- Hello, I'm James Holland
(dramatic music) and I'm a historian of
the second World War. HistoryHit is a bit like
Netflix but purely for history. We've got hundreds of hours
of historical documentaries going all the way back to classical times, right through to the Cold War and beyond. Use the word warstories, all one word, for a massive discount when you join up. (upbeat music)
- In the early morning hours of 17th of January, 1991, coalition air forces unleashed
a massive air assault on Iraqi forces in both Iraq and Kuwait. The magnitude of the
coalition air offensive dealt a crushing blow to
Iraq's air defense network and soon allied aircraft roamed at will in the skies over the conflict zone. (upbeat music continues) (jet engine roaring) Coalition forces deployed an
entire air superiority package that included a variety of
weapons with specific missions. Some of these weapons had never
been used in actual combat. A perfect example was the
Tomahawk cruise missile. 333 cruises missiles were
launched during the war against heavily defended targets, such as air defense headquarters, key radar facilities and
major communications centers. (jet engine roaring) (door clunking) - Good evening.
- Evening. Had a busy evening (indistinct). - We've had a very busy evening, as a matter of fact it's not over yet. This is the opening round of the war. The Tomahawk strikes
will continue for another at least 36 hours in
conjunction with the airstrikes that are taking place over Iraq right now. I can report to you that
the airstrikes have started. The Tomahawks have already started to impact in the Baghdad area, and there are engagements, fighter engagements happening
over land at this point. We are following the course of all that as we are remaining vigilant as we steam to our next Tomahawk launch point. - Cruise missile is a
thousand pound warhead on an unmanned aircraft
shot from just about all the various surface ships and
submarines that the Navy's got and it's done exceptionally
well in the first week. I think that there was said
there was approximately 500 cruise missiles in
the theater on 56 ships and so far I think they would've
shot about a third of those in the first week, about
150 have managed to go off. The Tomahawk is a terrific
weapon for this kind of warfare, particularly this kind of warfare. It's a significant
development to the Navy. It may not sound it originally, but it is a significant
development to the Navy. In previous years the Navy
had, in a tactical sense, one, perhaps two ways of striking at an enemy. One is the carrier based attack systems. A6, A7 in those days. FAA. And we had big guns, 16 inch
guns off the battleship, which proved effective in Vietnam, but against a more capable
or more distant enemy they were useless,
therefore the Navy was then had but a single attack,
(gun fire exploding) a method of attacking in
taking the fight to the enemy. The surface forces and the
submarines never played in the conventional sense. All they were there was
to defend the carrier and that was not to the liking of many of the Naval officers The Tomahawk system,
particularly Tomahawk, with its long range gives
the Navy ships and submarines a chance to participate and
take the fight to the enemy. It was important in this
war that Tomahawk work and the initial indications are that it's worked exceptionally well. - [Narrator] During the
initial stage of the flight, the Tomahawk uses radar
terrain comparison guidance, codenamed TerCom. In the final phase of the attack, the computer switches on its
digital scene mapping system, which compares a digital
photo of the target stowed in its memory with
the actual scene below. This provides pinpoint precision. (dramatic music) (missile exploding) Modern air campaigns take
place in successive phases with clear objectives in each phase, the Gulf War was no exception. One of the initial aims
of Operation Desert Storm was the suppression of Iraqi air defenses. This means the elimination
(jet engine buzzing) of anti-aircraft missile and gun sites, the radars that direct them and the command and control
centers that coordinate them. An air defense network is like a web running from
(dramatic music) a central headquarters to local stations then to the radar posts which detect the aircraft that guide the missiles and finally to the missiles
and guns themselves. The air defense suppression campaign began with the destruction
of the command centers which coordinated the
Iraqi air defense network. After which, radar sites, and eventually the missiles
themselves were targeted. The first wave that the night attack was spearheaded by the F-117 Black Jet, since it is virtually
invisible to Iraqi radars. (jet engine roaring) - So what it is is a very highly developed pinpoint strike airplane. It is never going to be a mass bomber. In other words, you
can't hang enough on it to make it drop 20 bombs, but it will drop one or
two in a very tiny spot and therefore it will
probably only be used to hit a pinpoint target. Something that's very badly needed, maybe like a control bunker. There was one very classic
shot or an F-117 during the war last week dropped a bomb
through an air shaft hole and the debris came out the front door. That is exactly what the 117 does well. (missile exploding) - There's another air defense sector over in the western part of Iraq. It's already been struck by
a 117. This is a team effort. The second aircraft comes through and this part of the building here provides some structural weakness that will be exploited in this attack and the bomb will hit in this area here. (jet engine roaring) And this is my counterparts
headquarters in Baghdad. (spectators laughing) This is the headquarters of the Air Force and keep your eye on all
sides of the building as the airplane over flies the building and drops the bomb down through
the center of the building. (jet engine roaring) (missile exploding) - [Narrator] On the heels of the F-117s were the Air Forces F-4G Wild Weasels, which attacked critical Iraqi radar sites with armed anti radar missiles. (jet engine roaring) - It's job is basically to
soak up the air defense. It goes in first and goes out last and the Wild Weasel missions
on this were four hours plus. Now that's a long time for a fighter. Normally it's an hour, hour and a half that most guys are flying. So he goes in, he sees
when the radar comes up, he goes down there with
an anti radiation missile that hones on radar and he
gets those guys to fire at him, or at least to keep the radar on. So he can, in turn, destroy
the radar guided AAA, the radar guided SAMs, radar sites, the air defense radar sites, whatever it is that's going to be a threat to the strike force coming behind it. - [Narrator] The Wild Weasels
were remarkably successful in their mission, making the sky safe for other coalition aircraft.
