{"id":1702009,"date":"2026-06-11T10:50:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T08:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=1702009"},"modified":"2026-07-17T10:36:58","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T08:36:58","slug":"noche-de-estreno-de-tormenta-del-desierto-campana-aerea-del-f-117-apache-1991","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/es\/desert-storm-opening-night-f117-apache-air-campaign-1991\/","title":{"rendered":"La noche que reescribi\u00f3 la guerra a\u00e9rea: las primeras 14 horas de Tormenta del Desierto"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n\nAt 2:38 a.m. on January 17, 1991, eight AH-64 Apache helicopters crossed into Iraqi airspace at treetop height. Their mission: destroy two early-warning radar stations that would blind Iraq to what was coming next. Within minutes, the stations were burning wreckage. The opening night of Operation Desert Storm \u2014 the most intense aerial assault in military history \u2014 had begun.\n\nOver the next fourteen hours, the U.S.-led coalition flew more than 1,300 combat sorties and launched 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles. By dawn, Iraq's air defense network was shattered, its command centers were burning, and Saddam Hussein's military was deaf, blind, and unable to coordinate a response.\n\n\n<div style=\"background:#f4f4f4;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:18px 22px;margin:28px 0;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:15px;line-height:1.7\">\n<p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:17px\">\u2708 Quick Facts<\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:18px\">\n<li><strong>Date:<\/strong> January 17, 1991, beginning at 02:38 local time<\/li>\n<li><strong>Operation:<\/strong> Desert Storm \u2014 liberation of Kuwait<\/li>\n<li><strong>First strike:<\/strong> Task Force Normandy \u2014 8 AH-64 Apaches destroy 2 radar sites<\/li>\n<li><strong>First night sorties:<\/strong> 1,300+ coalition combat sorties<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tomahawks launched:<\/strong> ~100 in the first wave<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/f-117-nighthawk\">F-117<\/a> missions:<\/strong> 36 stealth fighters struck 34 targets in Baghdad<\/li>\n<li><strong>Iraqi aircraft losses (first 24h):<\/strong> 8 confirmed air-to-air kills<\/li>\n<li><strong>Coalition aircraft lost (first night):<\/strong> 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/fa-18-hornet\">F\/A-18C<\/a> (Lt Cdr Scott Speicher)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Task Force Normandy: The Door Kickers<\/h2>\n\nThe entire air campaign hinged on two radar stations in the Iraqi desert. These early-warning sites \u2014 codenamed Objectives Nebraska and Oklahoma \u2014 would detect incoming coalition aircraft and give Baghdad's air defense network time to react. They had to die first, and they had to die silently.\n\nThe job went to Task Force Normandy: eight AH-64A Apaches from the 101st Airborne Division, led by Lieutenant Colonel Dick Cody. The helicopters launched from a forward staging base at Al Jouf, near the Iraqi border, and flew roughly 90 miles into Iraq, navigating at night across featureless desert using forward-looking infrared (FLIR) systems and GPS \u2014 technology that was cutting-edge in 1991.\n\nAt precisely 2:38 a.m. \u2014 twenty-two minutes before the main air campaign was scheduled to begin \u2014 the Apaches opened fire with Hellfire missiles and 2.75-inch rockets. Both radar stations were destroyed within four minutes. The gap in Iraq's radar fence was open.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Stealth Fighters Over Baghdad<\/h2>\n\nAs the radar stations burned, 36 F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighters were already inbound to Baghdad. The F-117 was the coalition's ace card: an aircraft invisible to radar, capable of delivering laser-guided bombs with surgical precision on the most heavily defended targets in Iraq.\n\nThe F-117s struck 34 high-value targets on the first night: air defense command centers, telecommunications hubs, government ministries, and military headquarters. Each aircraft carried two 2,000-pound GBU-27 Paveway III laser-guided bombs. The pilots dropped into the densest air defense environment since Hanoi in 1972 \u2014 and none were hit.\n\nBaghdad's anti-aircraft guns lit up the sky in what CNN broadcast live to a global audience. The tracers were spectacular but ineffective: the gunners were firing blind, unable to see or track the stealth aircraft above them.\n\n<div style=\"background:linear-gradient(135deg,#f8f9ff 0%,#eef1ff 100%);border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:22px 26px;margin:32px 0;border-radius:0 10px 10px 0\">Pilots and reporters over Baghdad that first night described the anti-aircraft barrage as resembling the Fourth of July \"times a thousand\" \u2014 but most of it was unguided fire, simply thrown into the sky in the hope of hitting something.<\/div>\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Tomahawks: The Opening Salvo<\/h2>\n\nSimultaneously with the F-117 strikes, the U.S. Navy launched approximately 100 BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles from battleships and cruisers in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. The USS Wisconsin and USS Missouri \u2014 both World War II-era battleships \u2014 were among the launch platforms, making the Tomahawk's combat debut from ships that had fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.\n\nThe Tomahawks hit power plants, command bunkers, and air defense nodes across Iraq. Flying at low altitude on pre-programmed terrain-following routes, they arrived over their targets without warning. For Iraqi defenders, the first indication of attack was the explosion.\n\nThis was the Tomahawk's first use in combat. The weapon worked. Its success in Desert Storm established the cruise missile as the preferred opening move for every major U.S. military operation that followed \u2014 Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq 2003, Libya, Syria, and now Iran.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Wild Weasels and the SEAD Campaign<\/h2>\n\nWhile the F-117s and Tomahawks hit fixed targets, <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/f-4-phantom-ii\">F-4G<\/a> Wild Weasels and EF-111 Ravens waged electronic warfare against Iraq's integrated air defense system (IADS). The Wild Weasels carried AGM-88 HARM anti-radiation missiles designed to home in on radar emissions. The message to Iraqi radar operators was simple: turn on your radar and die.