Word: aircrafting
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Warships and attack planes carry electronic ID systems, like the IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) radio transponders that are standard equipment on military and civilian aircraft. A missile battery equipped with IFF can "interrogate" an aircraft by beaming a radio signal at it and listening to the answering squawk. But the system is not foolproof. In the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Arab batteries fired 2,100 antiaircraft missiles and destroyed 85 aircraft -- 45 of them Arab, 40 Israeli...
Since IFF transponders are impractical for ground forces, aircraft flying close support stay in constant radio contact with forward air controllers, whose job it is to track the shifting battle lines and point out enemy targets. Before an attack plane can launch its missiles at a Iraqi tank, an FAC must identify the target, declare that particular plane "hot" and switch on the targeting authority on the plane's computer. "The complexity is that you've got human beings in the chain," says Army spokesman Major Peter Keating. "And at night, when everybody's moving and talking on the radio...
...month of warfare, allied aircraft attacked at the rate of a mission a minute, pounding Iraqi troops and wrecking the infrastructure that supported Saddam's military machine...
...avoiding one-stop shopping. The Scud missiles fired against Israel and Saudi Arabia, for instance, were bought from the Soviet Union but were upgraded with equipment and expertise purchased from other nations. France provided guidance systems, Germany and Italy improved propulsion, and Brazil assembled the parts. Iraq's underground aircraft shelters were also hybrid creations. According to European press reports, Belgians designed the shelters, Swiss provided air-filtration units, Italians blastproof doors, and Britons and Germans the electrical power generators...
...picture that a reporter got a close look at, three dark half-moons turned out to be revetments for mobile artillery, but with no guns visible inside. Captain Barclay Trehal claims that the 50 specialists he bosses can distinguish live and dead aircraft, Scud missile launchers, vehicles and entrenchments -- but not soldiers, who are too small to be seen. Their presence has to be inferred from concentrations of vehicles and equipment. Their numbers can only be guessed at. How much damage they may suffer from bomb hits is a more speculative judgment still...