(missile exploding) - We were shooting the SAMs, who were trying to shoot at the guys, who were doing what they
were doing downtown. - [Reporter] The SAM
missile sites in town? - Around the perimeter. - [Reporter] Around the
perimeter of Baghdad? - That's correct. - [Reporter] And tell me
again about the resistance that you ran into. - [Serviceman] Lots
ground fire, lots of AAA, that's anti aircraft artillery. And like I say, I think there
was one SAM fired that I saw, but it was so far away and up
through the smoke and haze, it was hard to make it out. - [Reporter] So nothing came close to you. - [Serviceman] No, but that's
the beauty of the system. We can stay far enough away
that that's not gonna be a problem for us, from the SAMs anyway. The bullets are the ones that scare me. (jet engine roaring) (upbeat music) - [Narrator] U.S.
military planners believed that air superiority had to be won for the air and ground
campaigns to succeed. The first phase of the
air superiority battle was fought by fighter
aircraft, like this F-15 Eagle of the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing. The fighters flew combat
air patrols, nicknamed CAPs, to protect Wild Weasels and attack planes from Iraqi fighters.
(upbeat music continues) The U.S. Air Force's F-15
were joined in their mission by Saudi F-15s, British Tornadoes and U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcats. Their potential opposition was the more than 400 Iraqi fighters, including sophisticated
Soviet built MiG-29 Fulcrums and French built Mirage F-1s. Iraq Air Forces never
challenged coalition forces for control of the skies. (jet engine roaring) Captain Steve Tate was involved in one of the first dog fights of the war in the early morning hours
of the 17th of January. - We took a four ship
F-15s up on the first wave that went up to Baghdad area last night. Took off at 1:30. We were basically supporting a CF package of bunch of Wild Weasels
and a bunch of F-15Es and just an assortment of other airplanes, EF-111s and F-111s that were going up to the Southeast portion of Baghdad. Basically what our job
was was to go up there and remove all the air
to air threats for them. The mission lasted about four hours. We started a engagement, I got the contact that AWACS calls out as a hostile chasing my number three man
and at about the same time, I'm turning back around towards the east. When I turn back around there I get a contact on a contact
that isn't squawking our IFS so when I locked this guy up, I can tell that he's not a friendly airplane. Come to find out that it's an F-1, he's at about 8,000 feet
headed west towards Baghdad, towards my number three and four men also and we EID him his hostile. In about 12 miles I take
a Fox-1, a radar missile. Everything's looking good. Think about taking another Fox-1 but no kind of interference
or anything like that so I just let one Fox-1 go and about four miles in front of me I get a huge fireball. When he blew up, I could see a piece of the airplane blowing up. Obviously it was at night, I couldn't see if a parachute or anything like that, it was a huge fireball. I don't anticipate anybody
getting out of that. (jet engine roaring)
- The only Iraqi fighters to appear in significant numbers were the MiG-29 Fulcrum
and the Mirage F-1. The Iraqis put up very little resistance during the air campaign and in total 35 Iraqi fighters were shot
down during the conflict. There were no allied losses as a result of air to air combat. (jet engine roaring) - Well so far it's been a big surprise that the Iraqi Air Force has
not done anything, basically. They've come up to be shot down. Apparently most of the
aircraft are underground and at the first week of the war we're hearing things from
the military briefers, that 80% of the aircraft are still intact. In hardened shelters. Therefore it's been a non-player and the dog fights have
been fairly straightforward. Go to the six o'clock and shoot him down. The only double kill of the
war has been a Saudi pilot who caught two F-1s with Exocet. He apparently had no trouble
in downing them both. - [Narrator] This is
what the Saudi F-15 pilot saw through his gun site
during the dog fight. - [Pilot] Target. Bandit. Bandit. (upbeat music)
- The stunning victory of coalition forces in the Gulf War was made possible by effective strategy and weapons technology. The objective of the war
was not to take over Iraq, but to liberate Kuwait and weaken Saddam
Hussein's military power. Desert Victory examines
the weapons and strategy of Operation Desert Storm, and their implications for future warfare. (helicopters whirring) The lessons learned in
Operation Desert Storm may not apply to the next war. Modern armed conflict
is simply too complex to be reduced to a list of lessons. Many factors contributed
to the coalition's victory over Iraqi forces in the Kuwaiti theater. Saddam Hussein decided
