Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

by Tom Clancy

  Though it was not an issue with Walter Boomer, a few Marine officers did have a hidden agenda during the Gulf War: some Marines do not like functional commands—especially when another service will be commanding Marine forces. Since they are in essence a land force, and since the U.S. Army usually provides the major portion of the land forces, the Marines almost always work for the Army, and they don’t like that. For that reason, they resist any efforts to strip off their forces—aircraft working for the JFACC, for instance.

  And for that reason, in the part of the Internal Look briefing in which he discussed airspace management, Horner made clear to the CINC that U.S. efforts should be integrated with the in-place system of the host nation, and that all airspace should then be coordinated under JFACC, who knew how to do that better than anyone else, and who would not anger the host nation (which would have been the CINC’s problem, but Horner’s undoing).

  Schwarzkopf agreed.

  Though some Marines were not happy with this decision (as had been the case in every previous exercise), he had confidence in Horner, and little further came of this problem. (During Desert Shield/Desert Storm there were attempts by Marine officers to go their own way, but Walter Boomer set these people straight.)

  Push CAS

  Land forces require close air support.

  But how much do they need? And when? Is air best used here and now, striking enemy tanks and artillery, or somewhere else—say, striking his fuel depots and tanker trucks? These questions aren’t always easy to answer, unless enemy tanks are about to overrun friendly positions.

  As a young pilot, both in war and in countless exercises, Horner had watched airpower’s potential squandered by assigning it to support the Army. He was determined not to let that happen again.

  Airmen and landmen see CAS from different perspectives.

  The airman sees it as answering the question, “How do I keep from hurting my guys on the ground?” In other words, he sees CAS as a system to hit the enemy in close proximity to friendly ground forces. His worry is not so much about hitting the enemy as about not hitting his own troops on the ground.

  Through the eyes of the soldier on the ground, however, “CAS is airpower attacking the enemy that is killing me.” He sees it as powerful artillery. Sure, there must be measures to keep it from killing his own people, but the real issue is, “How do I get those jets to hit what is bothering me?”

  These twin issues have been traditionally handled by means of the tactical air control party (TACP)—which is usually composed of a forward air controller (historically a fighter pilot in a helmet, with a rifle) and a radio operator who also drives the Air Force vehicle containing their radios and fixes broken equipment (radios, Humvees, or tents). The role of these two is to be assigned to a battalion (at the brigade and corps level, FACs are called ALOs, air liaison officers). The Army uses the FAC/ALO teams to communicate what it wants airpower to do, by means of preplanned processes. For example, the FAC/ALO may transmit a tasking directly to the TACC/AOC: “We need to hit the enemy machine gun bunker at 0300 two days from now in conjunction with an attack planned for 0330.” That tasking would go into the ATO as a “preplanned CAS sortie,” and forces would be assigned against that task.

  Since the Army rarely knows what kind of air support they will need within the ATO cycle (two days), they put their requests for CAS in terms of “I will need ten CAS sorties sometime between 0300 and 0600 hours two days from now.” And this is translated into “air or ground alert CAS sorties.” Sometimes an aircraft that was intended to strike another target is diverted to support the ground forces because of a dire situation or an opportunity to do greater damage to the enemy. This is called “CAS Divert.” There will also be a CAS CAP, if the fighters must come from a great distance or if the need for the air is expected to be sudden and dire.

  “Push CAS” is a planned concept wherein the sorties are spaced so as to fly over the friendly ground forces throughout the twenty-four-hour period. Meanwhile, there is in place a command-and-control lash-up that can access any of these sorties if it is reasonable to do so.

  There are several ways for the aircraft to be sent into a particular area: the pilot may have been tasked to go there before takeoff, or he may have been sent there by Joint STARS, AWACS, or, in the past, a system called Air Borne Command Control Communications (ABCCC38).

