Desert Storm - The Air War, Day 1 - Time-Lapse

[Music] seven b-52s take off from barksdale air force base in louisiana in 35 hours time when they return a war will have started and they will have set a new record for the longest bombing raid in history a year prior in 1990 high levels of oil production in the state of kuwait and other arab nations are depressing global oil prices because of its economic dependency on oil revenue neighboring iraq is struggling to pay 14 billion debts on loans used to finance its war with iran in the 1980s it has come to the point where iraq is now even struggling to pay for basic government spending dating from the fall of the ottoman empire after world war one iraq has maintained sovereign claims over kuwait an accusation that kuwait is slant drilling iraqi oil fields gives iraqi president saddam hussein an excuse to invade and annex the small nation on the 2nd of august 1990. following international condemnation and sanctions british prime minister margaret thatcher and u.s president george h.w bush begin to deploy forces to saudi arabia urging other countries to do the same a u.n resolution passes giving iraq a deadline of the 15th of january 1991 to completely withdraw from kuwait the build-up of coalition forces in saudi arabia is called operation desert shield over a period of six months 35 nations send a total of approximately 1 million military personnel to saudi arabia the largest military alliance since world war ii 2230 coalition aircraft are sent to bases in saudi arabia and six carrier battle groups are deployed in the region the coalition war plan is first to wage an air war to achieve dominance of the skies above iraq and to strike targets to degrade the iraqi military for when the ground invasion is launched some weeks later the first day of the air assault will be the most risky iraq has a very dangerous arsenal of air defense systems 154 sam sites with 16 000 missiles defend iraq alongside a further 972 anti-aircraft artillery guns 2 404 fixed a guns and 6 100 mobile a guns baghdad is likely the most heavily defended city in the world 478 early warning radars watch the skies for coalition aircraft with command and control centers ready to scramble the iraqi air force's 550 combat aircraft to respond the priority for day one of the air campaign will be to degrade the enemy's air defense systems the deadline passes and a day later the great air assault on iraq is put into motion h hour the start of the air war is scheduled for 2 38 am on the 17th of january two hours before h hour the b-52s are nearing the end of their long journey from louisiana and an enormous armada of aircraft is taking off all over saudi arabia and from carriers in the red sea and the arabian gulf two flights of helicopters each with a single pavelow special operations helicopter and four apache attack helicopters cross the border at low level their call sign is task force normandy their job is to sneak up on and shoot up two key enemy radar positions this will cut a vital gap in the radar coverage through which the coalition strike aircraft can stream into iraq to hit their targets e2 and e3 airborne warning and control aircraft referred to as aywax are orbiting near the border directing operations and keeping an eye on iraqi airspace air-to-air refueling tankers are now refueling the aircraft of the enormous first striking force over saudi arabia for the last few months large formations of coalition aircraft have massed every night near the border so as not to cause a specific alarm in the enemy command structure when the air war does start what iraqi radars can't see tonight is the further formations of aircraft amassing further away from the border at low level f-117 stealth aircraft have also crossed the border unescorted and head for baghdad it's unclear whether their stealth technology will be potent enough to cloak them from the massive fire control radars around the heavily defended city they are to hit key communications infrastructure in the city hindering central military commander's ability to coordinate their air defense sites around the country one of the main targets is the international communications center in central baghdad through which 50 percent of all military comms traffic is rooted these vital strikes are needed to protect the main assault aircraft when they attack in the coming hours in the end the stealth bombers circle baghdad undetected waiting for h hour a few minutes before h hour the u.s air force fires the first shots of the war launching 35 agm-86 cruise missiles from the barksdale b-52s at communication sites and power plants simultaneously coalition naval battle groups begin launching tomahawk cruise missiles at mainly communications targets in baghdad two of the ships launching tomahawks the uss missouri and wisconsin are battleships that first saw service in world war ii and will serve their country once more the tomahawks will navigate to their targets using an onboard system that identifies and follows known landmarks and terrain contours on the route to the target because much of the direct route to baghdad from the persian gulf is flat desert the cruise missiles must follow a longer easterly route over more hilly trackable terrain near the iranian border the missiles fly at subsonic speed so while these are the first shots to be fired the us army would have the honor of the first shots to explode the two groups of apaches arrive near two radar sites 30 seconds early and come to hover in lines of four abreast as they wait for precisely 2 38 am they watch the compounds through their infrared cameras at first it appears that the iraqis are oblivious to their presence but with 10 seconds to go the compound's lights go out and figures are observed running around outside at 2 38 am h hour desert storm begins the apaches unleash a furious reign of destruction on the radar installations hellfire missiles are first aimed at power generators further hellfires and 70 millimeter rockets are fired on radar dishes command vehicles and communications antennas as the attack helicopters moving closer they expend everything they have on the site such as the importance to knock out the radar the apache crews then move in closer still and engage whatever is left standing with 30 millimeter cannon an enormous explosion ends the attack when an ammunition