Ten years ago, taking out Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi with F-16s would have been an impossible task. Air strikes were planned days or even weeks in advance. Pilots weren’t trained to change missions mid-stream. Sensors and weapons weren’t accurate and flexible enough to spot and hit fleeting targets.
But during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Air Force pioneered the prosecution of what it calls Time Sensitive Targets, or TSTs. Since then, the Navy and Marine Corps have gotten in on the game too, and these days, over Iraq, it’s typical for jets to launch with only the vaguest idea of what’s out there. New sensors and weapons, high-tech surveillance drones and better training have resulted in a minor revolution of which the Zarqawi attack is just one result.
The Air Force has been mum on the subject, but it’s entirely possible that the F-16 drivers who eliminated Zarqawi were just flying a routine patrol before orders came to hit the safehouse. In stark contrast to the rigid preplanned sorties that were typical during the 1991 Gulf War, these days over Iraq, fighters from the Air Force and its sister services launch in two-jet sections carrying sensor pods and laser– and satellite-guided bombs. They have no specific targets in mind. Orbiting over their assigned areas, they scan the ground below with sensor pods and helmet-mounted sights, use datalinks to pass around video imagery and the GPS coordinates of potential targets and coordinate with ground-based forward air controllers to hit insurgents who appear in crowded cities or crawl onto highway medians to plant improvised explosive devices. Hitting a safehouse is relatively easy by comparison.
Sensor pods are perhaps the most visible technology in the military’s efforts to take on TSTs. Pods contain day and night cameras, GPS for employing satellite-guided bombs and laser designators and trackers for laser-guided bombs. The cigar-shaped pods are slung under jets’ wings or fuselages.
Lt. Col. David Wilbur, commander of Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 332, which returned from Iraq in February, says that the new Litening AT pod enables Marine fighter crews to switch easily between looking for insurgents and attacking them, even in bad weather. Litening AT made its combat debut on Marine Corps jets during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and since have become standard equipment.
“There’s no reason to take off without one,” says Lt. Col. Wilbert Thomas, commander of Marine All-Weather Fighter Attack Squadron 224, which served in Iraq between January and August 2005.
The Air Force is buying a number of different pod designs for nearly all of its combat aircraft types. In recent years, F-16s, F-15Es, A-10s, B-52s and B-1Bs have been fitted with pods.
The newest sensor pods include datalinks tied to a laptop computer-based terminals called Remotely Operated Video Enhanced Receivers, or ROVER. The system allow crews to beam pod imagery to troops and commanders on the ground, letting them see what the crews see and facilitating close coordination between U.S. personnel on the ground and personnel in the air. A datalink called Link 16 performs a complementary role. Link 16-equipped jets can transmit a graphical target schematic based on and including GPS coordinates to other jets and to ground stations.
Air Force 77th Fighter Squadron commander Lt. Col. Donavan Godier says that Link-16 means a “large jump forward”. “In the past we needed a lot of [voice] comms.” Godier says that, in a combat scenario, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft like the RC-135 Rivet Joint and E-8C J-STARS can “feed targets to us via datalink”. “We can refine that data or pick up new threats. We can populate the network … [and] pass data to link-equipped fighters.“
Navy Lt. Comm. Trenton Lennard used Link 16 in conjunction with the new Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System, or JHMCS, a visor that allows pilots to direct their radars, targeting pods and weapons just by looking at a target. “With that helmet, on the [Link 16 terminal], a pilot can look down, designate a target and put it out to everybody. … It gets target pods, sensors and eyeballs on to the same piece of dirt.“
With pods, datalinks and JHMCS, if one pilot or sensor operator sees a target, so can every other friendly force in the area. A target need enter only one person’s situational awareness to enter everyone’s. That makes it hard to hide and allows commanders ands controllers to assign the best shooter to a given target, cutting the time between spotting the target and attacking it.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), blanketing Iraq in cameras and radars around the clock, only reinforce what is already a robust network of sensors and shooters. The Air Force flies 20 small Predator drones and a handful of larger Global Hawks on continuous orbits that cover almost every corner of the country. The service calls this “persistent” surveillance. Navy Capt. Steve Wright, a UAV manager for the Chief of Naval Operations, says that UAVs help the military maintain a “common operational picture” — in other words, a universal, constantly-updated picture of the battlefield, with which it can quickly assign on-station pilots to hit new targets.
