"Thunder In The Gulf" - Air Combat in Desert Storm

[Music] [Music] [Music] months of preparation and weeks of specific planning were coming to a climax in the early hours of January 17 1991 a powerful force of Allied countries led by the United States was about to launch the attack on Iraq and the Iraqi troops that had taken neighboring Kuwait a war was about to begin a war unlike any in history a war where modern technology would catch up with military theories the first war where airpower almost exclusively would decide the outcome modern air combat evolved from America's experience in Vietnam where airpower was massive but comparatively ineffective early in the Vietnam War air combat took a heavy toll on u.s. fighters and US aircraft strike capabilities against ground targets were crude compared with what has evolved since as the Vietnam War progressed the tactics planners and aircraft and weapon systems designers learned airpower effectiveness slowly improved but it wasn't until after Vietnam in the mid to late 70s that a new generation of aerial fighting machines came into being lethal fighters and strike aircraft products of the computer age that could attack with pinpoint accuracy day or night from near and far could outmaneuver missiles and could be kept reliable and ready for combat in any location air combat training methods were totally overhauled rigorous exercises like those of the Navy's top gun school at Fighter Town Miramar Naval Air Station in San Diego California and the air force's red flag at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada became widespread this new generation of aircraft with improved methods for combat flying is the core of today's air arsenal for the Air Force Navy and Marines 40 different aircraft types were involved in the Gulf War among them the f-15c a twin-engine single pilot jet with the primary mission of air superiority it cleared the skies of Iraqi fighters in the early days of the war relying on radar guided and heat-seeking missiles and even after air superiority was attained they patrolled continuously during the war to assure enemy aircraft stayed grounded the f-111 a swing wing strike aircraft that first saw service late in the Vietnam War used its infrared radar and laser targeting systems for pinpoint attacks in key military facilities and ultimately on individual field weapons pilots flying the f-111s picked off over 1,500 tanks the f-18 is the Navy's latest fighter strike aircraft it's designed to switch quickly from air combat to ground attack capabilities and back again and carries a wide variety of missiles bombs and guns in 1989 night fighter versions of the single-seat airplane went into operation the f-18s computerized flight control system adapts to the selected mission to enhance tracking for ground attack and maneuverability for air combat the Gulf War was the first time this dual role fighter had been used in combat the f-15e is based on the f-15 air superiority fighter but incorporates a cockpit for a crew of two and has the latest in night navigation weapons targeting and radar systems it is the newest fighter in the airforce fleet first delivered for use in 1988 it's laser targeting systems guided smart bombs into scud missile sites command centers airfield bunkers and hundreds of other targets the f-16 is a single-engine single pilot fighter designed as a lightweight simple but extremely agile air combat and attack aircraft its weapons carrying ability is limited but its success rate as an attack aircraft during the Gulf War made it a critical player about 250 f-16s were sent to the Gulf and they flew day and night 13,500 missions more than any other type of aircraft and concentrating on targets and occupied Kuwait but the real star of the Gulf War and a surprise star at that was the stealth fighter the f-117 a it had been shrouded in secrecy since it entered air force service in 1983 in fact it wasn't until late 1988 that its existence was officially acknowledged built by Lockheed the dart like airplane has a single seat and two engines relying on materials design elaborate electronics and special flight techniques the airplane presents a minimal target on radar in fact according to sources the stealth fighters radar image on even the most elaborate radars is smaller than that of a small bird in December of 1989 two of the 60 stealth fighters had their first taste of combat during the US invasion of Panama - f-117 a/s flew a nighttime mission over real hot oil and dropped to 2,000 pound bombs the disorient Panamanian troops before a base there came under attack by Army Rangers there were questions about the accuracy of that bombing and the airplane systems were refined and pilots intensified their training in use of the targeting equipment aboard in April of 1990 the first films of the airplane were released and the public finally got a view of the airplane it made selected appearances at air shows across the United States that summer but armed guards kept crowds at a distance and this angular Darth Vader looking aircraft remained an enigma and in fact bored the brunt of many skeptics jokes shortly after a Rock's invasion of Kuwait more than 40 of the 60 stealth fighters headed for Saudi Arabia with a stopover at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and on the first night of the war stealth fighters led the attack one of them dropping