stump is hit by cannon fire during the four minutes of destruction 27 hellfires 100 rockets and 4 000 cannon rounds have been unleashed on the site the crews report in total destruction of the two sites for no loss they turn back to the border the first aircraft of the first strike wave screams overhead the air war is underway three ef-111 radar jamming aircraft rushed towards baghdad to provide jamming support for the f-117s in case they are detected with coalition aircraft streaming into iraq it's crucial that the stealth bombers knock out khan's to maintain stealth the f-117s are unable to use their radios to report on progress commanders at the coalition tactical air control center the tac won't know if the crucial task has been successfully completed until the aircraft are near the saudi border on their return journey the strike aircraft will be deep inside iraq by then but this is the first major war to take place during the new age of communications and international live television believing the imminent start of the new conflict after the un deadline passing live news channels have sent reporters into baghdad at the tack they spot the reporter is live on cnn reporting hearing aircraft over the city the new streams almost definitely root through the international communications center a primary target for the f-117s cnn is put up on the large screens in the tack at 0-300 the precise moment the first bomb should be falling on target cnn lose the live feed from their reporter on the ground a cheer erupts at the tank the first f-117 strikes stir the hornet's nest and 2 000 anti-aircraft guns in baghdad open fire into the night sky stealth can protect the aircraft from radar-guided missiles but blindly fired anti-aircraft fire in such volume will be equally deadly if a lucky direct hit is scored they dropped 17 paveway guided bombs on 13 targets radio towers command bunkers and a palace just outside the city incorrectly believed to have been housing saddam hussein himself shortly after the first of 116 navy launch tomahawks begin to fall on baghdad hitting party headquarters a scud ballistic missile factory another presidential palace and other targets of importance a british journalist watches from his baghdad hotel window as a tomahawk screams past him at eye level down the street and hits the ministry of defence building at the end of it some tomahawks carry special warheads which contain long strips of carbon filament these missiles fly over power transformers and switching stations and release these strips into them causing the electrical components to spark short out and burst into flames five electrical facilities are hit the b-52 launch cruise missiles fall on further communication sites and power generation facilities including the al-musayib thanal power plant after a grueling flight across the atlantic and mediterranean to get here the b-52s will now fly back to louisiana without landing the 14 000 mile mission takes 35 hours requiring 57 tanker sorties a demonstration of american global reach with iraqi command and control seriously degraded the 668 strong first wave of strike aircraft with fighter escort begin hitting military targets across iraq sam sites scud missile sites commander control bunkers and airfields raf tornado and us navy f-14 interceptor aircraft patrol the iraqi border and orbit iraqi air force bases waiting for the enemy fighters to come out to fight one formation a strike package of f-15e strike eagles escorted by f-15c fighters and an ef-111 radar jamming aircraft hit scud missile launch sites in the western desert attempting to prevent scud launches against nearby israel with the alarm now raised the iraqi air force is in the air defending their nation setting up combat air patrols near key installations with the strikes against the launchers underway an f-15 detects a single iraqi mirage fighter nearby and destroys it with a sparrow missile another mirage moves in close behind the low-flying ef-111 and fires a missile the 111 makes a violent turn and evades at this point an f-15 above spots the hostile aircraft and dives in to engage spotting the attacking eagle the mirage itself makes a violent maneuver to evade the american fighter but in doing so crashes into the ground the unarmed ef-111 pilot is credited with a maneuvering kill another f-15c eagle has just crossed the border into iraq and the pilot detects a distant unidentified contact on his radar rules of engagement require the pilot to ask one of the e3 command and control aircraft for permission to fire the contact begins to maneuver aggressively and the e3 grants permission to fire the long-range sparrow missile flies into the distance and the pilot sees the fireball as it detonates the enemy aircraft downed is a modern and dangerous mig-29 fulcrum piloted by a veteran of the iran-iraq war with three kills on his record a flight of f4g wild weasel aircraft are some of the many aircraft on their way to baghdad to attack radar sites and sam sites because of the volume of coalition assets in the area the escorting f-15s are constantly investigating potentially hostile contacts that turn out to be friendly after a few false alarms captain steve tate finally finds an enemy mirage he engages with a sparrow missile and the fireball confirms the kill multiple flights of aircraft are inbound to baghdad to attack salmon radar sites given the heavy air defenses around the city this could be a treacherous task the us navy aircraft make their first major play of the night a6 intruders to the west launched decoy glider drones towards the city intended to trick the defending sam sites into switching on their radars it works and many surface ware missiles are launched against them the iraqis believe they've scored multiple kills what they don't see are the u.s navy fa-18 hornets armed with high-speed anti-radar missiles harms coming in behind the harms lock onto the radar signals coming from the sam sites on the ground as they engage the drones a further 37 bqm 74 jet powered drones approach from the south and orbit the city some are shot down by migs but the rest are tracked and engaged by the sam sites on the ground the f-4s and fa-18s move in and launch 75 harms destroying approximately 35 installations the idea of offering bait drone aircraft to the air defenses for the wild weasels to engage is that