Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign sic-2 Read online

  Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

  ( Study in Command - 2 )

  Tom Clancy

  Chuck Horner

  General Chuck Horner was the right man in the right place at the right time. Combining a broad experience of all aspects of aerial warfare with a deep respect for and knowledge of Arab culture, Horner commanded the U.S. and allied air assets during Desert Shield and Desert Storm — the forces of a dozen nations — and was responsible for the design and execution of one of the most devastating air campaign in history. Never before has the Gulf air war and its planning, a process filled with controversy and stormy personalities, been revealed in such rich, provocative detail. Beyond that, however, Air Command is the story of two revolutions: of how a service damaged by Vietnam reinvented itself through vision, determination, and brutally hard work — in Horner's words, "We had to learn how to be an Air Force all over again" — and of how war changed fundamentally in the last decade of this century, not only in the new dominance of air power but in all aspects. It is a story of speed, accuracy, efficiency, decentralization, information, and initiative, as well as smoke, fear, courage, and blood. It is a front-row seat to a man, an institution, a war, and a way of war that together make this an instant classic of military history.

  Tom Clancy, Chuck Horner

  Every Man a Tiger: The Gulf War Air Campaign

  DEDICATION

  Normally, a book like this would be dedicated to those who paid the ultimate price in the desert; but here a different view is in order. Those of us who deployed were proud to be there; it was an honor to be allowed to participate in the effort to free Kuwait. At the same time, we felt gratitude for the troops who didn’t deploy and were supporting us with spare parts and doing the other things that needed to be done back home or at their bases overseas. We were also extremely grateful to the reservists who were activated to man our home bases — guarding the gate, or working in the hospitals, or taking care of our families. Most of all, we felt a deep sense of gratitude to the people who supported us so vigorously with mail, cookies, and encouragement. They didn’t fully understand why we were in the desert; they sure were concerned about a war and its attendant casualties; but they gave us their love and prayers without reservations.

  INTRODUCTION

  Ionce observed that fighter pilots are little boys who never really get past the stage of buzzing past little girls on their bikes. I still believe this to be true. But then how does one deal with a general of fighter pilots? All the more so, how does one deal with a professional warrior who has the most elegant and subtle intellectual disguise this side of Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber?

  Well, okay, you need a few things right off. To fly an F-16 fighter plane, you have to have the skills of a concert pianist — in fact, you need to know how to play two pianos at once, since all the buttons you use to fight the airplane (that’s why it’s called a fighter) and all the buttons that work the radar, guns, and missiles are located on the stick and throttle quadrant so that you can kill people without having to look down. So, there you are, flying an aircraft that looks and evidently acts like a Chevy Corvette (but in three dimensions), head up, eyes out of the cockpit, looking for some Bad Guy to give a Slammer (AIM-120 AMRAAM missile) to… Well, just flying the damned airplane isn’t all that easy — which is why, as anyone can tell you, one of the differences between a fighter pilot and an ape is that it doesn’t cost $1,000,000 to train an ape.

  There are numerous other such differences between fighter pilots and apes, of course — you can, for example, trust your wife around an ape…

  Anyway, where were we? Oh, yeah. There you are, at 20,000 feet with a highly expensive fighter plane strapped to your back, flying it with the sort of skill the average guy with perfect eyesight, the reflexes of a mongoose, and the killer instinct of Jack Dempsey after a few hard drinks can develop in, oh, ten or twenty years of practice. Right hand is on the stick, identifying the various weapons-control buttons by feeling with your fingertips, while your left hand is doing the same on the throttle quadrant. There are other people out there who want to kill you. Some in their own airplanes, others on the ground with surface-to-air missiles, which are like fighter planes, but dumber, though somewhat faster, and still others with various firearms ranging from the ubiquitous AK-47 7.62mm (.30 caliber) to 100 millimeter (four-inch, and these bullets explode when they hit or get close to you), because, amazingly enough, not everyone likes fighter pilots.

