Airborne: A Guided Tour of an Airborne Task Force

3. Elevation of targets.

4. Distance from IP to the targets.

5. Target descriptions (artillery positions, tank columns, truck convoys, etc.).

6. Map coordinates of the targets.

7. Positions of nearby friendly forces.

8. Best direction to leave the target area.

9. Any other information that might help the pilot survive.

By formalizing the process of target designation and properly coordinating run-ins, the chances of a “blue- on-blue” or “friendly fire” incident are minimized.

These tactics did not develop overnight. On the contrary, from the time the 23rd Fighter Wing (the first overseas A-10 unit) stood up at RAF Bentwaters in the late 1970s, they were constantly refining their craft, always working to find new ways to better use their Hogs.

Throughout the 1980s, A-10 units were frequently deployed to trouble areas like Korea and the Caribbean, but always after the tensions were over. They helped hold the line during the final decade of the Cold War, and were almost out of business when a call to go to a real war arrived.

August of 1990 saw the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and the A-10 community were quickly up to their snouts in the crisis. One quick note about this, though. There has always been an apocryphal story that General Chuck Horner, the commander of the U.S. 9th Air Force and the Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF), did not want the Warthogs in the Persian Gulf. Nothing could be further from the truth, though.[37] Deployment of A-10 units had always been part of the 9th Air Force/CENTAF deployment schedule, and they got their alert order to move only six days after the first USAF units had started deploying to the Gulf. As General Horner would tell you, he had to get aircraft capable of getting air superiority into the theater first, and the Warthogs just had to wait their turn.

This does not mean that everything was easy when they got there. The deployment to Saudi Arabia took almost twice as long as a comparable F-15 or F-16 unit because of the Warthogs’ slow cruising speed, and when they arrived, the conditions they encountered were decidedly austere. Living in tent cities with outdoor showers was the rule for the A-10 units. But like the other units assigned to CENTAF, they worked hard and made their main base at King Fahd International Airport (near Dhahran) a suitable home.

The real problem the Warthog community had was selling themselves and their capabilities to the CENTAF planning staff. The bulk of the early Desert Storm air campaign targets were of a “strategic” type, requiring the kind of all-weather targeting and precision-guided munitions capabilities that were inherent to aircraft like the F-111F Aardvark, F-117 Nighthawk, and A-6E Intruder.[38] On the surface, this would appear to leave little for other attack aircraft like the A-10s, F-16s, and AV-8B Harriers to do, though nothing could be further from the truth. From the very beginning of the Desert Storm air campaign planning process, it had been planned to keep a constant, twenty-four-hour-a-day pressure on the Iraqis, especially their fielded forces in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations (KTO). When the advocates for the A-10 made their capabilities known to the CENTAF staff, the Warthogs quickly began to get mission tasking for operations in southern Iraq and Kuwait.

By the time Desert Shield turned into Desert Storm, a total of 144 A-10s had been deployed to Saudi Arabia, forming the 23rd and 354th Tactical Fighter Wings (Provisional). Despite the terrible weather and difficult operational conditions in the Gulf during the winter of 1991, overall A-10 mission availability during the Gulf War was rated at 95 percent, which was higher than peacetime levels at well-equipped home bases!

However, this was war and a price was paid when four A-10s were downed by enemy ground fire. Captain Stephen R. Phillis of the 354th TFW (P) was killed by a surface-to-air missile while escorting his battle-damaged wingman out of a target area in northern Kuwait on February 15th, 1991. For his actions, he was posthumously awarded the Silver Star. Two other battle-damaged A-10s were destroyed while attempting to land, and two other damaged aircraft were written off after they returned home (both became “gate guards” on static display at their Stateside home bases).

While operations in the air were dangerous for the A-10s, there also were problems on the ground. One of the realities of modern CAS operations is that they sometimes happen really close to friendly forces. Desert Storm was no exception, and there were several “friendly fire” incidents as a result. The first occurred during the Battle of Khafji, when an A-10 accidentally fired an AGM-65 IIR Maverick missile into the back of a USMC light armored vehicle. Seven Marines were killed, and another pair badly wounded. Later, in one of the most tragic incidents of the war, on February 25th, 1991, nine British troops died in a Warrior infantry combat vehicle struck by another Maverick mistakenly fired by an A-10. These were hardly the only “blue-on-blue” incidents to take place during Desert Storm, just the worst. In both cases there were questions about the Maverick missiles possibly going “stupid” (i.e., their seeker heads breaking lock on their intended targets) and going after the first target that came into view of the Maverick’s IIR seeker head.

