One problem led to another, and the Apache helicopters

never flew a combat mission in Kosovo.

Task Force Hawk

By Benjamin S. Lambeth

An Army AH-64 Apache in Albania. At right, a line of Apaches in Bosnia.

o
nly days after Operation Allied dorse the deployment. That approval
Force commenced in March finally came on Day 12 of Allied
1999, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, Force. The US Defense Department
NATO’s Supreme Allied Com- at first indicated that it would take
mander Europe, asked the up to 10 days to deploy the package.
United States Army to deploy In the end, it took 17 days just to
a contingent of its AH-64 Apache field the first battalion of Apaches,
attack helicopters to the combat zone which arrived in Albania on April
to provide a better close-in capabil- 21.
ity against enemy tanks and armored At first glance, the idea of using
personnel carriers than that offered Apaches to reinforce NATO’s fixed-
by fixed-wing fighters, which re- wing aircraft seemed entirely appro-
mained restricted to operating at me- priate, considering that the AH-64
dium altitudes as a general rule. Clark had been acquired by the Army ex-
initially had hoped to deploy this pressly to engage and destroy enemy
force to Macedonia, where the roads armor. As Pentagon spokesman Ken-
and airfields were better and the ter- neth Bacon put it in announcing the
rain was less challenging. The Mace- deployment, they would offer NATO
donian government, however, de- “the type of tank-killing capability
clined to grant permission because it that the bad weather has denied us. It
was already swamped by the flood will give us the capability to get up
of Kosovar refugees, so Albania was close and personal to the Milosevic
sought instead as the best available armor units units in Kosovo.” In a
alternative. normal weapons load, the Apache
Within four hours, NATO ap- mounts up to 16 Hellfire anti-tank
proved Clark’s request. It took more missiles, 76 folding-fin anti-person-
than a week, however, for the US nel rockets, and 1,200 rounds of 30
and Albanian governments to en- mm armor-piercing ammunition.

78 AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2002

US Army photo by Spc. Johnny H. Vazquez

With that armament, it gained de- fenses, military engineers, and head- ing vehicles; an armor company with
served distinction by destroying more quarters overhead. As the core of 15 M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks;
than 500 Iraqi armored vehicles dur- this larger force complement, now a howitzer battery with eight 155
ing Operation Desert Storm. Yet in designated Task Force Hawk, the mm artillery pieces; a construction
Desert Storm, the Apaches had de- Apaches were drawn from the Army’s engineer company; a short-range air
ployed as an organic component of 11th Aviation Brigade stationed at defense battery with eight more Brad-
two fully fielded US Army corps. In Illesheim, Germany. The deployment ley armored fighting vehicles armed
this case, the Army was being asked package included, however, not only with Stinger infrared surface-to-air
by SACEUR to cobble together an the two battalions of AH-64s but missiles; a smoke generator platoon;
ad hoc task force designed to oper- also 26 UH-60L Black Hawk and a brigade headquarters complement;
ate essentially on its own, without CH-47D Chinook helicopters from and diverse other elements. In all, to
the backstopping support of a fielded the 12th Aviation Regiment at Wies- backstop the deployment of 24 at-
US ground combat presence in the baden, Germany. Additional assets tack helicopters to Albania, Task
theater. The Army is not configured whose deployment was deemed es- Force Hawk ended up being accom-
to undertake such ad hoc deploy- sential for supporting the Apaches panied by a support train of no fewer
ments, and its units do not train for included a light infantry company; a than 5,350 Army personnel.
them. Instead, an Apache battalion Multiple Launch Rocket System pla- To be sure, there was a legitimate
normally deploys only as a part of a toon with three MLRS vehicles; a force-protection rationale behind this
larger Army division or corps, with high-mobility multipurpose wheeled accompanying train of equipment and
all of the latter’s organically attached vehicle (humvee) anti-tank company personnel. Unlike the Marines, who
elements. equipped with 38 armed utility ve- deployed 24 F/A-18D fighters to
hicles; a military intelligence pla- Hungary only a few weeks thereaf-
Apaches, and More toon; a military police platoon; and a ter and had them flying combat mis-
Accordingly, the Army was driven combat service support team. The sions within days with nothing even
by its own standard operating proce- Army further determined a need for approaching Hawk’s overhead and
dures to supplement the two Apache its Apaches to be accompanied by a support baggage, Army planners had
battalions with a heavy additional mechanized infantry company equip- to be concerned about the inherent
contingent of ground forces, air de- ped with 14 Bradley armored fight- risks of deploying a comparable num-

AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2002 79

 ber of Apaches on terrain that was way and ramp specifications to ac- tion concluded that the first accident
not that of a NATO ally, that lacked commodate the more capacious C-5.) had been caused by the pilot’s hav-
any semblance of a friendly ground In the end, it took more than 500 C- ing mistakenly landed short of his
force presence, and that could easily 17 sorties, moving some 22,000 short intended touchdown point. The sec-
have invited a VJ (for Vojska Jugo- tons in all, to transfer Hawk in its ond was attributed to an apparent
slavskaya, the Serb army) cross-bor- entirety. Commenting later on the failure of the tail rotor, considering
der attack in the absence of a US deployment, one Army officer com- that the aircraft had been observed
ground force sufficient to render that plained that the Army is “still orga- to enter a rapid uncontrolled spiral
an unacceptable gamble for VJ com- nized to fight in the Fulda Gap.” during the last moments before its
manders. Even the outgoing Army Chief of impact with the ground.
That said, it bears noting that the Staff, Gen. Dennis J. Reimer, admit-
threat of Serbian forces coming ted in an internal memo to senior Rising Costs
across the Albanian border did not Army staff officers once the deploy- As of May 31, the cost of the
appear to be a matter of great con- ment package had finally been as- Task Force Hawk deployment had
cern to anyone in the Allied Force sembled in theater that the manifold reached $254 million, much of that
command hierarchy before the ar- problems encountered by Hawk had constituting the expense for the
rival of Task Force Hawk, even underscored a “need for more adap- hundreds of C-17 sorties that had
though there were US troops already tive force packaging methodology.” been needed to haul all the equip-
on the ground. The troops, who were In all events, 23 Apaches with their ment from Germany to Albania,
not provided with any comparable attached equipment and personnel plus the additional costs of build-
force protection package, were in arrived in Albania in late April. (The ing base camps and port services
Albania as a part of Joint Task Force 24th Apache had developed hydrau- and conducting mission rehearsals.
Shining Hope, the Albanian refugee lic trouble en route and remained on Yet despite SACEUR’s intentions
relief effort. the ground in Italy.) No sooner had to the contrary, the Apaches flew not
the Army declared all but one of the a single combat mission during the
Baggage Problems aircraft ready for combat on April entire remainder of Operation Al-
As one might have expected with 26 when, only hours later, one crashed lied Force. The reason given by then–
that much additional equipment and at the Tirana airfield in full view of JCS Chairman Army Gen. Henry H.
personnel, however, the Apache de- reporters who had been authorized Shelton was that Serb air defenses in
ployment soon encountered the pre- to televise the flight. Neither crew Kosovo, although noticeably de-
dictable consequences of the Army’s member was injured, but the acci- graded by early May, remained ef-
decision to accompany the AH-64s dent made for an inauspicious start fective enough to warrant keeping
with such a surfeit of arguably un- for the widely touted deployment. the Apaches out of action until sup-
necessary extra baggage. It was at Less than two weeks later, on May 5, pression of enemy air defenses op-
first estimated that 200 USAF C-17 a second accident occurred, this time erations had “reduced the risk to the
transport sorties would be needed to killing both crew members during a very minimum.”
airlift the assorted support elements night training mission some 46 miles In a final coda to the Army’s
with which the Apaches had been north of Tirana. The aircraft was plagued Task Force Hawk experi-
burdened. (The airport at Tirana, carrying a full load of weapons and ence, Shelton conceded later in a
Albania, lacked the required taxi- extra fuel. A subsequent investiga- written response to questions from
the Senate Armed Services Commit-
tee that “the anticipated benefit of
USAF photo by SrA. Michelle Leonard

