Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

by Tom Clancy

His script was simple to build but difficult to execute. First, BGM-109 Tomahawk missiles and F-117As would arrive unannounced over Baghdad, their exploding bombs and warheads ensuring that Iraqi defenders who were not awake would get up and report to their units. At that point, the air defenses would be on full alert and fully manned, eager for the forthcoming battle. Puba would then send over Baghdad a host of small unmanned drone aircraft (ground-launched Northrop BQM-74s) that were designed to look like full-size manned aircraft on SAM radarscopes. Immediately behind the drones would be HARM-laden Air Force and Navy fighter aircraft. As the drones entered the SAM-defended areas over Baghdad, the SAM radars would radiate and the Iraqi operators would track their targets and fire their missiles. What they would not see was almost a hundred HARM missiles being launched from just outside their radar coverage.

  And so it happened on the first night of the war. The Iraqi SAM operators succeeded in downing nearly all of the drones, and in so doing they provided dozens of targets for the incoming anti-radiation missiles.

  The results had to be horrible. And from the horror came fear.

  After Puba’s Party, the number of SAM missile firings remained high, while the number of Coalition aircraft shot down remained very low. As we had hoped, the guidance radars were not turned on. This was the feedback that told us Puba’s Party was a stunning success. It was not easy, and it wasn’t cheap (the drones and HARMs cost a bundle!), but it made possible all the efficiencies of precision munitions delivered from medium to high altitude that shortened the war and reduced the loss of life.

  It was Puba’s Party that gave us the vital medium-altitude sanctuary. Sure, some continued to try low-level tactics to escape the radar SAMs, but as our losses at low altitude mounted, the message became very plain: get up to altitude and rely on the electronic battle now being directed by General Glenn Profitt, Larry Henry’s replacement.

  This lesson did not come easy. During Desert Shield, I had laid down the law to the wing commanders at the bases: no low-level tactics or training unless they could explain to me why they wanted their aircrews to do it. I expected a great gnashing of teeth, wails, and moans (low level keeps coming back, like a monster at the end of a horror movie). In the event, however, only two commanders came forward to argue for low-altitude tactics—Colonels Hal Hornberg of the F-15E wing and Tom Lennon of the F-111 wing. Because I’d promised the wing commanders they could run their own show in areas like tactics, I let them return to low-level attack tactics. But after a few days of real combat, real bullets, and unfortunately, real losses, both wings pitched out low-level operations and joined their friends at medium altitude.

  When I asked the F-16 and A-10 wing commanders why they didn’t ask to go back to flying among the rocks, their answer was simple: “We want to survive this war.” Why, then, did the F-111s and F-15Es have to find out the hard way? I thought about that long and hard after the war. It couldn’t have been peacetime training. No one spends more time flying at low altitude than the A-10s. Their slower speed permits the Warthogs to fly legally almost anywhere in the United States at low altitude. And yet, even with the protection of their titanium armor, the A-10s didn’t want to tool around the Iraqis at low altitude. Why F-111s and F-15Es? The answer was twofold, I reasoned. First, except for the infrared sensor, their systems were optimized for low altitude. Their attack radars worked best at the low grazing angles afforded by low-altitude ingress. Most important, in my view, one half of the crew of these two-place fighters—the weapon system operator—earned his living telling the pilot where to go. If you were at low altitude without GPS (and only the F-16s had GPS), the pilot relied on the WSO for navigational assistance. When it came to attack, the WSO was the king; but if they didn’t go low-level, the rest of the trip could be pretty meaningless.

  Iraqi Air Defense Radar Activity

  Italian and British Tornadoes also suffered losses—all, save one, the result of low-level, low-altitude tactics. In fact, in the first two days of the war, approximately two-thirds of our losses were suffered by aircraft flying low-level tactics, even as the majority of our sorties were being flown at medium altitude.