While most attacks are carried out by high-performance manned aircraft, Predators themselves have been armed to give commanders more options. It was an early armed Predator that killed U.S.S. Cole bombing suspect Abu Ali in 2002. A new version of the versatile UAV will carry more ordnance.
Despite the depth and breadth of the military’s sensor/shooter network, single human beings who don’t want to be found represent a daunting targeting challenge. The system is in place to quickly kill high-value targets such as Zarqawi, but it depends on someone on the ground pointing out the target’s location to begin with, accurately and in a timely manner. This is where previous decapitation strikes failed. An air raid in Fallujah in June 2004 narrowly missed Zarqawi. Notorious Ba’ath Party leader Ali Hassan Al Majeed, aka “Chemical” Ali, had already left his safehouse in Samawah when it was hit in March 2003. Several attacks on suspected safehouses in Baghdad failed to kill Saddam Hussein in the early months of the war. Indeed, the opening shot of the U.S. invasion was a bomb dropped on Dora Farms, one of Saddam’s country retreats, on March 20, 2003. The strike was launched based on reports that the Iraqi leader was at the site, when in fact he hadn’t visited in months.
Despite the sophistication of U.S. warplanes, sensors and ordnance, all results of billions of dollars of investment — and despite great progress in prosecuting TSTs — most decapitation strikes have been undermined by tardy or faulty intelligence at the ground level. The Zarqawi killing represents the first time in more than four years that intelligence has allowed the technology of surgical strikes to fulfill its potential.
– David Axe, cross-posted to Tech Central Station
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The Tech That Took Out ZarqawiLeave a ReplyBy commenting on this topic you agree to the terms and conditions of our User Agreement |
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hey nice alliteration in the title axe!
.. the article is nice but the title remains unanswered.
Was it a JDAM ?
Was it even a F16 ? .. id suspect it would be a job for a super hornet
Smart bombs are really smart. JDAM is a nice acronym.
Eat it!
Col. David Hunt said he was told the target was lased from the ground, so apparently some boys were laying close.
In modern war time scenario, technology is becoming more important every day, but time has shown us that without the support on land intelligence, success is impossible except for tactical targets.
I think, a redesign of close support and cooperation between intelligence and attack vectors is needed to minimize collateral damages and opperations cost, plus sending the enemy a message of precise letality of allied atacks.
JDAM -> Joint Direct Attack Munition
JDAM is actually just a tail kit. It is used (in this case) to convert an unguided MK-82 into a GPS guided GBU-38.
The GBU-12 PAVEWAY used for this attack is also based off of the MK-82 warhead. PAVEWAY is a laser guidance system.
Both bombs were released from the same aircraft, although two F-16s were assigned this raid.
@Higgs: I agree, the Superhornet (F/A-18[E/F]) is a very impressive aircraft, but from the report, the F-16s were on route, meaning they could more easily and quickly approach the target.
PS — For everyone interested, the bombs shown on the outboard pylon are GBU-12s.
@ Mike: this is just a guess, but I would not be suprised if multiple laser designators were used. I don’t see why or how that could be a bad thing for the targetting, plus it ensures coverage.
Of course there is the problem of where to place your ground laser in that area. It certainly looked crowded from the air and nobody wants to be near the impact of a 500 pounder. Then there’s the information that the Iraqis were first on the scene.
I could be mistaken, but the gun camera (a bit of a misnomer if you ask me) footage posted on centcom.mil suggests one F-16 was designating while the other dropped the bombs.
Good Morning Folks,
Since i’ve tried twice before to post on this subject only to be hacked and disconnected here is the third time. I will try and not say anything that will offend our minders who monitor this site.
First off like other things that have happened in Iraq read this story with more then a little skepticism. It is a good read and enjoy, but like the “Jessica Lynch” story and others out of the Pentagon it is unlikely that it will hold up to examination.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
As far as the report, Spec Ops were across the street in a building pointing a laser at the safehouse. They had been tracking Zarqawi for days. I am sure that the 2nd F-16 is always used for backup incase of malfunction or any other negative effect that could occur during the mission.