  Once the aircraft arrives in the area of the FAC, the FAC tells the flight leader what needs to be attacked, where the friendly ground forces are located (including himself), and special information, such as enemy defenses in the area and perhaps a required attack heading, in which he amplifies target location data: “Look 100 meters to the north of the bombed-out schoolhouse at the crossroads east of the small hill in the bend in the river.” This information is called a nine-line report, for it consists of nine items that must be briefed by the FAC (even if some elements are not required). 39

  Airpower must be used to support land forces—this is an absolute—but only when appropriate. In Chuck Horner’s view, land forces have too often confused trust with ownership. Trust is the knowledge that they will get the support they need. Ownership is the conviction that they are guaranteed the support they believe they need.

  Before Push CAS, the system used to provide CAS was both arcane and obsolete. In theory, the CINC apportioned a percentage of the air effort to the land commander, who would then parcel it out to the various subordinate commanders. They would then use this as an element of their planning for the fight that was to take place in the future. Unfortunately, the subordinates rarely needed what they asked for (having been trained to “ask for too much” in order to ensure they’d get something close to their actual needs). Likewise, land commanders have often been unwilling to turn back air they didn’t need (unless a friend in dire straits needed it more). Few land commanders willingly part from anything they own.

  Not all land commanders fell into this school. Some belonged to what Chuck Horner calls the “trust school”: “If we need it, it will come to us. If we don’t need it, let it be used efficiently against our common enemy.”

  In the April 1990 briefing, Horner convinced Schwarzkopf of that position. And Push CAS was its expression: “We’ll provide CAS where and when it’s needed.”

  Chuck Horner takes up the story:

  In this briefing, I had two advantages: First, John Yeosock agreed with the Push CAS concept; and second, the land component commander knew he was responsible for all land forces and would have no problems apportioning the air effort to where it was needed. If lots of CAS was needed, he, Schwarzkopf (the JFLCC), would be able to convince the CINC (Schwarzkopf) to give him what he needed.

  I was also sure he was confident that his JFACC could work out for him how much airpower to place in the CAS role, because he, Schwarzkopf (the CINC), had no idea how to determine how much airpower should be apportioned to CAS and how much to other roles, such as, say, Air Superiority or Air Interdiction. If Horner got it wrong, he could have him shot and find someone else. That way, if anything went wrong, Horner would get the blame. If things went well, then the man Horner worked for would get the glory.

  Trust

  Other issues raised at that briefing let the CINC know that Horner was thinking about fighting Schwarzkopf ’s war in Horner’s part of the world and that he could have confidence that Horner was a team player working Schwarzkopf’s concerns. For this reason, Horner showed him how he planned to work with the host nations (by merging air defense forces, by providing CAS to Arabs who didn’t have tactical air control parties and didn’t speak English, and by operating the Civil Airspace Control during time of war), and how he was ready to provide his air forces with sufficient logistical support and to take care of his people (with food, shelter, beds, and water).

  Trust between and among commanders is essential. And it has to be earned. Horner earned Schwarzkopf’s trust.

  In Horner’s words:The bottom line was that I was telling him, “I know you
are in charge. I am not going to be an Air Force prick, but I know more about airpower than you ever will, and you need to trust me and let me do my thing, so you will be a hero.”

  In air-to-air engagements, if you can “lead-turn” a jet flying directly toward you, and he fails to see what you are doing, you will have an advantage when you pass, in that you have already started to turn toward his tail. If he discerns you have started a lead turn, he can negate it by passing as close to your jet as possible. Then each of you has to make up the 180-degree offset in the ensuing maneuvers. If he doesn’t and you have similar-performing jets, then the one who lead-turns wins.

  At the April 1990 briefing, I was lead-turning the issues that had been a problem in the past: failure of the Marines to fight jointly, ignorant attempts by the Army to own the air forces, and failure of land force-trained CINCs to understand how to fight airpower. The briefing was a great success for me, for Schwarzkopf, and eventually the country.

