Making of Bill Creech - Project Gutenberg Consortia Center

CREECH BLUEand, in AirLand Battle, the Army moved substantially toward theAir Force’s theater-centric view of airpower employment.The de facto doctrine represented by the defense-rollbackstrategy and the accompanying medium- and high-altitudeprecision-weapon employment became in 1991 the Air Force’sstandard for air warfare to the present—without exception.The Air Force’s emphasis on night operations—due in very largemeasure to General Creech’s actions—has become so ubiquitousthat Airmen now refer, as a matter of course, to “the first night”rather than “the first day” of any given air operation. For example,following a four-day punitive air operation against Iraqin 1998, the air commander, Lt Gen Hal M. Hornburg, wroteCreech a letter in which he said, “As you know, all missionswere flown at night—no losses, pretty good results—againlargely thanks to you. Only wish more people knew. Lots ofwives will welcome home their husbands, and kids their Dads,because of you. On their behalf, I thank you.” 1 Accompanyingthe new tactics was a whole new generation of aircraft, munitions,and systems developed and fielded during his tenure asthe TAF spokesman that have been the mainstay of Air Forcecombat operations for two decades. One of the keys to Creech’ssuccess in this regard was that equipment was developedwith tactics in mind, rather than tactics being developed to fitavailable equipment. Numerous PGM programs enabled effectiveattacks from medium and high altitudes. LANTIRN enablednight operations and PGM targeting. The EF-111, F-4G,EC-130H, HARMs, and Have Quick radios enabled operationsin a dense electromagnetic environment and denied the enemythe ability to operate in that same environment. Meanwhile,new fighter aircraft such as the F-117 and the F-15E were designedfrom the ground up to be employed with precision in anighttime environment. Cumulatively, these changes in equipment,tactics, and strategy have deeply influenced air warfare,not just in the United States Air Force but around the world.In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the other services’ air forces,and indeed other nations’ air forces, have struggled to catchup. In 1995 the principal authors of the Gulf War Air PowerSurvey commercially published their study’s summary report(with several relatively minor changes) as Revolution in Warfare?136