the first bomb of the war through the roof of an air defense control center the airplane caught Iraqi defences totally by surprise and was the sole aircraft permitted to attack targets in downtown Baghdad as the war progressed the generals knew that the f-117a was rewriting the books on aerial warfare dozens of other US and coalition forces aircraft participated the av-8b Harrier a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft flown by US Marines jumped across the borders several times each day for brief strike missions against Iraqi targets tornados built jointly by companies in Britain Germany and Italy were key attackers in the Gulf War flown by the royal air force to attack Iraqi airfields and disable runways with cluster bombs AWACS aircraft or airborne warning and control boeing e-3 x' stuffed with electronics and radar gear watched over the battlefield every second and helped guide the air battles four of them were in the air at all times during the war controllers aboard each watching displays of radar that searched out hundreds of miles helped direct most of the 110,000 combat and support air sorties during the war while AWACS monitored the battle in the air eh joint stars painted a picture of Iraqi troops on the ground two of these new surveillance target attack radar system aircraft still undergoing testing in the US were rushed to the Gulf just before the air war began equipped with multimode radars and sophisticated computer processing equipment they were able to track tanks and other moving targets deep behind enemy lines this information was rapidly relayed by joint stars operators to ground commanders and then to strike aircraft pilots [Music] fuel tankers as many as 180 at a time flew nearby and over Iraq allowing on occasion combat missions that endured for nearly ten hours longer than any in previous air wars the venerable b-52 bombers veterans of over 30 years of service dropped thousands of tons of bombs on Iraqi troops while the tactical importance of this bombing was minimal the psychological impact proved immense and led to the large-scale surrender of Iraqi troops a-10s nicknamed the warthog a low-level strike aircraft killed hundreds of tanks strafe troops gunned down helicopters and fired maverick missiles for devastating impact helicopters notably the army ah-64 Apache decimated Iraqi armored columns particularly during the 100-hour ground war that followed on the heels of the 40-day air attack and there were many others including the transports involved in the massive airlift that supported Desert Shield and Desert Storm that airlift with giant air force sea fives playing the principal role proved to be the speediest and most extensive movement of people and equipment in history it had been almost two decades since the US had been at war in the Gulf war planners designed a hard-hitting air attack as the opening salvo in the second week of January the man who handled daily planning of the air campaign and was the number two officer overseeing the air war Major General Buster Glosson began a series of personal visits to pilots who would be going to war in this case I felt that we owed it to those air crew members to explain to them how important each of their individual missions would be and what would happen or what would be the repercussions if they failed and also what would be the benefits if they succeeded and quite candidly to give them the opportunity to come to grips themselves with going to or in putting their life on the line which for many of them was the first time they never occurred when we reached the point that I refer to as no return when the president made the decision to go to war and then when we reached the point of the first tomahawk coming out of the tube and the first 1:17 not being with callable then we can't turn back you can't say that the war is going to end in the next few minutes or you hope the war doesn't occur the war is now started and so all the things that are bad about war and all the things that are so deplorable we're in essence beyond your control at that point I will never forget the feeling I had at that time over 2000 coalition aircraft were assembled and going into action the successes started them out initially the air attack followed the detailed plan I think it's fair to say that the first 24 hours was as close to being scripted as any air campaign has ever been and the changes that we made were changes only as a result of weather and after the first 24 hours or I should say during the first 24 hours we then started making some minor changes to the second 24 hours that was also scripted and it was not until you we had gone through 48 hours were we actually starting with an on script so to speak from that point on planning for the 3,000 or so daily air sorties began about 36 hours in advance the air war goals were specific Lieutenant General Charles C Horner commanded all their operations first thing we had to do is seize control the air that was fundamental to everything we did then we had the obligation to take out his nuclear biological and chemical capabilities isolate the central leadership of the country from the forces in the field isolate those forces in the field by knocking down bridges and their ability both to resupply the battlefield and flee from the battlefield and then finally we needed to take out those systems that could inflict casualties