A Different World A Different War

It seems as if America's overwhelming victory in Operation Desert Storm happened centuries ago. The world was certainly a different place when Saddam Hussein invaded his small, but wealthy, neighbor. Take a moment to remember back to that January day.

Where were you?.I was working for a major aerospace corporation at the time and on 16th of January, I had been sent all the way across the country to Los Angeles. I was going to make a very important presentation to our customer in the Air Force on Monday, 17 January.I arrived at LAX in the middle of the afternoon. I collected my luggage and climbed aboard the rental car shuttle.

After a short drive, I was dropped off at my car. Knowing that America was very close to going to war, I turned on the radio to get the latest news.Planes were in the air. The war had started.

The following is the story of the opening moments of Operation Desert Storm. It has been excerpted from "The Gulf War Chronicles" which is available through all online booksellers and can also be ordered at your local bookstore.---------.Before midnight on the 16th of January 1991, the wheels had been set in motion for the most devastating air attack in history.

Ships carrying Tomahawk missiles were in their assigned launch positions. E-3 Sentry, Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft were flying in four surveillance racetracks just south of the Saudi/Iraqi border. One hundred eighty tankers were orbiting south of the AWACS, just out of range of the Iraqi early warning radar. Fixed wing and rotary aircraft were being readied for battle.The staggering firepower of the United States Armed Forces had been brought to bear on the northern Saudi Arabian border in just a little over five months.

The Marines were concentrated along the Persian Gulf and thinly dispersed along the Kuwaiti border in small, fast moving screening units. These Marines were mounted in High Mobility Multi-Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWVs) and Light Armored Vehicles (LAVs).The forward units were deployed to signal advance warning of Iraqi offensive thrusts into Saudi Arabia.

Farther to the south, the remainder of the American force was positioned for counterattacks on advancing Iraqis or massed around forward supply and air bases. Every airfield within striking distance of Iraq and Kuwait was crammed full of Allied aircraft. Six Navy Aircraft carriers ringed Iraq in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. Hundreds of aircraft from America's newest F-117A Nighthawks, to the venerable B-52 Stratofortresses, were being readied for war. The airfields were so crowded that there was no room for the B-52s. They would fly their first missions directly from their bases in Spain, Diego Garcia, and even Louisiana.

The largest logistic chain in history stretched from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf all the way back to both coasts of the United States. Supplies and additional heavy armor units from the United States and Europe continued to pour in to Saudi Arabia. The hammer was cocked, there were rounds in the chamber and the trigger was being squeezed.

January 17th heralded the culmination of years of acquisitions of high-tech systems and shaping the world's largest all-volunteer military; months of deployments, planning, and "sharpening the sword"; weeks of diplomacy; and days of tension. The U.S. was planning to fight a four-dimensional "Air-Land Battle" for the first time.

It was to be orchestrated in a precise time sequence. The Iraqis, on the other hand, were preparing to fight a two dimensional war of attrition. They had no concept of air superiority, timing or tempo.

The Coalition would fight World War III while the Iraqis would fight World War I.At 0001 on the 17th, two-dozen F-117 Stealth fighters from the 415th Tactical Fighter Squadron started taking off from a secret airbase located deep in the mountains of Saudi Arabia. These ultra-high tech aircraft would lead the manned air assault deep into Iraq. Within an hour, over three hundred additional attack aircraft began taking off from aircraft carriers and airbases all over the Persian Gulf.

These attack aircraft were refueled and stacked up south of the Saudi border like jets on approach to O'Hare airport on a snowy Christmas Eve.At exactly 0140 the USS Wisconsin started launching Tomahawk Cruise missiles to join other Tomahawks being launched from the USS San Jacinto in the Red Sea. Tomahawk missiles would be the first to penetrate Iraqi airspace, flying under the radar and racing toward their targets at an altitude of fifty to one hundred feet above the terrain.Meanwhile, at a remote base in Western Saudi Arabia, two teams of Apache and Pave Low helicopters took off at approximately 0100.

The 101st Airborne Apaches were heavily armed. Each team had a 20th Special Operations Squadron Pave Low helicopter which provided GPS navigation, additional Electronic Countermeasure (ECM) and rescue capability. This small but deadly force, commanded by Army Lieutenant Colonel Richard Cody, was code named TASK FORCE NORMANDY in honor of the "Screaming Eagles'" spearhead operations nearly a half century earlier behind the French beaches.

At 0215, the two teams of TASK FORCE NORMANDY crossed the border. Their objectives were two Early Warning RADAR facilities in Western Iraq. The Apaches of the 1st Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment raced across the border, acquired their targets, locked on with their lasers and advanced on the objectives 'low and slow'. All of the lights in both facilities were on, suggesting that the Apaches' approach had not been detected.

When the Apaches came within range they ripple-launched their Hellfire missiles. At exactly 0238, the first missile struck its target "like a thunderbolt from the skies." Several missiles knocked out the facilities' electric power generators. The Apaches (firing twenty-seven Hellfire missiles) destroyed radar antennas, operations centers, generators, and barracks.

All of the missiles hit their targets. When the Apaches ran out of Hellfire missiles, they raked the area with rockets and thousands of rounds of 30-mm cannon fire. Both facilities were disabled within thirty seconds and completely destroyed in less than four minutes!.Eight U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles streaked into Iraq behind TASK FORCE NORMANDY and destroyed the local air defense command and control center.

