Strange priorities

What it had was a fairly large inventory of anti-aircraft artillery and some surface-to-air missiles for air defence, but all of them required the attacking aircraft to come low to be within the range of these weapons. And it was clear that given the technological superiority, the US would launch weapons from above the lethal envelope of these systems.

In effect, the situation, even more than that at the beginning of the 1991 Gulf War, was tailor-made in favour of the coalition. They enjoyed air supremacy of the type very few militaries have had the luxury of enjoying for the past ten decades. Since no air effort was needed to fight a battle for air superiority, and the full weight of air power could be directed to interdiction and offensive support of the ground forces, the logical strategy for the allied forces was to have concentrated the weight of attack of air strikes on the more specific military targets like the Republic Guard divisions to reduce their fighting potential and damage their morale in the process.

At the same time, sufficient assets were available, or should have been available to provide close air support for the rapidly advancing ground forces. But according to senior US Air Force officers, this is not the way air power was used.

The air war started with the attack on Saddam Hussein. But the strikes on the Republican Guard and other military targets commenced almost five days later by which time Saddam Hussein was moving the Al Nida armoured and Medina infantry division of the Republican Guards south from Baghdad to stop the spearheads of US 3rd Infantry Division and Marine Corps.

In terms of air effort, US Air Force increased from 144 sorties at the start of the air campaign to around 900 strike sorties four days later. The sandstorm reduced this to a fraction during the following days. The weight of attack was also low. It was believed before the war started that the US would drop 3,000-odd precision-guided munitions (PGMs) during the first 24 hours.

In reality an average of 400 PGMs were dropped during the first four days. This corresponded to around one-third of the weapons dropped by Indian Air Force in the first four days of the 1971 War.

US experts believe that, after smarting from charges of irrelevance during the Kosovo air campaign and Afghanistan War (especially the setbacks in Anaconda), the US Army was racing to close with the enemy quickly, and did not plan for coordinating available air power with the ground forces.

Instead of calling for the specialised heavily armed A-10 aircraft and Harriers for close air support, the ground forces tried to do it on their own on the strength of their large attack helicopter forces during the initial days.

The fire co-ordination line (behind which fixed wing fighter aircraft cannot be employed) was set so far forward (in anticipation of rapid advance) that close air support tasks were left entirely to attack helicopters. One also senses a streak here to demonstrate autonomy from the air force which afflicts many militaries.

The result was that “The helicopters were being shot to pieces because they’re flying where everyone on the battlefield can hit them.” As many as 30 Apache attack helicopters were destroyed by Iraqi ground-based weapons near Najaf last week in a single operation, while two M-1 Abrams tanks were also disabled for the first time in history.

Air Commodore (retd) Jasjit Singh, editorial consultant to The Indian Express, will analyse the war daily. Readers can send their queries to him at jasjitsingh@expressindia.com