Attacking the Republican Guard
On 17 January 1991, the United States and coalition forces launched the Gulf War air offensive. Waves of aircraft flooded into Kuwait and Iraq, attacking key integrated air defense system nodes; airfields; command and control systems; nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) sites; and electric plants. [7] Daybreak of the first day witnessed the commencement of attacks against Iraqi ground forces in Kuwait. Among the centers of gravity identified by Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the US joint forces commander, were the seven elite Republican Guard divisions held in reserve along the Iraq-Kuwait border. [8] While aerial attack continued against key strategic targets in Iraq, 75 percent of strike missions focused on the Iraqi ground forces in Kuwait.[9]
US casualties in a ground invasion were predicted to be as high as 15,000. [10] Concern over this possibility prompted Secretary of Defense Richard B. “Dick” Cheney, Gen Colin L. Powell, and Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf to develop a strategy emphasizing the use of airpower before a ground battle to significantly reduce the size of the Iraqi army, its capability to maneuver, and its will to fight. This air-first strategy proved highly successful, with friendly casualty rates below even the most optimistic estimates and friendly ground forces achieving objectives ahead of schedule and against only limited Iraqi resistance. However, this aerial achievement was not accomplished without major modifications to existing tactics.
The Gulf War air offensive consisted of three phases, conducted nearly simultaneously. Phases one and two were directed against strategic and air-superiority target sets including leadership, command and control facilities, NBC facilities, airfields, aircraft, and the IADS. Phase three targeted Iraqi fielded forces, calling for 50 percent attrition of Iraq’s 5,000 pieces of dug-in armor and artillery prior to any ground offensive.[11] In this phase, Schwarzkopf was most concerned with the three heavy divisions of the seven Republican Guard divisions along the Kuwait-Iraq border.[12] These units were widely dispersed and well dug in with thousands of earthen berms protecting their T-72 tanks.[13] Their defenses included AAA, infrared SA-13 SAMs, and radar-guided SA-6 SAMs.
Phase three required the unprecedented success of airpower against a fielded army.[14] A briefing by Brig Gen Buster C. Glosson, air-planning chief, to Schwarzkopf in December 1990 estimated that the Republican Guard would suffer 50 percent attrition in only five days, assuming 600 sorties a day.[15] Air planners divided Kuwait and Iraq into a grid pattern of 30 by 30 NM squares known as “kill boxes.” Strike aircraft were assigned individual kill boxes to perform armed reconnaissance in locating and destroying Iraqi forces.[16] The task of attacking the elite Republican Guard fell to F-16s and B-52s, while A-10s were employed against the regular Iraqi divisions dug in along the Kuwait-Saudi border.[17]
By the fifth day of phase three, coalition air attacks against the Republican Guard were still far short of the 50 percent destruction expected by Schwarzkopf.[18] Postwar analysis indicated that the Republican Guard’s heavy-division armor actually suffered only 24–34 percent attrition during the entire 38 days of the air campaign.[19] Glosson’s five-day estimate proved overly optimistic for two reasons. First, the number of sorties flown against the Republican Guard fell well short of 600 per day. A combination of initial overemphasis on phase one strategic operations, a reluctance to employ A-10s deep into the battlespace, and unanticipated Scud-hunting missions reduced the number of sorties available to attack the Republican Guard. For the first five days, total strikes against Republican Guard units were constant at around 100 missions per day. By the end of the 10th day, a cumulative sortie count against the Republican Guard totaled 728 missions.[20] Second, air attacks were not as effective as war- gaming analysis had predicted.[21] The aircrews of US aircraft used medium- altitude tactics to reduce the threat from Iraqi air defenses. While this greatly improved survivability, US pilots had trained with low-altitude tactics appropriate to a war in central Europe and were relatively unfamiliar with medium-altitude tactics. Unforeseen difficulties with target identification, poor weather, and inaccuracies in delivering ballistic weapons from medium altitude all reduced effectiveness.
Increasing the number of sorties against the Republican Guard solved the first issue. However, the tactical problem of how to best destroy a dug in army remained. In response, the joint air operations center (JAOC) incorporated three changes to improve the efficiency of the operational air forces. The first tactic involved directing the unique firepower of the A-10 against exposed and vulnerable Republican Guard forces. On 27 February, Glosson instructed A-10 commanders to prepare an attack on the Republican Guard Tawakalna armored division.[22] Facing such a heavily defended force, A-10s flew 48 aircraft in six waves of eight-ship formations, instead of their usual two-ship tactics. Three days of such wing-sized attacks were mounted against the division. The Iraqis responded by stepping up their deception efforts and by digging their forces even deeper into the desert sand. Although the US Army was unable to assess the effectiveness of allied attacks, the Tawakalna division’s degraded air defenses and increased use of decoys were considered positive indicators.[23]
The second innovation was the F-111F’s introduction of “tank plinking.” Targets could be located and attacked from medium altitude with infrared targeting pods and laser-guided bombs.[24] The pods could clearly distinguish the infrared image of the warm Iraqi armor against the cold desert background.[25] This method provided the additional advantage of using targeting-pod video to verify successful attacks and boost BDA estimates.
The final tactical innovation reintroduced the Fast FAC mission. F-16CG (Block 40s) from Hill AFB, Utah, began flying as “Killer Scouts.”[26] This innovation mirrored the Misty FAC hunter-killer tactics during Vietnam but was renamed to avoid confusion with hunter-killer SEAD tactics currently used by F-4G Wild Weasels and F-16s. Killer Scouts took off early and reconnoitered their assigned kill boxes. They were allocated sufficient air-refueling tankers to remain on station for long periods to become familiar with the territory and increase their situational awareness. Like the Misty FACs, the Killer Scouts carried a minimum munitions load to reduce drag and increase endurance. When they identified Iraqi positions, they usually brought in F-16 strikers for the attack. Along with identifying viable target areas for attack, they also assisted in the collection of BDA. To do that, the Killer Scouts relied primarily on their own eyes, aided somewhat by binoculars. Unfortunately, operating at medium altitude made it difficult to accurately determine the number of targets destroyed. The Killer Scout role had its limitations, but this innovation led to the more efficient use of F-16s against Iraqi fielded forces.
Following the Gulf War, the USAF remained deployed in Southwest Asia, maintained two no-fly zones over Iraq, and responded to sporadic infringements by Saddam Hussein’s remaining forces. Elsewhere, the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the Bosnian Serbs’ ethnic cleansing of Muslims in April of 1992 led to the US military’s involvement with the UN peacekeeping force in Bosnia. Meanwhile famine in war-torn Somalia brought a US military presence to Mogadishu from December 1992 until its hasty withdrawal in May of 1994. In September of 1995, US airpower was again needed. This time Operation Deliberate Force, an 11-day campaign, helped force Serbia to accept the Dayton Peace Accords.[27] By the late ’90s, NATO was convinced that airpower was an effective tool to coerce Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president, and that it might be needed to solve the growing unrest in Kosovo.
Kosovo: Direct Attack of the Serbian Third Army
Tensions between Belgrade and Kosovo increased during the late 1980s. Slobodan Milosevic used protests by minority Serbs residing in the ethnically Albanian-dominated province as the foundation for his Serbian nationalist platform and his subsequent rise to the Serbian presidency in 1987.[28] By 1989, Belgrade had revoked Kosovo’s status as an autonomous region and placed restrictions on land ownership and government jobs for Kosovo Albanians.[29] During the 1990s, Kosovar dissension spawned a series of both violent and nonviolent protest.[30] Opposition became violent in 1997 with the formation of a small group of lightly armed guerrilla fighters known as