on our friendly ground forces armor and artillery captain Steve tape piloted and f-15c and was part of the first attacking wave Tate and his wingmen took off from de Iran at 1:30 on the morning of January 17th they refueled near the Iraq border and then headed for Baghdad to provide air cover over a swath of territory extending from Baghdad to about 60 miles east a line of attack aircraft almost 100 miles long followed them into the war Baghdad was a really pretty city that night as we started flying over the populous areas you know about 60 miles south of Baghdad also an f-117 started dropping their bombs and then you started getting concussions all over the entire country you could see it at that point then this guy started lighting up with a triple-a and when I first thought you know it looked like just little sparkles going off all over and I figure we had some kind of cosmic weapon system out there just sprinkling all over this city is I'm looking off at it and I didn't even dawn on me and then I started you know look a little bit closer and I said man that's a triple-a that they're shooting the stealth fighters the f-117 A's led the attack that night as they did frequently during the 42 day war and began to prove their ability to sneak in undetected by enemy radar stealth technology returned a lost element to aerial warfare the element of surprise Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Getchell commanded a squadron of f-117 A's during the war in the Gulf in the Desert Storm air campaign we flew twelve hundred and seventy one combat sorties about a third of those sorties were over downtown Baghdad we were the only aircraft allowed to fly over downtown Baghdad and we did so without receiving a scratch during the entire war but the attacking f-117 aise did encounter anti-aircraft fire in downtown Baghdad where they were they had an established integrated air defense Network early on that that they had a little bit of warning because they had a lot of listening post some as simple as a guy in a in a late triple-a piece outside of town listening for jet noise hears jet noise he shoots tracers they shoot on a lot of targets especially as the war progressed and we were able to to beat the eye ads down we were able to achieve complete surprise and wouldn't see any fire at all until the bombs actually impacted a target which means you're halfway in or half way through and that worked very well we have had a revolution in aerial warfare there's no doubt about it the stealth technology worked probably better than even I thought it would when you think that those airplanes night after night after night went to the most heavily defended target in the world probably in Baghdad with all the thousands of guns and hundreds of Sam's and came back without taking a scratch that has to be a revolution while Iraqi defenses were ineffective against the stealth fighters Iraq initially tried to use its Air Force to gain control of their skies and to counter-attack the iraqi air force comprised a mix of over 600 fighters among them were mirage f1 fighters as early as 1981 iraq had begun assembling a fleet of the french-built fighters and as the Gulf War dawned in 1991 Iraq had about 100 of them many equipped for long-range strike missions a capability used repeatedly during a rocks war with Iran most of the rest of the modern fighters were Soviet mig-29s the airplanes high degree of maneuverability had been repeatedly demonstrated at flying displays outside the Soviet Union in recent years the airplanes flight controls are operated by a less sophisticated mechanical system than the computer driven fly-by-wire systems in contemporary US and European fighters however Western experts who've evaluated its flying report the make 29 in many ways matches the best the West has to offer Iraq had nearly 40 of them at the outset of the war there are other active fighters were earlier make models including the large and powerful mig-25 capable of almost mach 3 phases mig-23 flogger e and f models single seed air combat fighters with variable sweep wings our export versions of a fighter first put into service in the Soviet Union in 1970 and later sold to Iraq and make 21s the backbone of their fleet with various models of the small jet were in operation by Iraq since the early 1970s and updated continually since ironically as a rock ready that's mig-21s for war a privately owned mig-21 in the US was flying at air shows that same summer of 1990 also in the iraqi fleet was the lethal sukhoi su-25 codenamed frog foot this heavily armoured low-level strike aircraft had proved deadly when used by the soviets in their war in afghanistan iraq was the first non Warsaw Pact nation to get su-25s and not much was known about them until they were unveiled to Western experts in 1989 against the Iraqi fleet coalition forces set out to gain dominance of the skies in the first hours of the war principally squadrons of F if team seas were assigned to clear the skies f15 A's and C's single-seat fighters had been in operation since the mid-1970s the airplanes focused is air combat and it's designed for maximum effectiveness in a fight at just under supersonic speeds at about 30,000 feet it routinely carries two radar guided aim-7 Sparrow missiles and two heat-seeking aim-9 Sidewinders and it's computerized radar can track and engage several aircraft targets at the