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    US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part One)
    US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part One)
    US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part One)
    Ebook271 pages2 hoursCombat Aircraft

    US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part One)

    By Tony Holmes and Chris Davey

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    An illustrated history of the F/A-18 Hornet which, in its various guises, was the 'universal soldier' of OIF, with around 250 seeing combat.

    Flown by various squadrons and groups, the Hornet attacked a range of targets including tanks of the various Iraqi Republican Guard units and government buildings housing elements of the Baath party regime. Apart from its ability to drop precision munitions such as laser-guided bombs, the Hornet was also capable of launching anti-radar missiles and acting as an aerial tanker and reconnaissance platform for other strike types.

    This book explores the Hornet's versatility which has enhanced its reputation as one of the world's leading strike-fighter aircraft.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateNov 20, 2012
    ISBN9781782006695
    US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part One)
    Author

    Tony Holmes

    Having initially worked for Osprey as an author in the 1980s, Tony Holmes became the company's aviation editor in 1989 after he moved to England from Western Australia. Responsible for devising the Aircraft of the Aces, Combat Aircraft, Aviation Elite Units, Duel and X-Planes series, Tony has also written more than 30 books for Osprey over the past 35 years.

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      Book preview

      US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part One) - Tony Holmes

      INTRODUCTION

      Dubbed by many TACAIR insiders the ‘Hornet’s War’, the aerial phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) was indeed dominated by the US Navy’s primary strike fighter, the Boeing (formerly McDonnell Douglas) F/A-18 Hornet. Proving this point, according to America’s top air commander during OIF, Gen Michael Moseley, some 250 Hornets of all variants (and including 14 Royal Australian Air Force F/A-18As) were involved in the campaign. By comparison, the USAF deployed 131 F-16C/CJs and 90 F-15C/Es, which performed similar missions to the Hornet. The Royal Air Force’s frontline force in-theatre consisted of 30 Tornado GR 4s, 14 Tornado F 3s and 18 Harrier GR 7s. But enough of the statistics.

      This volume is the first of three in the Combat Aircraft series covering OIF from the Hornet community’s point of view – subsequent titles will feature the Navy F/A-18 units that waged war in northern Iraq from aircraft carriers in the eastern Mediterranean and the contribution made by US Marine Corps and RAAF Hornets.

      The jet enjoyed a highly successful war, being used for virtually every TACAIR mission imaginable, attacking all manner of targets spread across the length and breadth of Iraq. This book focuses on the exploits of the F/A-18 units that saw combat flying from aircraft carriers in the Northern Arabian Gulf (NAG) between 19 March and 18 April 2003, when the bulk of the OIF air war took place.

      Acknowledgements

      A number of the Navy pilots who saw action with the Hornet in OIF have contributed to this book, and the finished volume is much better for their input. Access to US servicemen and women who are fighting the War on Terror has tightened up considerably in the post 9/11 world that we now live in. However, thanks to the US Navy’s CHINFO News Desk in the Pentagon, I was able to meet and interview key Hornet pilots soon after their arrival back in the USA from OIF. I would like to take this opportunity to thank CHINFO’s Lt Cdr Danny Hernandez and Lt(jg) David Luckett for processing my request so expeditiously, and NAS Lemoore’s Public Affairs Officer Dennis McGrath, who gave up the best part of a week to provide me with an on base escort.

      Thank you also to my old friend and fellow naval aviation stalwart Peter Mersky, whose constructive criticism of the text and generous hospitality during my road trip were most welcome in equal measure. Thanks also to Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Todd Frantom, who supplied examples of his excellent CVW-5 OIF imagery, as did Christopher J Madden, Director Navy Visual News Service. Photographers Iwan Bogels, Dave Brown, Capt Doug Glover (of VMFA(AW)-533), Michael Groves, Gert Kromhout, Richard Siudak and Ginno Yukihisa also made important contributions, as did David Isby. Finally, thanks to the pilots and WSOs from the following units, whose OIF experiences are featured in this volume;

      CVW-2 – Capt Mark Fox, Capt Craig Geron, Capt Larry Burt and Lt Cdr Zeno Rausa

      CVW-11 – Capt Chuck Wright

      VFA-25 – Cdr Don Braswell

      VFA-41 – Lt Cdr Mark Weisgerber and Lt(jg) Josh Appezzato

      VFA-87 – Cdr Greg Fenton

      VFA-94 – Lt(jg) Jeff Latham

      VFA-113 – Cdr Bill Dooris, Lt Cdr Paul Olin, Lt Cdr Sean Thompson and Lt Cdr Sean Williams

      VFA-115 – Cdr Jeff Penfield, Cdr Dale Horan and Lt John Turner

      VFA-137 – Cdr Walt Stammer

      VFA-151 – Cdr Mark Hubbard, Lt Cdr Ron Candiloro, Lt Cdr Richard Thompson and Lt Cdr Kyle Weaver

      VF-2 – Cdr Doug Denneny

      VFA-192 – Lt John Allison

      Tony Holmes, Sevenoaks, Kent, April 2004

      OSW

      For a generation of US Navy light strike pilots, combat operations have meant participation in Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and/or the enforcement of the No-Fly Zone over southern Iraq which followed in its wake. The first of these zones was created in the aftermath of Desert Storm in an effort to offer protection to the Kurdish population in northern Iraq from Saddam’s forces. Initially established over all Iraqi territory north of the 36th parallel as part of Operation Provide Comfort in late 1991, the legality of this mission was mandated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 688.

