This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
ricidal losses in the first week of a Central Front war might constitute up to 40% percent of all friendly aircraft shot down- planners consoled themselves with estimates that the Soviets might suffer up to 80% self-inflicted kills, since their identification friend or foe (IFF) system is even worse than NATO’s.
In the Gulf, it appears that very rigid air control solved the problem: the air defenders knew where the iriendlies were likely to be, and could concentrate on aircralt not litting that pattern. This sort of control (which amounts to strike planning) presumably made for relative inefficiency, but was quite acceptable, since heavy losses would have reduced air capability much lur- thcr. There was also improvised IFF: in one case, a U.S. pilot about to engage an Iraqi airplane told other aircraft in the Bight to come out of afterburner so that he could distinguish them from the afterburning Iraqi aircraft he was engaging.
It seems unlikely that electronic IFF systems were supplemented entirely by tracking friendly aircraft from takeoff to landing, which might be practicable with fewer sorties. To the extent that careful strike planning was the key to this air campaign, it probably had to be done manually, which means that it was relatively difficult to change targets at the last minute. Computer
Norman Friedman
First, to an extent unrealized before the war, modern Western electronics-based weapons systems work at least as well as a - Wrtised. The two most public examples are Patriot, which has intercepted virtually all of the Scuds fired toward it, and Tomahawk (which reportedly has 51 hits for 51 lirings).
The electronic success story is probably responsible lor much of the abject failure of Iraqi air defenses from the first night of the war onward. Although the U.S. Central Command was cautious in announcing that it had achieved air supremacy, the low fate of Coalition air losses was clear evidence that Iraq had little medium- or high-altitude air defense.
The U.S. Air Force has favored massed high- or medium-altitude attacks, relying on jammers and antiradar Wild Weasel aircraft to neutralize enemy defenses. With the enemy reduced to optically-sighted weapons, such tactics were enormously successful, and losses were far below pre-war estimates. It seems likely that the U.S. Navy employed similar tactics, although some aircraft may have been lost in low-level attacks.
For their part, the British and the West Germans always doubted that the heavy air defenses of Eastern Europe could be neutralized, so they concentrated on low-level tactics, lor whic the Tornado was specially designed. Both countries developed large bomblet dispensers, to be carried externally on tactical aircraft, and the British used such weapons (with JP 233 airfield- denial bomblets) against Iraq.
Faced with the only Iraqi air defenses that were very eltective, they suffered badly: 10% of the British Tornado force was shot down—six out of the 60 operational aircraft. Ironically, given assumed rates of attrition in a NATO war, 10% would probably have been considered acceptable. As it was, the British were forced to adopt U.S.-style tactics, bringing in Buccaneers to laser-designate targets for bombs dropped at medium altitude by Tornadoes.
It remains to be seen whether the Iraqi air defense disaster carries wider lessons. After all, the Coalition had five months during which to examine Iraqi positions and obtained considerable information from most of the Iraqis’ suppliers, including t e Soviets. The one really mobile element of Iraqi national air defense, the Adnan airborne early-warning aircraft (a converted Soviet-supplied IL-76 carrying a French Tiger radar), was probably grossly overrated; it was certainly not equivalent to the U.S. Air Force’s E-3A airborne warning and control system (AWACS) or the Navy’s E-2C.
The Iraqis retained mobile point defense weapons, such as French-supplied Rolands, but they were not very effective. Ihe question is whether the Iraqis were overpowered by brilliantly coordinated strikes or were merely incompetent. There was one report that special forces destroyed or neutralized key radars early in the air campaign.
Finally, the naval aircraft in the theater may have been disproportionately useful in the initial strike because the Iraqis could not have known their precise flight plans. The same consideration would apply to Tomahawk strikes in support of the air attack. . .
Another surprise was the complete lack of fratricide. With so niany Coalition aircraft airborne at the same time, and with the initial Iraqi air-to-air threat, it seemed likely that there would be unintentional kills caused by mistaken identity. In pre-war NATO Europe, for example, it was commonly assumed that frat-
U.S. Air Force F-4G Wild Weasels—here refueling during Desert Storm—used AGM-88 high-speed antiradiation missiles against Iraqi air defenses.
systems now in the design or proposal stage, such as the Navy’s integrated strike planning system, promise to achieve the low self-inflicted losses of the current operation while allowing more flexibility.
Relatively rigid air scheduling is possible only in a relatively static situation. Once the Iraqi air threat had largely been eliminated (by air-to-air combat, by the destruction of hardened shelters, and by Iraqi pilots’ apparent desertion to Iran), fratricide became much less likely as pilots assumed that anyone in the air was friendly, and flexibility was restored.
Using IFF to identify aircraft during air-to-air encounters is difficult enough, but we do have a system. There is no such system that positively separates friendly from enemy ground units—pilots must rely on their eyes, coaching or target-marking by ground or airborne forward air controllers, and good preflight briefings on the relative positions of friendly and enemy troops. Mistakes are almost inevitable in close fighting, and several
Desert Storm
The relatively small Mk 80-series bombs on this Navy A-7E are standard for U.S. forces—larger ones are needed to knock out deep bunkers. Carrier Air Wing Three EA-6Bs (right) were refueled by Air Force KC-135s en route to cover strikes on Iraqi targets.
involving A-10s and an attack helicopter occurred during the course of the war.
