to ten divisions, totaling 80,000 men, to the and Air Force F-I 17 "stealth" fighter-bombers defense of the Kuwait coastline. In addition they garrisoned troops and equipment on The initial ThAM attack was followed Bubiyan and Faylaka Islands which command by nearly 600 coalition aircraft striking from sea approaches to vital areas. desert bases and carrier flight decks. `LAM's outstanding performance and accuracy - About 7,500 Marines from the 5th MEB about 85% of the 288 missiles fired during the were off-loaded from amphibious ships at war hit their targets - helped neutralize Iraqi Saudi Arabian ports at the beginning of the defenses and paved the war for coalition strike ground attack to serve as the 1st MEF reserve aircraft. While avoiding the necessity of risk-. force. Marine AV-8B Harriers, AH-i Cobra ing the life of a pilot in attacking a heavily helicopters and special operations units from defended target, `LAM further minimized the the 4th MEB aided the Arab forces in the east loss of life on both sides by reducing unin- coast drive. on the second day of the ground tended collateral. damage to civilian targets war, both Marine Divisions faced sporadic and reducing or eliminating the threat to allied resistance as they pushed further into Kuwait. aircraft. They fought some intense battles along the way, and by the time Kuwait's International The success of `LAM validated the re- Airport was secured on the fourth day of the sults of years of operational testing. "Toma- ground war, the two Marine divisions had hawk doesn't know the difference between defeated an Iraqi force of 11 divisions. war and peace," said one officer describing its baptism in combat. "It just does its job." At 0800, Persian Gulf time, 28 February, American forces ceased offensive combat op- The `LAM uses an array of advanced erations by order of the President. In 100 hours technology to reach its target. Launched with ofoffensivecombat,theMarinesandoneArmy a solid-rocket booster and propelled by turbo- Brigade, supported by Navy, Marine and coa- fan engine, the missile follows complex guid- lition aircraft, destroyed or damaged 1,060 ance directions from its on-board computer. tanks, 608 artillery pieces, five Frog launchers Skimming the ground at 100 to 300 feet, it and two Scud launchers, and captured more literally reads the terrain to avoid enemy ra- than 20,000 Iraqi soldiers. dar. Although the TLAM warhead is fairly small in comparison with some bomb pay- THE WEAPONS OF WAR. The coalition loads, it is highly accurate. It also has the attack on Iraq began early on 17 January when advantage of being fast, hard to detect or shoot U.S. naval forces launched a barrage of Toma- down and immune to human traits such as hawk land attack cruise missiles (TLAMs) from nervousness. More importantly, it can fly day the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea against stra- or night, in all weather, to safely attack targets tegic targets in Iraq and Kuwait. As Ameri- deemed too dangerous for human pilots. cans watched the evening news, we heard the the correspondents in Baghdad say, "I hear The overland routes flown by Toma- bombs but I don't see any planes." The reason hawks are developed by theater mission plan- they saw no planes was because the only sys- ning centers at Atlantic and Pacific Fleet Head- tems sent to destroy the critical, but heavily quarters with the help of the Defense Mapping defended targets in Baghdad were `LAMs Agency. Programming the missile's flightfrom ship to shore is done aboard ship. -47-
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