AGL.
No-attack zones were geographically defined areas within Kosovo in which we could not expend ordnance. Restricted areas were also geographically defined areas within Kosovo where weapons could be employed only after receiving CAOC permission. Various authorities had established these zones for a variety of reasons. The first such area to appear in the ROEs was the no-attack zone within 10 nautical miles of the Macedonian border. While at first we did not understand, we later learned that the zone was meant to reduce the risk of possible Serb reprisals on NATO troops in Macedonia. Authorities apparently believed that the Serbs might confuse the source of the ordnance raining down on them. Their concern was that the Serbs would ignore the NATO fighters overhead, credit the attacks to NATO artillery to the south, and expand the war into Macedonia. Other restricted areas were created near the end of the campaign, particularly in areas where it was thought the KLA was operating or where
