Thread: Random Thoughts on the Mighty Hog

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

ODS is the closest thing to the central european front WWIII fight we were planning as we've ever seen- and probably as close as we'll ever see. The Iraqis used several modern soviet systems set up according to soviet doctrine, and augmented with western comms, sensors, and missiles.

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

Contrast this with the A-10s who were flying in high threat environments that pilots invariably descirbed as "the fourth of july".
(...)
In Iraq A-10s (and other coalition jets) were coming under fire by DOZENS of missiles at a time sometimes, some of which were much bigger than MANPADS.(and huge quantities of AAA at the same time)

Originally Posted by M21Sniper

For the most part, the Iraqis knew when we were coming, and where...even late into the war(and often by the things that they COULDNT see- ie, we blow open a corridor to attack a specific kill box, they put all the shooters in said kill box on alert and pointing in the right direction and get them firing barrages.

Iraqi IADS Capabilities during ODS :

1. IADS Could Only Track a Limited Number of Threats
2. IADS Design Made the System Easy to Disrupt
3. IADS Design Was Known in Detail to U.S. Intelligence
4. Iraqi SAMs Were Old or Limited in Capability
5. AAA Guns Were Not Radar-Guided
6. The Iraqi Air Force Failed to Play a Role
7. Level of Training and Preparation among Iraqis Was Low



From GWAPS :

Beyond its aircraft, Iraq depended on a complex air defense network. The Iraqi system was highly centralized; four sectors, each with a Sector Operations Center (SOC), controlled air and air defense assets. The focus of that network was on meeting two threats: long distance Israeli air attacks or that posed by the Iranian Air Force, what little remained after the war. Under each SOC, Intercept Operation Centers (IOCs) ran ground control intercepts and SAM defenses and coordinated the flow of information from individual radar stations and visual reporting sites to the SOCs. Information collated at the center then flowed back down to antiaircraft units, air bases, and SAM sites.

At the center, the Air Defense Operations Center (ADOC) in Baghdad made the crucial decisions, while a French-designed computer system (KARI, Iraq spelled backwards in French) tied the network's diverse pieces together. KARI also possessed “land line and/or microwave (either troposcatter or line-of-sight)” to lower levels of command. Redundant land lines tied the section centers to the national command level, while the Iraqis placed the intercept centers near existing telecommunication trunks capable of carrying both voice and data communications. The French designed system modems so that each node could easily switch from one form of communication to another. The Iraqis also provided extensive protection to both types of centers by placing them in hardened shelters.

Not surprisingly, the Iraqis tied the SAMs closely to computer KARI. However, antiaircraft artillery, relied on barrage firing on preset azimuths to hit attacking aircraft. The Iraqis believed that a combination of SAMs and antiaircraft artillery would impose sufficient attrition on attacking forces; at medium to high altitudes SAMs would shoot down many Coalition aircraft; should the attackers go low, then antiaircraft guns would inflict heavy casualties. Finally, Iraqi aircraft, protected by hardened aircraft shelters, could intervene at selected moments to add to Coalition losses.

Unfortunately for the Iraqis, KARI possessed a number of weaknesses. French experts oriented the system to protect Iraq from attack from the east (Iran) and west (Israel). Coverage towards Saudi Arabia was weak. SAM and antiaircraft defenses were strong in some sectors; admittedly, Baghdad was an extraordinarily heavily defended target. Strong air defenses also protected Basra, Scud-launching sites in western Iraq, and Iraq's northern oil fields. But much of the rest of the country lay open - a factor that allowed allied aircraft to approach targets from different directions. Moreover, the layout of the western and central sectors created a dead zone pointed directly at Baghdad from Saudi Arabia. Not surprisingly, Iraqi defensive systems could only handle threat levels consistent with Middle Eastern force structures. Indeed, to the Iraqis, the system's capacity to track targets seemed more than sufficient.

But what Coalition air forces could throw at the Iraqis was something well beyond the capacity of Iraqi information, command and control, and weapons system capabilities. The largest weakness, however, lay in the fact that Iraqi operators and pilots could not handle either the technological or tactical competence of Coalition forces. Exacerbating their deficiencies was the low level of training and preparation among Iraqis in comparison to the levels of their opponents.

From the GAO :

Contrary to widespread prewar and postwar claims, the Iraqi IADS was not “robust” or “state of the art.” Rather, its computers were limited in their capacity to monitor incoming threats; the system was vulnerable to disruption by attacks on a relatively few key nodes; and its design was known in detail to US Intelligence. IADS had been designed to counter limited threats from the east (Iran) and west (Israel), not an attack from a coalition that included nearly 1,600 U.S. combat aircraft primarily from the south, hundreds of cruise missiles, and the most advanced technologies in the world.

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On paper, Iraq’s air defense system appeared to be formidable to many observers before the air campaign. Iraq had purchased what was widely described as a state-of-the-art integrated air defense system (IADS) from France, which linked 17 intercept operations centers (IOC) to four sector operations centers (SOC). The IOCs were linked to air bases with interceptor aircraft, as well as to dozens of surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft artillery sites. With multiple and redundant communication modes, the system could, in theory, rapidly detect attacking aircraft and direct antiaircraft defenses against them.

However, the Iraqi IADS had been designed to counter limited threats from either Israel, to its west, or Iran, to its east, not from the south and north, nor from a massive coalition force to which the United States alone contributed more than 1,000 combat aircraft. As the Navy’s Strike Projection Evaluation and Anti-Air Research (SPEAR) department reported before the war:

“The command elements of the Iraqi air defense organization (the . . . interceptor force, the IADF [Iraqi Air Defense Force], as well as Army air defense) are unlikely to function well under the stress of a concerted air campaign.”

Similarly, on almost every performance dimension, the Iraqi IADS was remarkably vulnerable to massive and rapid degradation. Evidence from the Air Force, DIA, GWAPS, SPEAR, and other expert sources shows that the principal deficiencies of the Iraqi IADS were that (1) it could track only a limited number of threats, and it had very limited capabilities against aircraft with a small radar cross-section, such as the F-117; (2) its design was easy to disrupt, and the key IADS nodes were easy to target; and (3) many of its SAMs were old or limited in capability, and the Iraqi air force played almost no role in the conflict, although it had been intended to be a major component of air defenses.

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The fact that the coalition knew which IADS nodes to hit to inflict the most damage, the most quickly, was critical to its rapid degradation, and to the achievement of a form of air supremacy—elimination of an integrated, coordinated air defense.