jem3@pyuxf.cc.bellcore.com (John E McKillop) (06/11/91)
From: jem3@pyuxf.cc.bellcore.com (John E McKillop) The following is copied without permission from The June 1991 edition of AIR FORCE Magazine, published by the Air Force Association. Efforts to draw lessons from the Gulf War will continue for years, but in April 1991 the Air Froce shed considerable light on the air campaign with a new white paper. The fifteen-page study, "Air Force Performance in Desert Storm," gives heretofore classified details on types of aircraft used, numbers of sorties flown, targets hit, and the mission capable rates of selected planes. While most of the news was positive, the paper cited several shortcomings for future consideration and correction. In the white paper's presentation, the General Dynamics F-111 "Aardvark" emerges as a workhorse of the campaign, flying 4,000 sorties against armored formations, bridges, CCCI sites, aircraft shelters, and weapons production facilities. The F-111s used precision guided GBU-12 glide bombs to destroy more than 150 armored vehicles per night in the first few weeks of the war. The F-111s' kill total came to more than 1,500 enemy armored vehicles. The aircraft had a mission capable rate of 85%. Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers--in numbers that are still secret-- operated across the theater, logging 1,624 missions and dropping 25,700 tons of munitions on Iraqi troop concentrations, storage areas, and factory complexes. The white paper notes that the B-52, "despite being over thirty years old," had a mission capable rate of 81%--higher than its peacetime rate. The Air Force deployed 48 McDonnell F-15E Strike Eagle dual-role fighters to the Gulf. They operated mainly at night, hunting Scud missile launchers and artillery sites with the help of Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night (LANTIRN) pods. In what amounted to its initial operational test and evaluation, the LANTIRN system in wartime achieved "spectacular results," according to the report. The F-15E scored a 95.9% mission capable rate while logging 2,200 sorties and suffering only two losses. In Scud-hunting, the F-15E is reported to have worked well in tandem with another developmental system that was rushed to the Gulf: the Boeing E-8A USAF/USA Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS). The two converted 707-320 airframes carrying the Joint STARS multimode radar logged 535 hours spotting convoys, trucks, missile launchers, and even Surface-to-Air (SAM) missile sites for F-15s and F-16s. Helping to clear the path for the planes in the initial air assault were Grumman/General Dynamic EF-111A "Sparkvark" jamming planes and McDonnell F-4G Wild Weasel defense suppression aircraft armed with Texas Instruments AGM-88 high-speed antiration missiles (HARMs). The report says that Iraqi air defense operators were so wary of HARMs that they would often turn off their radars after launching a SAM missile, leaving it unguided. EF-111As flew 900 sorties and racked up a mission capable rate of 87.5%. F-4Gs flew 2,500 sorties with an 87% mission capable rate. In air-to-air combat, the McDonnell F-15C Eagle led all fighters by a wide margin, accoutning for 34 of the 39 US air-to-air victories. Usually vecotred to their targets by USAF or Saudi Boeing E-3A Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, F-15Cs scored 25 kills with Raytheon AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided missiles and another 8 kills with Raytheon AIM-9 Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles. The remaining F-15C kill came when a MiG-29 "Fulcrum," chased by an Eagle, flew into the ground. The 120 F-15Cs on station in the Gulf War engaged in more than 5,900 sorties, achieving a mission capable rate of 94%. The aircraft type that accounted for the most sorties was the General Dyanamics F-16 Fighting Falcon multimission fighter. The 249 F-16s deployed to the Gulf flew a total of 13,500 sorties, with a total mission capable rate of 95.2%, or 5% better than their peacetime rate. The doughty F-16 was used to attack airfields, military production facilities, Scud missile sites, and a variety of other targets. Seventy-two F-16s carried LANTIRN navigation pods, according to the white paper. The Fairchild Republic A-10A Thunderbolt II (aka Warthog) close air support aircraft launched 90% of the Hughes AGM-65 Maverick missiles used in the Gulf War. Moreover, the A-10 scored the air war's only two air-to-air gun kills; two enemy helicopters were downed by its 30-mm gun. The A-10s flew 8,100 sorties with a mission capable rate of 95.7%, 5% higher than its peacetime rate. On the negative side of the Air Force's performance, the white paper says that acquisition of bomb-damage assessment was a problem. The report states that the videotape recorded by onboard cameras was not good enough to provide reliable bomb-damage assessment or to confirm even half of the air-to-air kills. According to the Air FOrce, installation on aircraft of new and improved videocassette recorders would solve the problem. In addition, says the paper, Air Force units that deployed with secret, never-before-used weapons carried insufficient training munitions. Some of these unidentified systems "needed adjustments," but there were not enough training rounds for crews to practice with them prior to combat. Field commanders were also said to have complained about delays in receiving tactical information. Not only was there a shortage of tactical reconnaissance assets, according to the report, but there was also an inability to quicly analyze and keep pace with post-mission data.
rwsayer@phoenix.princeton.edu (Ronald W Sayer) (06/12/91)
From: rwsayer@phoenix.princeton.edu (Ronald W Sayer) jem3@pyuxf.cc.bellcore.com (John E McKillop) writes: >Efforts to draw lessons from the Gulf War will continue for years, but >in April 1991 the Air Froce shed considerable light on the air campaign >with a new white paper. The fifteen-page study, "Air Force Performance >in Desert Storm," gives heretofore classified details on types of Can I get a copy of the white paper sent to me? Does anyone have an address? Ron Sayer rwsayer@phoenix.princeton.edu
davet@tsdiag.ocpt.ccur.com (Dave Tiller) (06/14/91)
From: Dave Tiller <davet@tsdiag.ocpt.ccur.com> jem3@pyuxf.cc.bellcore.com (John E McKillop) writes: >...F-4G Wild Weasel defense suppression aircraft armed with Texas >Instruments AGM-88 high-speed antiration missiles (HARMs). ^^^^^^^^^^ No wonder there was such a lack of food/water over there!! We bombed it!! -- David E. Tiller davet@tsdiag.ccur.com | Concurrent Computer Corp. UUCP: ucbvax!rutgers!petsd!tsdiag!davet