intelligence data, such as Scud launch and impact areas, active Iraqi radars, or data about airfields, transportation networks, or any other data loaded into the intelligence systems computer.
The commanders’ table was at the front center.
Seated at its far right (facing forward) was a Kuwaiti Air Force officer, Lieutenant Colonel Abdullah Al- Samdan. On leave in Jordan when the war broke out, Al-Samdan had left his wife and children there, leapt into his car, driven to Riyadh, and set himself up as the Kuwaiti Air Force representative at RSAF headquarters. He was at the commanders’ table because he held a special place of honor: it was his country they were there to free. But he also “paid his keep” by providing access to the resistance leaders in occupied Kuwait (they risked their lives daily by using their satellite phones to relay target data to him[53]) and by flying missions during the war. His parents, brothers, and sisters remained trapped in Kuwait City.
The RSAF leader, General Behery, sat on Al-Samdan’s left, with Horner next to him, and either Major General Tom Olsen or Major General John Corder next to Horner (Olsen generally worked days, Horner worked nights, and Corder, it seemed, worked all the time). Horner had brought his old friend Corder onto the team as a general officer director of operations. Though Jim Crigger had been performing splendidly in the DO role, he had no stars on his collars and so was not taken seriously in high-level meetings with other services. The intense, intellectual,[54] selfless Corder could handle the point man role superbly, and allow Crigger full time to run daily operations.
The last two chairs were occupied by the TACC Directors — Jim Crigger and Al Doman (Mike Reavy and Charlie Harr worked the night shift). Their job was to run current operations — that is, to execute the air war. When a change was made to the ATO, they were the approval authority, ensuring that all the pertinent people were informed and coordinated.
Behind the commanders’ table was a square table with a large map of Iraq under Plexiglas, around which sat the national leaders of the coalition air partners — Major General Claude Solnet from France, Major General Mario Alpino from Italy, Lieutenant Colonel John McNeil from Canada, and RAF Air Vice Marshal William Wratten, RAF, who was also the deputy to Great Britain’s top military leader in the Gulf, Sir Peter de la Billiere.
On their left sat the people who actually ran the TACC, primarily Lieutenant Colonels Bill Keenan and Hans Pfeiffer. They saw to it that people and equipment stayed in working order (they were the TACC’s “building superintendents”).
Duty officers — liaison officers from the various bases, air forces, and services — occupied the rows of tables down the center of the room;[55] their job was to organize changes to the preplanned ATO. Since most changes occurred after a flight was airborne, they were usually passed to the flights by the AWACS; but the airborne command element aboard one of the AWACS aircraft, or another command-and-control element, such as ABCCC aircraft or Killer Scouts, was also sometimes pressed into service.
The system also required a number of support and liaison elements, such as weather, intelligence, search and rescue, air defense, AWACS, airspace management (to keep objects from occupying the same place at the same time), electronic warfare, special operations, and the BCE (the liaison between the Air Force and the Army).
All of these elements were important. A few deserve more explanation:
The air is the Air Force’s sea, so weather was obviously important — far more important than knowing whether or not it was going to rain. The decision to load TV-guided Maverick missiles, for instance, depended on the forecast of optical slant ranges: Could the pilot see through the haze with his Maverick so he could lock the missile onto the target? The current operations weather section (supported by Colonel Jerry Riley’s larger weather shop across from the Black Hole down the hall) answered such questions and kept everyone in the TACC advised about weather in the target areas, refueling tracks, and airbases.
The large intelligence section in Current Operations received data from several sources: national intelligence sources (such as the DIA); units flying missions (their intelligence shops would debrief the pilots and call in anything hot); and analysts in tents on the soccer field in the USMTM compound next to the RSAF headquarters. The soccer field also sent target materials to the wings and made studies of the Iraqis (which went, for example, to the Black Hole, so the findings could be incorporated into the targeting process).
In the rear corner of the operations room was the search-and-rescue cell, led by Colonel Joe Stillwell. His team initiated, coordinated, and tracked rescues. For this they could call upon any available asset — navy ships, army helicopters, or Special Operations infiltration capabilities. Because search and rescue required joint resources, the SAR team in the TACC worked officially for the CINC and not for Chuck Horner. However, since search and rescue efforts were directed primarily toward downed aircrew in territory that was accessible only to air, and since the first indication of a loss, as well as its location, came from the AWACS picture, the team was located in the air operations center in the TACC.
Each morning that Horner entered the TACC, his first stop was at this cell, to check on losses and rescue efforts. As he saw it, there was no more fitting way for a commander in wartime to start the day than to be reminded of the cost of his mistakes.
NIGHT CAMEL
Airmen are always experimenting with better ways to fight.
During Desert Shield, 48th Wing F-111F aircrews flying over the Saudi desert discovered somewhat unexpectedly that friendly tanks were visible on their PAVE TAC screens, even when the tanks were dug into revetments in the sand.
The PAVE TAC pod was located under the F-111F fuselage. This pod housed an infrared scanner that gave a fuzzy television picture of the ground 10,000 to 15,000 feet beneath the aircraft. Since the metal in the tanks heated and cooled more rapidly than the surrounding desert, the tanks showed up brightly when the aircraft pointed its sensor in their direction. Once they got a glimpse of a hot or cold spot, they’d lock the sensor onto the target, and it would track the target as the aircraft moved overhead. The sensor was quite sensitive and could present an excellent picture of anything in its field of view; but there was a trade-off. The field of view was very narrow. For the aircrew, it was like looking through a soda straw at objects three to five miles away.
Also in the pod turret was a laser slaved to the IR sensor. After the air crew had found a tank and locked the sensor in a track mode, they would confirm the sighting with their cockpit television scope. The weapons system officer would then illuminate the tank with the laser and send a laser-guided bomb homing in on the laser reflection (F-15Es and F-16s equipped with LANTIRN Pods achieved similar results).
These tactics and procedures, practiced and refined during the Night Camel exercises in November and December, became tank plinking in Desert Storm. At the height of the Storm, the 48th Wing were killing over a hundred tanks a night.
Plinking had unintended effects. Soon after the campaign began in mid-January, reconnaissance photos began to show slit trenches some distance away from the parked tanks. During the war with Iran, Iraqi tankers had gotten into the habit of sleeping in their tanks — tanks being on the whole safer than the surrounding desert. Tank plinking ended that haven.
Later, during the ground war, U.S. tankers always seemed to get off the first shot against Iraqi dug-in tanks; and as the battles progressed, enemy tank fire was often sparse. Later analysis showed that when U.S. ground forces approached, the Iraqis were not in their tanks, and then as the first shots hit the Iraqis, the Iraqi tankers concluded they were under air attack and went into bunkers. By the time the truth hit them, it was too late. Though the bravest tried to crawl back to their tanks, they were often cut down by U.S. machine guns; and those who reached their tanks successfully were too confused to fight effectively.
Night Camel not only seriously weakened the Iraqi Army, it had a major impact on the ground war.
DECEMBER BRIEFING
