Tank plinking

Tank plinking is a term that was given by pilots during the Gulf War to the practice of using guided munitions to destroy artillery, armored personnel carriers, tanks, and other targets.^[1] As the war progressed, the term began to encompass all forms of destroying a target (such as a T-72 tank) with an overly capable weapon (such as an A-10 Thunderbolt II's GAU-8 Avenger cannon, at a cyclic rate of 3,900 rounds-per-minute).^[2] This term was discouraged by the military.^[3]

Background

General Norman Schwarzkopf was looking for a plan to incapacitate 50% of the Iraqi army before any ground invasion could begin. Planning was performed including high intensity air strikes with General Dynamics F-111, A-6 Intruder, F-15E Strike Eagle, F/A-18 Hornet, AV-8 Harrier, A-10 Thunderbolt II, and F-16 Falcon crews. This culminated in December 1990, with Operation Night Camel in which air crews of the F-111 evaluated the ability of aircraft to use guided munitions with the LANTIRN and Pave Tack target designation systems from medium altitude.

This is a deviation from standard military air engagement due to the prevalence of the surface-to-air missile; most aviators would prefer to engage a target from either a very high altitude, or a very low altitude, and certainly with low observability aircraft. However, the Iraqi defenses proved to be very inadequate. The winning combination^{[citation needed]} for the eventual campaign was either a pair or quartet of F-111F aircraft loaded with four GBU-12 500-lb, laser-guided bombs. Bombs were designated for both entrenched, hard targets, as well as softer targets (e.g. armoured personnel carriers).

References