  Because they were taking on the most difficult, most well-defended targets outside of Baghdad, the RAF GR-1 Tornadoes were especially hard hit. Saudi and British Tornadoes were equipped with a munition designed to shut down airfields, the JP-233, which had to be delivered at low altitude. But the airfields bristled with defenses, especially AAA guns, which continued to take a discouraging toll of Tornadoes well after the F-111s and F-15Es got back up to medium altitude. The Tornadoes had few good alternatives to flying low altitude. And I had no alternative but to let them do it. If I was loath to dictate tactics to USAF wings, I was definitely not going to do it to an ally. But if I could find an opening to introduce the subject, I would.

  One night at a gathering of national air commanders, I said, “We’ve gotten some experience in this war. This looks like a good place to take a look at what we are doing right and wrong. I suggest we form a multinational tactics team to evaluate our operations and suggest changes they think appropriate.”

  Without hesitation, Air Vice Marshal Bill Wratten spoke up: “I think that’s a good idea, and I’d like to lead the effort.” I couldn’t have been more pleased. Bill, like all the rest of us, had been in anguish over the losses. Even though there had been all sorts of speculation about the causes and the possible fixes, we needed an experienced airman close to the scene of the action to give us an objective view. Bill Wratten was just the man, and with the support of Air Chief Marshall Patty Hine, we were able to stop losses due to low-altitude tactics.

  Here are some facts and figures:

  We lost twelve GR-1s (of which one was Italian and two were RSAF). Nine were shot down or crashed doing low-level attacks, two were lost at medium altitude, and one ran out of fuel. The GR-1 loss rate was significantly higher than other aircraft:

  The Tornado, which flew more low-level tactics than any other aircraft, had a loss rate nine times the F-16s and over six times the fairly slow A-10s.

  ★ AAA and SAMs were dangerous, but the most lethal threat to our attack was the enemy’s interceptor aircraft.

  Why?

  Ground-based defenses stayed in one place and could be avoided by flying around them, if we knew where they were (and we usually did), or by high- or medium-altitude attack. If a SAM site shot at you, you could evade the missile and distance yourself from the site at 600 to 800 knots. A MiG, on the other hand, could encounter you anywhere over Iraq. If he jumped you, you might not be able to disengage; and since he was as fast as you, he could take a missile or gun shot if you turned tail to run.

  I had studied the Iraqi Air Force for years, and had found many strengths, including a number of first-rate aircraft equipped with adequate missiles, a comprehensive command-and-control structure, and a few excellent pilots. Its single greatest weakness was its reliance on centralized command and control; but the training its pilots received was not uniformly good, and the logistics support was shaky.

  To have had a chance against us, the Iraqis needed innovative tactics and an awareness of the air situation. They had neither.

  In the hands of a good pilot, virtually any interceptor can badly hurt an attacking air force. Iraq had some excellent aircraft, especially their MiG-29s and Mirage F-1s, as well as an inventory of older aircraft, principally MiG-21s and MiG-23s. Though the older aircraft weren’t much of a threat on their own, if they’d been used in conjunction with the newer Russian and French models, they could have caused us serious problems. Their best tactics would have been to engage our air-to-air fighters with their top-of-the-line fighters, then run the older MiGs in on the bomb-laden aircraft using high-speed hit-and-run tactics. Even if they were unable to achieve a kill, their supersonic bounce would have forced our bombers to jettison their air-to-ground ordnance (externally stored bombs and missiles cause drag and have to be dropped).

  The weapons carried by these
fighters, on the other hand, were not nearly as good as our radar and heat-seeking missiles. Nevertheless, they were more than adequate if the enemy pilot could put his aircraft in a position to shoot them.

  ★ I had never been impressed with Iraqi pilots, but that didn’t mean we could always count on running into bad ones. Among the youth of every nation in the world you’ll find a few “aces”—young men, and now women, capable of winning aerial engagements time after time. The traits found in those who consistently shoot down other fighters are found everywhere—though never in abundant supply. Good eyesight doesn’t hurt, but some of our greatest had poor eyesight (they’d purposely select wingmen with good eyes). Courage is required, but that is easy enough to come by in air-to-air combat, where you either fight or die. The trait I most admire in great pilots is “situational awareness.” It is the ability to keep track of what is going on around you and to project that awareness into an accurate mental image of what is about to happen during the next few moments; and it is extremely rare. It’s an ability that has little to do with IQ. Some of our best fighter pilots do not appear outwardly intelligent. On the ground they will do the dumbest things, or get into serious trouble; but in an engagement they process data at speeds and complexities that would defeat our fastest, most powerful computers. Out there in every nation there are a few—very few—individuals with the inborn talent to process supersonic motion and project it in three dimensions. If properly trained and equipped, these people duel with the best in the sky.

