In September, his planning staff worked with an analytical team at the Pentagon to help determine how quickly airpower could destroy the enemy’s armor, artillery, logistics, and personnel to make the enemy combat-ineffective. Buster Glosson, worked closely with the ground planners to integrate the emerging ground plan into the existing air plan. In the early days in Riyadh, before much ground power had arrived in the theater, General Horner’s director of campaign plans, Brig. This led to a devastating air campaign and an Air Tasking Order used by General Horner.

Not much is known about the origin of the mission or how airplanes ordinarily thought of as “interdiction” or “deep strike” fighters ended up bombing tanks, in revetted positions, one by one, with laser-guided bombs from medium altitude at night.Īs Saddam Hussein consolidated his grip on Kuwait in the summer and fall of 1990 and US leaders began to develop plans for dealing with Iraq’s aggression, a concept for an offensive air campaign emerged.

Much has been written about the tank-plinking mission, usually from the perspective of those who flew the missions. This reminded them of “plinking” tin cans with a BB gun. They observed the ease with which tanks and other revetted objects were blasted to pieces. In postmission debriefs, aircrews would watch tape after tape of these attacks. Horner: “That’s the surest way to get them to call it ‘tank plinking.’ “

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