  But, getting back to business, this fighter jock is a general officer. He isn’t merely supposed to mount his gallant steed and tilt off against a willing foe on the field of honor. He’s supposed to lead, and command others like himself, because all of this fighting stuff is supposed to make sense, because you’re not merely a well-paid and highly trained ape-substitute. You are, in fact, supposed to make a plan on how to use all those three-dimensional Corvettes that carry bombs and missiles with the purpose of enforcing your country’s will on somebody who might not quite see things our way.

  A fighter pilot is, when you get down to it, a warrior, a person who puts himself in harm’s way, and does it all by himself. Such people are both the same as, and different from, other warriors. The differences are mainly technical. The fighter jock drives something sleek, neat, and expensive, and loves driving it (as the wife of a naval aviator once wrote: “I’m his mistress — he’s married to the airplane”) because it’s what sets him apart. That’s what makes him bigger than other men, and this is something the fighter jock never forgets. And so, in the tradition of armored knights of medieval times, there he is, up there for everyone to see, proud and alone, doing his job for his country.

  They don’t have to look like killers. We so often think all professional soldiers should look like John Wayne. A good and serious man, the Duke, but he got no closer to combat operations than the offensive line of USC’s football team back in the 1930s. I mean, nobody will ever mistake Chuck Horner for Duke Wayne. This transplanted Iowa farm boy is so laid back that one sometimes wants to stick a needle in his arm to make sure he’s still alive, but then you remember that we don’t select fighter pilots or flag officers off park benches, and you look a little closer and try to penetrate the disguise. What’s the difference between a fighter pilot and an ape? You don’t entrust an ape with the safety of your country.

  This overage farm boy has the eyesight of a gyrfalcon, and he can play two pianos at the same time. As a team member of Lockheed-Martin, he still has access to his beloved F-16. Along the way, he’s picked up a few long tonnes of knowledge, and more than that, he’s got a place inside his brain where he’s systematized the science and application of air power in the same way that Isaac Newton once organized physics. It’s not just longer-range artillery. It’s a way to attack an enemy systematically — all over, all at the same time. And you can do real harm that way. Not just punching him in the nose. Not just twisting his arm. Going after every square inch at once: Hi, there, you are now at war, hope you enjoy the ride.

  Horner also, to quote John Paul Jones, has something a professional officer must have: “the nicest sense of personal honor.” Right and wrong are identifiable in Chuck’s universe, and separate. In a community where a man’s word is his life, Chuck Horner’s word is found in gold lettering on an adamantine wall of granite. He is a man of the American Midwest, and he has all the values and qualities one associates with such an origin: honesty, fair play, respect for others who may look or talk a little differently. He is the shrewdest of observers, and he’s a man who enjoyed being a Wild Weasel, a fighter jock tasked to finding
and killing SAM sites — that is, eliminating the people and things whose job it was to eliminate him. Weaseldom was dangerous. Chuck Horner enjoyed the game.

  For this reason, and others, Chuck Horner is regarded as a “fighter pilot’s fighter pilot” by a friend of mine who went “downtown” over Baghdad a few times himself back in 1991. The combination of brains, skill, and pure physical talent kept him alive when other men were less fortunate. When the Air Force nearly collapsed in the 1970s, he was one of the men who saved it, and rebuilt it in the 1980s, not just fixing the broken parts, but defining what an air force is supposed to be. What such organizations do came largely from Chuck’s mind. It’s business for Chuck, and a serious one, in which at best the people who die wear the other sort of uniform, something General Horner keeps in mind.