of brigadier general larry pubar henry the engagement during desert storm becomes known as phubar's party another flight of four faa teams are approaching the large air base h3 in western iraq with an e2 hawkeye carrier launched early warning aircraft above a pair of mig-29s move to engage the hornets but f-15s dive in and easily add two more kills to their impressive and growing tally with 30 miles to go the e2 calls out two elderly mig-21s aggressively attacking head-on the hornets are impressive multi-role aircraft lieutenant commander fox switches from ground attack to air-to-air mode with the flick of a switch he locks onto one mig while his wingman locks onto the other fox fires a sidewinder missile and his wingman fires a sparrow both hit both pilots calmly switch their aircraft back to ground attack mode and almost without breaking step complete their bombing raid on the airfield a powerful demonstration of the efficiency of multi-role aircraft in modern warfare further b-52s and f-111s drop conventional bombs on the elite iraqi army corps the republican guard to soften them up and as a show of the military power that they're up against it's claimed that fear of the b-52's conventional bombing capability caused mass iraqi surrenders later on in the war a b-52 is hit by a u.s missile in a friendly fire incident and crashes on the way home the air assault is going nearly perfectly at this point but the tac planners know that statistically their luck must change and it does a squadron of faa teams from the uss saratoga known as the sunliners are on their way to take part in phubar's party when the leader detects a mig-25 interceptor in front of them he requests permission from the aywax to engage but the aywax radar can't find the bandit and so permission is denied there are hundreds of coalition aircraft in the air so rules of engagement are tight to reduce friendly fire the mig slips away but later shoots down another hornet in the squadron killing lieutenant commander michael spicer dawn breaks in the desert and further waves move in the british tornadoes have perhaps the most dangerous job of the first 24 hours twelve aircraft scream over the desert at just 200 feet towards talil air base the raf two-seater tornado gr1 is a specialist in runway busting in the first day of a hypothetical hot war with the soviet union tornadoes were maraude over the border into eastern europe to neutralize enemy airfields today they carry their specialist weapon the jp 233 a system that drops a combination of 30 runway cratering bomblets on the runway and 215 anti-personnel mines to hinder the repair process after anti-aircraft fire is much heavier than expected as they line up on the two parallel runways at 180 feet pushing through the barrage each aircraft releases its two jp 233 dispensers the runways are shredded and the anti-personnel mines are scattered across both runways and across the airfield waiting to punish any repair workers who attempt to make the runways operational again all aircraft make it out but the crew report that the flack was heavier than forecast and that they were in fact very lucky to make it back undamaged a short time later in the southeast of iraq another wing of four tornadoes approached our ramallah air base at low level each this time with eight conventional one thousand pound bombs just before the target the aircraft will pull up into a climb and release their bombs thereby throwing the bombs in an arc at the target the downward momentum when they hit allows the bombs to penetrate into the ground before exploding maximizing damage because the bombs are released at range a target computer calculates the precise release moments during the climb flight lieutenant john peters the pilot and john nichol the navigator begin their attack run voracious flak opens up on them and their aircraft is physically buffeted by the nearby explosions they begin their climb there's a problem they have some kind of fault in their targeting computer and it's not releasing their bombs they continue to climb as they try to quickly rectify the problem they're now almost twice the height they should be and very vulnerable peters abort and rolls the aircraft nearly upside down to bank and dive away descending and accelerating they make for safety but just after they level out they're hit by a shoulder launch to sam both men eject but are captured by the iraqis suffering severe maltreatment the airstrikes continue without rest throughout the day against military and communications installations across the country by day a-10 warthogs hit radar sites along the iraqi border similar to those that the apaches has hit during the night u2 spy planes overfly iraq to search for mobile scud launchers special operations helicopters loiter near baghdad to pick up downed aircrew further coalition aircraft joined the strikes from bases in turkey twelve french jaguars attacked the scud missile facility at the ahmed al-jaber air base in kuwait and four take heavy damage from flak the coalition takes some further losses throughout the day mostly from anti-aircraft fire on low-level missions in the evening four elderly a6 intruders are the latest to approach airbase h3 with laser-guided bombs they split into two pairs and attack from different directions at low level one aircraft is hit by assam the crew eject and are later captured another aircraft is hit but makes it to saudi arabia over the first 24 hours of the air wall 2775 sorties are conducted against strategic iraqi targets the iraqi air force flies just 120 sorties losing eight aircraft some of the iraqi jets flee to their recent enemy iran nineteen coalition aircraft are lost or damaged in day one saddam hussein declares that the mother of all battles has begun the air assault continues for five weeks pounding the iraqi military at a rate of 2500 bombing sorties per day largely the iraqi air force the fourth largest air force in the world doesn't come out in full force to fight and therefore the dangerous low-level attacks on airfields are reduced in favor of hitting mobile scud launchers 39 coalition aircraft are lost in combat during the air campaign with another 36 lost in accidents gradually attacks are shifted towards degrading the iraqi military itself the ground invasion of iraq to liberate kuwait will begin on the 24th of [Music] february you

