Well trained? I will give you an advice I received from a Msgt many yrs ago: In a fight, you win not by fighting under your opponent's rules but by forcing him to fight under yours, and cheating is allowed.
Take range, for example...
If you have longer reach, then fight from a distance. It mean if you have better radar that can detect a longer range, then shoot first. If you can air refuel, then put your basing back further from the front line. In both situations, longer reach put you at an advantage and the enemy at a disadvantage. Longer reach or range is a rule and you just force your opponent to fight under your rule. Your ability to see far and fly far prevent the enemy from putting you under his rules.
What happened in Desert Storm, at least from an airpower perspective, was that we knew our air hardware better than the Iraqis knew theirs. Do you understand? Am not talking about knowing the technical ins-and-outs but how to use them in as many scenarios as we could dream up in peacetime, so that if the enemy air force do something maybe we have a response for that maneuver or tactic. We know what we can do better than the Iraqis know what they can do. That advantage is what truly killed the Iraqi military.
Not really. It has been known since the Cold War that the US and allies hold the qualitative edge while the Soviets had the quantitative edge. My first jet was the F-111E at RAF Upper Heyford. The slightly more advanced F-111F was at RAF Lakenheath. During the Cold War yrs, the US had Soviet EE Adolf Tolkachev working for US. Tolkachev passed technical information on many Soviet radars and air defense systems. In every arms negotiation, the Soviets always demanded we removed the F-111s and we always refused but not knowing why they keep demanding. Then from Tolkachev, it turned out that the Soviets had no credible defense against the F-111s flying out of the UK, and the F-111 was 1960s technology.
In the early 1970s, Soviet airborne radars could not spot moving objects close to the ground, meaning they could fail to detect a terrain-hugging bomber or cruise missile. This vulnerability became a major design challenge for Tolkachev and the engineers he worked with; they were pressed to build radars that could “look down” from above and identify low-flying objects moving against the background of the earth. The United States was planning to use low-flying, penetrating bombers to attack the Soviet Union in the event of any war. Tolkachev had joined the Scientific Research Institute for Radio Engineering, later known as Phazotron, in the 1950s as it was expanding into research and development of military radars, which grew in sophistication from simple sighting devices to complex aviation and weapons-guidance systems. It was the only place he had ever worked.
The Iraqi military was Soviet equipped. Sending more weapons that are technologically beyond the rifle or the tank would not have helped the Iraqi military. We had the qualitative edge and there was only so much the Iraqi soldiers could handle from the Soviets. More hardware does not mean more troops to operate. If a squadron have 20 pilots, sending 100 jets does nothing. You cannot train a pilot in a few weeks. Once we shut down Iraqi border radars, the war was on the down slope towards the victory for US.
Am US Air Force. At the two months mark of this war, I asked 'Where was the VKS?' Now, I say the Russian Air Force is a shiddy air force. That is not mockery but a judgement. And it is clear that without a credible air force, the Russian Army is floundering. It is as if the Russian military barely moved since Desert Storm.
never seen someone go around in circles so much.
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