Huns like me revel in it.”
Likewise — as we’ve pointed out before — the commander can’t allow himself (or herself) to be a slave to seemingly potent doctrinaire concepts such as “strategic,” “tactical,” or “operational.”
Chuck Horner takes up the thought:
? The D Day ATO tasked the air forces assembled in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf nations, as well as those aboard the Navy aircraft carriers in adjacent waters, where and when to strike attacking Iraqi forces. It was modest at first, but as more and more aircraft deployed into the AOR, and as more and more planners from the Coalition allies came aboard, the daily ATO (updated daily and stored on floppy disks ready for immediate execution) grew in size and complexity. Meanwhile, as strength on the ground grew with the arrival of more and stronger ground forces, the targeting emphasis changed to reflect new overall campaign strategies.
? Three people watched over the development of the D Day Plan — Major General Tom Olsen (Chuck Horner’s deputy), Colonel Jim Crigger (Horner’s Director of Operations), and Lieutenant Colonel Sam Baptiste from the CENTAF operations staff.
It would be hard to imagine a more suitable deputy than the silver-haired, grandfatherly, commonsensical A-10 pilot Major General Tom Olsen: Olsen was loyal; thoughtful when Horner tended to be rash; non-egotistical (so he worked Horner’s agenda, not his); and he made decisions Horner could easily live with. Olsen, in Horner’s absence, was the senior commander who approved or disapproved the ATOs and other efforts.
Colonel Jim Crigger was more directly the driving force behind the setting up of the TACC and its processes to produce the ATOs. Crigger had been the last commander of the 474th TFW at Nellis (the wing was phased out in 1989) and then, when he didn’t make General because of the draw-down resulting from the end of the Cold War, he became available for the Director of Operations job at Ninth Air Force/CENTAF. Crigger was intensely quiet, modest, and self-effacing, yet exceptionally smart (both in intellect and common sense), very tough, and deeply compassionate. After Horner hired him, he very quickly established his credibility with the hard-nosed staff (no small challenge, as they were the world experts in building an ATO and fighting war in the Middle East, having been together for over six years). The staff loved working for him; he coaxed their best efforts without driving them. Not only was his work as DO first class (he asked for guidance only when he needed it), he kept his mouth shut, and let the actions of his staff take the credit — always putting his people in front of himself when laurels were handed out, while taking the shots personally when things went wrong. Instead of ranting and raving at mistakes, he quietly dealt with them (including his boss’s) in private with constructive criticism. It wasn’t just his staff work that was exceptional; he was the point of contact with the deployed wing commanders, the man on the staff who, because he had himself just left wing command, could understand both their comments about ATOs and their needs, but could be counted on for good advice. The result was excellent chemistry with his commander.
Sam Baptiste had been operations officer for a squadron deployed in Iceland when a pilot had been killed in a crash and the blame laid on him, thus effectively ending his Air Force career. Afterward, Horner arranged to have him assigned to Ninth Air Force. Despite the cloud he was under, few people had his knowledge of fighter operations and intelligence. In the early days of Desert Shield, Baptiste handled the operations staff that determined which units would do which tasks if the Iraqis attacked; and in general, he laid out the details (such as CAPs) for Crigger. Later in the war, he joined Army Lieutenant Colonel Bill Welch in the more important job of planning the Kuwait Theater of Operations (KTO) portion of the daily ATO.
On August 8, 1990, when Olsen and the elements of the CENTAF planning staff arrived in Riyadh, Horner turned over to him command of CENTAF while he himself was occupied as CENTCOM Forward. Olsen quickly set up a warm working relationship with the RSAF commander, Lieutenant General Ahmed Behery.
Almost immediately, Jim Crigger and his staff had joined with the RSAF operations staff, and were conducting the appointment and guidance meetings that initiate the ATO planning cycle. Shortly after this, they were publishing a daily ATO. At first, these only coordinated combined air defense sorties, though they quickly grew to cover all the combined and coalition operational and exercise flying in the AOR. (This system was in place by August 13.)
On August 10, longer-range planning was begun. And on August 12, as the acting CINC, Horner asked Olsen to build a preplanned ATO that would rapidly respond to an Iraqi attack on Saudi Arabia — the “D Day ATO.”
Though (thankfully) the D Day Plan was never put into effect, it served as a springboard to subsequent planning for an offensive air campaign — not, interestingly, because of the planning itself, but as a training device. Training became an issue when the planning staff was augmented with many new people who were familiar with combat, fighters, and bombers, but who had never built an ATO. Putting together the D Day ATO gave these people on-the-job experience in the reasoning processes and the integration that needs to be considered — such as airspace deconfliction, tanker tracks, command-and-control agencies, radio procedures, and code words.
Meanwhile, communication of the ATOs between the TACC and operational units was soon accomplished by means of the Computer-Aided Force Management System (CAFMS) — best understood as a combination of word processor and e-mail. In the CAFMS computers were preprogrammed forms (spreadsheets and text). When these were filled out by the planners they became the ATO. These forms were then accessed by the wings that had communication links with the TACC in Riyadh.
The CAFMS terminals were also used to execute the ATO. At each duty position in the TACC current operations room, the duty officers monitored and communicated with the bases via CAFMS. So, for example, takeoff times would be sent from the wings to the TACC, which meant that the TACC operators knew who was en route to the tankers or their targets and could divert them to other targets if they wished. The TACC would also receive flight abort information, which allowed them to divert other missions against those targets they really wanted to hit.
CAFMS had several limitations. For one thing, the Navy carriers were not equipped with the SHF antennas needed to receive it, which meant that floppy disks containing the next day’s ATO had to be flown out to the carriers each night. (The foreign air forces that did not have a CAFMS terminal went to the USAF unit collocated with them and picked up the ATO there.) There were also systemic limitations. For example, because it was limited to word processor and e-mail functions, CAFMS was not able to show the effects of upstream changes downstream. Thus, if the TACC operators wanted to change a strike, the computer was not able to show how this change would impact on tanker off-loads and other such data.
JOHN WARDEN AND CHECKMATE
As Tom Olsen, Jim Crigger, and their staffs were setting up the planning and operational machinery required in theater, General Schwarzkopf was making good on his undertaking to Chuck Horner in Jeddah on August 7 to ask the Joint Staff to start the planning process for a strategic air campaign.
Recall that Horner had several reservations about the CINC’s plan. He was, first of all, dead set against Washington making strike plans for the forces in-theater to execute (as in Vietnam). Schwarzkopf assured him that wouldn’t happen. Horner was also worried that the CINC, and by extension the planners in Washington, would