      When the Shi’ite Muslims also began to suffer persecution in the south, a No-Fly Zone was created with UN backing as Operation Southern Watch (OSW) on 26 August 1992. Joint Task Force-Southwest Asia (JTF-SWA), consisting of units from the United States, Britain, France and Saudi Arabia, was established on the same date to oversee the day-today running of OSW.

      Like the operation in the north, which was officially titled Operation Northern Watch (ONW) on 1 January 1997, OSW saw US, British and French aircraft enforcing the Security Council mandate that prevented the Iraqis from flying military aircraft or helicopters below the 32nd parallel – this was increased to the 33rd parallel in September 1996. Further restrictions, including the introduction of a No-Drive Zone in the south following Iraq’s hasty mobilisation and deployment of forces along the Kuwaiti border in October 1994, were introduced several years later. These were created to prevent the Iraqis from moving fixed and mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) launchers into the southern No-Fly Zone.

      The French government withdrew its support for both ONW and OSW in the late 1990s, leaving US and British air arms to continue the policing of both exclusion zones. The US Air Force and Navy, Royal Air Force and, on occasion, Fleet Air Arm became adept at monitoring what Saddam’s troops were up to over much of northern and southern Iraq.

      The US Navy’s principal contribution to OSW was the mighty carrier battle group, controlled by Fifth Fleet (which had been formed in July 1995) as part of the unified US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversaw operations in the region. Typically, an aircraft carrier would be on station in the Northern Arabian Gulf (NAG) at all times, vessels spending around three to four months of a standard six-month deployment committed to OSW. Ships from both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets took it in turns to ‘stand the watch’, sharing the policing duties in the No-Fly Zone with USAF and RAF assets ashore at bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and other allied countries in the region.

      Flying from the deck of USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70), VFA-94 was heavily involved in the final night strikes of Operation Desert Fox on 19 December 1998. This four-day campaign saw numerous targets hit across southern Iraq, including a presidential palace at Lake Tharthar, just south of Baghdad. In the aftermath of Desert Fox, CVN-70 completed the longest combat line period for a carrier since the Vietnam War, and the vessel’s CVW-11 also expended further ordnance during the course of innumerable OSW patrols that continued into late March 1999. This photograph of VFA-94’s ‘Hobo 410’ (BuNo 164048) was taken in early 1999 in the NAG, the jet configured for the DCA role with two underwing AIM-120A AMRAAMs and two wingtip-mounted AIM-9L Sidewinders. Delivered to the Navy in July 1990, BuNo 164048 has served exclusively with VFA-94. During its 14 years of service with the ‘Mighty Shrikes’, the Hornet has flown numerous OSW patrols and seen combat in Desert Fox, OEF and OIF. In the latter campaigns it was the squadron’s ‘CAG jet’, marked up as ‘Hobo 400’ – see the photograph on page 78 (VFA-94)

      Having completed yet another uneventful patrol over southern Iraq, the pilot of Lot XII F/A-18C ‘Hobo 410’ returns to the marshall overhead CVN-70. His jet is carrying a single 500-lb GBU-12 Paveway II LGB on its outer wing pylon, this weapon having proved its worth time and time again during Desert Fox. Aside from dropping a number of LGBs during its 1998-99 cruise, VFA-94 (along with sister-squadron VFA-22) also gave the revolutionary AGM-154A JSOW its combat debut on 25 January 1999 when it knocked out an SA-3 SAM complex near Basra. This particular site had plagued Coalition aircraft since the end of Desert Storm due to its position at a key choke point in southern Iraq (VFA-94)

      OSW’s original brief was to deter the repression of the Kurdish and Shi’ite populations and impose a No-Fly Zone, but it soon became obvious to the Coalition that the Iraqi Army was more than capable of dealing with the disruptive elements in both the north and the south without having to involve the Air Force. Frustrated by its inability to defend the people it had encouraged to rise up and overthrow Saddam’s regime in 1991, the US-led Coalition subtly changed the emphasis of its ONW and OSW mission. This saw the systematic monitoring of Iraqi military activity in the area evolve from being a useful secondary mission tasking to the primary role of the crews conducting these sorties from the mid 1990s. By December 1998, the justification put forward by the US government for the continuation of both ONW and OSW was the protection of Iraq’s neighbours from any potential aggression, and to ensure the admission, and safety, of UN weapons inspectors.