same time it was in at 15 seas that captain Steve Tate and his wingmen set off on the first night of the war to eliminate any Iraqi aircraft threats they led a wave of coalition attack airplanes on its way up from the south and it was near Baghdad in the first hour of the war flying with wingman bomber like that things started getting tense for Tait I finished my turn I locked up a contact about 16 miles off my nose I'm talking to a wax and who this you know what the airplane is who it is they didn't have a good idea and a feel for what the airplane was at that time and I'm getting all my systems to work about 12 miles in front of me it met the are we the rules of engagement that we needed to to be able to shoot at this thing and I shot a aim-7 a sparrow missile at the airplane it came off the right side and we never really shot missiles before night I shot missile before buzz in the daytime so we didn't really know what to expect so I kind of just like ducked my head into the radar tube to prevent any kind of blindness flash blindness at night and made sure that was a bad guy and I'm not going to shoot down a friendly which was a big concern and is the missile went off I just kind of checked away from a little bit called out to a wax into the rest of my flight that I had a fox one and a f-1 the airborne controlled aircraft or AWACS had confirmed to Tate that the target was indeed an Iraqi Mirage right about this time in in the missile of flight the they started shooting Sam missiles at us i was getting locked up by an AI Hawk at one of our own SAM sites that that they stole from Kuwait when they invaded that and so I'm really nurse about that I'm trying to look over to my to my left side here and to Baghdad and they're shooting so I see some Sam's coming up but the whole sky is filled with triple-a every side you look at there's triple-a coming up and I turned back as getting ready to shoot another missile with about two to three second time of flight left before the missile impact did the airplane and the missile looked good to me if the airplane wasn't evading so I didn't shoot I elected not to shoot another missile at that point if if it wouldn't if it would have missed them for some other reason I could have followed up with an another shot very easily and but the airplane blew up and I a big turn away from this thing you know the sky really lit up and I just look at it for a second and the airplane could you see parts of the airplane breaking up and then then the bigger parts would break up into smaller pieces it's just a huge streamer of a burning metal going down to the ground f15 sees from four different Air Force units accounted for all but two of the 35 Iraqi fighters shot down in air combat Iraqis scored zero against Allied forces I think that our success in air-to-air engagements was because of the superb equipment we have the f-15 f-14s f-18s f-16s the missiles but most of all the training our young people have today since the Vietnam War air combat training has been the number one priority for fighter pilots at bases around the world including the renowned US Air Force red flag school and the United States Navy Top Gun but now after 20 years of practice billions of dollars of investment and few live engagements to validate the new training doctrine pilots and planes face the ultimate test was the training realistic enough the following sequences provide a compelling comparison air combat exercises like this with f-15s out of Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico go on every day here captain Mike Holmes leads for f-15s against for Air Force t-38 which simulate mig-21 aggressor aircraft like to do the larger scenarios and get at least four eagles out there together so we can work on the teamwork not just of a two ship or a two plane working together but combining that into four aircraft now we have four guys working the radio four guys working the radar and trying to make that happen [Music] [Music] we like to have at least four targets so that we have to test our radar skills and our lookout skills today's scenario was built around t-38 simulating basically a mig-21 [Music] we wanted to make it come up at high altitude where airplane that's and a performance advantage and then we wanted to force them into a turning fight so we could practice flying against that smaller airplane fight one guy while you try to find the next guy he's jumping into the fight we have one radar that didn't work in the flight which unfortunately with mine so we did some switching around in roles and we switch leads around and now the number three guy my number three ends up with the lead of the fight and his radar and the other guys radar to take us into the visual environment again 1738 my first merge on the base bike I was flying on the wing of my number-two man who has lead because he's gotten a good radar my first pick up on the t-38 was a visual pickup as they flew over the top of us my airplane and started the conversion down and because we're at high altitude my airplane has a maneuver and intake is done and I've got a trust advantage and so I was able to turn my speed initially into some turn rate and pretty soon I'm driving an offensive advantage although I traded some airspeed to do it we ended up going around about two 360s and 20,000 feet while I'm working to get a position to use my gun and because my radar didn't