to deploy his troops in a defensive posture in the face of the massive coalition build up, which, prior to the beginning
of the allied operations, totaled nearly a million troops, representing more than a dozen countries. Saddam's decision to stand by and allow the coalition to
gather strength was disastrous. The negative impact of his
decision on Iraqi forces in Kuwait was compounded by the geography in which the fight took place. Faced with a war in a
terrain which provided no place to hide, Iraq
forces in the battle area were destined to be defeated. (bomb exploding) Terrain was an obvious
advantage to coalition forces. The flat featureless desert
with its wide temperature swings between day and night
was the ideal battlefield for the application of smart weapons, even dug in troops and
weapons proved easy to spot with the new array of technology employed by coalition forces. (radio chatter) - Desert wars, again, in this century, especially during World War
II and the Arab Israeli wars and in the Gulf War are capable of being gotten over with very quickly because you're in a desert,
there's no place to hide. So everybody can see what everybody's got. You can go in there,
you can get right down to the business of destruction and reach a very rapid conclusion. The problem is a lot of our future wars, say in Korea or the Balkans, will have plenty of places
for the other guys to hide and this will make things stretch out. The Gulf War was a very
specific kind of war and a war that's outside of the desert is gonna be different in terms
of how long it's gonna last and how many friendly
casualties you're going to take. For example, I've spoken to A-10 pilots who have flown in the
Gulf War and then were, either before or after, stationed in Korea and they say, point blank, they said, it's a whole
different ball game. What I could do in the
Gulf I couldn't do in Korea and Korea's very similar to the Balkans. I'd be at much more risk and I'd be taking out a lot
fewer enemy vehicles and troops and it's not just the
A-10 pilots, any aircraft, whether they be helicopters or F-15s. - [Narrator] The
objectives of the campaign dictated by political necessity also determined how the war was fought. Despite the massive amount of firepower used by coalition forces in the Gulf, the conflict was very much restricted. The limited nature of
the objectives of the war has allowed Saddam Hussein
to continue to rule Iraq and defy international
efforts to monitor his regime. This reality has unfairly
led to a misappreciation of the victory attained
by coalition forces. Although Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was verbally attacked by
politicians around the world, it was the military objectives, primarily the liberation of Kuwait, that provided an accurate benchmark of just how far the
governments of the coalition were willing to go. (gun fire exploding) U.S. strategy in the Middle East has long been committed
to balance of power. In principle, no country in the region should become so weak that it
is unable to defend itself, at the same time, no regime in the Gulf should become so powerful that
it would dominate the region. This helps explain coalition strategy, which was to leave a fair portion of Iraq's military
infrastructure in place. The composition of the coalition itself helped dictate the nature
and objectives of the war. - We had a coalition and the
coalition obtained Arab states, the Arab states had a veto on
the objectives of the campaign and the Arabs did not want to
conquer another Arab state, in this case, Iraq, they simply
wanted to liberate Kuwait. The other problem was, as I explained right
at the end of the war, was that when you're out in the desert, it's a glorious victory. You go up into the Tigris Euphrates Valley where all the Iraqis
live, it's Vietnam again. So it would've been
politically unacceptable, both for our Arab allies and
for the American electorate, to go to Baghdad and personally
arrest Saddam Hussein. (wind whooshing) - [Narrator] While terrain and objectives were important to the coalition's victory, the quality and quantity
of weapons deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm proved to be too much for
Iraq's military capabilities. Nowhere was this more evident than in the battle for air superiority. (jet engines roaring) (upbeat music) After months of preparation
the massive coalition air assault began on
17th of January, 1991. Over 2000 sorties or missions were flown against Iraqi targets on the first night. By the end of the war over
100,000 sorties had been flown. Perhaps the most familiar
images of the war were the black and white
videos of smart bombs striking their targets
with pinpoint precision. But these images represented only the final product of a strike package that had taken the Air
Force decades to construct. The integrated force package was intended to overcome air defenses and establish air superiority while keeping the loss
of planes and pilots to the very minimum.
