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Kosovo: War of extremes

Never before has air power played such a central role in the conduct and outcome of an entire conflict. Nick Cook examines the facts

Kosovo was a war of extremes ­ arguably the first time in history that a conflict has been won using air power alone; and the first time that an overwhelmingly superior allied force was stymied by its inability to bomb through clouds, by its perilously low stocks of smart weaponry and by an enemy whose most effective tactic was to sit tight in the face of intense aerial bombardment and do nothing.

After 11 weeks of offensive operations by NATO over Yugoslavia, the lessons of the air war are already being absorbed by the countries that took part in Operation 'Allied Force'. For some, such as Germany, they will be implemented within forthcoming national defence reviews. For those like the UK that have recently conducted such appraisals, they are more likely to be applied gradually over time.

The biggest danger, according to many observers, is that the harsh military lessons of the air campaign ­ and there were many ­ will be lost within the headline statistics of victory. Of these, the most far-reaching, they contend, is the fact that NATO won the Kosovo conflict without a single life lost in combat operations on its own side.

If the 1990-1991 Gulf War set the precedent for minimum casualties on the side of the victor, the Kosovo conflict took it to the limit. Senior US military sources are as concerned by the implications as they are buoyed by them.

They are also angered by NATO's dependence on US air power and technology to fight and win a war that took place in the heart of Europe.

"We pulled off the Kosovo caper through fortuitous circumstances, bombing the Serbs back to their country for just two aircraft lost (both pilots were recovered unhurt)," one US official said. "But what if the Serbs had deployed their air defence system and inflicted major losses? How long would we, the United States, have stuck it out? The answer is probably not long. Then what would Europe have done?" The sentiment, which is oft-repeated by US military officials, underscores the sub-surface fragility of NATO cohesion and how easily the war could have turned if Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic had retaliated with greater vigour.

The air war was dominated by a series of strict rules of engagement (RoEs) drawn up by politicians across the NATO alliance before the first shot was fired. Some were tolerated ­ even appreciated ­ by NATO military commanders, others less so. "I think everyone outside the cockpit felt OK with the rules of engagement," said US Air Force Maj Gen Gary Voellger, commander of the NATO airborne early warning force operating Boeing E-3 Airborne Warning & Control System (AWACS). "But when you're in the cockpit and you're potentially head-on to a [Yugoslav] MiG-29 closing at 1,000 miles per hour, you'd like to have instantaneous verification." As it was, Gen Voellger said, NATO's 'sensor-to-shooter' reaction time in the air-to-air regime "was pretty darned good ­ about as good as we could get". However, the strict RoEs would almost certainly have placed unacceptable constraints on NATO combat pilots had the Yugoslav Air Force deployed in greater numbers.

That there were no instances of 'blue-on-blue' or 'friendly fire' engagements is a testimony to the way NATO managed the air battle, analysts say. For air-to-ground operations, however, the sensor-to-shooter gap was more critical. With strike assets linked to the NATO Combined Air Operations Centre at Vicenza, Italy, by a fleet of EC-130 Airborne Command, Control and Communications (ABCCC) aircraft, reaction times to targets identified on the ground reportedly varied from minutes to as much as two hours. One way to speed up reaction times, observers say, is to equip more strike assets with datalinks. Another is to avoid the cumbersome multi-layered approval process that was reportedly required before many individual strikes. Critics contend that the datalink issue was a major lesson of the 1991 Gulf War, but beyond a wing of US Air Force F-16C/Ds at Aviano Air Force Base in Italy modified with Improved Data Modems in the mid-1990s, plus a few similarly-equipped European aircraft, datalinks across the alliance remain scarce.

The biggest single capability improvement in the USAF F-16 fleet since 1991 has been a cluster of modifications centred on cockpit night-vision goggle compatibility and LAnd Navigation Targeting Infrared for Night system and pods that allow crews to fly and fight 24 hours a day.