work I wanted to be close because my sights not going to be as accurate now I want to make sure I'm close so the boys are actually gonna hit it before I shoot so I Drive back to a position behind him unload my airplane to get the energy I need to go up to him because he's trying to go high higher than I can get hold me off and good so I get a few extra knots of airspeed and pull up with him I'm able to point at him and now he has to come down I've got the best advantage so once he starts coming down I'm driving the fight and I'm able to saddle up behind him for a gunshot [Applause] lady square balance i'm combat-ready and again I'll break that down into a couple of reasons I've been doing the same job every day for seven years and I've had the benefit of all the schools of deerforce offers and air combat training starting with undergraduate pilot training through f-15 school into an operational unit off the fighter weapons school to become an instructor and tactics and the weapons that we use in the airplane but the most important part is I've had seven years of doing this job every day day after day after day the training is intense and seemingly very real but in war the missiles are armed the stakes infinitely higher now a similar engagement the real thing this time in the skies over Iraq for f-15s from the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing encountered three mig-23 flogger x' you'll see and hear the flight of f15 shoot down all three MiG's as recorded from a gun camera in the lead aircraft three good stare copy push it up check to a360 yeah heads up watch I feed off she threw me [Applause] but that's the one chuckle oh come on nose [Applause] they flash wonderful one two three on another occasion f-15s from the same wing engaged to mig-25 and one explodes in the pilots field of view again the engagement has recorded from the u.s. fighter [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] coalition air forces quickly proved their air superiority but the battlefield was deceptively large and control of the skies had to be maintained you know if you look at Kuwait the battlefield looks pretty small but in reality we had to provide air defense across the whole northern tier of Saudi Arabia so that went for distance from say about Boston to Omaha Nebraska and if you look at the distances we ranged the battlefield we had our air pulled back so it wouldn't be subject to Scud attack for the most part and so forces were stationed in the south to get to the Baghdad for example had to travel the same distance as you would from say Brownsville Texas up to the Minnesota border with Canada so it's a big area f15 pilots continued to patrol the skies long endurance patrol flight sometimes nine to ten hours which included up to four aerial refueling zs-- became the norm for the f-15 pilots one of their missions came to be called MIG sweeps an Air Force cameraman went along on one of these flights which started late one afternoon and ended in darkness early the next morning planted 15 overactivation down run we've been here since the 8th of April 8th of August so I don't wait to point out of Langley we ever have another nine and we've been flying primarily defensive counter air missions over Saudi Arabia and when the war broke up broke out on the 17th of January our mission changed significantly since that time we've basically had a three-fold mission obviously made still maintaining the defensive counter air protecting value assets the AWACS and the anchors they're in the joints the jammers additionally we have och3 strike sweep and escort missions for the package primarily the packages I can't support themselves like the f-111 f4 Jay's the f-111 see additionally several f16 packages where we escort in and friends sweeper mix centum cats and kept their address and then protecting him on the way back the third leg of our mission is what we did today today has been a main sweep we've taken off gone to the central region of Saudi Arabia we are going to a turn right we take our gas and we're basically tied to nobody we go straight up into Iraq and sweep the airfields you utilizing minimum communications and I'm the review on our position and sweep for any fighter activity your helicopter activity for that matter that is the legal airfield her heels haven't gone into the mountains in the border area so we're just your headline earlier that is on new man the her cellphone my dad that's pretty pretty erectus [Applause] oh those are parachute flares member they are they're dropping those are parachute flares from like an 8 10 or somebody they're luminate in the ground so that they can see what they're gonna now go in and target pretty cool maybe in their strengthened with their guns Fanta shame you keep going an escort mission cousin you're guaranteed to see fireworks that's what they are to try to work for next time several hours after takeoff the mid sweep ends and it's back to the base but where this mission leaves off many others follow to maintain control of Iraqis skies the threat from a rocks air force diminished mig-29s and other fighters fled across the border to Iran in what some suggested was a desperate attempt by Saddam Hussein to save the best of his Air Force for future battles still anti-aircraft batteries and surface-to-air missiles continued to target attacking coalition aircraft but the stealth fighters