Chapter Six
FRICTION AND OPERATIONAL PROBLEMS
Although NATO’s use of air power in Allied Force must, in the end, be adjudged a success, some troubling questions arose well before the air war’s favorable outcome over a number of unexpected and disconcerting problems encountered along the way. Some of those problems, most notably in the area of what air planners came to call “flex” targeting of elusive VJ troops on the move in Kosovo, were arguably as much a predictable result of prior strategy choices as a reflection of any inherent deficiencies in the air weapon itself.[1] Of more serious concern were identified shortcomings that indicated needed fixes in the realm of tactics, techniques and procedures, and, in some cases, equipment. Beyond the problem of locating, identifying, and engaging dispersed and hidden light infantry targets, the shortcomings arousing the greatest consternation included assessed deficiencies in SEAD, excessively lengthy information and intelligence cycle time, inadvertent civilian casualties, and some serious deficiencies in alliance interoperability. Also of special concern were the many problems spotlighted by the U.S. Army’s plagued deployment of its AH-64 Apache helicopters to Albania and the full extent of U.S. global military overcommitment that the Allied Force experience brought to light.
FRUSTRATIONS WITH THE SEAD EFFORT
In contrast to the far more satisfying SEAD experience in Desert Storm, the initial effort to suppress Serb air defenses in Allied Force did not go nearly as well as expected. The avowed going-in objective of the SEAD operation was to neutralize as many of Serbia’s SAMs and AAA sites as possible, particularly its estimated 16 SA-3 LOW BLOW and 25 SA-6 STRAIGHT FLUSH fire control radars. Another early goal was to take out or suppress long-range surveillance radars that could provide timely threat warning to MANPADS operators carrying shoulder-fired infrared SAMs like the SA-7.
The Serbs, however, kept their SAMs defensively dispersed and operating in an emission control (EMCON) mode, prompting concern that they were attempting to draw NATO aircraft down to lower altitudes where they could be more easily engaged. Before the initial strikes, there were reports of a large-scale dispersal of SA-3 and SA-6 batteries from nearly all of the regular known garrisons. The understandable reluctance of enemy SAM operators to emit and thus render themselves cooperative targets made them much harder to find and attack, forcing allied aircrews to remain constantly alert to the radar-guided SAM threat throughout the air war.[2] It further had the effect of denying some high-risk targets for a time, increasing force package size, and increasing overall SEAD sortie requirements.
Moreover, unlike in the more permissive Desert Storm operating environment, airspace availability limitations in the war zone typically made for high predictability on the part of attacking NATO aircraft, and collateral damage avoidance considerations frequently prevented the use of the most tactically advantageous attack headings. The resulting efforts to neutralize the Serb IADS were, according to retired U.S. Navy Admiral Leighton Smith, the commander of NATO forces in Bosnia from 1994 to 1996, “like digging out potatoes one at a time.”[3] The commander of USAFE, General Jumper, later added that the CAOC could never get NATO political clearance to attack the most troublesome early warning radars in Montenegro, which meant that the Serbs knew when attacks were coming most of the time.[4] In other cases, the cumbersome command and control arrangements and the need for prior CAOC approval before fleeting pop-up IADS targets detected by Rivet Joint or other allied sensors could be attacked resulted in many lost opportunities and few hard kills of enemy SAM sites.
Operation Allied Force drew principally on 48 USAF F-16CJs and 30 Navy and Marine Corps EA-6B Prowlers, along with Navy F/A-18s and German and Italian electronic-combat role (ECR) Tornados, to conduct the suppression portion of allied counter-SAM operations. Land-based Marine EA-6Bs were tied directly to attacking strike packages and typically provided ECM support for missions conducted by U.S. aircraft. Navy Prowlers aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt supported carrier-launched F-14 and F/A-18 raids and strike operations by allied fighters. The carrier-based Prowlers each carried two AGM-88 high-speed antiradiation missiles (HARMs). Those operating out of Aviano, in contrast, almost never carried even a single HARM, preferring instead to load an extra fuel tank because of their longer route to target. This compromise was often compensated for by teaming the EA-6B with HARM-shooting F-16CJs or Luftwaffe Tornado ECR variants.[5]
The USAF’s EC-130 Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft was used to intercept and jam enemy voice communications, thereby allowing the EA-6Bs to concentrate exclusively on jamming enemy early warning radars. The success of the latter efforts could be validated by the RC-135 Rivet Joint ELINT aircraft, which orbited at a safe distance from the combat area. The biggest problem with the EA-6B was its relatively slow flying speed, which prevented it from keeping up with ingressing strike aircraft and diminished its jamming effectiveness as a result. On occasion, the jamming of early warning radars forced Serb SAM operators to activate their fire-control radars, which in turn rendered them susceptible to being attacked by a HARM. Accordingly, enemy activation of SAM fire-control radars was limited so as to increase their survivability.[6]
SEAD operations conducted by F-16CJs almost invariably entailed four-ship formations. The spacing of the formations ensured that the first two aircraft in the flight were always looking at a threat area from one side and the other two were monitoring it from the opposite side. That enabled the aircraft’s HARM Targeting System (HTS), which only provided a 180-degree field of view in the forward sector, to maintain 100-percent sensor coverage of a target area whenever allied strike aircraft were attempting to bomb specific aim points within it. According to one squadron commander, the F-16CJs would arrive in the target area ahead of the strikers and would build up the threat picture before the strikers got close, so that the latter could adjust their ingress routes accordingly. In so doing, the F-16CJs would provide both the electronic order of battle and the air-to-air threat picture as necessary. The squadron commander added that enemy SAM operators got better at exploiting their systems at about the same rate that the F-16CJ pilots did, resulting in a continuous “cat and mouse game” that made classic SAM kills “hard to come by.”[7]
1
The “flex” targeting effort entailed the launching of combat aircraft without specific assigned target locations and coordinates, although tasked to seek out various classes of targets, either through free search or upon being directed to a specific area of known or suspected enemy activity by the CAOC or an airborne forward air controller.
4
General John Jumper, USAF, “Oral Histories Accomplished in Conjunction with Operation Allied Force/Noble Anvil.”
5
Robert Wall, “Sustained Carrier Raids Demonstrate New Strike Tactics,”
6
Robert Wall, “Airspace Control Challenges Allies,”
7
Tim Ripley, “Viper Weasels,”