  Chuck’s also a superb storyteller, as you are about to see, with a keen eye for detail, and he’s blessed with a puckish sense of humor that shines over a glass of something adult in a comfortable corner of the local O-Club, while you also learn a lot of things, because he’s a dazzlingly effective teacher. The short version is: Chuck Horner is a hero who has paid his dues many, many times. He’s been there, done that, and he has the T-shirt to prove it. In the first war of smart bombs, computers, and high-performance aircraft flown by true professionals, Chuck led the winning side, proving that the difference between a fighter pilot and an ape is that the pilot is quite a bit smarter, and better to have on your side.

  — Tom Clancy

  DESERT SHIELD / STORM TIMELINE

  AUGUST 1990

  2 Iraq invades Kuwait

  6 U.S. forces gain permission to base operations in Saudi Arabia

  7 F-15s depart for Persian Gulf

  7 USS Independence battle group arrives south of Persian Gulf

  8 1st TFW and 82nd Airborne arrive in Persian Gulf

  NOVEMBER 1990

  8 200,000 additional troops sent from United States

  29 United Nations authorizes force against Iraq

  JANUARY 1991

  12 Congress approves offensive use of U.S. troops

  15 United Nations withdrawal deadline passes

  17 D day. Coalition launches airborne assault

  18 Iraq launches Scud missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia

  25 Air Force begins attacking Iraqi aircraft shelters

  26 Iraqi aircraft begin fleeing to Iran

  29 Battle of Khafji begins. Airpower destroys Iraqi force

  FEBRUARY 1991

  24 G day. Start of 100-hour ground battle

  26 Fleeing Iraqi forces destroyed along “Highway of Death”

  28 Cease-fire becomes effective at 8 A.M. Kuwait time

  PROLOGUE

  3 August 1990

  On Friday morning of the August week in 1990 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, Lieutenant General Chuck Horner was at 27,000 feet, cruising at.9 Mach (540 knots), and nearing the North Carolina coast. He was headed out to sea in the Lady Ashley, a recent-model Block 25 F-16C, tail number 216, that had been named after the daughter of his crew chief, Technical Sergeant José Santos. Horner’s aide, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Hartinger, Jr., known as “Little Grr,” was on Horner’s left side, a mile out, slightly high. Horner and Hartinger were en route to a mock combat with a pair of F-15Cs out of the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing (TFW) at Langley Air Force Base in Tidewater Hampton, Virginia: a winner-take-all contest that would match wits and flying skills. After that, they were all scheduled to form up and return to Langley AFB as a flight of four aircraft.

  It was a bright, clear day — a good day to be in the air. Horner felt the joy he always did when flying thousands of feet above the earth in a fast and nimble aircraft, an emotion that few others ever had the opportunity to experience. Part of it was the feeling of unity with his aircraft — the fighter was like an extension of his mind and body. The brain commanded and the aircraft responded, with no other conscious motions. In an air battle, a pilot had no time for unnecessary thoughts. He evaluated angle, range, and closure with his target, while keeping track of all the fast, nimble aircraft that were trying to drive him in flames out of the sky. He thought and the jet reacted.

  It was Hartinger’s turn to lead, to call how he and Horner would fly from takeoff to landing, and he had set up a two-versus-two air combat tactics mission — what fighter pilots call a 2v2 ACT — with the F-15s. Horner was looking forward to it. At Langley, he was scheduled to attend an aircraft accident briefing with his Air Force boss, General Bob Russ, commanding general of the Tactical Air Command. Accident briefings were never pleasant experiences, even when the accidents were proven to be unavoidable, so Horner was happy for the chance to “turn and burn” with the guys from Langley before he hit the painful part of the day.

  His policy was to try to maintain his combat skills whenever he flew his F-16. Even when traveling to an administrative meeting such as the one at Langley, he liked to make the trip worthwhile. It was a good way to stay up-to-date with the younger — often much younger — pilots he might someday lead into real battle.

  He was in his fifties, but he wasn’t too old to go up against an enemy. He could hold his own with most U.S. fliers; and those fliers were better than 95 percent of anyone they might meet. What he’d lost in eyesight and physical stamina, he made up for with experience and brains. Experience atrophied with disuse, however, and he needed to know firsthand not only that his combat skills were current and credible, but also what the younger fighter jocks were doing, what they were practicing — their aerial, radio, and shooting discipline and tactics.