continued to deliver deadly blows night after night while it's called a fighter it's really a light bomber a whole new class of weapons was used for the first time in a full-fledged war by the US forces laser-guided bombs including one most predominantly delivered by stealth fighters the gbu 27 with 2,000 pounds of explosive power put simply the pilot usually at night using infrared sighting devices pinpoints a target in the crosshairs and shoots a laser beam at the target the laser stays pointed on the target even as the airplane continues to move when the aircraft has maneuvered to within the release envelope for the bomb it's dropped the bomb sensors hone in on the laser spot and fins on the bomb moved to direct its path to the designated spot the system worked with uncanny accuracy or TV viewers watching the news of the war at home some of the most intriguing and remarkable early footage of the attack came from infrared video cameras that were part of the laser targeting systems and it was the shot of the bomb dropping into the yard square air shaft that really focused the public's attention on this new technology initially targets included air defense sites command and communication centers as the war progressed the stealth fighters smart bombs took out nuclear and chemical facilities bridges and other strategic targets a point that has not gotten much publicity is the fact that we all heard about the feared fire trenches and how they were going to be filled up and how the people are the troops land troops are gonna have such a hard time going across them well the 117 s in about 30 minutes one night 21 of them three days before the land campaign started destroyed all of those oil supply pumps and all the distribution valves that fed into those trenches and that's why the land forces never saw one drop of oil when they cross the border f-15es also played a critical role in the attack Donna Rock's forces the e modelled has the latest in night navigation weapons targeting and radar systems it is the newest fighter in the airforce fleet first delivered for use in 1988 the airplane carried laser bombs similar to those used with the stealth fighters major bill Pulitzer an f-15e pilot from the 336 Tactical Fighter Squadron at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina when a gulf conflict our mission was initially during the first phase phase of the conflict was primarily to take out the scud missile sites they took out thick Scud sites along with lots of other targets munitions storage bunker western Iraq railroad cars a communications tower highway bridge near the Yurok Syrian border camouflage tank in revetment at Republican Guard position mig-23 on taxiway Taleo airfield military planners use their largest and oldest bomber the b-52 principally to drop bombs from high levels on Republican Guard true position x' and other area targets almost 26,000 tons of bombs but even at 38,000 feet the airplanes were at risk b-52 pilot lieutenant colonel Heiberg won't soon forget the day four or five surface-to-air missiles were launched at his flight of three b-52s the lead pilot warned of the threat both of those explosions were close enough that it rocked the aircraft that caused the aircraft to shudder which time we begin a little bit more more aggressive evasive maneuvers and I looked out my window after the pilot had seen a third Sam and when I looked out I saw one go just off to my right side just in front of the wing then the second one about what I think about a hundred yards or so to the right of the aircraft so the maneuvering and the and the jamming that DW was doing probably saved well he did save us from taking at least two more if not three more hits I wasn't too concerned about the situation until I read the madest report of all the near misses and the and the possible damage that could have been done and the over 65 holes that were in the airplane when I saw that had a cold drink of some kind Naval Aviation added a major force to the region on the Red Sea to the southwest of Iraq and on the Persian Gulf to the southeast a total of six aircraft carriers were in place by the time the war began carrying almost 500 combat aircraft f-18 Hornets the dual role fighter f-14a tomcat and a 6e intruders all-weather strike aircraft throughout the war the tempo of activity on the carriers was high Tomcats constantly patrolling over the seas protected the fleet and the strike aircraft participating in the attack on ground targets in Iraq also decimated Iraq small Navy Commander Mike Anderson was an f-18 squadrons Co and flew from the Saratoga as it sailed on the Red Sea well I think the f-18s have been is have been significant it's the first time the f-18s been used in combat and I think we've validated the Strike Fighter concept the multi-role aircraft being able to do a little of everything it's right now the only Navy airplane to have shot down MiG's it did that with four mark 84 s on the airplane so it was in route to a target to deliver for 2,000 pound bombs on a hanger in both cases and in both both airplanes shot down MiG's and route within 15 miles of the target by the end of the war Navy fighter and attack planes had flown 26,000 sorties about one fourth of the total the United States Navy provided six carriers to fight this battle and that's a lot of firepower the other thing that was unique is as the war shifted from across