(missile exploding) Coalition planners expected the Iraqis to vigorously resist an air assault. The U.S. Air Force and Navy had learned, at great cost in Vietnam, that modern air defense systems, such as missiles and radar directed guns, could take a lethal toll
on attacking aircraft. It was the experiences of the Vietnam War that led the U.S. Air Forces to devote considerable attention to new methods to overcome enemy air defenses. (jet engine roaring) - The reason we were
successful in Desert Storm, as well as we were, is
because we suppressed the enemy air defenses right off the bat, first order of business and we did it through a whole variety of means, from bombing air fields to
taking down telephone buildings, to knocking out radar sites, to shooting down Mirages in the air. That is gonna be vital
to any campaign we do where the enemy has an air
force or an air defense system and I don't know of a country in the world that hasn't invested heavily
in those kinds of capabilities. - [Narrator] The first step in the air war was to take away the enemy's eyes. If the enemy's radar could be blinded, his air defenses would
be rendered ineffective. In Vietnam, as well as in the Gulf War, the traditional methods were twofold. Radars were destroyed by
radiation seeking missiles, this was the job of the F-4G Wild Weasel. Wild Weasels located the
radars on their sensors and attacked them with
armed anti radar missiles. (missile exploding) The second traditional method
was electronic jamming. This was the job of the EF-111 Raven. The Ravens flew over the combat area and jammed the enemy radars with their powerful electronic systems. - The Iraqi air defense network was basically defeated
in the first 24 hours. After that, it was reduced to a residual level of effectiveness and while it required sorties, aircraft to be directed against it for the remainder of the war, it was really not going to be a factor in the ultimate outcome. It looked much more to a ground threat rather than a sophisticated air threat. Another reason the Iraqi
air defense collapsed was the sheer size and sophistication of the effort put against it. Electronic warfare was used
against Iraqi air defenses to a degree never seen
before in any conflict. Much more of it, much more sophisticated than had been seen in Vietnam, than had been seen in earlier
wars in the Middle East. - [Narrator] The air campaign over Iraq marked the first serious combat
debut of stealth aircraft. The F-117 Stealth Fighter
embodied an entirely novel approach to the problem of
overcoming air defenses. The shape and construction of the aircraft prevented Iraqi radar from seeing it, except at extremely close ranges. Armed with precision guided bombs, the stealth strike fighter
played a disproportionate role in the initial attacks. (jet engine roaring) Although the stealth squadrons constituted only 2 1/2% of the attack force, they were responsible for
attacking 31% of the targets on the first day when air
defenses were heaviest. - I don't think there's any doubt that stealth has
revolutionized air warfare, and we saw that with the 117. It kind of interesting, there were all these
detractors against the 117, even some of 'em in the Air Force, during the seventies and eighties and obviously after it was well known that we had this capability. It's interesting to know that we never had a
single stealth aircraft hit by ground fire or any
kind of enemy defenses and they flew the toughest missions. They were the ones that
we sent to Baghdad, night after night after night. So it gives you tremendous advantage. - [Narrator] By the end of the war, F-117s had flown over 3000 sorties and delivered 2000 tons of bombs. A small but important portion of the total number of bombs
dropped in the conflict. One third of all smart
munitions used during the war were delivered by F-117s.
(jet engine roaring) But stealth involved more than defeating the enemy
by near invisibility. It also meant the economy of
combining the capabilities of many aircraft into one. While serving as a strike fighter, the F-117 does not require the assistance of electronic warfare aircraft like the Wild Weasel or the Raven. For example, a strike on
an Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad by 16 conventional
F-16 strike fighters required a further 40 support aircraft and was not entirely successful. A follow on strike by eight F-117s was entirely successful and required the support of only two refueling tankers. Over 80% of all bombs dropped by F-117s during the conflict
destroyed their targets (jet engine roaring) Stealth aircraft, although
more costly to purchase than conventional strike aircraft, demonstrate a significant advantage in the overall cost of a strike force. These experiences are
shaping current notions of future combat aircraft. New generations of future
American combat aircraft, such as the F-22 Lightning 2 fighter, the Comanche Scout helicopter
and the B-2 Spirit bomber are all based around stealth concepts, pioneered by the F-117
Stealth Strike fighter. If one image of the Gulf War predominates, it is the precision guided munition, vying unerringly to its target. Ironically, the weapon that was
at the center of this image, the laser guided bomb
was not as new a weapon as most people thought, what
was new was the more important role it played in the air campaign. - I don't really know
why people were shocked by laser guided bombs,
since laser guided bombs were invented during the Vietnam War, were used with great success and liberal publicity at that time. For example, I think
there was a famous bridge that was taken down by laser guided bombs. Laser guided bombs were also used in the raid on Tripoli in '86. Again, with a lot of publicity. I believe they were
also used in the attacks on the Iranians in '87,
again with publicity. The surprise was that there
weren't that many of them because a laser guided
attack almost inevitably generates a video, most of what
you saw in the way of videos were laser guided attacks
and I think that many people had never seen that kind of video before. However, the bomb itself,
isn't all that different than the product that you
would've seen, say, in 1970. It's a very simple device. Very effective. - [Narrator] About 9% of the bombs used were laser guided bombs or other forms of precision munitions.
