We worked under ROEs that severely hampered our ability to attack targets. We were strictly forbidden to engage if there were any chance of collateral damage, no matter how small. That’s an important goal, but when taken to extremes, it proved very frustrating. As an example, on one sortie, I saw a red vehicle traveling at high speed towards a village. I paid attention to it because, by this time in the war, we had pretty much destroyed the petroleum reserves in the country. A civilian vehicle racing down the highway was very unusual—especially when the Kosovar-Albanians had been forcibly evacuated and the Serb civilians were given a very low gasoline priority. Anyway, this vehicle stopped in a small village. A few minutes later, the village burst into flames. The vehicle then left the village as quickly as it had come. It seemed obvious that Serbs had torched the village. The Serbs, who, not long into the war, had wisely abandoned their tanks, had taken to driving around in stolen Kosovar-Albanian civilian vehicles. Even though this vehicle obviously was involved with hostile action, we were prohibited from attacking it because it was painted red—not the green of Serb military vehicles!
Now, compare my story to one by Gen H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of Central Command. In 1991 he showed the world “the luckiest man in Iraq,” using the nowfamous video of a bridge being destroyed mere seconds after that Iraqi civilian reached the other side. This video was humorous in 1991, a story told lightheartedly by both the military and the media. In 1999, that same situation would have caused us to abort the attack; or if the attack had continued, it would have generated a huge media uproar. Weird? To me—yes. Nevertheless, it is probably something pilots will have to deal with in America’s next war.
After a while, the war’s routine and ROEs began to affect us all—but in different ways. Some guys got stressed out while others grew complacent. One of the chaplains on base was quoted in a major newspaper as saying that Kosovo wasn’t a real war because of the great conditions in which we lived. That was nonsense to most of the pilots. By this time, two NATO planes had been shot down, several unmanned drones had been blasted from the sky, and two Hogs from my own unit had been damaged. The pilot of one of them, Maj Goldie Haun, was my flight lead the day he was hit. I will never forget conducting a battle-damage check of his jet on the way back over the border and seeing a huge hole where his engine used to be. I could actually see his helmet through the cowling where his engine should have been. Goldie was lucky to make it back to friendly territory before his jet stopped flying altogether. His safe recovery is due to his outstanding flying skill and God’s grace.
In some ways though, the chaplain’s comments were understandable. Americans see images of World War II and Vietnam, and somehow feel that unless there’s mud involved, there is no war. Airpower has changed the reality of warfare—if not the public’s perception. World War II bomber pilots fought over Berlin and returned to party in London that night. USAF crews fought in Vietnam from such hardship locations as Guam. So, although the chaplain was dead wrong, I had to admit that the “Cappuccino War,” as we came to call it, wasn’t what I initially expected it would be. There’s something strange about watching my flight lead get smashed by a SAM—then coming back to base and ordering the greatest salmon tortellini I’ve ever had.
To all of us who fought, Kosovo was an important time—to some, a life-defining event. For example, any hesitation I had about dropping a bomb on another human being evaporated as I flew over Kosovo. Serb atrocities were clearly seen—even from three and one-half miles in the air. The country’s highways looked like parking lots as Kosovar-Albanians were forced to abandon their vehicles and walk into Albania. Entire villages were gutted and burned. I quickly learned that no matter what had happened between these ethnic groups in the past, the Serbs were clearly the oppressors now. So the first time I was called on to attack a convoy of Serb military vehicles, just outside a barracks in central Kosovo, I had no moral problems at all. I rolled in, put my pipper on the target, pickled off my bombs, pulled up, spit out some flares, and climbed back into the sun to protect myself from heat-seeking missiles. Just like that.
Due to my younger son’s health, I was allowed to return home on the first available transport after the fighting ended. It was a great flight—not in the normal sense, of course, since C-130s are notoriously uncomfortable. No, it was a great flight because I had made it! I had survived the confusing politics, five months of deployment, and almost three months of sustained combat. Not only had I survived, but I had proven to myself that I could perform in combat. That might not seem like much—after all, we fighter pilots like to act like nothing can stop us. But there’s always that nagging question, “Do I have what it takes?” I knew the answer, and it felt good!
I returned to Spangdahlem late at night. Our parent wing, the 52d AEW, had been launching, flying, and recovering F-16CJ and F-117 Nighthawk combat sorties during virtually the entire conflict. I figured that this base would know just how big a deal the fighting had really been. As I drove in the gate, I saw the “Welcome to Spangdahlem” sign. Below it was a message that, for me, truly typified the public’s awareness of the combat we had experienced in Kosovo:
Chapter 5
TARGET IDENTIFICATION AND RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
Introduction
Lt Col Chris “Kimos” Haave
We wrote this chapter with a little trepidation, since it addresses some sensitive and potentially controversial topics. Nevertheless, we think it is important to discuss how the air campaign against fielded ground forces was guided and executed at the tactical level so that readers understand and appreciate the essential war-fighter lessons from our OAF experiences. The authors neither examined all aspects of the air campaign nor attempted to analyze and draw conclusions about the instructions that originated at higher levels of command. We only describe how the ROEs affected our operations—without speculation on the decision-making process that developed them. We discuss how ROEs can best serve an air campaign’s objectives, particularly in low- to medium-intensity air operations against ground forces. Our observations and conclusions are from a tactical perspective; from that perspective and at various times, we found the ROEs operationally constraining and war extending.
As the campaign’s first AFACs (and the ones who spent the most time over Kosovo), we detected, identified, selected, and engaged most of the fielded Serb forces that NATO engaged. We discuss target identification and ROEs in the same chapter because they had the greatest in-flight influence on determining which targets to leave alone and which to destroy.
Target Identification
Target identification was the critical process through which AFACs located potential targets and determined whether or not they were valid. We used many methods. First, we received a daily list from the CAOC that contained possible targets and their locations, such as “four tanks at coordinates yyyy North and xxxx East.” The list was developed during the 12 hours prior to its release, using the best available information. Even so, we quickly learned that it was hopelessly outdated and generally useless. While some of the information may have been incorrect from the start, it was more likely that the Serb forces had moved during the 12–24 hours it took for the data to be gathered, analyzed, and disseminated—and for us to launch, get overhead, and maneuver into a position to attack. The US Army’s Hunter UAVs were a much better source of timely information. Their usefulness, however, was still a function of the elapsed time from their observation to our getting overhead.