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Posted on 04/08/2003 12:33:57 PM PDT by green team 1999
Opening Night In Baghdad
By David A. Fulghum
In what may have been one of the most rapidly executed missions of the war so far, two F-117s of the 8th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron planned, loaded weapons, flew to Baghdad and bombed a residence where Saddam Hussein was spending the night--all in 4 hr.
One of the two F-117s involved in the first night attack on Saddam Hussein and his sons returns to its Middle Eastern base after the no-notice mission.
For the Mar. 19 mission that kicked off the conflict, members of the target cell in the combined air operations center (CAOC) at Prince Sultan AB, Saudi Arabia, chose the EGBU-27 1-ton penetrating bomb.
Two of the four bombs were dropped from an aircraft flown by Lt. Col. Mathew McKeon, commander of the unit.
"They had directed the use of those weapons, and we agreed," McKeon said. "That was a good choice because it took weather out of the equation. The EGBU-27 allows us to go ahead and drop with the [combined] GPS/INS guidance. But if we can see the target, we can also lase it [for even greater accuracy]."
However, the assignment must have come as somewhat of a shock because no one in the squadron had ever dropped one of those weapons.
"It had just been released to us in the last month or so," McKeon said. "There was a lot of hard work done by a host of people from Air Combat Command, the air staff and around the Air Force that helped [ready] the weapon for the platform."
Some of the targeting information came from the CAOC. Its J-2 intelligence organization offers a data bank of target information including imagery and GPS coordinates.
"It looked like a residential compound," McKeon said. "This particular structure just happened to be underground, and there was nothing but an open field on top of it. That [field] was where we were aiming. The building above ground was offset from the underground structure. We aimed roughly 100-200 ft. from the building, [although] it's hard to judge distances from a photo."
All four bombs were dropped almost simultaneously to ensure a hit in the right underground chambers.
"They were spread out," McKeon said. "I remember seeing the aim points on a photo. But on a photo you don't have much relative size to judge distances. I estimate maybe 50 ft. between bombs [in] a square pattern. We looked at some post-strike photos, and it appeared that the weapons worked as advertised. Much of the earth was undisturbed, so you had to look hard to see [the entry points]."
"The story is the team effort that went into [the mission] through the mission planners and the maintainers and the interface with the host wing," McKeon said. "We received indications that we might be tasked against that residential compound the day prior. We received enough information to allow us to do some of the initial key planning that takes a little time like pulling photos and going to directories for certain kinds of information. That's what saved us, because the next day when we did find out that we were on our way, we already had the information and could go through the normal [follow-on] planning process . . . at the last minute."
Initially, the mission was on for about an hour and then it was canceled. About 24 hr. later, there was a 1-hr. warning that the mission might be back on. And then the execute order arrived.
The mission "was a shot out of the blue," McKeon said. "We had no awareness of the target prior to the 19th. We had no indication we were going to do it up until 1:30 a.m. The attack was [scheduled for] around 5:30 a.m. We got the mission off the ground in 2 hr. and hit the target 2 hr. after that. After you begin to understand what happened, you gain an appreciation for the teamwork that went into it."
The F-117 wing had prepared, in an unspecific way, for just such a mission during the prior year.
"We had trained ourselves to be more responsive and flexible to provide airpower in a more timely manner," Mc-
Keon said. "Some of the training was self- initiated, and we were asked to participate in others by outside agencies. A lot of [the initiative came from] watching how the war in Afghanistan unfolded and the way airpower was needed there."
During the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war, a mission may have required 4 hr. of planning. By the time the squadron took off for Baghdad this year, planning was down to 30 min. or less.
"When we asked for the second aircraft to be loaded with weapons, the normal request process--which entails a great deal of time and paperwork--was done almost instantaneously," McKeon said. "The weapons arrived at the aircraft within tens of minutes. That was one of the key strokes in that mission.
"I would also point to the mission planners, the weaponeers [selection of the bomb, fuzing and programming of weapons support], the loaders and the fact that they were already familiar with the target area and the target and were able to generate flawless products in less than an hour," he said. Adding to the last-minute crush was new data on the bombs' different modes and settings for the weapon and aircraft that have to be figured for an accurate attack. Some of that information came from the test of two bombs that were dropped only 4.5 hr. earlier in California.
The attack on Saddam Hussein appears to have been a complete surprise to the Iraqi air defenses.
"The only facts that I know right now is that there was some anti-aircraft fire shot into the air two or three minutes following impact of the weapons," McKeon said. "Other than that, I can't comment on what the [Iraqis] may have seen."
Through the first week of the war, the F-117s focused on static targets, but indications were that the target set would expand.
"We practice to hit targets using various pieces of information," he said. "We don't train specifically for a certain type of mission. We practice skills--hitting targets, air refueling, being precise in timing and navigation. To us, it's not a function of what the target is, but how much good intelligence we have."
Since the initial strike, F-117 sortie rates have reflected the pace of the campaign. "It depends on what the Army is doing, the weather, what the coalition air forces have done and what targets have been missed, but there hasn't been a pattern," McKeon said.
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