Shock and awe 25 years later: what we learned from Desert Storm

By Phillip Swarts and Oriana Pawlyk, Air Force Times 8:46 a.m. EST January 21, 2016


F-16A Fighting Falcon, F-15C Eagle and F-15E Strike Eagle fighter aircraft fly over burning oil field sites in Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. U.S. Air Force photo


A B-52G Stratofortress aircraft takes off on its return flight to the United States after being deployed during Operation Desert Storm. U.S. Air Force photo


An air-to-air view of two U.S. Air Force F-15C Eagle fighter aircraft of the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., and a Royal Saudi Air Force F-5E Tiger II fighter aircraft during a mission in support of Operation Desert Storm. The aircraft are armed with AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles. U.S. Air Force photo


U.S Air Force pilot Cpt. David Meinhart, of Plattsburgh, N.Y., jumps up to take a pre-flight look at the engine of his KC-135 tanker at an airbase in central Saudi Arabia on Monday, Feb. 4, 1991. Meinhart says he is too short to get a good look into the engines without leaping up. The tankers are being used to for aerial refueling of fighters for operation Desert Storm. AP file photo


Ground crews service the F-117A aircraft of the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing (37th TFW) on the flight line. The 37th TFW was preparing to deploy to Saudi Arabia for Operation Desert Shield. U.S. Air Force photo


A KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft boom operator refuels a B-52 Stratofortress aircraft, center, during air operations for Operation Desert Storm over Southwest Asia Feb. 1, 1991. Senior Airman Chris Putnam/Air Force


A close-up view of M-117 750-pound bombs loaded into the bomb bay of a B-52G Stratofortress aircraft prior to a bombing mission against Iraqi forces during Operation Desert Storm. U.S. Air Force photo


Staff Sgt. Brian D. Land checks a .50-caliber tail turret gun on a B-52G Stratofortress aircraft during Operation Desert Shield. U.S. Air Force photo


SOUTHWEST ASIA -- A B-52H Stratofortress drops a load of M-117 750lb bombs. During Desert Storm, B-52s delivered 40 percent of all the weapons dropped by coalition forces. B-52s struck wide-area troop concentrations, fixed installations and bunkers, and decimated the morale of Iraq's Republican Guard. In the Gulf War involved the longest strike mission in the history of aerial warfare when B-52s took off from Barksdale Air Force Base, La., launched conventional air launched cruise missiles and returned to Barksdale -- a 35-hour, non-stop combat mission. U.S. Air Force photo


A 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron F-15 Eagle aircraft banks to the right following refueling during Operation Desert Storm. The aircraft is armed with four AIM-7 Sparrow missiles on the fuselage, an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile on the left wing and an AIM-120 advanced medium range air-to-air missile on the right wing. U.S. Air Force photo


FILE PHOTO: An F-16C Fighting Falcon of the 388th Tactical Fighter Wing flies over the Red Sea during Operation Desert Storm. U.S. Air Force photo


F-117 stealth fighter aircraft of the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing stand on the flight line with canopies raised following their return from Saudi Arabia where they took part in Operation Desert Storm. U.S. Air Force photo

Twenty-five years ago this month, the U.S. launched Operation Desert Storm, designed to drive Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi army out of Kuwait and back into Iraq.

The overwhelming military might of the U.S. and its allies, paired with the development of technology that is now commonplace, led to one of the quickest and most effective military operations in modern history.

On August 2, 1990, the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait. On January 17, 1991, the Pentagon launched a military offensive. By February 28, the majority of the fighting was over.

“Saddam Hussein probably chose the worst time in history to attack Kuwait,” said Kenneth Bray, the associate director of intelligence for Air Combat Command. As a captain, Bray flew U2 / TR-1 missions during Desert Storm.

“The wall had come down,” he said. “We had no enemy of any significant nature in the world, and he took us on. Not a smart move on his part. We brought every toy we had to fight him, what we today call overmatch.”

“The news [media] made Saddam sound six feet tall,” Bray continued. “We did our best to imagine how we would use what Saddam had; but we soon found out how he used what he had, and it made him more like six inches tall and we absolutely obliterated him. He chose the wrong time to fight the wrong person.”

The international military operations collectively became known as the Gulf War or the First Gulf War. The U.S. operation to protect Saudi Arabia was called Desert Shield. But it was the name for the shock-and-awe offensive that would catch on: Desert Storm.

The effort to push Iraqi forces back to their own territory represented the largest international military effort since World War II and the biggest U.S. operation since Vietnam. It also marked a turning point in air power, the legacy of which is still affecting the Air Force to this day.

Air Force Times sat down with several service leaders to discuss the conflict, what lessons the service took away from it, and how air operations have evolved in the decades since.

