By WGCDR David Thiele
IN the opening days of Gulf War I in 1990 the media were fixed
on the ferocity of the air campaign as coalition aircraft dominated
the skies of Iraq.
Key strategic installations throughout the nation were targeted
around the clock as allied air power set the foundations for the
ground assault. The “shock and awe” of the air campaign was created
through the characteristic of concurrent operations – the ability
to attack numerous targets with near simultaneity of operations.
Historically,
warfare had been conducted as a series of ground battles in which
specific objectives were captured in sequence. Not only the capture
of the objective itself but also the ground up to that objective
was required. In contrast, aircraft could manoeuvre beyond the
front lines and penetrate into enemy airspace to reach whatever
target was required without the taking of objectives in between.
The
ability to attack the enemy not only at the front lines but also
at discrete points anywhere within his homeland meant opposing
commanders had a far more complex battle problem to understand
and work. The more an enemy commander could be overloaded and
disoriented, the more likely a mistake that could lose the battle,
campaign or even the war.
Aircraft
brought about a new concept of warfare – “parallel warfare” in
which the number of targets that could be struck was only limited
by the number of assets available and not by the amount of ground
captured. While many might think the use of 1000 bombers against
a single target was anything but parallel in concept, these raids
did occur over more than one target at a time and added to the
disorientation of the enemy commanders.
With
modern systems the ability to shock the enemy into an almost incoherent
state has become a reality. While the number of aircraft needed
to strike any particular target slowly grew smaller as technology
allowed more accurate systems, we have reached the point where
one aircraft can engage many targets in parallel. The new Joint
Direct Attack Munition series of smart bombs means that a single
aircraft can drop its payload, with each bomb independently targeting
separate objectives through the use of the Global Positioning
System.
As
speed of the aircraft increased so the length of mission reduced.
Instead of being locked into a heated battle for long periods,
the aircraft was able to simply fly into a battlespace, attack
the selected target and then head back to an operating base to
be re-armed and refuelled, ready for the next mission.
With
the realisation of the capability of aerospace power also came
the demands for its use. The number of sorties being flown increased
as commanders began to see an aircraft on the ground as an opportunity
lost. The tempo of the aircraft, its rhythm or rate of operations
relative to the enemy, had to be matched to the battlefield objectives
and the capabilities of the operators and machines. Yet the problem
of maintaining a high tempo is that it creates fatigue among air
and ground crews, which if left unchecked can reduce effectiveness,
or worse, lead to accidents. The balance between operational requirement
and sustainment must always