Attack strategists were strait-jacketed by a tight set of do's and don'ts drawn up within NATO's political hierarchy from the outset of the campaign. The most obvious constraint, analysts say, was signalling an intention from the start not to use NATO ground troops in any invasion of Kosovo ­ an open invitation, in the view of many, for President Milosevic to play for time in sitting out the aerial bombardment in the hope that NATO unity would fragment.

Also criticised was the decision not to use overwhelming force from the beginning of the campaign, but to slowly increase the sortie rate. This was in stark contrast to the high operational tempo sustained from day one of the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

NATO statistics show that a total of 37,465 sorties were flown between 24 March and 10 June, an average sortie-generation rate of 486 missions per day. Of the total, 14,006 were strike and suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) missions (10,808 of which were dedicated strike sorties). In the early days of the campaign, however, the sortie rate over Yugoslavia was more like 150 missions per day. This compares to 109,876 sorties over the 43-day Gulf War, or an average of 2,555 missions per day. Of the total flown in the Gulf, about half were strike missions, averaging around 1,600 sorties per day.

More controversial still was the political decision to restrict the operating height of NATO attack aircraft to a baseline of 15,000ft for much of the war. While this kept NATO pilots beyond the range of most Yugoslav hand-held surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems and anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) over Kosovo, it placed what many saw as highly artificial limits on the freedom of air campaign planners and strike crews to employ the full range of battlefield air interdiction techniques for which they had long been trained. It also, on occasion, challenged the alliance's ability to identify targets correctly, contributing to a number of targeting errors. The worst of these was an attack on a Kosovar Albanian refugee column in mid-April, during which high-flying USAF pilots apparently mistook tractors and other civilian vehicles for Serbian armour.

While such errors were inevitable, observers contend, widespread public faith early on in the campaign in the ability of modern surveillance systems and smart weaponry to restrict 'collateral damage' heightened reaction against the bombing campaign when civilian casualties did occur and led to intense pressure at times on politicians to call a halt to the attacks.

Data released by Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in the last week of the campaign sought to show that NATO had 'degraded' more than 30% of Serb heavy weapons in Kosovo by the end of the conflict. By the end of the war, according to unofficial estimates, the alliance had struck more than 400 Serb artillery pieces, some 270 armoured personnel carriers, 150 tanks and more than 100 aircraft and inflicted 5,000-10,000 military casualties.

Recent eyewitness reports out of Kosovo, however, suggest that the actual tally may have been far lower, owing to a widespread Serb implementation of camouflage and deception techniques. If these reports prove accurate, a major review of NATO surveillance and targeting systems will have to be undertaken, analysts believe.

Among the systems examined will be the US E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS), the USAF's U-2-based second-generation Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar System (ASARS 2) and a number of unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) deployed predominantly by the USA, France and Germany. UAVs were particularly useful in acquiring low-to-medium level imagery, although reports suggest that at least 10 vehicles were shot down by Serb AAA and shoulder-launched SAMs and about 20 vehicles lost in total.

"In terms of lessons learned, and the procurement opportunities that may accrue from the campaign, it is difficult to assess what Western air forces will choose to concentrate their resources on after this," one serving military official said. "The options could range from greater self-protection measures for combat aircraft all the way up to unmanned combat air vehicles [UCAVs]." The same official believed that technologically sophisticated nations had reached a watershed on the issue of domestic combat losses.

If politicians insist on minimum ­ and perhaps even zero ­ attrition rates among their military personnel in future air campaigns, a range of new weapons, up to and including UCAVs, will need to be introduced as soon as the technology allows. The alternative for the military is to brace civilians ­ politicians, media and public alike ­ for the realities of attrition in parallel with an increased investment in equipment and tactics that support manned close air support (CAS) and battlefield air interdiction missions at low as well as high altitudes. Relatively few NATO aircraft, for example, are equipped with missile approach warners that signal attacks by infrared guided SAMs ­ a form of weapon system that, because of its small size, is impossible to track on the ground.

