How We Fight

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The longer the bombing continued [in Vietnam], the more diplomatic pressure could be generated against the U.S. to halt it. --FROM CLARK'S THESIS

Altitude is not the only thing hindering allied efforts: many U.S. surveillance systems require line-of-sight to work, and the craggy, Balkan terrain hides much of what's going on. "At any given time," an Air Force officer says, "a large chunk of the Serbs is hidden behind mountains." But the hardscrabble Balkans also help: the few roads down below give pilots a sanctuary over the undeveloped forest. Armed Serbs travel along such roads, or only a short distance from them. So U.S. pilots avoid them whenever possible, and cross them at right angles when they must.

The Serbs have been hiding tanks and other weapons in villages, knowing that NATO's aversion to civilian casualties will keep them safe. "We know where they are, but it's difficult when they're parked in villages or in convoys with civilians," says Buster, the F-16 pilot. He held his fire, he recalls, when he spied a white vehicle next to a burning house. "Is a white van a military vehicle?" he asks. "No, but I'm sure it's not the guy lighting his own house on fire." And the Serbs have split their armored units so that tanks operate alone or in pairs, denying NATO nice, fat targets.

This war marks the first time that 90% of all weapons dropped have been so-called smart bombs, guided to their targets either by pilots or satellites. During the Gulf War, only 8% of the bombs dropped were precision-guided. Such weapons really triumphed in September 1995. In a two-week campaign that was 70% smart bombs, the U.S. military helped drive the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table.

U.S. pilots, who are flying more than 80% of the missions, are usually dropping laser-guided bombs. They trace a pilot-aimed laser beam, adjusting their tail fins to stay on course. But when the laser beam is broken by clouds or fog, or weather hinders the pilot's vision, the $50,000 bomb goes astray. Weather has been a key Milosevic ally, with good weather only on seven of the first 21 days of the war.

For the first time, U.S. warplanes can drop bombs regardless of the weather, guided to their targets by a constellation of Global Positioning Satellites rather than pilot eyeballs. JDAMs (Joint Direct Attack Munitions) have debuted from B-2 bomb bays. "You use expensive munitions like cruise missiles to defeat air defenses," says retired General Merrill McPeak, the former Air Force Chief of Staff, "and then you fly over with cheap jdams that cost, per pound, about the same as hamburger." (That's very prime ground beef, at about $10 per lb., but a bargain for a near-precision weapon that can be dropped in any kind of weather.)

The air war, though, is draining U.S. precision-guided munitions. The Air Force is down to about 90 of its $1.5 million air-launched cruise missiles and is months away from replenishing that stockpile. The B-2 force had less than 1,000 jdams before the war began, forcing the Air Force to order up more a week into the conflict. The war highlights the Pentagon's peculiar priorities: it is spending some $350 billion on three new high-tech warplane programs but doesn't have the ammo it needs for its current crop of bombers.