The situation is not too different from that experienced during World War II (except that now vision often means night vision through infrared systems or image intensifiers). Readers of the Naval Institute’s recently reprinted volume of the old Recognition Journal will be aware that friendly attackers caused many losses in the past. The Coalition ground strategy, designed to encircle and cut off Iraqi forces from their line of retreat, forced the Iraqi armor out in the open far enough from friendly troops that identifying it was easier for attacking aircraft—even so, there were mistakes and lives were lost.
The war has also illustrated the capabilities and limitations of modem air-dropped weapons. Spectacular strike film showed laser- and electro-optically-guided weapons hitting targets as small as a building’s air shaft. Given their cost, these weapons could not account for the bulk of sorties, so numerous iron bombs were also delivered. Presumably, modem bombing systems, many of which incorporate laser range finders, greatly improved their accuracy as well. We do know that it was possible to make strikes in urban areas of Iraq, such as Baghdad, without causing very much collateral damage, i.e., to structures not targeted.
Virtually all of the current bombs are limited in length, weight, and diameter by the requirement that they be carried externally by fighter-bombers and small attack aircraft such as F-15Es, F-16s, A-6Es, A-7s, Tornadoes, and Jaguars, to list a few. Carrier aircraft ordnance systems are subjected to further limits because of catapult and arresting gear considerations.
Consequently, the largest bombs in routine use are the 2,000- pound Mk 84 and the 1-2000 (BLU-109). The latter is intended specifically to penetrate thick concrete (as in Soviet-style han- garettes). Such weapons are extremely effective in the sort of war for which most U.S. forces were designed, a war in which allied aircraft counter a moving Soviet or Soviet-style armored force. In some cases, a single 2,000-pound dispenser weapon laying bomblets might cripple several lightly armored vehicles.
The situation in Iraq is different. Much of the Iraqi command structure, and certainly Saddam Hussein’s own command post, is buried well underground. No 2,000-pound bomb is likely to penetrate deep enough to inflict any real damage because of the structures were designed to withstand nuclear near-misses. The problem can be solved, however, if the lessons of an earlier era are resurrected.
In 1944-45, the Allies attacked deeply buried German targets using very heavy bombs with delayed fuses (12,000- and 22,000-pounders called Tall Boys and Grand Slams), which penetrated and then exploded alongside or even below their tar-
gets and destroyed them. Several military museums even display empty casings of such bombs, although the one normally at the Imperial War Museum seems to have been removed (perhaps for research). These weapons will just fit the large internal bomb bays of contemporary bombers.
When the nuclear era began, large high-explosive bombs were discarded—after all, a nuclear bomb could do the job better. The | earliest nuclear bombers did have large bomb bays, however, | because the first atomic and hydrogen bombs were quite large. ' That is why B-52s have such a voluminous fuselage (later strategic bombers cannot carry anything much larger than a Mk 82 500-pounder because they use integral internal rotary bomb racks). It is also why the old A-3 had a 10,000-pound capacity.
Although Saddam Hussein went much farther than his coun- I terparts in the Third World, he is hardly unique. One conclusion might be that, if enforcing the peace in the Third World becomes U.S. policy—an increasingly likely possibility—then we need some decidedly non-nuclear means of threatening deeply buried command bunkers. A modem, precision-guided version of Tall Boy might be an attractive proposition. It should be compatible with carrier aircraft, which suggests that the A-12 successor now in the talking stage might profitably be designed with a substantial internal bomb bay. The bomb could probably be lighter than 12,000 pounds if, for example, it were rocket-boosted, but it would still need a substantial explosive content, far beyond that of current weapons.
Finally, the absence of effective and survivable strike reconnaissance aircraft, such as the Air Force’s SR-71 Blackbird and the Navy’s RA-5C Vigilante, is apparently being felt. Successor systems, such as the filmless advanced tactical airborne reconnaissance system now in development, may restore that capability for prompt assessment of the results of strikes, but at present we are quite limited. One result is that bomb damage cannot be assessed in time to order quick reattacks.
It should be emphasized that very few targets will be permanently destroyed by single 2,000-pound bombs; that was certainly the case in Europe during World War II. The current bomb is not too different from what was used then, except that it has a very different shape. Instead, targets are put out of action, and the enemy is forced to expend his resources repairing them. Prompt reconnaissance can foil his attempts to make surrepti- I tious repairs or to apply camouflage. The Iraqis, in at least one case, faked indications of bomb hits to protect key facilities, i
Much has been made of the use of satellites for bomb damage assessment, but their coverage is intermittent at best, and it is ' unlikely that they provide the detail that an airplane can obtain. Moreover, satellites cannot revisit points on the earth upon request; their motion is very nearly fixed by orbital dynamics.
Norman Friedman is the author of Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems.