F-16 Viper: How it Destroyed the Iraqi Army

The F-16 played a massive role in the Coalition's air campaign during Desert Storm. Though initially conceived as a fighter, in an ironic twist of fate it became a premier ground striker platform during the operations against the Iraqi army and Republican Guard.

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- Sources -
Cohen, Eliot (ed.) (1993). "Gulf War Air Power Survey Volume 2 – Operations and Effects and Effectiveness", Washington, D.C.

Cohen, Eliot (ed.) (1993). "Gulf War Air Power Survey Volume 4 – Weapons, Tactics, and Training and Space Operations", Washington, D.C.

Cohen, Eliot (ed.) (1993). "Gulf War Air Power Survey Volume 5 – A Statistical Compendium and Chronology", Washington, D.C.

Hankins, Michael (2021). "Flying Camelot – The F-15, the F-16, and the Weaponization of Fighter Pilot Nostalgia". Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.

Simmonds, Bertie (2022) "F-16 Fighting Falcon", Tempest Books, Horncastle.

Paquin, Robert (1999). “DESERT STORM: Doctrinal AirLand Battle Success or #The American Way of War?’”, School of Advanced Military Studies United States Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Pyles, Raymond Q. and Shulman, Hyman (1995). *“United States Air Force Fighter Support in Operation Desert Storm”.* RAND, Santa Monica, CA.

“Operation Desert Storm – Evaluation of the Air Campaign”. United States General Accounting Office, June 12, 1997.

- Timecodes -
00:00 - Desert Storm
00:40 - Air Campaign Expectation
01:37 - American Workhorse
03:03 - Accuracy and Precision
06:10 - Smart Plane Dumb Bomb
07:10 - F-16 Ground Strike Demonstration
10:15 - Thrustmaster
11:14 - Effective Accuracy
14:17 - Y'all Have A Good Day

- Audio -
Music and Sfx from Epidemic Sound

[pds]

I was in an Intel USAF unit during the war. Fact: The A-10 did not kill ANY tanks with its gun (it did kill 2 helicopters with the gun). The F-16 was awesome and so was the F-111 and Strike Eagle.

[justy]

People also tend to forget the F-16 has over 80 air to air kills for 1 disputed loss..
The F-16 is the jack off all trades and some say master off none... But it is a master..

[mensch]

I'm not even a sim guy, and I found that footage extremely satisfying to watch!

[kilianklaiber]

Great content. In my opinion, the F-16 is the best fighter aircraft design in terms of bang for the buck. After almost halft a century, the F-16 is still the work horse in many air forces world wide.

[stuartdollar]

Given that Desert Storm was about as perfect an air campaign (followed by a land campaign) as one could expect, the F-16 and the aircrews were very effective.

[andremichau]

One of the most beautiful aircraft ever made, relatively low cost to build and run and so versatile with excellent performance and reliability. A marvellous machine.

[mathswithgarry]

I thought that plenty of tanks were taken out with PGMs. They called it tank plnking. However, as I recall, they weren't looking for tanks in specific posts, but just taking out tanks that they found by accident. Some general told them off for wasting $12, 000 bombs on tanks, but the air force guys just asked him how much a tank cost.

[Ariccio]

Hehehe I *love* that you just went and dropped into DCS to actually demonstrate the things you were saying! I've seen a ton of history videos/documentaries, and a ton of DCS footage, but *nobody* has put them together!

Very satisfying!!

[kyle]

Turns out modern targeting equipment was better than the human eye. And from much father away. Keeping the pilot safer.

[kilianortmann]

USAF Instructor: Here we have the survivability onion. It is always preferable to stay in the outer layers as they come with much less risk.
Take care to use standoff distance, low observability and evasive maneuvers as much as possible.
A-10: YEENNNKINS!

[thereub]

This is probably the 1 time I didn't mind an end of video ad. Thrustmaster has been around since I was playing Chuck Yeager's Air Combat, Falcon 3.0, Descent, & Fury 2.

[calvinlee]

Excellent presentation. The A-6s were doing very well as the USN fielded nine A-6 squadrons and the USMC two Squadrons. There were approximately 119 A-6s and they dropped a majority of PGMs by the USN. A-6s, A-7s and the F-18s also were using AGM-62, -65, -123 and AGM-88s.

[Demogrunt]

In my honest opinion, the F-15 & F-16 are two of the best combat airframes that have been proven in combat before the stealth revolution. Both have a remarkable track record.

[robertjune]

Great video. If you look at the clips showing air refueling, you will see that those are KC-135E's which were flown by the Air National Guard. I was there with the 1706 ARW - Provisional which was composed of Aircraft from the 128th ARW - Milwaukee and the 141st ARW - Spokane. I've found out a lot more about the conflict from channels like this.

[grrfy]

A-10 only works where air dominance has already been totally seecured.

[skyden]

Great video on one of my favorite aircraft.
Nifty sidenote: I live near March ARB (Air Reserve Base) in California, (US). The base maintains only two combat fighter aircraft, those being two F-16s for reservist training which happens every 2-3 months, so I do get to hear and see F-16s training regularly. An unfortunate incident happened about five years ago when a training reservist allowed his aircraft to run out of fuel, forcing a pilot ejection and crashing of the aircraft into an unoccupied warehouse.

[sleepsinleaves]

The flight sim demo/explanation is a really neat addition to videos.

[viper]

We’ve known the F-16 was a first rate ground attack platform ever since the ‘Gunsmoke’ competitions at Nellie AFB in the mid-70s. The A-10 can’t compete against heavily defended targets. It’s just too slow.

[DrVictorVasconcelos]

F-16 being a forgotten fighter is like Ian McCollum featuring the 1947 AK on Forgotten Weapons 😂

[JustAGamerA]

Only one plane matters. F-111. VARK VARK VARK. Swing wing my beloved.