Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

by Tom Clancy

  ★ During the Gulf War, the placing of the FSCL caused a number of problems.

  At the opening of ground operations on February 24, when the BCE ground representatives posted the FSCL in the TACC, it became instantly clear that the Army units were not talking to each other: their FSCLs looked like teeth on a saw blade. (For obvious reasons, the line has to be reasonably neat and uncomplicated.) So the FSCL would be drawn ahead of one corps. Then, when it reached the boundary with the adjacent corps, it would drop or advance tens of miles.

  Now, this was serious business. Even in the best of situations, the FAC might miscommunicate the relative positions of the target and friendly forces. Visual identification of the enemy target was not always possible, as friendly vehicles became covered with desert mud and dust. Engagements became fierce and confused, as pilots dodged ground fire while trying to locate targets hidden by the smoke and dust of the battlefield.

  Fortunately, we were able to work out the sawtooth FSCL problem. The BCE got in touch with Third Army headquarters and made them see the light.

  We encountered a worse problem toward the end of the war.

  When I came to work on the last morning (after finally getting a full night’s sleep; I’d left the night before around 2200) and reviewed the ground situation, I noticed to my amazement that during the night, the FSCL had been drawn well north of the Tigris River, in a straight line running east to west. This made no sense.

  First of all, we had no forces north of the river and very few north of the major highway south of the river. In other words, the river made an excellent FSCL boundary.

  Second of all—and far worse—this FSCL placement ruled out the independent operations of air to halt the Iraqi tanks that had crossed the river and were fleeing north. Our planes could fly over them, but could not bomb them without permission and control from a FAC.

  When I asked the BCE duty officer who in the hell had placed the FSCL that far north of the river and why, there was a long and sheepish silence. “It was General Schwarzkopf,” he answered finally.

  So I said to my own duty officer, “Get General Schwarzkopf on the phone. He’s done a dumb thing and needs to be told. He’s letting the Iraqis escape the noose he himself built when he sent XVIIIth Corps around from the west.”

  But then it got very quiet, and the Army duty officer said, “Please wait a minute, sir.” And I knew something was up. I waited while he called Third Army headquarters to let them know that I was angry, and why.

  It turned out that the CINC had not actually drawn that FSCL. Rather, Third Army headquarters had indicated to my duty officer that he had. Though my duty officer would have protested the stupid placement at any other time, since the war was almost over, and since the CINC apparently wanted it, my colonel had gone along with the change. In reality, Schwarzkopf knew nothing about it, and would have probably objected if he had.

  When I challenged all this (even to the point of risking exposure to Schwarzkopf ’s wrath), then the jig was up, and the Army had to come clean. The FSCL was immediately renegotiated and placed on the river, but too late to hit a great many fleeing Iraqi tanks that had poured through the open door we’d given them.

  To this day, I do not know why anyone wanted the FSCL so far north. My theory at the time was that the 101st Air Assault wanted to use their Apache gunships to attack the enemy, and if the FSCL was on the river they would have to coordinate their actions with the TACC (or else they might have been mistaken for Iraqi helicopters by our fighters).

  In fact, all they needed to do was let us know their desires, and we could have easily coordinated operations. But joint operations require give-and-take, and often the land, sea, or air unit will cut corners rather than take the time to coordinate and cooperate. In this case, taking time to work with the TACC was apparently considered too difficult, when it was easier to bluster a FSCL well north of the river. Well, it worked for the Iraqis and not our side.

  ★ As the army drove forward, stories began to come into the TACC from our tactical air control parties with the Army battalions, divisions, and corps. Some were funny, some showed the tragic stupidity of men at war, and some were heroic.

  One forward air controller reported that his battalion commander provided him with a lightly skinned M-113 armored personnel carrier while he himself and his operations officers mounted the attack in more survivable Bradley fighting vehicles. Well, as they moved into Iraq, the team suddenly discovered their maps were next to useless in the trackless desert, but the FAC’s Global Positioning Satellite receiver was invaluable. Rather than risking the loss of their Air Force guest in his M-113, the two Bradleys closed to positions on either side of the M-113 as they roared through the desert. If they encountered enemy fire, the Bradleys were likely to absorb the first round. Meanwhile, the Air Force “fly boy” would periodically use his GPS receiver to find their location, write the coordinates on a piece of cardboard, and stick his head up through the observers’ hatch in the M-113 to show the commander and his operations officer their position.

