Command From the Air

摘要

In one of the last major actions of Gulf War Ⅱ, the coalition mounted a heavy bomber strike on a Baghdad site thought to be the hiding place of Saddam Hussein and his sons. The first step was for planners to confirm and approve the target. Once that happened, a very short operational sequence commenced. An Air Force E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft orbiting above Iraq got the "go" signal. The AWACS relayed the tasking and coordinates to a nearby B-1B. The bomber crew keyed in the data. Twelve minutes later, the target lay in ruins. "This is the big one," said an anonymous air battle manager aboard the E-3, a modified Boeing 707 with a rotating radar atop the fuselage. He might have said the same about the sophisticated radar aircraft that monitors, tracks, and directs air traffic. Airborne battle management with the E-3―and with the E-8C Joint STARS, in the case of ground targets―gives the United States an awesome asymmetric advantage.