Desert Storm 1991: The most shattering air campaign in history

by Richard P. Hallion, Adam Tooby (Illustrator)

Overview

An expertly written, illustrated new analysis of the Desert Storm air campaign fought against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which shattered the world's fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force in just 39 days, and revolutionized the world's ideas about modern air power.

Operation Desert Storm took just over six weeks to destroy Saddam Hussein's war machine: a 39-day air campaign followed by a four-day ground assault. It shattered what had been the world's fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force, and overturned conventional military assumptions about the effectiveness and value of air power.

In this book, Richard P. Hallion, one of the world's foremost experts on air warfare, explains why Desert Storm was a revolutionary victory, a war won with no single climatic battle. Instead, victory came thanks largely to a rigorously planned air campaign. It began with an opening night that smashed Iraq's advanced air defense system, and allowed systematic follow-on strikes to savage its military infrastructure and field capabilities. When the Coalition tanks finally rolled into Iraq, it was less an assault than an occupation.

The rapid victory in Desert Storm, which surprised many observers, led to widespread military reform as the world saw the new capabilities of precision air power, and it ushered in today's era of high-tech air warfare.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472846976
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	02/17/2022
Series:	Air Campaign , #25
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	96
File size:	23 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Richard P. Hallion holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, and has completed specialized governmental and national security programs at the Federal Executive Institute, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. In a long and distinguished career he has been a Curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum; the Harold Keith Johnson Chair of Military History at the Army War College; the Charles Lindbergh Professor at the National Air and Space Museum; and The Air Force Historian. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Royal Aeronautical Society, and the Royal Historical Society.
Richard P. Hallion holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, and has completed specialized governmental and national security programs at the Federal Executive Institute, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He has been a Curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum; a Historian with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the U.S. Air Force; the Harold Keith Johnson Chair of Military History at the Army War College; the Charles Lindbergh Professor at the National Air and Space Museum; a Senior Issues and Policy Analyst for the Secretary of the Air Force; the Air Force Historian; a Senior Advisor for Air and Space Issues for the Air Force's Directorate for Security, Counterintelligence, and Special Programs; a Special Advisor for Aerospace Technology for the Air Force Chief Scientist; a Senior Advisor to the Science and Technology Policy Institute of the Institute for Defense Analyses; a Research Associate in Aeronautics for the National Air and Space Museum; and a Trustee of Florida Polytechnic University.

He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Royal Aeronautical Society, and the Royal Historical Society, and an Honorary Member of the Order of Daedalians who has flown as a mission observer in a wide range of military aircraft. He lives in Florida.
Adam Tooby is an internationally renowned digital artist and illustrator. His work can be found in publications worldwide and as box art for model aircraft kits. He also runs a successful illustration studio and aviation prints business. He is based in Cheshire, UK. To buy artwork, or contact the artist, visit http://www.adamtooby.com/.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION
CHRONOLOGY
ATTACKER'S CAPABILITIES
-The airpower of a global coalition
-Ordnance
-Training
DEFENDER'S CAPABILITIES
-Iraq's military machine
-The invading armed forces
-Saddam's air power
-Organization
-Air defenses
CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVES
-Resolution and resolve
THE CAMPAIGN
-42 days to Kuwait City
-Final countdown
-Opening night: an assessment
-Grappling in the Central Blue
-Preventing resurgence: the shelter-busting campaign
-Per Ardua: Tornado at war
-The Iraqi SAM threat: suppressed but not eliminated
-Targeting Iraq's power infrastructure and forces
-Weather
-The battle against the Scuds
-Clash of arms at al-Khafji: Saddam's calculated lashing-out
-Victory at sea: securing the northern Persian Gulf
-Phase III: “preparing the battlefield” or “destroying the
battlefield?”
-The intelligence debate
-The al-Firdos bunker bombing
-Phase IV: to G-Day and afterwards
-Endgame
AFTERMATH AND ANALYSIS
FURTHER READING
INDEX