Redstone missiles take spotlight in war of 25 years ago

By Ms. Kari Hawkins (AMCOM)August 31, 2015

Operation Desert Shield Patch
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Patriot in the Sand
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Storage Yard in the Desert
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Patriot Undercover
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REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. -- Twenty-five years ago this month, the U.S. embarked on a war deployment that showed the world its military strength.

Operation Desert Shield, and consequently Operation Desert Storm, became the largest deployment and subsequent combat use of Army missile technology in U.S. history.

And Redstone Arsenal -- specifically, the then Missile Command, and program executive offices for Tactical Missiles and Air Defense -- was at the heart of the action in those months of buildup and sustainment of missile systems in the desert of Southwest Asia.

"If Saddam Hussein had known what we were doing during Operation Desert Shield, he would have gambled and attacked the 82nd Airborne, which were the first troops to arrive in Saudi Arabia after Iraq invaded Kuwait," said Russ Rodgers, the historian for the Aviation and Missile Command.

"As long as Saddam's troops sat in the sand, we had the time to build up, and put more and more equipment in for the fight. We used the same deployment plan that we trained for to reinforce Europe in the 1950s through '80s in case of a Soviet offensive in Germany. We built up for Desert Shield much like we did for the invasion of Europe in World War II. But Europe was much larger geographically and took two years. Desert Shield was much more mobile and fast hitting."

Although MICOM had plenty of missile technology in the fight, putting Army technology in the hands of Soldiers was exceptionally challenging during Operation Desert Shield for three reasons -- the distance and speed involved in deploying both troops and equipment, the harsh operational environment that welcomed them in the Southwest Asian desert and the extended sustainment challenge, according to the AMCOM historian.

"We didn't have a lot of anticipation of the effect the sand would have on our systems," Rodgers said. "It's a different sand than what we have here in the U.S. It got into every component, and every nook and cranny. Anything with a moving part was damaged by sand. We hadn't experienced it, and we didn't know what it would do to our systems. Sand and heat presented challenges."

Nevertheless, the U.S. drew its "line in the sand" and the Army's big five -- Abrams, Bradley, Apache and Blackhawk along with the MICOM-managed Patriot -- were among the many military systems that made a statement for U.S. military might during the war.

"These systems were set in motion in the '70s. They were integrated into our Army and we understood their capabilities," Rodgers said. "The whole picture shows an integrated team of systems. The integrated combined arms made us astoundingly successful and very lethal."

Supporting allies

On Aug. 2, 1990, as Iraq invaded Kuwait; and then on Aug. 7, as Operation Desert Shield was launched, the work environment at Redstone Arsenal visibly changed. High optempo came practically overnight with the MICOM emergency operations center, located in building 5250, going to three shifts seven days a week.

"With the invasion of Kuwait in early August, this place started scrambling to put all the operation centers in place," said Jim Flinn, who served as director of MICOM's Missile Logistics Center at the time.

"At that time, we knew we would be engaged in support of our allies -- Israel and Saudi Arabia."

For MICOM, the invasion of Kuwait started on a personal note. One of its own -- Logistics Assistance Representative Bill Hollingsworth along with his wife Nancy -- was captured and detained as prisoners of war.

"That made it real personal," Flinn said. "Our presence on the ground was primarily Patriot missile system LARs and MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) LARs. We really were starting from the get go operating on two fronts. The Saudis had Patriot and other MICOM systems, and the Israelis had Patriot."

Prior to Operation Desert Shield, U.S. involvement consisted of the LARs who were in theater and the employees who were working foreign military sales cases with Saudi Arabia and Israel. Once Operation Desert Shield launched, the MICOM EOC quickly filled with employees from the MICOM Readiness Directorate who could talk with LARs to find out what the customers' needs were in the field.

But as President George Bush began calling up reservists for active duty and U.S. troops began moving into Southwest Asia, the MICOM Missile Logistics Center stood up an EOC in building 5681 to begin working logistical issues related to moving large quantities of missiles and missile system equipment into theater. MICOM was joined by the Program Executive Offices of Air Defense, led by then Brig. Gen. Bob Drolet, and Tactical Missiles, led by then senior executive service member George Williams.

