49
At surge rates, the jets are flown at a much higher than normal sortie rate. The benefit is the amount of ordnance that can be placed on the enemy in a short time. The downside is the buildup of a maintenance backlog on the fleet. This must be taken care of in the future by standing down the flying schedule or by increasing the numbers of maintenance troops.
50
Now a three-star who commands Ninth Air Force.
51
Minhad is a UAE fighter base south of Dubai where Horner had placed F-16s. Sheikh Isa, the air base on the south side of Bahrain, is named after the island nation’s head of state. It is home to two Bahraini squadrons, one of F-16s and another of F-5s. Horner put the USMC F-18s and A-6s on the main ramp, the Bahraini jets at the north end of the field, and the USAF Wild Weasels in the south end of the field in revetments and parking pads built by Red Horse (this was a huge task, as the parking pads and taxiways had to be carved out of coral, one of the hardest substances on earth).
52
Also called Tactical Air Control Parties (TACPs).
53
They provided excellent target information — e.g., places where the Iraqis were conducting torture, or places where the Iraqi Army was being billeted. Most notably, they reported a meeting of Iraqi generals in a private home. On the day of the meeting, with the house surrounded by Mercedes-Benz cars stolen by the Iraqis and used as staff cars for their generals, the Air Force put four bombs through the roof — and destroyed the cars.
54
The Ready, Fire, Aim concept was his.
55
The term is used generically in the military for people who man a given station. For example, the officer who sits at the Security Police headquarters for an 8-12-hour shift is the duty officer.
56
They could use antichemical suits and bomb forward storage areas (though the Iraqis had so many chemical munitions that Horner could not target all of them with any hope of success).
57
One serious problem: Patriot missiles would only disperse the payload of a biological-tipped Scud overhead.
58
There were glaring errors in the papers. For example, the authors always had the agents spreading equidistant in all directions from the bombed bunkers. Any pilot who has dropped a practice bomb knows the marking smoke always goes downwind.
59
The Turkish government had given permission for us to use their Incirlik base to support the Coalition attack.
60
These CAPs were maintained even after the air-to-air threat was eliminated. Since the F-15Cs, the F-14s, and the Tornado ADV (Air Defense Version) were only capable of carrying air-to-air weapons, I could not use them for other missions. RSAF F-15Cs had the software for air-to-ground, so when we no longer needed them for CAPs over Iraq, we configured them with bombs and used them against the Iraqi Army
61
In the west, SOF forces had pretty much a free ride, as did the British SAS.
