Because it was closer to the fight, and more aware of what was going on than the TACC staff, the ACE Team had the authority to divert sorties. Normally, though, they kept in close contact with the TACC directors. They could also have acted as a temporary backup if a Scud hit had closed down the TACC.
• ABCCC (Airborne Command, Control, and Communications; pronounced “AB triple C”) — A C-130 aircraft used primarily for command and control of close air support. A command-and-control module in the cargo compartment held about fifteen people, half of whom were likely to be Army or Marines after the ground forces were engaged. The Marine ABCCC was called the Airborne Direct Air Support Center, or DASC.
• Compass Call — An EC-130H configured to jam communications, such as Iraqi military communications.
• Commando Solo — An EC-130 configured to conduct psychological operations by broadcasting television and radio.
• Rivet Joint (RC-135) — A special reconnaissance version of the Boeing 707 that provided data on enemy air defense systems and other intelligence information.
• Joint STARS (E-8A) — A modified Boeing 707, equipped with a large radar that provided Moving Target Information (MTI) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images of surface targets. This information was presented to air controllers on the aircraft, who tracked, identified, and directed strikes against enemy ground targets. Because the E-8 was still undergoing testing, it was largely crewed by Northrop Grumman civilian engineers who had volunteered for the war. The Joint STARS radar and air controllers proved to be of immense value in halting the Iraqi ground attack into Saudi Arabia at El-Khafji in late January.
• Killer Scouts — F-16 fighters assigned to patrol kill boxes (twenty-mile-square areas in Iraq and Kuwait) and locate Iraqi army units visually or by radar. They provided target information to flights of attack aircraft fed into their kill box area by ABCCC, AWACS, Joint STARS, or the TACC.
After the ground war started:
• Air Liaison Officers (ALOs) and Ground Forward Air Controllers (FACs) [52]— Both connected ground units with air and handled close air support. The difference lay in their rank and the level of army units to which they were assigned. FACs were usually junior officers assigned at battalion level or below. ALOs were usually majors or above and assigned to brigade or above. For example, a colonel would be the ALO at corps level, a lieutenant colonel at division. The ALO role emphasized senior-level experience and thus made the ALO the air adviser to the Army commander. While the ALO could control a strike, most often strikes were controlled by FACs, who were closer to the battle.
• Air Operations Support Center — A mini-headquarters, usually a corps ALO, heavily equipped with communications and computers. It was to the corps headquarters, or Army group headquarters, what the BCE was to the TACC. The Marine equivalent was called a Direct Air Support Center.
Other elements in the system:
• Control and Reporting Center (CRC) — A ground-based van that could also include one or more TPS-75 radars to provide an air picture. CRC controllers backed up AWACS controllers when the AWACS was too busy or not available — though they could not do the job as well as AWACS, because ground-based radar could not see airborne targets at low altitude due to ground clutter and the curvature of the earth. Other elements in the command-and-control systems with a similar function included U.S. Aegis cruisers and the Sector Operations Centers, operated by the Saudi Air Defense system and co-manned primarily by the RSAF and USAF. CRC displays were also linked into the AWACS and other radar nets, and provided the AWACS picture to those who didn’t otherwise have it. Thus, a CRC was set up at KKMC to give the Syrians and Egyptians an input into the air picture.
• Control and Reporting Posts (CRP) — Individual ground radar units that performed essentially the same functions as the CRC or AWACS, but were smaller and depended heavily on the other two for a comprehensive air picture. They were also called gap fillers.
• Wing/Squadron Command Posts — This was the primary hub linking the squadron, wing, or base with the TACC current ops. Each base would have a main command post, but its size and complexity varied with the base’s size and activity level. At a base with just a few jets, like Arar, the CP might be a tent with a telephone, a CAFMS terminal, and a table with maps used for planning. At a big operation like Dhahran, the CP might have air defense displays with the AWACS picture, intelligence computers to display updated threats, and a wealth of duty officers and cells to coordinate operations.
• Flying Squadron Operations — Here pilots planned the missions and got intelligence not provided by wing operations, briefing rooms, and scheduling boards. The ATO came from the TACC Plans to Wing Operations, where it was broken out and parceled out to the squadrons to execute.
• The Air Traffic Control System — This included towers, departure and approach control, and air traffic aids — TACAN, VOR, ILS, ADF, runway lights, Air Base Operations, GCI, and GPS.
• And a number of support elements such as maintenance control; security police operations; civil engineer operations (who watched over runway shutdowns); fire operations; bomb disposal; and hospital operations.
The center of it all, the TACC (pronounced “T-A-C–C”), had two functions: current plans and current operations. Plans — the Black Hole, current plans, and the computer room (which was part of current plans) — built the ATO; Operations executed it. However, in normal conversation, the TACC meant Operations, which was much larger than Plans, and more was going on there.
The Operations section
In a perfect world, where nothing unforeseen happens, no plan goes amiss. In the real world, where the ATO was already forty-eight hours old when it was executed, a system was required that could change the ATO
During the war, the closest that planning came to perfection was perhaps 50 percent, and on some days virtually every sortie was altered.
? When the Ninth Air Force came to the Gulf, they brought their command center with them, originally housed in an inflatable building (called “the rubber duck”), which was set up in the parking lot behind the RSAF building in Riyadh. It soon became evident, however, that a better site was needed. For one thing, the American airmen needed to adapt their operation to the immediate situation. Since they were in Saudi Arabia, the appropriate site for the control center was with the air force of the host nation. For another, the rubber duck — based on an outdated vision that placed the Air Force out in the countryside with the Army — was obsolete and only marginally functional. It was too small, too dark, and most of its technology came from the fifties (though some systems, like CAFMS, were newer). The 150-plus members of the TACC staff needed a more efficient layout — and hard walls to shield against the Scud threat.
The obvious site was in the basement of RSAF headquarters. In December, Operations took over a fifty-by- seventy-five-foot room previously used by the RSAF to teach computer operators. Power generators, communications vans, and satellite dishes, however, remained in the parking lot, and their cables were rerouted into the new TACC.
A TOUR OF THE TACC
At the front of the Ops room was a small open space. Down the room’s large center section were ranks of tables, covered with phones and computer terminals. Beyond a pair of side aisles were desks, most facing the center.
The right front wall contained BCE maps with plastic overlays depicting the strength and position of allied and enemy ground forces. To their left were a pair of large screens displaying the AWACS air picture and