  On another occasion, two battalions were advancing line abreast through the Iraqi desert, when Iraqi long-range artillery in one sector began to fire on the U.S. troops in the adjacent sector. Since the artillery was inside the FSCL, air could not be tasked to hit the artillery without the close control of the FACs. When his Army counterparts told the FAC under fire the location of the enemy artillery, he called his fellow FAC miles away to coordinate an attack, and the second FAC diverted fighter-bombers from their preplanned targets and directed them against the artillery several kilometers away. The fighters spotted the guns and silenced them with bombing and strafing attacks.

  One of the most poignant of these stories came from a FAC with VIIth Corps, also in an M-113 armored vehicle. His unit had progressed rapidly into Iraq and already overrun a lot of Iraqis, most of whom had surrendered without firing a round, when they came upon a prepared defensive position consisting of fortified rifle and machine-gun positions. As they proceeded slowly into the apparently abandoned complex, the FAC noticed movement in a nearby trench. Suddenly, a few Iraqi soldiers leapt out of the trenches, threw down their weapons, and started running toward the American vehicles with their hands over their heads. Just as suddenly, an Iraqi machine gun a little farther away opened up on the surrendering Iraqis, cutting them down from behind. At that point, the FAC, seeing one of the Iraqis writhing on the ground, called for his Army driver to move ahead. Disregarding his own safety, the FAC climbed out of the forward hatch of his vehicle, picked up the wounded and badly bleeding Iraqi, and, shielding him with his own body, carried him back to the vehicle. After the driver had pulled back to safety, the FAC did what he could to prevent shock and stop the loss of blood, but it looked very likely that the Iraqi had had it. His flesh had been torn from his arms and legs, and he’d lost a lot of blood. As the Army driver rushed them to a forward medical aid station, in a weak voice, but in clear English, the Iraqi explained that he was a doctor who’d trained in America before he was drafted. When the U.S. Army doctors at the aid station heard that one of their own was wounded, even though he was an Iraqi, they took heroic measures to save his life; and they were successful.

  BLUE-ON-BLUE

  Friendly fire—blue-on-blue, fratricide, whatever you wish to call it—has been around as long as war. During the Gulf War, we put greater efforts than ever before into reducing this tragedy. Though we tried hard, and can take satisfaction from our efforts, it was a battle we did not win. The blue-on-blue statistics from the Gulf War are shocking. After-action reports of U.S. Army deaths indicate that about half of their losses were caused by friendly fire, and over 70 percent of U.S. Army tanks and APCs that were hit were hit by friendly ground fire.

  In the Gulf, the majority of friendly-fire incidents occurred ground-to-ground; that is, people on the ground were hit by fire from ground-bound platforms.

  On the other hand, there were no air-to-air blue-on-blue incidents—the result of
stringent rules of engagement, modern technology, aircrew discipline . . . and luck.

  Here is a story to illustrate all that:

  Captain Gentner Drummond was an F-15C pilot assigned to Boomer McBroom’s 1st Tactical Fighter Wing at Dhahran, and he looked every inch like the central casting dream of a fighter pilot—tall, slim, handsome, steely-eyed, with a soft Oklahoma drawl. Of course, his name, “Gentner,” was a negative. It should have been Spike or Rip or Killer.

  At any rate, this misnamed, but highly talented, fighter pilot was leading an element on MiG CAP south of Baghdad the first night of the war, when AWACS called out a bandit—high-speed, low-level, headed south out of the Baghdad area.

  Gentner came hard left and rolled out on the vector he got from AWACS. He then pointed his antenna down and got an immediate lock on a target heading south 1,000 feet above ground level at very high speed. He began pushing the buttons on his stick and throttles that would identify the target and tell him whether or not it was friendly, and if friendly, what type of aircraft.