  I had Schwarzkopf’s confidence, and I got that the old-fashioned way: I earned it. So when he would call me in the middle of the night in the TACC from his war room and say, “Chuck, I am looking at a Joint STARS picture, and I see thirty trucks at XYZ, can you get them?” I could reply, “I will certainly try, but if they are not there because the picture you have is too old, I will send the force to where it was originally scheduled to go.” And he would reply, “Okay.”

  ★ All the planning and the thousands of actions that go on in war depend on faith and trust. No single commander can know all that needs to be known, can be everywhere to make every decision that needs to be made, or can direct every action that is taken.

  The Strategic Plan

  The briefing ended with a discussion of what Horner labeled for Schwarzkopf a “strategic air campaign plan” (much to his later regret). What he meant was “targets strategic to Iraq”—that is to say, high-value targets, such as oil production and electrical distribution facilities, that could be held hostage in case Iraq used mass-destruction weapons.

  Again, he was talking in the context of the essentially defensive Internal Look Scenario. Thus, the strategic campaign Horner was proposing then was only peripherally related to the plan of attack that later was to emerge in August and September of 1990. Unfortunately, the word strategic carries great magic, especially for commanders, and that day the word worked its magic on General Schwarzkopf. Ever after, he called the plan of air attack against Iraq the “strategic” air campaign, when, in reality, it was an offensive air campaign, a means to achieve the political objectives of the President and the Coalition, should diplomatic efforts and the embargo on Iraq fail.

  This confusion was to resurface in August on the tarmac in Jeddah when the CINC asserted his desire for a “strategic” air campaign . . . and yet again in the plan proposed by Colonel John Warden and his CHECKMATE team, about which there will be more to come.

  THE D DAY ATO

  Deterrence is effected by having a strong military force in place that is ready to fight and capable of winning.

  We will probably never know why Saddam Hussein did not attack Saudi Arabia in August. He may well have had that intention, yet was deterred by the rapid buildup of airpower and the U.S. ability to conduct a sustained air campaign within hours of the initial deployment.

  Meanwhile, though the military commanders on scene did not know Saddam’s intentions, they had to be ready to counter the very real threat posed by twenty-seven Iraqi divisions on the border.

  If Saudi Arabia were to be attacked, the following strategy was foreseen:• First of all—and most important—air defense would be maintained, so Iraq could not use its own air forces to devastate the cities, ports, and airports in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

  • There would be direct attacks on the attacking elements of the invading force.

  • However, the greater concentration of attacks would be on the logistics lifelines of the Iraqis as they fanned out across the desert.

  • Finally, Chuck Horner also asked for attack options against “strategic” targets inside Iraq. In this case, “strategic” attack meant strikes against targets not directly related to Iraqi military forces in the field.

  This strategy was translated into what became the “D Day Plan” or “D Day ATO.” This is a good place to discuss just what an ATO is.

  Air is a task-organized force—that is, each airplane is tasked to go somewhere and do something that will benefit the overall effort to attain a campaign objective as part of the overall theater strategy to support national objectives. The air commander plans tasks and allocates forces to do those tasks, based on the characteristics of the force elements. So, for example, on January 25, 1991, from 1000 to 1030, the USAF tasked A-10s to patrol a particular road in Kuwait and kill vehicles, using its gun and Maverick missiles. The way this tasking was transmitted to the people who would have to execute it was by means of an Air Tasking Order. In Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the planning that went into the preparation of the ATO was centralized at the headquarters of the JFACC and was done by representatives of all the functional elements (A-10 pilots, F-16 pilots, AWACS pilots, etc.) and nations represented (the United Arab Emirates Air Force, the RAF, etc).

  The ATO is a statement of marshaled resources that is based on the best available information and the best available guidance at the time it is prepared. Each day, the commander will have a new appreciation of what needs to be done. Perhaps the enduring objective he sought to achieve has also been modified by new realities (definitely the case for the side that is losing).

