![]() ![]() ![]() Despite this surprise, he said, "there was a great deal of surface-to-air missile fire, and there was a great deal of anti-aircraft gun fire" that allied pilots for the most part were able to evade. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters. ![]() "I am rather pleased that we appear to have achieved tactical surprise," Gen. By this morning in Iraq, allied forces dominated Iraqi airspace. This tactic allowed succeeding waves of bombers to approach their targets from lower altitudes. The first wave of American F-117 and F-15E fighter-bombers, which struck Soviet-made air defense radars and their communication links to anti-aircraft missile and gun sites, approached their targets from a high altitude and used "smart" munitions and stand-off missiles to knock out Iraq's first-line air defenses, a military official said. In setting priorities for the initial phase of the war, United States military commanders put the highest priority on eliminating Iraqi defenses against air attack, which could have threatened the allies' air superiority as they destroyed key military targets, including fixed Scud-B missile launchers.īut the allied attacks seemingly were unable to target the mobile Scud-B launchers, which apparently emerged tonight to launch missile attacks on Israel. Iraq's air defense command was caught off guard at the outset of the Persian Gulf war by a combination of tactical surprise and nighttime stealth air attacks in which unmanned cruise missiles were used to protect allied pilots, military officials and analysts said today. ![]()
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