the entire country of Iraq into the Kuwaiti theater in February we were able to reposition one of the carriers from the Red Sea over to the Arabian Gulf the Navy did a great job it's tough in carrier operations because you have taken account you know landing repositioning on the deck and they call it deck cycle time they did a great job and I'm very pleased with the way they contributed so much the army put its Apache helicopters into service in war for the first time they're spectacular agility had been shown at air shows but skeptics in Congress worried about their reliability in battle particularly in the harsh environment of the Middle East the McDonnell Douglas built a 864 Apache which went into service in the mid-1980s has day and night fighting capability using forward-looking infrared radar or Fleur for nighttime viewing of targets some models also carry fuel and external tanks for long-range missions a loaded Apache weighs almost 8 tonnes but it's twin GE jet engines totaling almost 3,400 shaft horsepower give a dramatic performance the first night of the war the Apaches delivered the first blow by taking out radar sites along the border and later they relentlessly pounded Iraqi armor using laser-guided hellfire missiles [Music] [Applause] [Applause] anti-aircraft vehicles construction equipment trucks artillery they also used their 30 millimeter automatic cannon on Iraqi ground targets Chief Warrant officers Rodney Balak and Paul Stein crude an Apache during the war Balak talked about their missions forte is to go out at night it's designed for that the flared devices were excellent in the desert so by going out at night [Music] keeping utilizing that along with flying low instead of using maximum standoff we were able to engage the vast majority of our targets without them being aware the direction they were being fired upon and what was engaging many times when we would begin firing on a target and I aircraft fire would begin but it would just be directed into the air as if they were they felt that they were being attacked by fixed-wing aircraft or fighter aircraft so they were in an aircraft guns were oriented upward whereas we were real close to the desert floor engaging them so when we saw that and we knew that it confirmed that they didn't know where we were at as the war continued targets got smaller and tougher f-111s initially used to bomb key installations started going after individual tanks or tank plinking as they called it f-15es two-seat attack versions of the f-15 fighter continued their hunt for Scud launchers and f-16s went after helicopters and aircraft and bunkers three specific elements made this air attack different from those that had gone before in Prior applications of airpower first the reliance on and capability for pinpoint nighttime attack second the extensive reliance on electronic warfare to mask attacks and confuse aurochs defenders and third the huge volume of aerial refuelling that went on continuously during the war one of the remarkable things when you look back at the air campaign especially the first two or three days is thinking about in the night over Saudi Arabia having a hundred and eighty tankers and over 400 airplanes taking fuel from those tankers going to a target coming back and rejoining those same hundred eighty tankers and returning to base and I'm sure that there are a lot of pilots they will tell you that there were a lot of things that were playing very precisely but also there were a lot of the good Lords hand involved in the lack of mid airs in that case because you cannot put that many airplanes in the air in a very very concentrated area any controller will tell you that and not have mid airs but we never had a single one from my own experience in flying in combat and I flew primary in North Vietnam and the f-105 my hat goes off always surprisingly enough to the tanker guys they're sitting there in orbit full of gas blind what's going on around them other than what AWACS tells them and of course these fighters are zipping by they could run into them and you also would have the enemy get into their anchor orbits they did a magnificent job the workhorse tanker for the Air Force during the Gulf War was the kc-135 radar imaging and targeting made night-fighting possible and effective one of the key elements of this air campaign is that went 24 hours seven days a week the Iraqis didn't expect that there's no doubt in my mind they thought that we would be inept at night and in actuality we had about a third of our force available to fly during the hours of darkness and we used obviously we've seen the film from the f-117 we've seen what the pave tack on the f-111 can do what we didn't really get a good view of is what the liner did for the f-16s and a-10s and the ac-130 gunships were extremely effective during the Battle of coffee as well the war started at night it was primarily from an air standpoint fought at night and in my opinion it was basically won at night and this was an electronics war one of jamming and confusing enemy communications and targeting more than any before it probably a primary reason that we had such low casualty rates in our air operations was the fact that our electronic countermeasures proved to be very effective we were able to blind him with regard to his warning and control systems and we were able to defeat his Sam's both with active