In the early days of the campaign, dense cloud over much of Kosovo hampered attacks by weapons that made use of laser guidance. By the 21st day of the campaign, NATO had only seven days of weather it considered "favourable" for such missions and 10 days in which 50% of strike sorties had to be cancelled altogether. By 11 April, UK Royal Air Force Harrier GR7s were cleared to bomb through the clouds for the first time, prompting the first use of dumb and cluster bombs in the conflict.

The cancellation of so many missions because of the weather forced the USAF to accelerate ­ and, in some cases, implement ­ programmes that introduced satellite guidance into pre-existing smart weapons. One of these involved the integration of a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver into the Paveway III LGB (a Raytheon/USAF modification called 'Enhanced Paveway') to give the weapon a 13m accuracy via GPS should the laser lock be broken. Another programme, authorised but not deployed, involves the addition of GPS kits to the GBU-15 infrared and TV-guided glide bomb. Several US Predator UAVs were adapted with lasers to provide laser-designation from below cloud level for aircraft attacking from altitude with LGBs.

As a result of its experiences in Yugoslavia, the USAF is expected to modify a range of other weapons to accept GPS guidance. The success of GPS in the conflict was evident in the use of the Boeing Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), which was battle-tested for the first time. JDAM is a $20,000-$25,000 GPS kit-set for 500lb-2,000lb free-fall bombs.

Yet, just as the Iraqis and the Serbs have learned how to block LGB attacks by deploying smoke-pots around potential targets, so GPS is expected to be beset by simple countermeasure techniques, too. "Everyone is now going to be looking for GPS jammers ­ they're not expensive or difficult to get," according to one guided weapons expert. Advocates of GPS weapons counter that the price of anti-jam GPS systems is coming down, too, enabling a new generation of satellite-guided weapons to deploy shortly.

The US Navy is looking to expand its JDAM capability with range improvements and a seeker for pin-point terminal guidance. In the process, some officials say, the original rationale for JDAM ­ that it should be a low-cost smart-guidance 'add-on' for an ordinary 'dumb' bomb ­ has become lost in a requirement for what is effectively another highly sophisticated $70,000-$100,000 smart weapon.

As a result of the war, a number of NATO European countries have already accelerated their efforts to acquire GPS-guided air-launched munitions.

The unexpectedly bad weather forced greater reliance than anticipated on JDAM, which, at the opening of hostilities, was being built at a low-rate run of 200 units per month. By the middle of the campaign, stocks of the weapon were running dangerously low, prompting a rapid ramp-up in production activity. By August, JDAMs will be rolling off the line at 500 units per month against longer-term plans for 700 weapons per month.

One of the key military-industrial debates prompted by the campaign is how to avoid problems of weapons shortages ­ the Boeing AGM-86C Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile (CALCM) was another weapon critically affected by low inventory holdings ­ in any future conflict. "In the past 10 years, procurement people have focused on platforms, because you can't shoot weapons without platforms," according to a Boeing official.

"You procure weapons according to what's in the budget, so when you suddenly shoot off weapons at three to five times the rate at which you expected, obviously you run out of them."

To remedy this, military officials and industrialists are wrestling over whether to stockpile weapons or nurture an industrial framework that is lean and agile enough to go to rapid production when the need arises. In the case of JDAM, Boeing was able to double its monthly production rate during the Kosovo conflict by adding just four people to the production line.

A wider, perhaps nationwide lean production strategy for weapons manufacture would fall down, analysts contend, because recent low order rates have thinned out the supplier base to a level that is incapable of responding anymore to surge production orders. Another US official, angered by Europe's reliance on the USA for support (primarily jamming, command and control, tanking and surveillance/intelligence platforms) as well as strike assets, said: "Europe is going to have to stock up. During the war, we were beset with requests for smart weapons from countries that didn't have any. We were lucky as a nation we had a reasonable amount of surge capability. But you can't count on that in the future; our surge capacity may be nil. Future conflicts are going to be come-as-you-are ... if you didn't order in peacetime, you don't get to play in wartime."

