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by Richard P. Hallion (Author), Adam Tooby (Illustrator)
An expertly written, illustrated new analysis of the Desert Storm air campaign fought against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which shattered the world's fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force in just 39 days, and revolutionized the world's ideas about modern air power.
The combat phase of the Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, was 43 days long. This consisted of a 39-day air campaign followed by a four-day armoured mechanized assault. Together they shattered what had been the world's fourth-largest army and sixth-largest air force, and overturned conventional military assumptions about the effectiveness and value of air power. In this book, author Richard P. Hallion, one of the world's foremost experts on air warfare, explains why Desert Storm was a revolutionary victory, a war won with no single climatic battle. Instead, victory came thanks to a rigorously planned campaign, which opened with a devastating night of attacks that shattered Iraq's advanced air defence system, and allowed follow-on strikes in the subsequent weeks to savage Iraq's military infrastructure and troops in the field - largely by destroying capabilities and equipment, without massive loss of life. When the Coalition tanks finally rolled into Iraq, to widespread Iraqi surrenders, it was less an assault than an occupation. The rapid victory of Desert Storm, which surprised many observers, led to widespread military reform as the world's advanced militaries saw the new capabilities of precision air power. The military world that we live in today reflects, to a large degree, the transformation of military power heralded by the air campaign of the 1991 Gulf War.Author Biography
Richard P. Hallion holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Maryland, and has completed specialized governmental and national security programs at the Federal Executive Institute, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government. In a long and distinguished career he has been a Curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum; the Harold Keith Johnson Chair of Military History at the Army War College; the Charles Lindbergh Professor at the National Air and Space Museum; and The Air Force Historian. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Royal Aeronautical Society, and the Royal Historical Society.