Good Morning Matt,
Reports that I’ve read put the second F-16 still at the gas station being refueled when the raid took place. Someone in the Pentagon got a little trigger happey and couldn’t wait.
I think a word of praise should go to Sec. Rumsfeld and V.P.Cheney who decided that al Zarqawi should be killed not captured like they did with Saddam. I’ve not read any accounts of President Bush being in the loop on taking out al Zarqawi. Taking Saddam alive was the biggest boner in a war full of dumb mistakes as of yet.
What the Spec.Ops guys did, I don’t think is an issue. They by defination operate in the shadows and I think that’s where they should remain.
The problem is the whole stroy. Folks who fallow the Military and the Bush administration had been telegraphed that something was up whe John Burns of the “New York Times” sowed up in Iraq last weekend. The Times have been water carriers for this administration before and it appears that his story was from the first widely copied from Burns article in the Times by the other print media. It is also likely that he was the one who tipped off Martha Raddich of ABC, who sat on the story for a couple of hours by request.
The most interesting part of the story unfolding is how al Zarqawi was fingered. It appears that bin Laden may have had a part in getting rid of his rival. Mr. al Zarqawi will make a better Muslim icon who’s pictire will be on millions of T-Shirts, ash trays and coffe mugs, much the same as Che’ Geuvara’s has been for Castro and the Neo-Commiests in the West. Then as a living rival, methinks Osama may have thought.
The there will the ill advised press conference by Mjr. Gen. Wm. Caldwell IV that was a media desaster. The good General who was clearly speaking from a script couldn’t even get that right. With a performance like that Gen. Caldwell IV is surly the replacement for the equaly inept Larry DiRita as Rumsfeld’s boot licking mouth piece.
Oh where have you gone Torrie Clarke.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
Byron,
You’re barking up the wrong tree as far as John Burns goes. He’s NYT Baghdad bureau chief, so he spends more time in Baghdad than at home in England. His “sudden appearance” in Iraq prior to the strike that killed Zarqawi was neither sudden nor an indication of anything. And he’s no flag waver for the war or the Administration, by the way.
Cheers.
Byron,
“The Times have been water carriers for this administration…“
Hah!
Talk to your doctor about the meds you are taking. I think you may have some dosage issues.
Byran.. Take it easy with the crack man. You might bust a vessel or something thinking to hard.
I’d like to give a shout out not only to the F-16s on patrol but also to the TST cell at the CAOC…because without them, this never would have happened…
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/systems/an-usq-163.htm
(and to all the guys who developed the IT systems to allow this to happen! nicely done!)
Good Morning Folks,
I love it when folks get up set with the truth, keep those posts comming.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Time (Tribune Co.) have all been used by this administration to put out information on events favorable to the efforts in Iraq anf Afghanistan. If you need reminding.
The N.Y. Times was tooled badly on the “WMD” story before the Iraqi invasion, the Post was hung out to dry on the “Jessica Lynch Story” and the L.A. Times was used to get out the Bushie’s story on “Fallugah” (Twice).
Smaller newspapers in conservative markets were early on in the war sent letters from Sargents in the 101st. Abn. Div. and the 1st. Marine Division telling them that the press was getting the story wrong. All these letters were writen and edited in the Pentagon by a single source, Larry DiRita.
When a story reads the same in all the national publications, it was writen by our friends and minders in the Pentagon. An example.
The hot news today in all the print media will be the results of the autopsies on al Zaeqawi and Radman and the conclusion that their deaths were caused by blast injuries to the lungs.
The origional story is writen by the very able Jim Garamone of the Pentagon Press Service, I doubt if you will see his by line in the New York Time, Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times tomorrow.
In short my friends our embeded press during this war is fat and happy with what they are spoon feed and if anyone tries to do some real reporting well I refer you to how our friend David Axe was treated.
So to all of you who think your are informed by just reading our National Flagship Newspapers, have a nice day and ignorance is bliss.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
America, F*** yeah!