(missile exploding) Such weapons, while costly
to develop and manufacture, are more valuable than conventional bombs since they require fewer combat missions to accomplish an objective. Typically the precision guided bombs struck their targets 90% of the time, while conventional bombs seldom hit more than 25% of their targets. The attack on a pinpoint
target, such as a bridge, would take dozens of
missions using unguided bombs before the bridge would be destroyed. With precision guided bombs, a few missions would
accomplish the same task, and fewer missions means
that fewer aircraft and crews are lost to enemy air defenses. (bomb exploding) With its air defense
system largely destroyed and coalition air forces
swarming over the conflict zone, the Iraqi Air Force had little choice than to avoid air combat and
instead protect their aircraft. The dog fighting that did
occur was entirely one-sided. Iraqi fighters did not manage to down a single coalition aircraft while coalition fighters shot
down 35 Iraqi war planes. The Iraqi Air Force, which
seemed so imposing on paper, proved almost entirely incapable of putting up any serious resistance. (jet engine roaring) Unable to challenge the allies in the air, the Iraqi Air Force
commanders sought to protect their aircraft by hiding them in concrete reinforced hangers. But the allied air forces, with strategic targets largely eliminated, soon began attacking
the hardened shelters. Of the 594 Iraqi aircraft shelters identified at the outset of
the war, 375 were destroyed. In desperation to save what
was left of its Air Force over 100 Iraqi planes fled to Iran. Iran has refused to give them back, declaring them reparations
for the Iran Iraq War. Although not destroyed, those Iraq aircraft that flew to Iran were effectively put out of action. With Iraq's air defenses incapacitated and its air force decimated coalition air forces
turned their attention to Iraqi ground units in and near Kuwait. (jet engines roaring) (dramatic music) With the air war safely won, coalition ground forces swung into action. Under the cover of air superiority, coalition forces moved into
their starting positions, stretching westward along
the Iraqi Saudi border. The Iraqi forces, without air reconnaissance
or accurate intelligence, were unaware of the coalition's
build up west of Kuwait. Feigning a frontal attack and threatening an amphibious assault, coalitions forces were able to use their advantages in mobility to out flank Iraqi units. When the ground offensive
began, Iraqi units in Kuwait could not respond to the coalition's Blitzkrieg style assault
into Iraq from the west. (tanks rumbling) The left hook executed by coalition forces from the western deserts of Iraq could not have worked were it not for the superior performance of
the coalition ground arsenal. (tank rumbling) The reliability of vehicles,
such as the M1A1 Abrams tank and the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle, made it possible for coalition forces to fight a war of maneuver. The 24th Mechanized Infantry Division set a record for the fastest
advance on the battlefield, moving 220 miles in four days,
an average of 55 miles a day. (tank rumbling)
The M1 Abrams tank, long derided in the press
prior to the war as unreliable, confounded its critics. Iraq's tank force, consisting
primarily of T-50 series and T-72 Soviet designed
tanks, could not match up with the more versatile
and lethal M1A1 tank. The M1A1 tank superior range and firepower allowed coalition ground forces
to destroy many Iraqi tanks while safely out of the
range of Iraqi armor, while its speed and durability
gave coalition forces a decided edge in mobility. (tanks rumbling) Even the U.S. Marine Corps, which deployed the older M60 main battle tank, proved extremely capable
against Iraqi armor and, in perhaps the most evenly matched tank battle of the war, four Qatari AMX-30s
engaged five Iraqi T-55 Ms during the battle for Khafji. (tanks rumbling) When the smoke settled,
four of the Iraqi tanks were destroyed and the fifth abandon. Thanks to air superiority,
ground vehicles, such as the Bradley fighting vehicle, described before the war as a death trap, due to its high profile and light armor, demonstrated the value of its
mobility and heavy firepower. Another weapon that
received critical attention before the war was the AH-64
Apache Attack helicopter. Its superb performance in
Desert Storm raises questions, not about its capability, but rather about the importance of helicopters
in future land wars. During Desert Storm helicopters played a fundamentally different role from those in previous armed conflicts. In Korea and Vietnam,
helicopters were used primarily to transport troops. In the Gulf War, this transport
role remained important, but the helicopter's special ability to provide vast mobile fire power for the ground forces became very evident. The Apache Attack helicopter destroyed nearly 1000 Iraqi armored
vehicles, making it the single most deadly anti armor weapon of the war. The Apache and its Marine
and Army counterparts, such as the Cobra, can locate
and identify pinpoint targets such as tanks with greater
ease than fast jets can. In spite of their capabilities,
the growing importance of attack helicopters in land warfare is not widely recognized,