"We were part of staff meetings that became a critical part in talks with the Army Materiel Command, the Pentagon and sometimes the State Department in determining the way forward," Flinn said. "The Logistics Operations Center handled all the information coming through the command operations center and the LARs about parts that were needed and technicians that were needed."

Preparing for war

With very little intelligence of the region and limited communications (no cell phones and very little computer support), MICOM employees were preparing for the worst. Their responsibilities included getting equipment ready for deployment, upgrading systems, filling unit repair parts shortages, arranging equipment, expediting deliveries and speeding up procurements. Because of the harsh desert climate and logistical immaturity of the region, employees had to address a number of issues pertaining to production, acquisition, spare/repair parts supply and maintenance.

"The first things we started doing involved looking at who was on the ground and who was likely to go," Flinn said.

"We were getting early indications of who was going out of Europe and out of the U.S. Once the decision was made that U.S. units from Europe would go in, we started anticipating who would go and when, and what they would need. We started trying to figure out how many Patriots we would have and where they were going to go. We didn't have a lot of intelligence of what the U.S. was going to put in the game."

At about the time of Operation Desert Shield, satellite phones became available.

"As we built up our forces, they were doing training every day in the desert," Williams said.

"So, we were getting calls every day and night about the systems with things that we needed to look at and address. If the helicopter crews were having problems with Hellfire, we were able to respond almost instantaneously. We had a software problem with MLRS that we fixed overnight."

MICOM and the PEOs knew that missile systems had to be 100 percent dependable once the war did start.

"You can't have troops not believing in hardware because if they don't they won't use it," Williams said. "You really have to work to make sure troops had confidence in the systems."

As Operation Desert Shield wore on, concerns about the effect of 130 degree heat that feels like 190 degrees became reality.

"We were shipping so much stuff, there were no places to put it," Williams said. "There was no shelter and missiles can't lay out on a dock or in the sand in that heat. The nitroglycerin in Hellfire melts at 190 degrees and that makes the missiles unpredictable. We soon learned that if they were just covered by a tent they wouldn't get over 160 degrees, and that was tolerable. Then, fall came and the heat issue was resolved."

Confidence in missiles

Early concerns were that the war would turn into a religious war if Israel became involved on the ground. That was a situation the U.S. wanted to avoid.

"The hottest topic here," Flinn said, "was the political issue of how to keep Israel out of the war, especially if it were attacked. Iraq had already invaded Kuwait, so the concern was very real."

Another concern revolved around who would receive the newly modified Patriot missile system.

"The Patriot Project Office was testing the first version of Patriot that could shoot down tactical missiles like the Scud missile," Flinn said. "So, who should get those very first versions of Patriot? The U.S. or the Israelis or the Saudis?"

But there was no concern over what the Iraqis had in store for themselves.

"Of the missile systems that deployed out of MICOM, we had a high degree of confidence that they would work and work effectively," Drolet said. "We had 20 to 30 years of development and testing and sustainment on our systems. We knew our weapons would perform extremely well. They would be impressive and we would see results."

Williams puts it more bluntly: "In a nutshell, Saddam didn't stand a chance."

By the end of August and going into September, the U.S. strategy began to materialize, and U.S. troops began moving equipment into position in the desert. Virtually every one of the Army's fielded missile systems managed and supported at Redstone Arsenal was sent to Southwest Asia, according to the AMCOM historian. Three general types of missiles were deployed: air defense (Avenger, Chaparral, Stinger, Hawk and Patriot); anti-armor (Dragon, TOW (tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided), Hellfire and Shillelagh; and artillery (Hydra-70, MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) and the Army TACMS (Army Tactical Missile System). Of these systems Patriot, Dragon, Hellfire, Hydra-70, MLRS, TOW and the Army TACMS were fired in combat. MICOM also supported other systems such as the Ground/Vehicle Laser Locator Designator, the Mast Mounted Sight, the M-901 Improved TOW Vehicle, the Forward Area Alerting Radar, and various night sights that provided coalition forces with a night-fighting capability not available to the opposing Iraqi army. In all, 24 different systems supported by MICOM were deployed in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

"The readiness of our systems was at the highest it had ever been," Drolet said. "We had to make sure our systems were adequately deployed and that we were able to sustain them. The Patriot system was still in development and testing with some of its newer elements. We had to rapidly finish those improvements and rapidly test before we could deploy the newer system."