Channel: The Operations Room

Views: 2,748,181

Rating: 4.8856525 out of 5

Keywords: Time-Lapse, History, Documentary, aircraft, time lapse, animated, war, desert storm, operation desert storm, gulf war, f-15 eagle, iraq, kuwait, usaf, us air force, us navy, john nichol, john peters, fa/18 hornet, saddam hussein

Id: zxRgfBXn6Mg

Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 08 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/TableSteak]

It’s hard to imagine the logistical complexity of managing that attack.

[u/SnooMacaroons1153]

The son of a North Korean General defected to South Korea shortly after this. He had previously been doing work in Iraq and knew they had like the 4th largest standing Army in the world. When he saw how quickly the US was able to destroy Iraq, he realized that despite Dear Leader's claims to the contrary, the US could wipe out North Korea in about 48 hours. Due to a lifetime of propaganda he considered an attack on North Korea was a very real and immediate threat, and so he defected.

[u/WINTER_1S_COMING]

This has to be peak global US/NATO military influence. Just seeing all the moving parts come together....wow. Iraq stood no chance. Logistics are what really separates the super powers from the wannabes.

[u/Chenstrap]

At the 15 minute mark:

HUD tape with radio chatter from Mongos and Foxs Mig 21 shootdowns:

https://youtu.be/cKQ-ztykaQY

Also an interview with mongo on the fighter pilot podcast talking about not only that engagement, but some details on his experiences in Desert Storm as well:

https://youtu.be/VYCl0AgM3XM

[u/thmz]

Billions in debt because of the last war? Invade a neighbour. Oh, and get your military force decimated.

This is why dictators are the worst fucking idea.

[u/One_pop_each]

So I was deployed to Al Jaber in Kuwait a few yrs ago. Iraq took this base from Kuwait and would store their aircraft in these HAS’s (Hardened Aircraft Shelters)

The base was absolute shit because it wasn’t really established like our other afcent bases. But we got to drive to the flightline every day past these HAS’s that we bombed with bunker busters I think.

Some of them we occupied, like our Vehicle Maintenance shop was running out of one that I suppose was deemed safe. Others were blocked completely because rebar was hanging everywhere. We actually had an aircraft run off the runway during landing and go nose first into the sand. The intake scooped up a lot of shit. So they towed it to this old canvas hangar for the Safety Investigation Board. Only a few people had access, and I was working QA so I got to escort people there. They scooped out all the dirt in the intake and this giant metal thing plopped out. This Colonel picked it up and was like, “this is a fragment of a bomb....probably from the Gulf War”

I have no idea if it was, but the intake scooped a lot of dirt and was pretty deep so it’s possible. It was a pretty crazy deployment.

This picture is my favorite. I posted it on OddltSatisfying when I took it and got permanently banned bc it was a “repost.” I literally just took the picture so I argued the mod. Oh well.

[u/im10horses]

Amazing Video.

One thing I don't really understand is why those B52 bombers flew basically around the entire world to fire cruise missiles and turn around, when it seems like they already had so much firepower in the region. Could they not have fired those missiles from ships in the area?

[u/lordnikkon]

Here is a similar video about the battle of 73 easting during the land invasion of gulf war. It is the largest tank battle since ww2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJNk7DcFIkk

The republican guard was caught off guard because the US forced attack across open flat desert that was considered unnavigable because it was so featureless. But because of GPS US forces were easily able to navigate and flank the Iraqi armored forces destroying hundreds of tanks and armor vehicles with only a few casualties

[u/cambeiu]

Operation Desert Shield - Protect the Saudi Royal family and their kingdom.

Operation Desert Storm - Restore the Saudi's cousins back to the throne in Kuwait.

​

Of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, fifteen were Saudis.

We thought at the end of Desert Storm that we had achieved an easy and decisive victory to end the war. Little did we know that it had been but the first battle in a very protracted, confusing, highly fluid, ridiculously costly and ever changing military quagmire that would last a generation, change American forever and still with no end in sight.