f 111 tank plinking...

On the night of February 5/6, 1991, Colonel Tom Lennon, commander of the 48th Fighter Wing, led an experimental attack by a pair of General Dynamics F-111 Aardvarks on tanks and armoured vehicles of the Iraqi Republican Guard dug into the desert north of Kuwait. For the test, each aircraft was equipped with a Pave Track pod and carried four GBU-12 500-lb LGBs. The crews were to see if LGBs could be guided accurately enough onto the tanks to destroy them. Cruising at 14,000ft, safely outside the reach of the AAA, the two crews delivered a series of deliberate attacks on stationary targets. The mission was an extraordinary success: four tanks and one artillery piece were destroyed for an expenditure of eight GBU-12s.

Horner immediately ordered all F-111Fs be shifted from the strategic campaign and be put to work taking out Iraqi vehicles. For the 48th TFW, tank-plinking (a term which irritated Schwarzkopf) became the order of the day.

By February 28th, 1991, the 66 deployed F-111Fs of the 48th TFW (out of a total of 84) destroyed 920 tanks/APCs (total may be higher), 252 artillery pieces, and 12 bridges, and emerged as USAF’s best strike fighter of the war.

Interesting Fact: When it was discovered that the F-111Fs had destroyed ten times more tanks than the F-16s, the F-16s were directed to cease attacks by mid-afternoon each day to allow the dust to settle before the F-111s went to work at night! #DesertStorm