Word: antiaircraft
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...what would now be considered low-tech conflict. Today the ideal condition for an air raid is a pitch-black night. Infrared devices and laser- guided bombs enable pilots to see and hit their targets through inky darkness; moonlight would serve only to make their planes more visible to antiaircraft gunners. Jan. 15 was the first of three moonless nights in Iraq and Kuwait. No good; the U.S. considered the deadline for using force to be midnight American Eastern Standard Time, and that was 8 a.m. Jan. 16 over Baghdad, after sunup. The following night was the earliest time when...
...outside world got the first news from Western television correspondents at the Al Rasheed Hotel in downtown Baghdad, who told of hearing air-raid sirens and seeing tracer bullets and antiaircraft bursts lighting up the black skies. For a while, though, no bomb explosions could be heard; George Bush, listening to and watching TV in the White House, started to get a bit edgy. Finally, a noise that was indisputably a bomb blast could be heard over an open telephone line to correspondents at just about 7 p.m. EST -- 3 a.m. Thursday in Baghdad. "Just the way it was scheduled...
...that time, the destruction was well under way. Pilots returning from the first attack described an awesome pattern of flashing multicolored lights -- some antiaircraft bursts, some bombs -- brightening the dark ground and skies. One after another likened it to a Fourth of July fireworks display or a Christmas tree. A British television correspondent standing on a sixth-floor balcony of Al Rasheed Hotel reported a weird sight: a U.S. cruise missile whizzing past at eye level and slamming into the Iraqi Defense Ministry nearby...
...radar to detect easily, hit targets initially judged too dangerous for manned aircraft to handle. In the assault on Baghdad, some of the first blows came from Tomahawk cruise missiles fired by ships far out in the Persian Gulf. As the first explosions rocked the city, Iraqi antiaircraft fire was directed into the sky at planes that were not there -- yet. Stealth fighters also sneaked past radar to join the initial attack. Then high-flying aircraft, some launching missiles from far off, jammed or confused enemy radar and took out some antiaircraft guns, interceptor planes and airfields. Finally, when...
...casualties among the allied airmen were phenomenally light: six U.S., two British, one Italian and one Kuwaiti plane downed as of early Sunday; nine American crewmen, four British, two Italians and one Kuwaiti officially listed as missing in action (some surely were killed). Iraqi antiaircraft fire was in some cases heavy, but inaccurate, and few planes rose to challenge the attackers...