Airpower in the Gulf War

Early on the morning of 17 January 1991, waves of coalition aircraft took off into the dark Arabian night. Air Force tankers and strike aircraft began the largest air campaign since the Second World War. A lost of 160 tankers at multiple refueling tracks outside of Iraqi

radar range awaited the strikers so they could “tank” before entering Iraqi air space. Airborne warning and control system (AWACS)

aircraft kept track of friendly forces and focused their probing radar eye deep into Iraqi territory. The challenges facing the AWACS were

considerable; the young E-3 crews had to act as lookouts, fighter directors, and airborne air traffic controllers.

As the clock edged towards 3:00 A.M. Baghdad time, the scheduled opening of the air offensive, a number of events took place. In the

dark skies, a greater diversity of aircraft flew towards Iraq than had been airborne at any time since the Second World War. In the first

hours of the air war, nearly 400 coalition strike aircraft stormed across Iraq, supported by hundreds of others over the Gulf region and over

the fleet at sea. At sea, ships launched Tomahawk and land-attack cruise missiles and carriers launched aircraft to protect the fleet and

hit selected targets ashore. Altogether, in that first night, 668 aircraft attacked Iraq—530 from the Air Force (79 percent), 90 from five

Navy carriers and the Marine Corps (13 percent), 24 from Great Britain (4 percent), and 12 each from France and Saudi Arabia (2

percent each). In the first 24 hours, American and coalition airmen flew 1,300 combat sorties. In one F-117 cruising over Baghdad, a stealth pilot carefully kept the crosshairs of his laser designator on a building the principal master