  In the meantime, AWACS was calling for him to shoot.

  Gentner knew that the AWACS controller had access to intelligence information from the Rivet Joint Aircraft that would confirm that the aircraft was Iraqi. Still, there was room for doubt.

  As the F-15 pilot streaked through the night at 30,000 feet, he worked his system on the target. Time was running out. In a few moments, he’d be inside R minimum, which is the closest in range he could get to the target and still use his AIM-7 missile. There was still no ID.

  Meanwhile, the AWACS controller was ordering Gentner to shoot.

  He decided not to. He wanted to be sure in his own mind, and he figured that his altitude advantage would allow him to perform a stern conversion. That way he could get a better ID of the target, and then down it if it was an Iraqi.

  Pulling his Eagle around hard left and down, he screamed into the night and pulled up alongside a Saudi Tornado on his way home from a successful strike deep into Iraq.

  For this act of restraint, Gentner received a Distinguished Flying Cross—that is, he received it for not shooting down an aircraft. His composure under the most extreme stress, his use of logic and judgment, and his concern for human life prevented what could easily have been a tragic mistake.

  In fact, his was not the only such story, yet it is typical of the stress our aircrews had to endure, as well as the high standards of conduct expected of them.

  ★ Unfortunately, our record in air-to-ground combat was not perfect.

  More than twenty friendly ground forces, U.S., Saudi, and British, were killed by weapons delivered from the air.

  Thus, during the confusion at the Battle of Al-Khafji, a USAF A-10’s Maverick hit a U.S. Marine armored vehicle, a Marine A-6 bombed a Marine convoy, a Marine gunship attacked a Saudi National Guard armored car, and an unknown aircraft strafed Saudi troops who had wandered into a free-fire zone. Later in the war, a pair of Air Force A-10s attacked two British armored personnel carriers, Army Apaches destroyed two Army APCs, and our airmen destroyed two more British armored vehicles.

  Lives were lost in each of these tragic events.

  Though all were great tragedies, when placed against the total of air-to-ground attacks, their numbers were quite small—especially compared with other wars. Moreover, we must also weigh in the lives of friendly ground forces saved because air attacks on the Iraqis were so devastating. Of course, no saving of friendly lives makes any loss of friendly life “acceptable” to a commander. Mistakes happen, to be sure, but every effort should be made to prevent needless killings.

  ★ The officer I tapped to work the fratricide-prevention problem was Lieutenant Colonel Joe Bob Phillips and his fighter Weapons Tactics Team. Joe Bob and his team of eight fighter weapons school instructors had arrived early in February, after General “Tiny” (six feet four and three hundred pounds) West, the commander of the Fighter Weapons School at Nellis, had offered them, both to augment our staff in Riyadh and to capture Gulf war experiences. They’d come not as experts—“We’ll tell you how to win this one”—but as field hands. After the war, they could go home to train others, using what we had learned in the only school for combat—war.

  With typical fighter-pilot confidence and enthusiasm, Joe Bob and his team went to work. They had a big question to answer: if we had four incidents at Al-Khafji, how many would we face when five corps were unleashed on the Iraqis?

  Here are some quotes from Joe Bob’s notes: “Working the CAS problem hard. Basically, the mechanics of generating the flow and communication are OK. We’re working backups for traffic jams. We have a shortage of airborne FACs and need tighter rules for TICs [troops in combat] situations. Seems that we have forgotten the need for fighter pilots to have guidance on ordnance type and distances from friendly forces, unwise delivery modes, etc., for TIC contact. Also, have only twelve OA-10s [airborne FAC aircraft] in theater—not enough to provide coverage for a hooba of this size. We are working out procedure and agreements with the corps commanders to keep the Killer Scouts employed both inside and outside the FSCL. Inside the FSCL, the attack aircraft must be under control of a forward air controller and prevent attacks on friendly forces and to hit the targets the Army wants hit. Outside the FSCL, the attacking aircraft is cleared to strike without any additional control. He may use J-STARS or Killer Scout, but a FAC is not required.”