\n\nThe Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) campaign was devastatingly effective. Within hours, Iraqi radar operators began shutting down their systems rather than risk a HARM strike. By dawn, Iraq's once-formidable IADS \u2014 modeled on the Soviet system that had mauled Israeli aircraft in 1973 \u2014 was operationally paralyzed.\n\nThe coalition also employed BQM-74 drones as decoys, tricking Iraqi radars into activating and revealing their positions. When the radars came up, HARMs went in. The combination of decoys, jamming, and anti-radiation missiles created a lethal dilemma with no good answer.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Air Superiority Sweep<\/h2>\n\nAs the strike packages went in, F-15C Eagles flew air superiority patrols to intercept any Iraqi fighters that managed to get airborne. Iraq had the sixth-largest air force in the world, with over 700 combat aircraft including <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/mig-29-fulcrum\">MiG-29<\/a> Fulcrums, <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/mig-25-foxbat\">MiG-25<\/a> Foxbats, <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/aircraft\/dassault-mirage-f1\">Mirage F1s<\/a>, and Su-24 Fencers.\n\nOn the first night, coalition fighters shot down 8 Iraqi aircraft in air-to-air combat. The Iraqi Air Force never recovered. Over the course of the war, 33 Iraqi aircraft were destroyed in aerial combat \u2014 all by coalition fighters, none by Iraqi ones. The one-sided air war became a rout: Iraqi pilots began flying their aircraft to Iran rather than face coalition fighters.\n\nThe only coalition aircraft lost on the opening night was an F\/A-18C Hornet flown by Lieutenant Commander Michael Scott Speicher. The cause was officially listed as unknown for years \u2014 the Navy initially attributed it to a surface-to-air missile, while later assessments concluded he was most likely downed by an Iraqi MiG-25. Speicher became the first American combat casualty of the war.\n\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The Blueprint for Modern Air War<\/h2>\n\nThe opening night of Desert Storm did not just win a battle \u2014 it wrote the playbook. Every major air campaign since has followed the same template: stealth aircraft and cruise missiles hit air defenses and command nodes first; SEAD assets suppress radar; electronic warfare blinds and confuses; and air superiority fighters sweep the sky clean.\n\nThe 43-day air campaign that followed reduced Iraq's fielded military by roughly 50 percent before the ground war even began. When the ground assault launched on February 24, it was over in 100 hours.\n\nDesert Storm's opening night proved that air power, properly applied, could paralyze a modern military in hours. It was the night that rewrote the rules of warfare.\n\n<em>Sources: Gulf War Air Power Survey (USAF), \"Every Man a Tiger\" by Tom Clancy\/Chuck Horner, CENTCOM after-action reports, Air Force Historical Research Agency<\/em>\n\n<!-- mf-faq -->\n\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}<\/style><h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>When did Operation Desert Storm begin?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The air war of Operation Desert Storm began in the early hours of 17 January 1991, at about 02:38 local time. A massive coalition air assault struck Iraq to liberate Kuwait, opening one of the most decisive air campaigns in history.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What was the first strike of Desert Storm?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The opening blow came from Task Force Normandy \u2014 eight U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters that destroyed two Iraqi early-warning radar sites, punching a hole in the air-defence network so the main strike packages could pour through undetected.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>What role did the F-117 play in Desert Storm?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Stealth was central. On the first night, 36 F-117 Nighthawks struck 34 high-value targets in heavily defended Baghdad, hitting command centres and air-defence nodes that conventional aircraft couldn't reach safely. Their invisibility to radar made the opening attack possible.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How many sorties were flown on the first night of Desert Storm?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>The coalition flew more than 1,300 combat sorties on the opening night, alongside roughly 100 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched in the first wave \u2014 an overwhelming, tightly coordinated assault that crippled Iraq's defences within hours.<\/p><\/div><\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\"><summary>How effective was the opening night of Desert Storm?<\/summary><div class=\"mf-faq-answer\"><p>Devastatingly so. In the first 24 hours the coalition scored eight confirmed air-to-air kills and shattered Iraq's air defences while losing only one aircraft, an F\/A-18C. The night demonstrated the power of stealth, precision weapons and coordinated air planning.<\/p><\/div><\/details><\/div>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"When did Operation Desert Storm begin?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The air war of Operation Desert Storm began in the early hours of 17 January 1991, at about 02:38 local time. 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The opening night of Operation Desert Storm \u2014 the most intense aerial assault in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":1701870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1702009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Night That Rewrote Air Warfare: Desert Storm&#039;s Opening 14 Hours | Afterburner - MiGFlug&#039;s Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How the opening 14 hours of Desert Storm rewrote air warfare \u2014 the stealth, missiles and planning that dismantled Iraq&#039;s defenses overnight.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/desert-storm-opening-night-f117-apache-air-campaign-1991\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Night That Rewrote Air Warfare: Desert Storm&#039;s Opening 14 Hours | Afterburner - 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