Gulf War Air Power Survey, vol. II, part I, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993), 262, 263. The most extreme example of this was by army intelligence officers in the field. They only counted A-10 strikes in producing damage assessments. The 300 sorties by F-16s and 24 B-52 sorties made per day were not included. The result was that as late as January 31, 1991, they estimated the Republican Guard units were still at 99 percent effectiveness. Part of the problem was the army belief that airpower could not possibly be effective against dug-in troops and armor.
Richard P. Hallion, Storm over Iraq (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 204-9, 218; and Gulf War Air Power Survey, vol. II, part I, 262—64. The goal of the Coalition air campaign did not lend itself to easy numerical measurements. As the official history noted: 'Much of the bean counting entirely missed the point. The number of tanks, vehicles, trucks, and artillery pieces destroyed did not determine whether the Iraqi Army would fight or even how well it would fight. Its battlefield effectiveness would depend on the state of mind of Iraqi soldiers and their officers.
Consequently, the impact of the air war depended, to a great extent, on psychological imponderables, and such uncertainties are not congenial to staff officers or to those statistical managers that have so bedeviled American military and intelligence agencies over the past twenty years.'
Gerkin, UAV — Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, 35, 36, 75, 76, 88–91, 169-72.
Forecast International, Amber/GNAT Orientation, 1990.
General Atomics, 'Long-endurance Tactical Surveillance and Support Systems.'
Forecast International, Amber/GNAT Orientation, 1990.
General Atomics Press Release, January 21, 1994. The GNAT-750 was actually part of a family of UAVs with similar designs. The GNAT-BT […] to train the controllers without risking […] bigger UAV […] was 8 feet long and had a 13.1-foot wingspan. It has made some 404 flights, involving 359 hours of flight time and 1,169 landings. On the low end of the design spectrum is the Prowler. This is half the size of the GNAT-750 and is rail-launched for short-range reconnaissance.
On the upper end is the GNAT-750-45, also called the 750-TE Predator. It had a 41.7-foot wingspan and was 26.7 feet long. Its payload was increased to 400 to 500 pounds. The equipment was housed in a bullet-shaped nose.
The Predator would carry a synthetic aperture radar with a resolution of one foot that would cover an 8,000- foot-wide swath from 25,000 feet. A turret under the nose would also house three electro-optical infrared sensors with a resolution of six feet. The data would be relayed to ground stations via a 30-inch-diameter satellite dish.
David A. Fulghum, 'USAF Stresses UAVs for Recon,' Aviation Week and Space Technology (September 27, 1993), 44.
John D. Morrocco, 'Pentagon-CIA UAV Gains New Significance,' Aviation Week and Space Technology (November 8, 1993), 28.
General Atomics, 'Long-endurance Tactical Surveillance and Support Systems.'
Fulghum, 'USAF Stresses UAVs for Recon,' 44; and David A. Fulghum and John D. Morrocco, 'CIA to Deploy UAVs in Albania,' Aviation Week and Space Technology (January 31, 1994), 20, 21. The CIA GNAT-750 effort was Tier 1 of a three-part UAV development program. Tier 2 would use the Predator. Ten Predators would be built in a $31.7 million program, to be fully operational in 30 months. Initially, Tier 3 was to be a large and costly program to develop a stealth UAV. These plans were soon scrapped. Reports likened the Tier 3, in a broad sense, to an unmanned B-2 in terms of size, complexity, and cost. The technology was considered so sensitive that should one have crashed, the wreckage would have to be bombed to ensure it was destroyed. The cost would have been so great that only two to four could have been built. Replacing Tier 3 is 'Tier 2-plus' and 'Tier 3-minus.' The first involved a UAV for broad area coverage for a major regional crisis like the Gulf War. It would fly at an altitude of 60,000 to 65,000 feet and carry a payload of 1,500 pounds. The sensor payload would include such equipment as ELINT and multispectral sensors. The other is a flying wing UAV with the stealth properties of the original Tier 3, but at a much lower cost.
