The last major war involving lots of aircraft for the U.S. was the
Vietnam War which ended in 1973. Now assembled in Saudi Arabia
is the largest air armada put together since D-Day in World War
II. With almost 2,000 tactical aircraft in place, the allied forces in the
gulf region are preparing to unleash an air offensive that will dwarf
even the larger Linebacker raids of the Vietnam war.
But how will the air war be fought, and what will it accomplish? What can we expect to see as the war unfolds? Air Superiority is vital in any conflict and you can rest assured that the U.S. and its allies will gain and maintain it for the duration of the fighting.
As gamers, many of us imagine how air wars will be fought, and the Air Superiority game is a great tool for viewing the microcosm of a single battle but not for understanding the total picture of an air campaign. This article will try to present to you some of the tactics and considerations that are involved with the application of air power as an instrument of war in the gulf.
The Mission
You don't assemble air power on this scale so for no reason. The coalition fully intends to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait by force and then to whittle Saddam's military might down to something manageable by the Saudis and their neighboring Arab allies. If Saddam gets pasted in the process, that is just icing on the cake.
Air Power is a great instrument of war. It can strike anywhere and anytime with substantial force but it cannot occupy territory. It can damage enemy forces, immobilize them and restrict their supplies, but it cannot utterly destroy them. The Iraqi army will still have to be dislodged by allied ground forces from its fortifications in Kuwait and then routed back across the border. In this conflict, air power will be the great equalizer and will be used to accomplish the following goals:
- 1. To gain and maintain air superiority over the FEBA by
destroying the Iraqi Air Force and air defenses.
2. To destroy Iraq's retaliatory weapons (Scud missiles) and chemical warfare capability.
3. To destroy Iraq's command and control facilities.
4. To pin-down and disrupt Iraq's mobile armored reserves.
5. To cut and disrupt Iraqi supply lines and facilities.
6. To bombard, demoralize and weaken entrenched Iraqi troops.
7. To provide precision close air support to advancing friendly armored and infantry forces to minimize casualties.
8. To defend Saudi Arabia, its Arab allies, and coalition naval forces from Iraqi air attack.
The Methods
Gaining air superiority sounds easy in principle, but it's not. In 1967, the Israelis used a surprise attack on Egypt and Syria to mortally wound Arab air power before attacking on the ground. In that war, the aircraft were parked out in the open and the airfields were not heavily defended. Hundreds of aircraft were destroyed on the ground and most of the rest mopped up in air combat. The Arabs, Iraq included, have long since learned their lessons. Most Iraqi air fields are laid out so that the aircraft are either in individual bomb-proof shelters or widely dispersed.
Each airfield is heavily defended by AAA, SAMs and radar, and each has multiple runways. Many taxiways have also been widened and lengthened to serve as emergency runways and, in some places, taxiways have been built to nearby highways which can also serve as runways. It goes without saying that we have tossed away any chance of surprising the Iraqis so a quick kill is not likely.
Air superiority will be gained in a systematic manner over a matter of days or weeks. Electronic jamming can be expected to degrade Iraqi radars and command and control centers on a continuous basis from the start but, most likely, the first targets of deep strike aircraft will be Iraq's retaliatory and chemical weapons and the defenses around them.
Only after these have been dealt with will an effort be made against the Iraqi Air Force directly. This will involve the selective targeting of airfields in southern Iraq to shutdown those from which Iraqijets can reach Kuwait and the FEBA. Knocking out these airfields will not be a simple mission. A major defense suppression effort will have to be made against each airbase in order to clear the way for strike aircraft to destroy exposed aircraft and to close runways. It will take a lot of sorties and weapons to sufficiently damage each runway to prevent its use. Cratering bombs, clusters of mines and delay fuzed bombs will all be used to achieve closure and inhibit repairs. Some Iraqi aircraft will be destroyed in their shelters by precision guided missiles and bombs but not a significant number. Some Iraqi aircraft will challenge the raids and be destroyed in the process but they will likely be able to hit U.S. aircraft as well.