On the plus side, A-10s flew 8,755 sorties, scoring confirmed kills on 1,106 trucks, 987 tanks, 926 artillery pieces, 501 armored personnel carriers, 249 command vehicles, 51 SCUD missile launchers, 96 Iraqi radars, SAM sites, and 10 parked aircraft, plus the 2 air-to-air kills against helicopters. The actual damage inflicted by the Warthogs was probably greater, because the rules for “confirmed” kills were very strict, but interpretation of the results is controversial since the Iraqis also made extensive use of decoy targets. A-10s delivered a large percentage of the total tonnage of ordnance delivered during the war, with a total of 5,013 AGM-65 Mavericks being launched, 14,184 500-lb/227-kg bombs dropped, and 940,254 30mm GAU-8 rounds fired. In the early days of the air campaign, A-10s often carried a pair of AIM-9M Sidewinder AAMs on the outermost weapon stations, but as the Iraqi air threat dissipated, these were usually left on the ground. A few were fired inadvertently, but no hits were scored.

Shooting wars always seem to bring out the ingenuity in Americans, and Desert Storm was no exception. No operational plan lasts beyond the first battle, and the A-10 squadrons had to improvise a variety of new tactics for the desert war. To avoid the heaviest Iraqi ground fire, they were ordered by the CENTAF staff to operate at medium altitudes (around 8,000 feet/2,438 meters) rather than the extremely low levels they had trained for.

More interestingly, several squadrons operated primarily as night intruders, using parachute flares and the IIR seeker heads of their AGM-65 Maverick missiles to pick out targets. With a field of view limited to only 3° and a fuzzy cockpit display screen, using the Maverick as a night sight was “like looking through a soda straw.” Nevertheless, it was an excellent alternative to a million-dollar stabilized FLIR system, which the A-10 was never going to get anyway. It was just another example of the Warthog spirit that you find in the men and women who operate this most ugly and functional of warplanes.

CAS missions were not the only important tasks given to the A-10. Certainly the most satisfying was the “Sandy” mission, which had Warthogs escorting combat search and rescue (CSAR) helicopters to pick up downed aircrews and other personnel behind enemy lines. On one such CSAR mission, a pair of Hog drivers, Captains Paul Johnson and Randy Goff, won an Air Force Cross and Distinguished Flying Cross respectively for their efforts. While supporting an MH-53J Pave Low III special operations helicopter which was picking up the radar intercept officer of a downed Navy F-14 Tomcat, they made numerous runs on Iraqi ground troops trying to capture the Airedale. Despite severe opposition, the two Hogs kept the Iraqis at bay long enough to get the Naval aviator out of harm’s way and on the way home.

Some of the other missions that Warthogs flew during the war were even more unusual. Because of their slow speed and long loiter time on station, the A-10s proved to be superb in the role of hunting down the launchers of the notorious SCUD surface-to-surface missiles that were such a thorn in the side of the Allied war effort. However, of these various peripheral missions being flown by the Hog, none was more important than of FAC.

For the CAS mission, you need FACs, either in the air or on the ground, to direct aircraft in to deliver their ordnance on target. In the years leading up to Desert Storm, the USAF had severely drawn down their force of FAC aircraft, and a new airframe was needed to replace the aging force of Vietnam-era “bird dogs.” Out of this requirement came the only significant Warthog variant, the OA-10A. The OA-10 is almost identical to the standard A-10 (except for the radio systems), but has a different mission and carries a different mix of weapons.

During Desert Storm, several Warthog squadrons operated OA-10s as forward observers and provided FAC services to the flyers of almost every service and nation fighting in the Coalition. The OA-10 pilots loitered over the battlefield to detect enemy forces, and directed other aircraft to attack them. The OA-10 drivers frequently relied on hand-held binoculars and instinct, and they often fired unguided white phosphorus rockets (which produce dense