employing the Apaches against dis-

persed forces in a high-threat envi-
ronment did not outweigh the risk to
our pilots.” Shelton added that by
the time the Apache deployment had
reached the point where it was ready
to engage in combat, VJ ground for-
mations were no longer massed but
had become dispersed and well hid-
den. Moreover, he went on to note,
the weather had improved, enabling
Air Force A-10s and other fixed-
wing aircraft to hunt down dispersed
and hidden enemy forces while in-
curring less risk from enemy infra-
red SAMs, anti-aircraft artillery, and
small-arms fire than the Apaches
would have faced.
Beyond these problems created
The estimate was for 200 sorties. In fact, C-17s flew more than 500 to haul 23 by the Army’s decision to bring
Task Force Hawk Apaches and their support elements from Germany to along so much additional overhead,
Albania. there was a breakdown in joint doc-
80 AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2002
 US Army photo by Spc. Daniel Ernst
trine for the combat use of the heli-
copters that was disturbingly evoca-
tive of the earlier competition for
ownership and control of coalition
air assets that had continually poi-
soned the relationship between the
Joint Force Air Component Com-
mander and the Army’s corps com-
manders during Desert Storm. The
issue stemmed in this case from the
fact that the Army has traditionally
regarded its attack helicopters not
as part of a larger airpower equa-
tion with a theaterwide focus but
rather as an organic maneuver ele-
ment fielded to help support the
ground maneuver needs of a divi-
sion or corps. Apache crews typi-
cally rely on their own ground units
to select and designate their targets.
Yet in the case of Allied Force, with An Army mechanic works on an Apache. The Army support tail for Task Force
no Army ground combat presence Hawk included 5,350 personnel.
in-theater to speak of, they would
either have had to self-designate
their targets or else rely on Air Force Force Hawk as much operational sup- to suppress enemy AAA and infra-
forward air controllers flying at port (including EA-6B Prowler jam- red SAMs, a tactic that was out of
higher altitudes to designate for ming support) as possible and even the question from the very start, given
them. The idea of using Apaches as went so far as to propose to subordi- NATO’s determination to avoid any
a strike asset in this manner inde- nate himself and his Combined Air significant incidence of noncomba-
pendently of US ground forces was Operations Center as a supporting tant casualties. In contrast, Air Force
simply not recognized by prevail- (as opposed to supported) combat planners maintained that excluding
ing Army doctrine. On the contrary, element to Hendrix, who as V Corps the Apaches from CAOC control
as prescribed in Army Field Manual commander was also the ultimate would increase their level of risk by
1-112, Attack Helicopter Opera- commander of Hawk. depriving them of support from such
tions, an AH-64 battalion “never An agreement was finally reached key battlespace awareness assets as
fights alone. ... Attacks may be con- that nominally included the Apaches Joint STARS, Rivet Joint, Compass
ducted out of physical contact with with all other ATO missions, yet Call, and the EA-6B. As a USAF
other friendly forces,” but they must which left to Hendrix’s discretion officer attached to Hendrix’s deep
be “synchronized with their scheme much essential detail on mission tim- operations coordination cell wrote
of maneuver.” FM 1-112 expressly ing and tactics. A window was pro- in an e-mail obtained by Inside the
characterizes deep attack missions vided in the ATO such that the Pentagon, “They do not know, nor
of the sort envisaged by Clark as Apaches would be time-deconflicted do they want to know, the detailed
“high-risk, high-payoff operations from friendly bombs falling from integration required to get the Prowler
that must be exercised with the ut- above and also assured of some fixed- to jam the priority threats, provide
most care.” wing air support. However, the agree- acquisition jamming on the correct
ment reached in the end was so vague azimuth, etc. The benefits of inte-
Emerging Rift that it allowed each service to claim grating with platforms like Compass
In light of this, the Army’s V Corps it maintained tactical control over Call, Rivet Joint, and others are off
commander, Lt. Gen. John W. Hendrix, the Apaches in the event they were their radar scope.”
was willing to have the Apaches in- ever committed to combat. For their In his memoirs, Clark later scored
cluded in the European Command part, Army officers insisted that fire the press article that reported this
Air Tasking Order, but he demurred support for the AH-64s would come material. He criticized its author for
on having them incorporated as well only from MLRS and Army Tactical “personally attacking Jay Hendrix
in the separate NATO ATO, not- Missile Systems positioned on the and claiming, among other accusa-
withstanding the insistence of the Albanian side of the border. That tions, that he would not allow the
NATO air commander, Lt. Gen. doctrinal stance was enough all by Apache sorties to appear on Short’s