Once the battle to keep Iraq's Air Force at bay is commenced, interdiction raids will be used to hit the armored mobile reserves and supply depots behind the lines. Cluster bombs and guided missiles will be used kill vehicles and one can certainly expect Tornados to use their weapons dispenser pods to Jay mines across major transportation routes. These aircraft will be heavily escorted by fighters and supported by defense suppression aircraft.
Defense suppression will not be as effective in these raids since the AAA and mobile SAMs which accompany armored formations are not as easily found and targeted as the typical fixed defenses around an airbase. Many of the allied aircraft losses will be to AAA and short- range SAMs in these attacks.
Surgical strikes will be employed throughout the fighting with small groups of deep strike aircraft (most likely F-111s and F117's) hitting selected radar stations and communications facilities as well as identified command positions. The purpose of these raids will be to further break down the overall air defense system and to cause confusion and loss of C3 among Iraqi ground units. These attacks will almost exclusively occur at night without escort or defense suppression assistance. Some losses are inevitable.
As air superiority is won on or near the FEBA, bombing attacks along the fortified lines are likely. These are ideal targets for carpet bombing by high altitude B-52 aircraft. You would have to dig pretty deep to be safe from an Arc-Light attack. Harassing attacks by tactical aircraft would occur along the defense line and would employ stand-off toss-bombing and occasional precision guided weapon attacks assisted by special forces FACs positioned to mark enemy bunkers and defense points.
Behind the Iraqi lines, tactical strikes would target artillery batteries and concentrations of vehicles wherever they could be found. If Saddam hasn't cried "uncle" at this point, the war could be brought to the civilian population by the selective destruction of power plants and utilities which would cut off power and water to the city of Baghdad. This option is probably not worth the effort it would take, given the fanatical nature of the population.
When the high command deems it appropriate, a massive artillery barrage followed by aground attack against the fortified lines will begin. Hopefully our field commanders will have studied the battle of Kursk in which German panzers attacked a Soviet defense line constructed much like the Iraqi line.
Covered by A-10s, Harriers and attack helos, our tanks, engineers and infantry will cut through the mine fields, trenches and bunkers, eliminating any pockets of resistance found along the way. Many helicopters and some A-10s and other supporting strike aircraft will be shot down by close-in anti-aircraft weapons and most of our ground casualties will occur in the fierce fighting such an attack will involve.
After the fortified line is breached, allied tanks will pour through the hole heading for Kuwait and or Baghdad and some short, bloody armor battles will be fought. Many Iraqi armored reserves, heavily attritioned by air attacks, and without command guidance, will be brushed aside with heavy losses inflicted by fast moving M-1s.
How long the fight will go after that is anyone's guess. I would expect the ill- trained and demoralized Iraqi infantry to start to fold once their leadership is cut off and word gets to them that enemy tanks are deep behind their lines. Assaulting Kuwait city would be a bloody and terrible trial. Far better to win the war and have the unattacked, heavily armed garrison there surrender after the fact.
Throughout this phase our armored units would be under an umbrella of support aircraft ready to be called in against tough defensive positions. I haven't made much mention of the counter-air efforts or of fighter sweeps in which our vaunted F-15s, F- 14s, F-16s, and F-18's would conduct turkey shoots against the Iraqis because I don't think that will happen.
The Iraqi Air Force has older aircraft and a limited supply of experienced pilots. I do not believe they will throw away their expensive jets like the Syrians did in the Bekaa valley in 1982. Instead, they will husband their force, keeping most of the good jets back in central Iraq, away from the fighting. There will be some air combat of course. It will occur when local CAPs defend the southern airfields and occasionally when Iraqi jets challenge isolated raids on or near Baghdad.
There will be some air-to-air kills made against furtive Iraqi air raids to the south but overall, I expect Iraqi air power to remain out of harm's way up until the time our forces start driving into Iraq itself. Then the "defend the motherland" syndrome starts to come out. The Iraqi army has an extensive array of SAM systems and AAA and these units will provide some limited protection against allied air attack until they are destroyed--which will occur fairly quickly.
Air War Over Iraq 1991
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© Copyright 1990 by J.D. Webster
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