      Most OSW missions were mundane and boring according to the naval aircrew who had flown them. However, this all changed with the implementation of Operation Desert Fox on 16 December 1998, which saw the launching of a four-day aerial offensive ostensibly aimed at curbing Iraq’s ability to produce Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Although triggered by Saddam’s unwillingness to cooperate with UN inspections of weapons sites, many observers believed that the primary aim of Desert Fox was to attack the Iraqi leadership in a series of decapitation strikes. To this end, a presidential palace south of Baghdad was hit, as were buildings housing the Special Security Organisation and the Special Republican Guard.

      The carriers USS Enterprise (CVN-65) and USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) played a key role in Desert Fox, the vessels’ CVW-3 and CVW-11 flying more than 400 sorties in the 25+ strikes launched during the campaign.

      VFA-37, embarked on the USS Enterprise (CVN-65), also made history during Desert Fox when it sent female TACAIR pilots into combat for the very first time. Back from their mission on 17 December 1998, two naval aviators conduct a traditional fighter pilot’s debrief in the VFA-37 ready room (US Navy)

      Although Desert Fox lasted just a matter of days, its consequences were felt right up until OIF in March 2003. Proclaiming a victory after UN weapons inspectors had left Iraq on the eve of the bombing campaign, Saddam brazenly challenged patrolling ONW and OSW aircraft by moving mobile SAM batteries and AAA weapons into the exclusion zones. Both were used in the coming months, and Iraqi combat aircraft also started to push more regularly into the No-Fly Zones.

      ‘Ordies’ from VFA-94 wheel an Aero-12C weapons skid, laden down with a 2000-lb GBU-10 Paveway II LGB, along the flight deck of CVN-70 in January 1999 (VFA-94)

      In the post-Desert Fox world, these violations provoked a swift, but measured, response from JTF-SWA’s Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC), which controlled the entire No-Fly Zone mission planning element, and created a daily Air Tasking Order (ATO) for all Coalition participants (both naval and shore-based aviation assets). Typically, such missions were devised within the CAOC-approved pre-planned retaliatory strike framework, and they soon became known as Response Options (ROs). The latter allowed No-Fly Zone enforcers to react to threats or incursions in a coordinated manner through the execution of agreed ROs against pre-determined targets such as SAM and AAA sites and command and control nodes.

      The level of conflict in the southern region remained high into the new millennium, and between March 2000 and March 2001, Coalition aircraft were engaged more than 500 times by SAMs and AAA while flying 10,000 sorties into Iraqi airspace. In response to this aggression, which had seen Coalition aircraft fired on 60 times since 1 January 2001, US and British jets dropped bombs on 38 occasions. The most comprehensive of these RO strikes (the biggest since Desert Fox) occurred on 16 February 2001 when CVW-3, aboard the USS Harry S Truman (CVN-75), hit five command, control and communications sites.

      The steady escalation of the conflict in the region was only brought to a halt, albeit temporarily, by the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. The subsequent declaration of the War on Terror by President George W Bush saw carrier battle groups under Fifth Fleet control removed from their OSW station and sent east into the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean in support of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan.

      CVW-17, embarked in the USS George Washington (CVN-73), conducted the Navy’s first OSW missions in almost a year after entering the NAG in early September 2002. On the 5th of that month four F/A-18Cs attacked Al Rutbah South air base, some 240 miles due west of Baghdad. Several more RO strikes were conducted over the next three weeks prior to CVN-73 departing the NAG on 20 September and heading into the Mediterranean. CVW-17 boasted three Navy-manned F/A-18C units, namely VFA-34, VFA-81 and VFA-83. All three got to drop ordnance during CVN-73’s brief spell in the NAG (Capt Dana Potts/US Navy)

      With the bulk of the tactical airpower in this conflict provided by carrier aircraft flying arduous eight- to ten-hour missions over land-locked Afghanistan, OSW No-Fly Zone operations by the US Navy were drastically scaled back. This allowed the Iraqis to move more air defence weaponry below the 32nd parallel.

      By the spring of 2002 the Taliban regime had been removed from power in Afghanistan, and the US government’s focus of attention returned once again to its old foe in the region, Saddam Hussein. Proof of this came with the arrival of USS George Washington (CVN-73), and its embarked CVW-17, in the NAG in early September 2002, the vessel’s subsequent assignment to OSW marking the first time a carrier battle group had performed this mission in almost a year. Within days of its arrival on station, the air wing was conducting RO strikes after being engaged by AAA and SAM radars during patrols over southern Iraq.

      Having already spent two months conducting OEF missions over Afghanistan, CVW-17’s spell in the NAG was to last only three weeks. CVN-73 then headed back up into the Mediterranean Sea, and Sixth Fleet control, before returning home in December. By then its place in the NAG had been taken by the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), which was in the early stages of a marathon ten-and-a-half-month cruise. Like CVN-73, the vessel had supported OEF prior to its push into the NAG in late October 2002, although the aircrew of the embarked CVW-14 had not seen action during their patrols over Afghanistan. This was all set to change once they commenced OSW.

      AGGRESSIVE OSW

      While the tactical jets of CVW-14 continued to bore holes in the sky over Afghanistan, in Washington, D.C. the case for war against Iraq was gaining momentum as discussions about the country’s alleged development and stockpiling of

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