Michael C. Short, that such inclu- itself to ensure that the Apaches Air Tasking Order.” Clark made no
sion would be essential in any situa- would never see combat, consider- attempt to refute that accusation,
tion in which the attack helicopters ing that the massive MLRS and however, but merely dismissed it as
were ever committed to actual com- ATACMS fires envisaged for any the complaint of a “disgruntled Air
bat. Apart from that, however, Short AH-64 operations would have rained Force officer.”
never sought operational control of literally multiple thousands of clus- After Allied Force ended, USAF
the Apaches or attempted to task ter bomb unit submunitions all over Maj. Gen. John R. Dallager, the as-
them. He also offered to provide Task Kosovo in an indiscriminate attempt sistant chief of staff for operations
AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2002 81
 and logistics at Supreme Headquar- who don’t recognize that if you are coming Chief of Staff, Gen. Eric K.
ters Allied Powers Europe, touched going to fly Apaches at a distance Shinseki, Brig. Gen. Richard A.
the heart of the overriding interests and range, it’s got to be on the Air Cody, the Army’s director of opera-
and equities at stake here when he Tasking Order.” Keane added that tions, resources, and mobilization,
stated, during a briefing at a NATO the Apaches had to be under the warned that because of those short-
Reaction Force Air Staff conference operational control of the JFACC in comings, “we are placing them and
on JFACC issues: “Clearly the the Army’s “self-interest” because their unit at risk when we have to
JFACC’s authority must not infringe that arrangement offered a more ef- ramp up for a real-world crisis.”
upon operational C 2 [Command and fective way of employing them in Cody, who earlier had planned and
Control] relationships within and be- this particular instance: “The JFACC executed the Army’s highly success-
tween national or service commands should determine what the Apache ful Apache operations during the
and other functional commands. But targets are as a result of the entire 1991 Gulf War, noted that more than
to ensure deconfliction of simulta- responsibility he has in conducting 65 percent of the assigned aviators
neous missions and to minimize the that air campaign.” He further noted in Task Force Hawk had less than
risk of fratricide, all air operations that the JFACC had the comparative 500 hours of flight experience in the
within the [joint operating arena] advantage of being able to retask Apache and that none were qualified
must be closely coordinated by the combat assets based on real-time to fly missions requiring night vi-
JFACC through the ATO ... process. intelligence, something the Army sion goggles. He further noted that
This last point may be difficult to could take advantage of as well if it the radios in the deployed Apaches
swallow for land and maritime com- could get itself out of “this business had insufficient range for conduct-
manders, but if air history teaches us of being myopic about ground op- ing deep operations and that the crews
anything, it is that air, the truly joint erations.” In closing, he acknowl- were, in the absence of night vision
activity, needs to be coordinated cen- edged that in the Army, “we’ve got goggles, dependent solely on their
trally if we are to make efficient use this nagging fear that somehow, if Forward-Looking Infrared sensors.
of scarce resources and if we are to we turn over our organization to Given the rugged terrain, unpredict-
avoid blue-on-blue.” somebody in another uniform, that able weather, and poorly marked
that organization is going to suffer power lines that crisscrossed Kosovo,
The Headquarters View as a result of that. And I just funda- relying on FLIR alone, he suggested,
Interestingly, the Army leadership mentally disagree with that.” “was not a good option.” Moreover,
in the Pentagon seemed far more In yet further testimony to the ill- he added, in order for the Apaches to
disposed than Hendrix, at least in fated character of the Army’s Task have flown the required distances
principle, to assign operational con- Force Hawk experience, it was ac- and crossed the high mountains of
trol of the Apaches to the CAOC. knowledged in an internal Army Kosovo, Hellfire missiles would have
According to Inside the Army, the memorandum after Allied Force had to be removed from one of their
incoming Army vice chief of staff, ended that the aircrews that had two wing mounts to free up a station
Lt. Gen. John M. Keane, frankly been sent with the Apaches had for auxiliary fuel tanks. As for the
commented at an Army aviation sym- been both undertrained and under- man-portable air defense system
posium in May 1999 that “it boggles equipped for their intended mis- threat, Cody remarked that “the cur-
my mind, but we still have senior sion. In the memo—obtained by rent suite of ASE [Aircraft Surviv-
leaders, people who wear stars, ... Legi-Slate News Service—to the in- ability Equipment] is not reliable
enough and sometimes ineffective.”
The Task Force Hawk experience
US Army photo by Spc. Christopher R. Salazar