although some observers have been paying its special attention. (helicopter whirring)
Our former Soviet Army study concluded that the Attack helicopters in the U.S. Army division
increased the combat capability of the unit by more than 50%. - The Gulf War was certainly
the most effective scenario you could imagine for
the Attack helicopter. The Attack helicopter was, in many ways, the star of the ground war. It first had the advantages of terrain. There was obviously no triple
canopy jungle in the desert. There was very little place
for its targets to hide or for threats to hide, they
can see all the threats. The helicopters could also
operate by day or night, which they could not do in Vietnam or the earlier Middle
Wast wars, and in fact, most of the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps, most effective work was done at night. The air threat was less, there
were no fixed wing aircraft to come and chase the
American helicopters away. The Iraqi ground based air defenses were largely defeated after the first day, so they could not have a great
threat to the helicopters. So this was very much
the helicopter's war. I don't know if they would do as well at lower intensity
conflict in worse terrain or higher intensity conflict in Europe. However, it does show the Attack
helicopter is here to stay and while it is vulnerable, it
is perhaps no more vulnerable than any other system on
the modern battlefield where really anything that
can be seen can be killed. - [Narrator] The Iraqi
military units in Kuwait were crushed within a matter of days. Images of hundreds of burned out vehicles, littering the highway leading to Iraq provided partial evidence
of the route in the desert. The Iraqi commanders who
surrendered to coalition forces were surprised to learn that
over 60,000 Iraqi prisoners had been taken in the
Blitzkrieg operation. (helicopter blades whirring) (upbeat music) It is easy to get the impression that modern warfare is nothing more than a technological
contest between machines. Yet these machines are merely tools in the hands of the soldiers, young men and increasingly young women. There was no better example of this than in the desert tank battles. The allied tanks did have a
decided technological edge over the Iraqi opponents, but the difference in
technology was not great enough to explain the desert tank battles in which the Iraqis lost hundreds of tanks and the allied units lost none. The Gulf War demonstrated
that the human factor is as important as weapon quality. (tanks rumbling) - The one sided nature
of all the ground war, especially the tank battles was much more than just the superiority of allied tanks over the Soviet designed
tanks used by the Iraqis. Yes, the U.S. M1A1 Abrams,
the British Chieftain, French AMX-30, were indeed
superior to the T-72s, which had most of the press, or the T-55s which were
the bulk of the Iraqi Army, both older Soviet designs. But more important than
this technical superiority was tactics, cohesion, gunnery. In all of these, the allies
were greatly superior and we have seen in the past times when one side has
such a lopsided advantage over its opponents you
can have similar results. In some tanks battles in the opening days of the Russian front of
the second World War, in some of the battles in
the 1967 Middle East War, you saw similar one-sided results when one side was prepared,
one side was trained, one side were basically cohesive units and the other guy were just
a bunch of guys in tanks who maybe knew how to drive
the vehicle or fire the gun but hadn't trained to fight
in combined arms teams, combined arm combat, in the very harsh realities of modern warfare. (jet engine roaring) - [Narrator] The experiences of Vietnam led the U.S. military
establishment to conclude that the training of
American soldiers and pilots was not realistic enough. This led to such legendary
training programs as the TOPGUN School
for Navy fighter pilots and Red Flag for the Air Force. Far less well known, but equally important to the victory in the Gulf War, was the Army's National Training Center in the deserts of Southern California. (tanks rumbling) - The rise of effective
training in the West, especially things such as the U.S. Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin in California, or the U.S. Air Force's Red
Flag and Green Flag exercises at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, were vital in making the
victory in the Gulf happen. This was realistic training of a type we didn't see before other wars. We didn't see before Vietnam. Certainly didn't see before
the second World War. The U.S. and its allies
were willing to invest money in trying to make the
exercises as much like real war as they can to try and
duplicate the conditions. Now, no exercise obviously
can do this, (indistinct), when the fact that people
don't bleed real blood puts limitations on what you can do. However, in duplicating the confusion, or cause what's called the
friction of the battlefield, the confusion, when,
if not people's lives, at least their careers are on the line, these were very important and
one of the comments you heard from many U.S. officers after
the ground war finished was, it wasn't as rough as the
National Training Center at Fort Irwin, thank goodness.