  During the Iran-Iraq War, our AWACS had maintained a close watch on the aircraft of both countries, and their aerial engagements had been analyzed and briefed by our CENTAF operations/intelligence team. I had also analyzed the few encounters between Iranians and Saudis (which gave me a good benchmark; I was familiar with the great competence of Saudi pilots). The Iranians had excellent, though aging, fighters—F-5s, F-14s, and F-4s—but it was apparent from their lack of success against the Saudis that their aircraft radars were inoperative, or at least poorly tuned. The Iranian pilots, while eager, had obviously suffered as a result of the fundamentalist revolution. When Iranian aircraft challenged Saudi air defenses, they were promptly intercepted and either shot down or driven back.

  On the other hand, when Iraqi fighters engaged Iranians—either in defense of Baghdad or supporting air attacks on Iranian targets—they were, to be charitable, ineffective. The engagements were pure Keystone Kops. The Iranian and Iraqi aircraft would be vectored toward one another by ground-based radars. They would close to within a mile, then circle aimlessly, apparently unable to locate each other and shoot their weapons. This “ballet of the blind” occurred time after time. I had no doubt that all the pilots were willing, but they were overly dependent on ground-based radar vectors—once again pointing out the superiority of our F-14, F-15, F-16, and F-18 on-board target-acquisition systems.

  ★ Iraqi pilot training came from three sources: France, Pakistan, and the former Soviet Union. Lucky for us, Soviet training proved dominant, with their emphasis on rigid rules, strict command arrangements, and standardized tactics. Coupled with this centralized approach, the Soviets were suspicious of non-Russians and disliked Arabs. The Iraqi students were taught to take off and land their aircraft safely, but otherwise their training was so basic, so lacking in advanced tactics, as to be useless.

  There was, however, a wild card. Not all Iraqi training came from the Russians.

  Iraqi pilots were trained well by their French and Pakistani instructors.

  The French training was evidenced by Iraqi attacks on Iranian shipping and the USS Stark. And Iraqi air-to-ground operations against Iran’s oil facilities at Kharg Island and near Bandar Abbas were model operations, worthy of study by all airmen.

  Pakistan has one of the best, most combat-ready air forces in the world. They have to; their neighbor to the east is huge, and the two nations have a long history of hostility. For Indian war planners, the Pakistani Air Force is their worst fear. Pakistani pilots are respected throughout the world, especially the Islamic world, because they know how to fly and fight.

  On one or two occasions, I had the opportunity to talk with Pakistani instructor pilots who had served in Iraq. These discussions didn’t give me great cause to worry. The Russian domination of training prevented the Pakistanis from having any real influence on the Iraqi aircrew training program.

  Still, there had to be a few Iraqi pilots who’d observed and listened to their mentors from France and Pakistan and the useless guidance of their inept leaders. It was those few I was concerned about—the ones with great situational awareness and good eyesight, who had figured out how to effectively use their aircraft and its weapons to defend their nation.

  If those gifted Iraqi pilots existed, and I’m certain they did, they probably died on 17, 19, and 24 January. We went after them so hard and so thoroughly that they never had a chance to show that they were respectable.

  Our fundamental strategy was simple. Blind them and beat the tar out of them as they groped about. We were going to stomp the Iraqi Air Force into submission. Not fair, not pretty, not poetic. Our goal was to be as vicious and unrelenting as possible. To do otherwise would just prolong the suffering and death.

  To blind the Iraqi Air Force, our first bombers fell on its eyes and brains—radars, command bunkers, and communications sites. Of equal importance was the forward movement of our interceptor fighters into Iraq. We put twenty-four-hour CAPs over each of the Iraqi fighter bases.60 Forward fighters were positioned to intercept the Iraqi jets almost as soon as they broke ground. Our hopes for the Iraqi fighter pilot were very simple: take off and blow up.