underscored how little the US Army,

by its own leadership’s candid
admission, had done since Desert
Storm to increase its capacity to get
to an emergent theater of opera-
tions rapidly and with sufficient
forces to offer a credible combat
presence. Shortly after the Gulf War,
the Army’s leadership for a time
entertained the thought of reorga-
nizing the service so it might be-
come more agile by abandoning its
structure of 10 combat divisions and
opting instead for 25 “mobile com-
bat groups” of around 5,000 troops
each. Ultimately, however, the Army
backed away from that proposed
reform, doing itself out of any abil-
ity to deploy a strong armored force
US forces catalogue SA-7B surface-to-air missiles found in a Serbian storage
rapidly and retaining the unpalat-
facility. JCS Chairman Shelton said the Apaches faced greater risk from Serb able alternatives of either airlifting
air defenses than fixed-wing aircraft. several thousand lightly armed in-
82 AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2002
fantrymen to a threatened theater

USAF photo by TSgt. Cesar Rodriguez

within days or shipping a contin-
gent of 70-ton M1A2 Abrams main
battle tanks over the course of sev-
eral months.

Poorly Prepared
On his second day in office as the
Army’s new Chief of Staff, Shinseki
acknowledged that the Army had
been poorly prepared to move its
Apaches and support overhead to
Albania. Part of the problem, he noted
fairly, was that the only available
deployment site that made any op-
erational sense had poor rail connec-
tions, a shallow port, and a limited
airfield capacity that could not ac-
commodate the Air Force’s C-5 heavy
airlifter. However, he admitted that
the Army all the same was overdue They didn’t fly in combat, but Apache intelligence, surveillance, and recon-
to develop and act on a plan to make naissance assets aided allied fixed-wing targeting toward the end of Allied
its heavy forces more mobile and its Force.
lighter forces more lethal. In what
presaged a major shift in Army force mand posts whenever the latter trans- the counterbattery radars of Task
development policy for the years mitted. Although Hawk’s Apaches Force Hawk had played “a very big
ahead, he declared: “Our heavy forces and other combat assets never saw part” in allied targeting during the
are too heavy and our light forces action, its intelligence, surveillance, final stages of Allied Force.
lack staying power. Heavy forces and reconnaissance assets exerted a Another bright spot in the other-
must be more strategically deployable significant influence on the air ef- wise troubled Hawk experience was
and more agile with a smaller logis- fort at one of its most crucial mo- the USAF air mobility system’s out-
tical footprint, and light forces must ments. The KLA’s counteroffensive standing performance in opening up
be more lethal, survivable, and tacti- had forced the VJ to mass their forces the Rinas Air Base in Albania and
cally mobile. Achieving this para- and maneuver, to communicate by flowing forces and relief supplies
digm will require innovative think- radio, and to fire artillery and mor- into it. The combined efforts of
ing about structure, modernization tars to protect themselves. In re- USAFE’s Air Mobility Operations
efforts, and spending.” sponse, the sensors of Task Force Command Center, the Allied Force
One positive role played by Task Hawk, operating in conjunction with Air Mobility Division, USAFE’s 86th
Force Hawk once the counteroffen- the Army’s Hunter unmanned aerial Contingency Response Group at
sive by the paramilitary Kosovo Lib- vehicles, spotted VJ targets and Ramstein AB, Germany, and mul-
eration Army began registering ef- passed that information on to those tiple supporting Air Mobility Com-
fects in late May was the service in the command loop who could bring mand entities resulted in a standout
provided by the former’s counter- air-delivered ordnance to bear in a success amid the generally dismal
battery radars in helping NATO timely manner. “The result,” wrote story of Hawk’s immobility and the
fixed-wing pilots pinpoint and de- Theodore G. Stroup Jr., a retired Army’s persistent go-it-alone ap-
liver munitions against enemy artil- Army three-star general, “was that proach when it came to command
lery positions. Its TPQ-36 and TPQ- NATO airpower was finally able to relations and putting the Apaches
37 firefinder radars were positioned target precisely and hit the Serb army into the ATO. Simply put, the C-17
atop the hills adjacent to Tirana to in the field. The Kosovars acted as made the Task Force Hawk move-
spot Serb artillery fire and backtrack the anvil and TF Hawk as the eyes ment possible. No other aircraft could
the airborne shells to their point of and ears of the blacksmith so that the have done the job, yet another testi-
origin. Army EH-60 helicopters and hammer of airpower could be effec- monial to the direct-delivery con-
RC-12 Guardrail electronic intelli- tive.” Echoing this conclusion, then– cept that shaped the aircraft’s de-
gence aircraft were further able to US Air Forces in Europe commander, sign and got it through one of the
establish the location of VJ com- Gen. John P. Jumper, confirmed that most hard-fought acquisition battles
in USAF’s history. Thanks to the
ultimate success of the C-17 acqui-
Benjamin S. Lambeth is a senior staff member at RAND. He received the Air sition, Hawk got in and many thou-
Force Association’s Gill Robb Wilson Award in arts and letters for 2001 for sand Albanian refugees survived, two
his book The Transformation of American Air Power (Cornell University Press,
2000). This article is derived from his study, NATO’s Air War for Kosovo: A
signal accomplishments of what the
Strategic and Operational Assessment (RAND, 2001), written as a contribution commander of the US Army Europe,
to a larger R AND Project Air Force series on Operation Allied Force for the Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, later
United States Air Force. Lambeth’s most recent article for Air Force Magazine called one of the most successful
was “Profiles in Russian Airpower” in the March 1997 issue. airlift operations in history. ■

AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2002 83