(upbeat music) - [Narrator] The Gulf War was
won not only in the pristine aerospace plants of general
dynamics in the Donald Douglas, but in the classrooms and briefing halls of military bases unknown
to most Americans. The 1980s were a time of
great intellectual ferment in the United States Armed Forces, an institution not often acknowledged for its intellectual prowess. But first the burning question was, why did the United States lose in Vietnam? The lessons of this search
sharpened the appetite of many professional officers. Enthusiasm for the study of the art of war came to be expected of
ambitious combat leaders. The Gulf War was won as much
by the product of these studies as by any weapons. - It's very difficult to disentangle whether you win a war
because of your strengths or your adversaries weaknesses. I think, however, one
thing is quite evident and that is that the
way this war was fought was very distinctive. The people who were
responsible for planning it on the coalition side were very much aware of their strengths and their weaknesses, as well as their adversary
strengths and weaknesses. And what it looks like our
commanders did a good job of was exploiting the coalition strengths, minimizing the coalition weaknesses, minimizing the significance
of the Iraqi strengths and exploiting to the
maximum the Iraqi weaknesses. That's a style of war fighting, which has not typically
been an American style. To focus your campaign
specifically on the adversary, but it's something that
was done in this case through telling effect. - [Narrator] The high tech weapons used by the coalition
forces were only as good as the soldiers trained to use them. Thanks to decades of training, the troops required to man the vast number of weapons systems deployed
during the conflict were well suited to their task. With a relationship between
men and arms in sync, the only factor left to consider was the manner in which such lethal force would be used toward
the operations objective to liberate Kuwait.
(upbeat music) Realizing it could not
win in open confrontation with coalition forces, Iraq was forced to explore other means. With no viable alternatives, Iraq tried to widen the war by using ScudS to attack targets in
Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iraq hoped that Israel's participation would weaken the coalition
by causing a split between Arab and non-Arab member states participating in the coalition. The only usable weapon in Iraqs arsenal capable of drawing Israel into the war and inflicting any substantial damage to targets beyond Iraq and Kuwait was the Scud ballistic missile. Scud missiles in the
western deserts of Iraq, specifically targeted Israeli cities. Although extremely inaccurate, the Scud proved the ideal terror weapon, having caused extreme
international concern. - The ScudS, in the
greater scheme of things, did not have that much
of an impact in terms of the kinds of destruction that they caused, but they were the only
weapon the Iraqis had that were accomplishing anything. So that when you compare their Scud force to their air force, or
even their whole Army, they did a lot more with the Scuds than they did with anything else. And that, in part, I think explained why they kept working at it. More than that, however, the missile force had a political impact
which was far more important than whatever operational
military implications the attacks might have had. If the Iraqis, for example, were going to drag Israel into the war it was going to be
through missile attacks. The only way they could. And they came very close
to succeeding on that. If there hadn't been
some prompt countermove by the U.S. and its allies, it's very possible that we
would've had that problem and that might have completely changed the character of the war and
of the postwar situation. - [Narrator] The Iraqis had not counted on the effectiveness of the Patriot missile. Never before in combat had ballistic missiles been shot down. Since the war, there
has been some criticism that Patriots did not shoot down every Scud at which they fired, yet few missiles of any type,
(siren blaring) anti-aircraft, anti tank, or anti ship, have had as successful
an engagement record as the Patriot it during the Gulf War. (missile roaring) U.S. led coalition forces fought the war within the context of the AirLand Battle doctrine. AirLand Battle doctrine is an old concept wrapped in a new name. is the combination of land and air forces operating together to ensure victory. The three dimensional nature
of the coalition's approach to war fighting was enhanced
by a complex network of air and space based
reconnaissance platforms. This decided advantage
provided critical information to coalition forces in
the Kuwaiti theater. (group chatter)
(missile roaring) The battle zone was layered with intelligence collection systems. In space, systems, such the DSP satellite, looked for traces of
Scud missile launches. Closer to the earth, the
TR-1 renaissance aircraft flew overhead taking precise photographs of the battle area and
monitoring Iraq communications. (jet engine roaring) Navy submarines also patrolled offshore picking up Iraq radio transmissions, while the larger AWACS
and JSTARS radar aircraft scanned behind battle
lines with their radars seeing nearly everything that moved. The JSTARS enhanced the link
in cooperative operations between the land and air forces. (jet engine roaring) - The primary role of JSTARS is to provide surveillance
of enemy ground targets beyond the FEBA, beyond the line of battle and it does that superbly. It provides very important
information to the Army commander and it tells him what's
happening behind the lines and it also, to us in the Air Force, is a prime targeting system. So, we use JSTARS in
the air to ground role, just like we use AWACS
in the air to air role. - [Narrator] Once the air war was won coalition aircraft turn their attention to Iraq troop targets
to assist ground forces. In the end, 20% of all