The five months of Operation Desert Shield buildup provided the time to ensure all missile systems could be effective in the austere environment and it gave PEO Air Defense the time needed to get the new Patriot ready for war.

"We really wanted to deploy the latest version of Patriot capability," Drolet said. "The time we had really helped to complete development, do some testing and then get it into production so it could deploy."

MICOM and the PEOs "had a lot of irons in the fire" with the large variety of missile systems it deployed, he said.

"The Redstone workforce had spent years developing tactical missiles," Drolet said. "This was an opportunity to show the world what that missile technology could do on the battlefield. We deployed game changing weapons -- TOW, TACMS, Patriot."

Logistical challenge

Moving large quantities of missile systems took around-the-clock planning and coordination.

"The key part was moving all the MLRS equipment out of Europe and down to Saudi," Flinn said. "We started getting direction from the Pentagon. Our MLRS pods were stored in different locations all across the U.S. Our job was to arrange all movement of those pods from where they were stored to Sunny Point, North Carolina, which was the shipping point, and then across the ocean and into reception point in Saudi Arabia."

The U.S. didn't initially have logistics personnel on the ground in Saudi to receive, store and protect the MLRS pods and other MICOM equipment. Plans had to be made to get those personnel in place so that the equipment could be in-processed in a timely fashion.

But, "timely fashion" didn't necessarily mean "speedy" because the Army faced its own shipping issues on the continental side of the equation.

"We could only get four MLRS pods on an 18-wheeler and they were all over the U.S.," Flinn said. "We started early on coordinating with units out of Europe to make sure personnel were on the receiving end to handle, identify, store and protect. It took a while to build up what we needed. If the attack had come in August, it would have been a whole different kind of war."

A lot of that personnel came out of the Army's Reserve Corps, which provided on-the-job experience for new logisticians, maintenance technicians and supply logisticians needed for the buildup effort.

"MICOM and the PMs managed the equipment and made the best decisions on moving it," Flinn said.

"We found the personnel we needed on the ground in the desert. Because so many in newly formed logistics units were new at their jobs, our employees in the Logistics Operations Center screened the equipment requests that came in to make sure they (made) sense. You would have a unit stood up in support of Patriot and then they would order all kinds of equipment. We had to work with them to validate what they really needed."

Production of some missile systems had to be accelerated. The TACMS in particular increased production at a high cost, Williams said.

"We were directed to take care of it no matter what the cost was," he said. "We did take care of it. We did whatever needed to be done. When you get in a war time situation everyone takes care of business."

Part of the buildup involved assignments of the new Patriot missile systems coming off the production line in Orlando, Florida. It was Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, who decided where the new systems would be assigned. Deliberately, it was decided the U.S. would take whatever measure necessary to keep Israel out of the war.

"The importance of what we were doing was very high," Flinn said.

Firepower of Redstone

On Jan. 17, when Iraq attacked Israel with seven Scud missiles and the Patriot missile system successfully intercepted a Scud for the first time over Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, the war took Redstone Arsenal employees to a whole new level of concern and awareness.

"The whole Arsenal shut down at 4 in the afternoon because we had to go to the TVs to see if Tel Aviv was under attack," Flinn said. "The Patriot launches and intercepts made it so real, even though it was thousands of miles away. It really came home to us how important what we were doing was. The clock didn't matter. We worked until we got the job done."

In the end, as Operation Desert Shield built up the allied defenses in Southwest Asia, it became obvious that the technical and logistical expertise of MICOM and PEO employees at Redstone ensured the operational readiness of missile systems.

"We don't go in expecting a fair fight. We go in to compete and destroy and smash the guy we want to beat," Drolet said.

"The missile systems we had gave the forces that built up and went into Desert Storm the ability to smash the forces we wanted to beat. It was dramatic and it was fast, and it showed the firepower of Redstone Arsenal and MICOM."

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