These three attacks created a twenty-mile wide blackened radar corridor for our attack planes to enter Iraq.Within minutes, F-117s from the 415th Tactical Fighter Squadron bombed a radar control center one hundred sixty miles southwest of Baghdad, a radar facility in western Iraq, and an air defense site outside Baghdad extending the corridor deeper into Iraq. Swarms of waiting attack aircraft then swept north through the corridor and fanned out toward their targets.

EF-111 Ravens, EA-6B Prowlers, and EC-130 Compass Call Aircraft led the charge through the night sky. These electronic marvels of the night bombarded Iraq's surveillance and communications equipment with billions of electrons. The Compass Call aircraft attacked the communications airwaves, disrupting military radio traffic. The Ravens and Prowlers targeted surveillance and air defense radars. F-14 Tomcats and F-15C Eagles raced into Iraq to their assigned Combat Air Patrol (CAP) areas. Their mission was to fly cover for the Allied planes and engage any approaching Iraqi aircraft.

Air Force Captain Steve Tate approached Baghdad in his F-15C, along with his four wingmen just before 0300. Their assigned CAP area was over Baghdad and extending sixty miles to the east of the city. Captain Tate had a bird's eye view for the opening moments of the war. "Baghdad was a really pretty city that night.

As we started flying over the populous areas,. F-117s started dropping their bombs and then we started getting concussions all over the entire country. You could see it. At that point then, the sky started lighting up with AAA (Anti-Aircraft Artillery).

It looked like little sparkles going off all over. I figured we had some kind of cosmic weapon system out there just sprinkling all over the city. Then I started looking a little closer and I said, man-that's triple-A that they're shooting.

" Shortly after 0300, Captain Tate was alerted to the approach of an Iraqi fighter by an AWACS controller. He maneuvered his plane into attack position. At 0315 he shot down an Iraqi F1 Mirage with a single radar-guided Sparrow missile. This was the first air-to-air kill of the war and one of nine Iraqi aircraft to be shot down on the first night.Prior to the Gulf War, Baghdad was considered to have had one of the most formidable air defense systems on Earth.

The Iraqi air defenses over Baghdad were poised for an American attack. Russian ZSU23-4 radar-guided Anti-Aircraft-Artillery "AAA" guns were trained at altitudes below nine thousand feet. Between nine and twenty thousand feet, 57-mm and 85-mm flak could blanket the city with deadly, red-orange fireballs.

Surface-to-air missiles "SAMs" were deployed to strike aircraft at higher altitudes. An integrated Air Defense System containing an interconnected, nationwide network of RADARs and Command and Control centers directed all of these weapons. In order to penetrate these defenses, the Allied air strategy was, first, to blind the Iraqis by knocking out their surveillance radars using "invisible" F-117A Stealth fighters, Apache attack helicopters, and low-flying Tomahawk missiles. Next, they planned to disrupt any remaining radars with the high-tech ECM capabilities of Ravens and Prowlers. Finally, they would attack from very high altitudes with the remaining aircraft. Each strike package was accompanied by F-4G Wild Weasels to destroy any SAM and AAA radars that would illuminate the attack aircraft.

Many, if not all, of the American attack aircraft carried their own ECM pods for additional protection. One pilot reported that when a SAM was launched against his aircraft, he immediately activated his ECM and the SAM "went stupid," roaring off harmlessly into the night. For an extra measure of safety, all attacks on Downtown Baghdad were limited to the "invisible" F-117s and unmanned Tomahawk missiles.

Iraqi surveillance radars that were not destroyed in the opening moments of the assault either "whited-out" or displayed a multitude of phantom targets. The Iraqis knew they were under attack but they did not know from which direction. They were forced to activate their AAA and SAM radars.

The Wild Weasels immediately locked-on and launched High Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs). The Iraqis learned quickly that, if they activated their SAM radars they were signing their own death warrants. The SAM suppression effort was so successful on the first night that for the remainder of the war not one medium or high altitude SAM was fired under RADAR control. The only option left to the Iraqis was to fire blindly into the night sky, hoping that the massive amount of undirected fire would hit something.And we all were glued to CNN for most of the night as Iraqi gunners filled the Baghdad sky with streams of glowing tracers and an occasional SAM rocket plume.

The first war with Iraq was waged in the skies for six weeks, then on the ground for one-hundred hours. George H.W.

Bush liberated Kuwait but didn't venture forth toward Baghdad. His critics lambasted him for not finishing the job. Now his son has returned to Iraq and we are entangled in a conflict that is much different than Operation Desert Storm's decisive victory. Visit www.

gwchronicles.com and read The Gulf War Chronicles to understand how the world and the nature of warfare have changed in the last fourteen years and then visit www.MarinesintheGardenofEden.com to purchase Richard S.

Lowry's next book, Marines in the Garden of Eden, which tells the story of America's sons and daughters at war in Iraq.www.MarinesintheGardenofEden.com.

Richard S. Lowry is an internationally recognized military historian, author and eleventh generation American. He is a veteran of the U.S.

Navy Submarine Service. He published ,The Gulf War Chronicles in 2003. He has been published in Military Magazine, Leatherneck and the Marine Corps Gazette.

By: Richard Lowry