The B-52 bomber, the George Foreman of the effort against Iraq, is an awesome, aging slugger.
Although capable of carrying cruise missles and nuclear bombs, the punch it has been delivering in the Persian Gulf war has come from conventional bombs.
One 2,000-pound bomb can leave a crater 50 feet wide and 3 stories deep. Shrapnel from such a weapon is lethal four football fields away. A trio of B- 52s flying together can hit the ground with a payload that blasts out a trench 1 1/2 miles long and 1 mile wide.
This is an aircraft born in 1954. None of the 50 B-52s that are part of the war is younger than 28.
The B-52, however, does not seem destined to be the emblem of the aerial part of Operation Desert Storm. That distinction is likely to belong instead to the younger, flashier, higher-tech weapons that-with their smarts and precision-have dazzled military experts and the admiring public.
”Geez, look at that,” President Bush reportedly exclaimed when he viewed a videotape showing a precision bombing attack by a F-117A Stealth fighter-bomber on the Iraqi Air Force headquarters in Baghdad.
The gulf war has become a proving ground for a variety of these weapons that were born, or improved, during the multibillion-dollar defense buildup of the Reagan presidency. The cost of the weapons were often questioned-the $9.8 billion Tomahawk cruise missile program, for example, or the $12.4 billion Patriot anti-missile program. Critics also worried that the military`s emphasis on new technology would produce weapons too complex or unreliable for combat.
But the initial results in the gulf have given critics reason to pause. Although it is still too early for a independent assessment of how the weapons are performing in combat, military officials say the advanced weapons systems have given the U.S. a decisive edge in the opening days of the war with Iraq. The F-117A is a classic example of America`s technological arsenal. Designed to streak toward its target under the cover of darkness, the Stealth warplane has an unusual shape that makes it difficult for enemy radar to detect.
In Iraq it was used to sneak up on key targets such as command buildings and communciations centers. In releasing bombs, U.S. pilots were able to zero in on particular room or doors and windows within buildings or structural weakspots with devastating accuracy.
Air Force Col. Alton Whitley, commander of the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing and pilot of a Stealth bomber, said floor plans of Iraqi command centers had been provided by intelligence services and key rooms targeted.
”You pick precisely which target you want. You can get the men`s room or the ladies` room,” Whitley said.
Whitley and other senior Air Force officials saw the accuracy of the Stealth bombing as vindication of the controversial technology that created both the fighter and the new B-2 bomber, which faces possible cancellation. Stealth`s backers were disappointed 13 months ago when the formerly top-secret aircraft missed targets in its combat debut in Panama.
Among some dozen types of aircraft and 300 kinds of air-delivered bombs used by U.S. forces in the gulf are such exotically named high-tech weapons as the F-4G Wild Weasel, the F-15E Strike Eagle, the Rockeye II Mk 20 cluster bomb, the Paveway laser-guided bomb, the ISCB-1 ”area denial cluster weapon.”
The ISCB-1 is especially effective against airfields. It can be programmed to explode its 160 bomblets over a 24-hour period, making it a deadly day for any repair crew that comes within 5,980 square yards.
The Air Force`s Wild Weasel fighter, which carries air-to-ground missiles and flies at twice the speed of sound, was used to destroy Iraqi radar sites. It is designed to detect radar emissions ”and to follow the beam and destroy the site,” according to Bob O`Brien, director of public relations at McDonnell Douglas, which builds the plane.
On Thursday a newcomer to combat, the Army Patriot anti-missile missile, proved its mettle by shooting down an Iraqi Scud missile aimed at an airfield in eastern Saudi Arabia.
The performance is like throwing one rock to hit a rock someone else tosses into the air. The 17-foot, 2,100-pound, $1.1 million Patriot travels a radar beam to reach its target.
Originally deployed to fight Soviet planes and missiles over Central Europe, the Patriot knocked out a surface-to-surface missile in a 1986 trial but was untested in combat.
An emerging star of what has been called ”video game” weaponry is the sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missile, a 550-m.p.h. rocket guided by radar and a TV camera that scan the ground and compare the terrain and the target with maps stored in the missile`s computer.
Even the limited contrast of the Arabian desert did not confuse the Tomahawks, which flew just ahead of warplanes to deliver their 1,000-pound warheads in a surprise first attack against Iraqi sites considered too dangerous or difficult for human-piloted bombers.
The Navy said 197 of the $1.3 million Tomahawks were fired on the first two days of attack.
”It costs a lot of money,” said Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee. ”But when you look at the precious savings of lives, I think the dollars are well invested.”
The Tomahawk is launched vertically, but after its initial acceleration, a small turbofan engine, similar to those on jet airplanes, takes over.
The missiles that struck Iraq were guided in three ways.
First, gyroscopes inside the missile sensed its speed and direction, giving computer instructions to steer the missile on a programmed path to its target.
Second, a radar altimeter scanned the terrain below, comparing hills and valleys to the features on a carefully prepared map in the weapon`s computer. Third, near the end of the flight, optical sensors scanned the target area and compared the scene with a computerized map of the target, fine-tuning the attack and homing in on the target.
Directing the punch of many of these high-tech weapons are some amazingly high-tech eyes, notably the seven spy satellites launched from NASA space shuttles into orbits 300 to 500 miles above the conflict.
John Pike, space analyst for the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said these satellites constituted the most extensive use ever of space-based technology for military purposes.
The half-dozen KH-11 and advanced KH-11 photo reconnaissance satellites, popularly called ”keyholes,” and a LaCrosse all-weather radar imaging satellite are working around-the-clock to spot targets and assess how heavily they have been damaged.
Under ideal conditions-satellite directly overhead, bright sun, a black on white object-they have resolution down to a few inches.
”They can see a license plate,” Pike said, ”but not read it.”
Under poor conditions-computer-enhanced image of an object on the horizon 1,000 miles away-”you can still tell a truck from a tank,” Pike said.
Experts estimate that more than 90 percent of the pictures being used in the gulf air war are from these satellites, which cost $10 billion to build and launch.
The images are beamed every few hours to the CIA`s National Photo Interpretation Center at the Washington Naval Yard and quickly distributed to analysts in the Pentagon and the war zone.
Commanders at Air Force bases in Saudi Arabia, aboard aircraft carriers in Mideast waters and on AWACS (airborne warning and control system)
surveillance planes in the air have the images faxed to them via communication satellites.
These images are used to program the internal maps of the Tomahawk missiles, and a pilot can carry photos of his specific target as he heads into harm`s way.
”The intelligence cycle is now a few hours,” Pike said, ”whereas in Vietnam it was many hours. With satellites, you don`t have to put cameras on your planes instead of bombs. There`s no wait for aircraft to get back before you get pictures, no waiting for development of film. You give the enemy less time to recover.”
Is the current generation of young men and women, who grew up on video games, particularly suited to the ”video-game” air war in the gulf?
”Well,” Pike said, ”in terms of dexterity, I don`t think so, but there is a video-game generation sense of combat as bloodless. To them it`s all lights, bells and flashes.”