sorties flown during the war targeted Iraqi troops in the field. (artillery firing) Within days, the allied air forces could roam at will over Iraq. With opposition confined to low altitude, uncoordinated anti-aircraft fire. This meant that the allied air forces could also be used in the tactical role, attacking Iraqi troop concentrations, (airplane buzzing)
tanks and artillery in the forward battle area. (artillery exploding) And it wasn't only the high
tech aircraft that did so well, Air Force planners
expecting to fight against Soviet air defenses in Central Europe, had disparaged aircraft,
such as the A-10 Warthog, the AC-130 Spectre,
and other slow aircraft as unsurvivable over
the modern battlefield. But against an opponent like Iraq, unable to maintain a shield of
air defense over its forces, these aircraft proved remarkably suitable for the close attack role. The Gulf War was a reminder
of the crucial link between air combat and land warfare. (jet engine roaring) Coalition planners went to great effort to eliminate potential
problems that might occur between the Air Force and ground units. - The problem is, knowing
what the ground commander is trying to do and how we integrate air to best support his aims and intentions and that means that the command control is the key to close air support. And that means having a
forward air controller, an air force guy who can
advise the ground commander on what air can do and
what its limitations are and then also can provide
the directions to the pilot to make sure he puts the bomb on the right target at the right time. Now, we did this in this
war, we had over 2000 people, Air Force people, on the ground
with each of the Army units, and I'm talking U.S. Army,
I'm talking Egyptians, Syrian, French, all the forces
except the British forces had American forward air
controllers with them. (helicopter whirring)
(missile roaring) - [Narrator] The joint
operation of land and air forces worked remarkably well
and the traditional line between air and ground forces
was increasingly blurred by such weapons of the helicopter. Helicopters provided quick
mobile fire power to ground units and destroyed over 800 tanks and numerous other targets during the war. - Direct it.
- Target destroyed. Give us another one, we'll
go to the left of it. - [Controller] Yeah, good shootin', Dave. - [Pilot] Target destroyed. - [Controller] And roger,
send in a missile now. - [Pilot] Roger, on target. One more please. - One of the driving
forces behind the combined land and air force approach
(helicopter whirring) was the idea of using maximum
force to attain victory while seeking to minimize
casualties to one's own troops. The Gulf War provided the
perfect example of this practice. (helicopter blades whirring) - The Army forces that
went around the flank, they basically let the tanks
lead and not the infantry and whenever they did
encounter resistance, even though the tanks were in the lead, they would pull back and
call in the helicopters and the airplanes and the artillery, and basically use those
to obliterate resistance as much as possible. The tanks did fight, we did
take infantry casualties, but they were kept to an absolute minimum because the doctrine dictated
that everything be channeled towards the objective of
minimizing American casualties. (jet engine roaring) - [Narrator] The Navy also participated in the AirLand Battle
approach to war fighting by using Naval aviation
to strike Iraq targets from carriers in the area. It also had great success with the Tomahawk cruise missile. Such unmanned systems as the Tomahawk allowed coalition forces to reach targets otherwise considered too dangerous. (missile roaring) - Tomahawk makes a tremendous difference because you can fly Tomahawk in where you would worry
about a pilot's survival. Also, because Tomahawk's
precision doesn't depend upon being able to see
the target terribly well, Tomahawk was used in bad weather, when the airplanes would not attack for fear of missing targets altogether. Now, Tomahawk doesn't
deliver a very large warhead, but those two capabilities
make that warhead very valuable as a force multiplier. It's very dangerous to think of Tomahawk as an alternative to airplanes. It's only about a thousand pound warhead, but Tomahawk buys you the
ability to hit some key targets like their air defense
radars, air defense centers, after which the airplanes
(missile exploding) can deliver much larger loads and I think that's exactly what we did. (machinery humming)
(missile firing) - [Narrator] Iraq's use of Scuds in an effort to widen the
war and split the coalition was primarily a defensive strategy. Iraq hoped to break up the coalition before it could direct its wrath on Iraqi targets in Kuwait. Just over 100 Scuds were
fired during the entire war. This strategy did not
work for two reasons. (jet engine roaring) Coalition air forces,
special operations teams and Patriot anti missile batteries, minimized the Scud threat
before it could be effective. (wind whooshing) Also, the coalitions mobile
strategy and ground units moved so fast with such
tremendous (indistinct) power that Iraq did not have time to wait for its Scud threat to become effective. In the final analysis,
(tanks rumbling) it is unlikely that U.S. forces will be presented with
another Gulf War scenario. The crushing victory of coalition
forces will, if anything, act as a deterrent to other rogue states considering a confrontation
under similar conditions. It is unlikely that any future adversary would give the U.S. and its allies the opportunity to
fully prepare its forces for battle in such ideal terrain. (engines rumbling) - Iraq was defeated so quickly because they thought we wouldn't fight. It was their fault. They basically stuck an
Army out in the desert without air superiority. It didn't take a rocket scientist, or even somebody who flunked history, to realize that that was a sure fire prescription for defeat. We were fighting a military campaign. Saddam Hussein and the
Iraqis were fighting a political and a media campaign. They lost. (dramatic music)