  By mid-February, these efforts were starting to make sense. As previously mentioned, we developed preplanned FSCLs, so that no matter how fast the ground war went, we could stay ahead of it. The more than 2,000 U.S. Air Force people assigned to work forward air control with the ground forces (except for the British and Marines, who provided their own FACs) would be adequate for that job, and our shortage of airborne forward air controls would be augmented by the Killer Scouts. Using AWACS, Joint STARS, and airborne command-and-control aircraft of the USAF and USMC, we were able to meter the flow and provide the needed control that would let us put bombs on target in a timely fashion, while avoiding friendly forces. Though it was a huge and complex undertaking, Joe Bob stuck to it, in spite of occasional abuse from me.

  These are from his notes for February 19: “Have been continuing to work the CAS issue hard over the past several days. General Horner has thrown us out a couple of times. I think we are getting closer to understanding his approach. The closest analogy I can come up with is Force Protection. Only, the protected force is super-large and undisciplined, and both sides look the same. Our job is to anticipate what the enemy will throw at the force and come up with a plan and ROE [rules of engagement] to maximize enemy kills while preventing fratricide. VID [visual identification] is out. Assuming that the Army knows where its forces are is out. Earlier approved concepts of providing CAS for an advancing friendly force are out, because they emphasized a superior force attacking a retreating enemy. Kill zones are okay, when the friendlies are in dire straits and need air at any cost. ‘Figure it out, shit-head, that’s your job’ is a phrase I’m getting accustomed to from General Horner.”

  When Joe Bob’s plan was published, it provided guidance to FACs, Scouts, Planners, and Air Tasking Order writers. Its basic messages were: “If in doubt, don’t. Service CAS requests first. Don’t even assume things will be easy or go as planned.” And for the most part, they worked.

  AND THEN THERE WERE NONE

  As the days of the ground war continued, the attitude in the TACC grew ever more relieved. Spirits were high. At each shift change, you could hear the upbeat buzz as the guys related how well the troops in the sand of Kuwait and Iraq were doing. Most important, there were few reports of casualties, and incredible reports of Iraqis surrendering in such numbers that our forces could only give them food and water and tell them where they needed to go to be picked up.

  To be sure, we had problems—placement of the FSCL, the weather, friendly-fire incidents, and trying to keep track of all that was going on on the battlefield, with its hellish oil fires a
nd rainy weather—but the good news continued.

  By February 26, Walt Boomer was a few miles south of the major highway intersection west of Kuwait City; Gary Luck had turned the corner and was racing down the Iraqi highway south of the Euphrates; and Fred Franks was advancing toward the Republican Guard, his ultimate target.

  At that point, the Iraqis totally lost heart and started to evacuate occupied Kuwait, but airpower halted the caravan of Iraqi Army and plunderers fleeing toward Basra. This event was later called by the media “The Highway of Death.” There were certainly a lot of dead vehicles, but not so many dead Iraqis. They’d already learned to scamper off into the desert when our aircraft started to attack. Nevertheless, some people back home wrongly chose to believe we were cruelly and unusually punishing our already whipped foes.

  Meanwhile, numerous tank engagements shredded the myth of Iraqi Army “battle hardness.” Fred Franks’s VIIth Corps slammed into the heavy divisions of the Republican Guard and other Iraqi armor. And always POWs, and more POWs.

  It wasn’t all easy. An A-10 was shot down; and an Army helicopter attempting to rescue the pilot was itself shot down, killing several of the crew, with the rest being taken prisoner. Even though it was absolutely clear that the Iraqis were thoroughly defeated, they still remained dangerous, simply because they remain armed, and were frightened and disorganized, in many cases an armed rabble.

  By February 27, talk had turned toward terminating the hostilities. Kuwait was free. We were not interested in governing Iraq. So the question became “How do we stop the killing?”

  I knew we were close to answering that question when General Schwarzkopf asked me how much notification I would need to turn off our attacks. He was trying to come up with a plan for stopping the war. He knew Washington was going to be asking him very soon, “When can you stop? How long will it take to turn off the ground fires and air fires?”