A-10s over Kosovo

17

Andrews, 29. Air Force assets were not the only air assets attacking fielded forces. Carrier-based strikers, including F/A-18s, also attacked fielded forces; however, they did not begin to attack the Republican Guard in earnest until a week after the air war had started.

18

Lt Col Christopher P. Weggeman, F-16 pilot with 388th TFW flying the Killer Scout mission against the Republican Guard, E-mail interview with author, 28 November 2000. The Army was concerned not only with armor but also support assets such as artillery, mechanized infantry vehicles, support vehicles, ammunition supplies, and POL storage.

19

Keaney and Cohen, 106.

20

Keaney and Cohen, A Statistical Compendium, pt. 1, 463–539. The majority of these missions, 569, were delivered by F-16s employing nonprecision, free-falling general-purpose bombs as well as older-generation cluster bomb units (Mk-20 Rockeye, CBU-52, and CBU-58). Battlefield effectiveness was below expectations, which led to concern over the high consumption rates of the more modern, armor-piercing CBU-87 during the first two weeks. “CENTAF TACC/NCO Log, January-February 1991” (U), 30 January 1991, 21. (Secret) Information extracted is unclassified.

21

Weggeman interview.

22

William L. Smallwood, Warthog: Flying the A-10 in the Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, 1993), 123–24.

23

Andrews, 44.

24

Keaney and Cohen, Summary Report, 21; Andrews, 54; and Fred L. Frostic, Air Campaign against the Iraqi Army in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations, Rand Report MR-357-AF (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1994). F-111Fs developed the tank-plinking tactic using their Pave Tack laser designator. Lessons learned during a Desert Shield exercise had shown the potential for identifying and targeting armor from medium altitude. On 5 February, two F-111Fs successfully dropped two GBU-12s on revetted positions. Within three days, 50 sorties a night were devoted to tank plinking. Navy A-6Es began dropping a limited number of LGBs, as did F-15E crews. The F-15Es were limited by the number of LANTIRN pods and quickly developed buddy lasing techniques.

25

Andrews, 56.

26

AFDD 2-1.3, 102. Counterland doctrine now incorporates the Killer Scout mission.

27

Col Robert C. Owen, ed., Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective Air Campaigning (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 2000), xvii.

28

Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (New York: New York University Press, 1998), 341.

29

Tim Judah, Kosovo: War and Revenge (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000), 62.