measures such as our missiles and bombs but also every ECM pods self defense pods on the airplane but I think the message there is in modern warfare electronic combat is basic to everything you do for five and a half weeks air power had been used like never before the things that we've been able to try to do in the past we executed in this war and there's no more complex than that the American technology gave us the ability to use the doctrine that we've always had on the books and to be able to prosecute a war and save lives and when it's all said and done that's what it's about saving fighter pilots and aircrew lives and saving soldiers lives when the national objectives say that it's time to go to war the doctrine was that of general Billy Mitchell and it evolved more than 60 years earlier hit enemy leadership and infrastructure and simultaneously deal with all facets of the enemy's armed forces all from the air and he believed you could do that with a strategic type bombing campaign just as we did in the Gulf and that in many cases it would significantly minimize and change the necessity for the brutal and the fighting that we had seen that hit him and when historically become accustomed to but even in the Gulf there was still a job to do regain control of Kuwait the question of when descend in the ground forces had to be answered there's a lot been written on that a lot been said but it boils down to a very simple fact and that as John Horner and ice promised general Schwarzkopf that before any soldier crossed the border of Iraq that air would have tripped the land forces of Iraq by 50% in three critical areas people artillery and tanks our projections had shown based on the modeling that we had done but that should take between four and six weeks with reasonably good weather and as history shows that's about what it took we were a little behind the first two or three weeks and then we caught up near the end and so that's why that I'm sure that general Schwarzkopf would tell you that he made the decision to start the land campaign with the president's approval when he did but he was in control he was the sink and if he had needed to wait longer he would have waited longer because one thing that was paramount in his vision throughout the entire war was the minimum number of casualties on the American side that he could possibly have ground forces moved and moved quickly and in a hundred hours it was all over airpower contributed to a decisive victory as it had never done victory parades honored the troops but it was air shows that honored the pilots and airplanes of Desert Storm at the 1991 Paris Air Show in June most of the coalition aircraft assembled in an unprecedented display of war winning airpower and modern technology all the US Desert Storm aircraft flew in for the show as well as British tornados and jaguars and French mirages French president Francois Mitterrand dignitaries came to view the star of the show the Lockheed f-117 a stealth fighter at the few shows at which it had appeared the previous year it stood out for only its angular shape and mysterious mission now it was a war hero and known throughout the world and and we think this is a great opportunity to take representative aircraft that participated represented American aircraft and not only Air Force but Navy and Army as well to come to this airshow and and show what American technology and and the American military were able to field and use so effectively it's a great story we're going to be able to tell it a dozens more shows that summer the air planes and pilots gathered accolades both the machines and the pilots were heroes with time and distance from the war the experts reviewed the true impact of air power in the Gulf Jon Morocco senior editor of Aviation Week and space technology Desert Storm was the perfect scenario for air power the Middle East has always been in the perfect place to employ air power because of the flat terrain there's nowhere to hide it's an easy it's an easy easy scenario for air power air power obviously as we learned in Vietnam wasn't as effective and that was a whole different ballgame that was dealing with a an insurgency you're dealing in in a different geographical area climate and terrain so air power can be used effectively in various scenarios but whether it will be the be-all and end-all or the major contributed to to a military campaign as it seemed to be in Desert Storm is still questionable no matter how effective air power may have been pilots weren't getting overconfident back at their bases and from the decks of their carriers pilots jump back into the training routine now with the lessons from the Gulf War worked into the exercises [Music] they continued the grueling relentless training that they hoped would prepare them as well for an unforeseeable future as it had for an unexpected air war a few months before [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Mike Guardia

Views: 1,588,855

Rating: 4.6346564 out of 5

Keywords: air force, air war, air power, stealth, warfare, fighter, pilot, aviation, aircraft, jet, mig, tomcat, eagle, viper, falcon, phantom, desert storm, gulf war, air base, bomber, gunnery, army, history channel, discovery channel, episode, documentary, helicopter, attack, combat, footage, raw

Id: Vki7L-Iw3NA

Length: 59min 48sec (3588 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019