The war itself

Pentagon reports from 1991 estimate that 1,200 U.S. aircraft participated in Desert Storm, flying 69,406 sorties across a nearly 40-day period that saw strikes against Iraqi military infrastructure, defenses, and missile launch sites. Roughly 60,830 airmen from all components of the service participated in the operation.

The U.S. lost 28 fixed-wing aircraft during the war, and 23 helicopters, though none in air-to-air engagements, according to information from the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

In return, the U.S. destroyed 39 Iraqi aircraft in air-to-air combat and damaged more than 375 Iraqi hardened aircraft shelters.

Twenty airmen were killed during engagements, and six more died due to non-combat related issues, the Air Force said.

Air mobility

But the Air Force’s mission began long before the first bomb was dropped.

Maj. Gen. Rowayne “Wayne” Schatz Jr., vice commander of Air Mobility Command, noted the service moved an estimated 472,000 people and 465,000 tons of cargo to the Persian Gulf in eight months.

“At the time, it was the largest airlift. It surpassed the Berlin airlift [in the 1940’s] fairly quickly,” he said.

One lesson AMC learned from Desert Storm was to be smarter in how it transports cargo, rather than the “industrial” system of shipping more equipment than was needed overseas, Schatz said.

“We moved a lot. We didn't have IT systems that allowed us to track individual items like we do today; so we moved, for example, whole warehouses to the Gulf,” he said. “And we spent a year moving stock — some never used — back.”

Now the service is “much more efficient,” Schatz said.

“Our mission planners take into account how much fuel we need to use and will use,” he said. “We consolidate loads, we make multiple stops…Instead of flying from the U.S. to the [Central Command] area of ops like we did in Desert Storm, we’ll put them on a ship, send them into [Europe] and hop them over to say, Afghanistan. And that’s faster and much less expensive than flying them in from the states. We’re more agile, less expensive, and we put things where they’re needed when they’re needed.”

Technology that has evolved since Desert Storm has also enabled air mobility to become much more advanced.

Night operations, once thought incrediblY difficult to pull off, are now common place, Schatz said.

“We only had a small force that was trained up on operating night vision goggles, primarily in the special operations community,” he said. “Today, everybody in a C-17 is night vision qualified, same with a C-130. Our aircraft now also is equipped with lighting for night ops.”

The planes themselves are getting better, too.

“The C-141, a great airplane, but back then it needed a long 7-10,000 ft. paved runway to operate on,” Schatz said. “Today, the C-17 can carry more equipment, can land in a 3,500 ft. dirt strip. That gives us more capability. It can operate inside the theater. We didn’t have some of those capabilities or advances during Desert Shield and Desert Storm.”

Communications, sensors, and navigation

As an A-10 pilot who received the Air Force Cross and Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in theater, Maj. Gen. Paul Johnson saw the Gulf War up close and personal. And as the current director of Operational Capability Requirements for Air Force strategic planning, he’s had a front-row seat to see how the service has changed in 25 years.

Desert Storm was the first major conflict where large amounts of computer technology were implemented, and it changed the way the war was fought.

It was the first time, Johnson said, that space had played a vital role in a conflict, with satellites providing capabilities to airmen and other troops.

“The ability of space to enable so much of what we do, navigation and timing through GPS, missile warning,” Johnson said.

“When we had Scud [missile] attacks going on, we had very accurate predictions where the Scuds were going to land.”
It was also the first conflict where airmen could count on fairly reliable satellite communications, he added.

“Those are things about command and control of air power that we hadn’t experienced before,” Johnson said.

Lt. Col. Scott Hoffman, the deputy chief for the operations division at ACC, noted that communication and signaling have continued to improve.

“We have technology like Link 16 for aircraft to communicate better, quicker, and technologies that allow us to do it similarly with [Joint Terminal Attack Controllers],” he said. “Info can be passed faster, reducing kill-chain time, and we can talk back to headquarters quicker to make decisions quicker.”

It also allowed military leaders to more easily track their own forces, said Jeffrey Williams, who worked as a colonel on planning and lessons learned for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Desert Storm.

“Back then, we [already started] track[ing] where the units were moving,” he said. “For the Army, and for forces on the ground, when we came into meetings for the Joint Staff, we could see the trace of where they were the night before or few short days. And that was my most exciting thing to see as a staff officer during that time.”

The new technology of GPS also enabled AMC to put supplies right where they were needed.

“We didn’t have [precision airdrop] capability during Desert Storm,” Schatz said. “Now, we’re able to [use] GPS guided parachutes, we’re able to put airdrops within a forward operating base…with the C-130 and C-17, in Desert Shield, Desert Storm, we didn't have GPS. Now we have internal guidance systems that can take us into any airfield we need to go to.”

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