Precision Bombing - Reaffirmation of The Gulf Experience

Reaffirmation of The Gulf Experience

Nor was the first Gulf War an isolated example. From August 30 through September 14, 1995, for the first time in its history, NATO forces engaged in air combat operations, against Bosnian Serb forces in the former Yugoslavia during the Bosnian War. A total of 293 aircraft based at fifteen European locations and operating from three aircraft carriers flew 3,515 sorties in Operation Deliberate Force, to deter Serbian aggression. Somewhat less than 700 of these sorties targeted command and control, supporting lines of communication, direct and essential targets, fielded forces, and integrated air defenses. A total of 67 percent of all such targets engaged were destroyed; 14 percent experienced moderate to severe damage, 16 percent light damage, and only 3 percent were judged to have experienced no damage.

In contrast to the Gulf War, the vast majority of NATO munitions employed in the Bosnian conflict were precision ones: in fact, over 98 percent of those used by American forces. American forces employed a total of 622 precision munitions, consisting of 567 laser-guided bombs, 42 electro-optical or infrared-guided weapons, and 13 Tomahawk Land Attack cruise missiles. American airmen dropped only 12 "dumb" bombs. Precision weaponry accounted for 28 percent of NATO munitions dropped by non-US attackers. Sorties by Spanish, French, and British strike aircraft dropped 86 laser-guided bombs, and French, Italian, Dutch, and United Kingdom attackers dropped 306 "dumb" bombs. Overall, combining both the American and non-American experience in Bosnia, there were 708 precision weapons employed by NATO forces, and 318 non-precision ones; thus precision weaponry accounted for 69 percent of the total employed in the NATO air campaign. Combined statistics of American and NATO experience indicate that the average number of precision weapons per designated mean point of impact (DMPI) destroyed was 2.8. In contrast, the average number of "dumb" general purpose bombs per DMPI destroyed was 6.6. The average number of attack sorties per DMPI destroyed was 1.5.

As a result of NATO's first sustained air strike operations, all military and political objectives were attained: safe areas were no longer under attack or threatened, heavy weapons had been removed from designated areas, and Sarajevo's airport could once again open, as could road access to the city. More importantly, the path to a peace agreement had been secured. In total, for an overall expenditure of approximately 64 weapons per day—69 percent (44) of which were precision weapons—NATO forces achieved their military and political objectives. The leverage that this weaponry gave over Balkan aggressors and the recognition of what precision air attack means to decision-makers in the modern world was enunciated by former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke after the conclusion of the campaign and the settlement of the Dayton Peace Accords:

"One of the great things that people should have learned from this is that there are times when air power--not backed up by ground troops--can make a difference."

The key, of course, is in the targeting, for air power is like other forms of military power projection in one important regard: namely, to achieve best effect, it must be used overwhelmingly, as part of a well-thought-out strategy, and not merely as a tool of diplomatic signal-sending. Put another way, if the foe is targeted effectively, the foe will get the message. This has been, of course, one of the great concerns we have seen in the current air campaign over Yugoslavia and Kosovo, namely whether the air effort being expended is consistent with what prudent use of air power teaches us from the past.

Holbrooke's statement hints at one of the major effects of precision, namely that the traditional notion of massing a large ground force to confront an opponent, particularly on a "field of battle" is now rendered archaic. To a degree, throughout military history, the span of influence of ground forces was always spreading out the battle area at the expense of "mass." As the zone of lethality an individual soldier could command increased, the spacing between soldiers expanded as well. But the precision attacker overcomes the expansion of the linear battlefield by exercising the ability to undertake individual targeting at ranges far in excess of even the most powerful artillery. Thus airplanes, "smart" ballistic missiles, or cruise missiles, launched hundreds of miles away from a front-line, can then pass beyond that front-line for a distance of hundreds of miles more before targeting some key enemy facility or capability that directly influences the success of enemy operations at the front itself. This is true flexibility, of a sort again unknown to previous military eras. Further, it speaks to a changing paradigm in warfare: from the classic infantry-armor paradigm to a paradigm emphasizing remote fires: air and artillery.