  For the most part, our hopes became reality. After the first three days of the war, we had seized control of the air over Iraq and Kuwait.

  Three days may seem short, and the Iraqi Air Force may look like a push-over. But do not get the idea that gaining control of the air was easy. It was not a “macho,” “no sweat” operation. What turned into a turkey shoot in late January and February started out as a bitter struggle; those first few days were the hardest-fought, most critical aspect of the entire war.

  Meanwhile, when the bombs began to fall on Baghdad, Iraqi pilots ran to their planes and took off. I’m sure they sent their best and brightest, and I know they tried their hardest; but in air-to-air combat, it’s win, lose, or get out of town. There is no second place. The Iraqis lost at least eight times on the seventeenth of January. They tried again two days later and lost six more times. Their last try (and their only effort to attack our forces on the ground with aircraft) was on the twenty-fourth, when two Mirage F-1s attempted to penetrate Saudi Arabia for an air-to-ground strike. An RSAF F-15C shot them both down just out to sea in the Arabian Gulf.

  After that, they tried to hide in their heavily defended aircraft shelters, also to no avail, when we picked off the shelters, one at a time, with 2,000-pound hard-case, laser-guided bombs.

  They were then left with the “get out of town” option. We had actually anticipated that, but felt their destination would be Iraq’s Arab neighbor and sometime friend, Jordan. Wrong. They went to Iran, leaving our carefully placed barrier CAP aircraft orbiting between Baghdad and Jordan in the desert.

  On the first night of the exodus, the burning question was whether or not the jets were defecting. Because they were fleeing to an old enemy, that was a possible inference. But when they did it again the next night, I was pretty sure it was organized and not defection.

  In order to find out what was really going on, I called Mary Jo, in Sumter, South Carolina. No, she doesn’t operate a spy network; but we had an Iranian-born friend who shared our passion for Persian carpets and whose father was well placed back home. She called our friend, and he called his father, who reported that an Iraqi general had shown up in Iran a few days before and negotiated safe haven for the Iraqi Air Force. The Iranians, justifying their reputation as “bazzaris,” or traders, carefully responded, “We will keep your aircraf
t for you”; and so, it seems, they have. The aircraft are still there.

  Once the exodus started, the Iraqis ceased operating as a fighting force; it was a panic rush to the exits. They’d wait for gaps in our CAP coverage, then bolt in groups for Iran, hoping that if they avoided our fighters, they’d have enough fuel to find an Iranian airfield. The pilots who didn’t had to eject.

  BRIEFINGS

  We don’t like briefings, because we don’t like to sit around in meetings. But we have to have briefings, because they offer the most efficient way to keep vital information flowing to the largest variety of people. There were three that really mattered every day—the two at our TACC changeover, and the evening briefing at MODA for the CINC.

  Since we had two teams, each working twelve hours a day, the changeover briefings occurred twice a day, morning and evening. Here there was no attempt at depth, or to make speculative projections (these came in the meeting that followed). For the most part, the presenters laid out facts and made reasonable projections of trends needed to plan ATOs and bring the staff up-to-date. Intel briefers, for example, would touch on the status of the Iraqi transportation system, the bridges he or she was recommending for strike, the reasons why the Iraqi Air Force was flying to Iran, or possible Scud hiding places. And there was also plenty of BDA, target systems, and current information.

  When the incoming staff arrived, they’d gather around, while each section—Intelligence, Weather, Plans, Operations, BCE, Naval Liaison, and Marine Liaison—covered anything they wanted everyone to hear. Though the briefing was directed at me and the other senior leaders of the national air forces, it also allowed the staff coming on duty to get up to speed and to talk about the coming period and beyond. Anyone could ask questions (though few did). Then, at the end, I would make brief remarks designed to keep the staff focused on what I believed important. Most of the time I kept these remarks general, but on a few occasions I outlined specific tasks for the next twelve to twenty-four hours.