  Fighter pilots are members of a very tiny, elite tribe, who also happen to be the most arrogant group on earth. Flying high-performance jets is a consummate art, and to be merely somewhere near the top of the food chain doesn’t begin to make it. They want to be the top. If there’s nobody around you left to beat, there’s still yourself. That means if a commander does not remain credible, a pilot may be reluctant to obey his lead. In war, failure to obey in the strictest manner can get people killed. So Horner felt he owed the people he commanded the duty to remain up-to-date in the use of his equipment, in tactics, and in understanding the stresses they faced.

  Since April 1987, Chuck Horner had been commander of Ninth Air Force, which supervised the Air Force’s Active and Reserve Fighter Units east of the Mississippi River. In that position, he also served as the air component commander for the Central Command, the United States military organization responsible for national security interests in the Middle East and parts of East Africa (except for Israel, Syria, and Lebanon). In 1990, Central Command was led by Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf. It was Horner’s job as CENTAF Commander to work with his foreign counterparts in a region that stretched from Egypt to Pakistan and to plan military operations — air campaigns that might be needed should a crisis arise that endangered the interests of the United States. It was also his job to make sure that U.S. air units were combat-ready, and that the logistics were in place to support them during a rapid deployment in peacetime or war. And finally, it was his job to command air assets that had been deployed to the region — during the recent Iran-Iraq war, for instance, USAF E-3A AWACS radar aircraft had kept watch over Saudi Arabia in order to prevent the local conflict from spilling over the border. When Horner wasn’t visiting his assigned bases in the United States, he was visiting the nations in the CENTCOM area of responsibility.

  The job kept Horner in the air and away from home much of the time. Somewhat unexpectedly, he had discovered that he had a second home in the Gulf region. Over the years he had made many friends there, especially with other airmen, and as he’d grown more familiar with them, both professionally and as a guest in their homes, his respect for them had increased. He’d come to admire their ways, their differences from westerners, their pride in their own nations, and their reverence for God. In time he’d also come to love the nations that had given them birth, with their rich history, culture, and scenic beauty; he found himself devouring whatev
er books on them he could find.

  When these friendships developed, he had no idea how valuable they’d turn out to be later.

  ★ The two hats Chuck Horner wore — as Ninth Air Force and CENTAF Commanders — derived from a generally little-known but far-reaching transformation in military structure brought about by the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act. Goldwater-Nichols revolutionized the way the United States military services operate.

  Each of the military services has its own culture and traditions, its own sources of pride and ways of doing things, but these differences, in addition to the inevitable competition for resources and status, can easily get in the way of cooperation. Meanwhile, the speed — the tempo — of warfare grows ever faster; and war becomes more lethal. The U.S. military must be able to project massive, shattering force quickly from many directions — land, sea, air, and space — which means, among other things, that service parochialism is an expensive and dated luxury. The new military mantra is “jointness”—all the services must be able to work together as well and as comfortably as with members of their own organizations.

  Goldwater-Nichols aimed to implement “ jointness” by breaking the hold of individual services on their combat forces. All operational control was taken away and given to regional Commanders in Chief (Europe, Central, Pacific, Southern, and to some extent Atlantic, Korea, and Strategic) and functional Commanders in Chief (Transportation, Space, Special Operations, and to some extent Strategic and Atlantic Command). This meant that the services became responsible only for organizing, training, and equipping military forces. Once the forces were operationally ready, they were assigned to one of the Unified Commanders. Thus, a fighter wing in Germany no longer was controlled by the Air Force, but would logically be assigned to EUCOM, a destroyer off the coast of Japan to PACOM, a satellite to SPACECOM, and a stateside army division could be assigned to any of the unified commands.