USAF Lt Gen (ret'd) George Muellner ­ until last year, the air force's senior ranking acquisition official, now vice president and general manager of Boeing's Phantom Works ­ said that the combination of JDAM and the Northrop Grumman B-2A Spirit Stealth Bomber proved invaluable in the wider strategic campaign against Yugoslavia. The B-2 was a prized asset for a number of reasons, Muellner said. Being a low-observable platform, it did not require any jamming and little in the way of tanking support compared with non-stealthy strike and multi-role combat aircraft. Armed with 16 GPS-guided munitions, each of which can be independently targeted, the B-2 also proved itself to be a more cost-effective weapon system than its high unit price tag might have suggested before the conflict.

"The USAF recognises that the bomber force has a key role to play in the future," Muellner told Jane's Defence Weekly. While other US officials agreed that the B-2 and JDAM showed themselves to be a uniquely capable 'co-ordinate-killing' combination, they cautioned for much better targeting data in support of the bomber force. "You can have the best weapons in the world, but if you don't have good targeting information, or if the information is based on 10-year-old maps, you can't close the loop," one said. That mismatch in capability was tragically illustrated by the bombing in error of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by GPS munitions launched from a B-2 on 7 May.

The striking of the embassy, which was attributed to poor intelligence and outdated maps ­ the intended target was a nearby Yugoslav military procurement headquarters ­ was the low-point in a strategic campaign that was otherwise highly successful. Indeed, senior UK Royal Air Force sources said that the Yugoslav Army's losses in Kosovo may have been "largely academic" in the context of assessing the effectiveness of NATO's air campaign. "In all probability," the sources added, "the decisive factor that forced Milosevic's hand was the rapidly mounting material and political damage being inflicted on his regime by the NATO air campaign." Even if the Yugoslav Army was willing to fight on, the officials added, by the end, Milosevic was not.

From the outset, one of the primary target sets was the Serbian integrated air defence system. The fact that it claimed just one NATO aircraft, analysts say, is testament to the efficiency of NATO's defence suppression campaign. The overall result by the end of the conflict, according to Maj Gen Walter Jertz at SHAPE, is that NATO could fly against whatever targets it chose, at a risk it could tolerate for "outstanding" results on the ground. NATO's tactic was to attack the air defence system's command-and-control structure in addition to its early warning radars and SAM sites. While some SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6 missile batteries continued to operate by the end of the war (two-thirds of the SA-2/3 force was claimed destroyed by NATO as well as a "significant" quantity of the mobile SA-6 force), without effective command and control, the system had degraded into a number of "disjointed, autonomous operations", according to Gen Jertz.

In addition to highly effective jamming provided by US EA-6Bs and other aircraft, it is believed that the USAF also used its nascent information warfare assets to shut down Serb computers used in the command and control of the air defence network. 'Hacking' into computers in this way probably proved an invaluable tactic in the face of Serbia's reluctance to use its prized air-defence assets (apparently for fear of having them targeted by NATO SEAD aircraft). Against such tactics, indeed, 'infowar' ­ a highly secretive and new 'warform' ­ may have been the most effective measure available to NATO for neutralising the Serb SAM threat.

The other facet of the strategic campaign was the destruction of Yugoslavia's oil-refining capability and about half of its military and civilian fuel reserves. For such targets, the weapon of choice ­ particularly in denser air-defence environments ­ was the cruise missile: both the B-52-launched CALCM and the ship-launched Tomahawk.

Airlift also emerged as a major theme of the conflict, primarily because, once again, the USA provided most of it. As a result of the war, European nations are expected to bolster their requirements for tactical and strategic transport aircraft. By the beginning of next year, seven countries on the continent will have decided on aircraft procurements that are currently being competed for by the Boeing C-17, the Airbus A400M, the Lockheed Martin C-130J and the Antonov An-70.

­ Nick Cook is JDW's Aviation Editor based in London

Jane's Defence Weekly

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