  That is to say, when constructing the plan and its expression in the ATO, the commander can never forget that the situation is fluid, that chaos is always a close neighbor, and that terrific opportunities may arise in an instant. This is especially true in war, where aircraft move about in the battlespace in minutes or seconds, and information about new situations and alignments of forces arrive in real time and must be acted on instantly. Even though the commander must have principles to hang on to, as time passes, his objectives may become modified, and he will certainly gain more information about the reality of his situation.

  To make all this more complicated: The ATO itself is like a moving train. If someone suddenly changes one element, he must consider the ripple effect on other elements. Sometimes the effect is minimal. For example, Tiger Flight is scheduled to hit target X at Y time, but new intelligence comes in that says target X has moved five kilometers north. No problem. The new target coordinates are inserted, the change is added, and the ATO is hardly affected. But suppose that Y time becomes two hours later. Then there’s a serious problem. The new time may well drastically affect the aircraft generation schedule at the base. It may well affect tanker availability. It may well affect airspace deconfliction. And it may well affect the intelligence-collection efforts associated with that strike. For these reasons, it is sometimes better to freeze the ATO early and make up for the changes in the chaos that reigns in the current operations efforts during the day of execution.

  Thus, an ATO is the marshaling of available resources against a series of tasks as they are best known when the plan is created. But the day that plan is executed, there will be more information that may in fact require reordering of priorities and tasks.

  That means that the old paradigm—ready, aim, fire—has changed. In modern war, you ready, fire, and then aim. The deployment and sustaining of the force, a service responsibility, is the ready; the launch of the force against a preconceived schedule is the fire; while the command and control associated with the operations is the aim. That is, one now often loads up his aircraft, puts them in the air, and then decides what target to hit, based on real-time intelligence.

  The plan, again, is not a sacred document. A commander has to be prepared to change it on the fly, and he has to have machinery in place to transmit the changes instantly to the people affected by them. For this reason, during Desert Storm, ATOs were built two and a half days—no more than that—be
fore they were put into operation (since this was the minimum time for necessary preparations). This made it hard for the planners who made ATOs, but it ensured that changes would be more easily and quickly accommodated.

  Chuck Horner imposed this two-and-a-half-day limit because he didn’t want his forces to be constrained by planning that went on days or even weeks before the war started. He wanted planners to be forced to evaluate the first day’s efforts and results, and then to plan what to do on day three. To make things easier, he gave them a half-day start. Then, as the days proceeded, they needed to make plans completely from scratch, using what they’d learned as previous days unfolded. “Of course, they had target lists hidden in their pockets,” Horner adds. “I expected that. But I wanted to force them into thinking about where we were at a given time and then planning from that, instead of building an entire air campaign and then just modifying it here and there. Chaos reigns and Huns like me revel in it.”

  Likewise—as we’ve pointed out before—the commander can’t allow himself (or herself) to be a slave to seemingly potent doctrinaire concepts such as “strategic,” “tactical,” or “operational.”

  Chuck Horner takes up the thought:

  I have often said in the past that “strategic,” “operational,” and “tactical” are confusing words. And if you try to link strategy, operations, and tactics with the first three, you have a real mess, where people are talking past one another. I can make a strategy of tactical operations using unique tactics in order to attain a series of tactical goals to achieve an operational-level objective, which turns out to be the strategic center of gravity. Take tank plinking. It was a strategy—to deny the enemy the use of his killing machines. It had tactical goals—to destroy one hundred to two hundred tanks a night. It had an operational-level objective—to deny the enemy the effective use of his ground forces against our invading army. It had unique tactics—medium-altitude air attacks using laser-guided bombs with infrared sensors. And it destroyed a strategic center of gravity—since Saddam’s goal was to win a victory or stalemate by inflicting casualties on our forces. You have to be specific when talking about war. But unfortunately many are lost in the heady sense of destiny and all that bullshit, so they use powerful-seeming words like “strategic” when they don’t really know what they are talking about.