Fiercest Air Assault Ever Being Planned

In the days before a ground assault begins, allied warplanes will unleash on Iraqi troops the fiercest concentration of bombing ever directed on an army, according to officers involved in the planning.

They have described for reporters here saturation bombing that will last around the clock for three or four days and be carried out by more than 2,000 planes, ranging from high-level, eight-engine B-52 bombers to two-seat F-15E Eagles capable of performing at Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound).

Allied planes already have flown more missions over Iraq and Kuwait than were carried out against Japan in the last 14 months of World War II. In less than three weeks, they have dropped more high-explosive tonnage than did the combined allied forces during all of that war, according to a British defense consultant. But the initial air campaign, military officials said, has not been as intense as the one awaiting the dug-in Iraqis in Kuwait and southern Iraq.

When asked last week about Iraq’s ability to withstand the allies’ opening air attacks, the U.S. commander, Gen. H. Norman Schwartzkopf, said, in apparent reference to the planned new campaign, “The best is yet to come.”

The Air Force plans to shift a high percentage of its planes north for the days preceding a ground attack. Air Force liaison specialists will travel with each armored battalion to coordinate fire control, spotting and relaying targets to pilots overhead.

“The B-52s will fly over from high altitude straight and level and aim for a specific area, more like a harassment or zone type of bombing,” Air Force Maj. Bob Baltzer told pool correspondents. “We’ll roll the F-15Es in at night, and during the day the F-16s will attack with precision bombing. They can put a 2,000-pound bomb on a bunker. They will be hitting specific gun emplacements and command centers.”

The F-15E Eagles have sophisticated radar and optics for finding and hitting targets in the dark. Allied commanders hope that the intense bombing will pressure the Iraqis, who are believed to hold a 4-to-1 advantage in armor over the 705,000-man allied force, into moving into the open. This would make them vulnerable to A-10 Warthogs, warplanes specifically designed to kill tanks.

It is still possible that air power alone could defeat Iraq, and a British officer said Tuesday that the allies’ air attacks are “continuing to apply the grinding wheel to the Iraqi military machine.” But military commanders in Saudi Arabia and Washington increasingly believe a ground war will be necessary to dislodge the Iraqis from Kuwait.

Once the ground war begins, the Air Force role will switch to one of close air support. The allied plan will follow closely the air-ground doctrine under which soldiers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization trained in Europe for war against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The doctrine calls for coordinated air attacks to open a way through enemy lines for armored thrusts, even against numerically superior forces.

As was shown last week by the deaths of seven Marines hit by a missile from a U.S. jet, there are dangers inherent in close air support of ground troops. But Maj. Baltzer told correspondents that the Air Force and Army have worked to evolve a plan of fire control and maneuver that will minimize the risks of misidentifying targets and attacking friendly forces.

“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that this will work perfectly,” he said. “Something will probably go wrong. But the main thrust of what we are doing is to make sure we get eyeballs on the right target.”

In addition to having Air Force officers traveling with ground units, commanders hope to maintain coordination and minimize risk by fitting tanks and armored personnel carriers with special markers that will make them identifiable from the air. Every commander down to company level can call on air support; a prearranged system will determine which brigades and battalions have priority for support at various stages as the battle unfolds, pool correspondents reported from the field.

The battlefield will be divided into a series of “boxes,” which are basically map coordinates that will be opened and closed to air attacks, depending on the movements of allied ground forces, planners said. There also will be a system of identifying friendly targets through radio communications in case a tank or vehicle wanders into a closed box, or free-fire zone.

On the ground, American troops are betting their lives that the Air Force can deliver on its promise and severely sap Iraq’s military capabilities before a land offensive starts. Most express relief that activity along the border already has intensified, with American fighter-bombers streaking through the darkened skies, and the desert floor inside Kuwait reverberating from the steady explosion of high-explosive rounds.

“Personally I’m relieved that it has started because that means we will finish all the sooner,” said Marine Col. Jay Vesely. “ . . . Let’s hope we can make it short, sweet and relatively painless for our side.” Vesely, who believes air strikes alone cannot defeat Iraq, added, “There is a lot left to do and the Marines will have to do much of it on the ground.”

Commanders planning the ground operation admit that there are many unknowns in any ground war. Weather will play a role, both in when it starts and in its execution, and it is impossible to determine how much of a pounding the Iraqis’ fortified positions can withstand. Maj. Baltzer said he is confident that the preparation bombing will be effective.

This article was written in part from correspondent pool reports cleared by the U.S. military.