Now, how many did we lose? (coallition) And how did they go down?

31Jan. AC130-n/a--FROG7--14KIA

The biggest shock to me is that the F-16 didn't have any air-to-air victories (a close second is the A-10 having air-to-air victories) {SNIP} From the pictures I have seen they where always armed with some type of air-to-air missle.

I know the F-15 is our best air-to-air plane, but is it that much better than the rest? I didn't think so myself. I have always heard that the F-16 was a good dog fighter also, is that wrong? What do you guys and gals think?

Thanks for the clarification on the frog7..............i just couldn't remember.

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Thanks for the clarification on the frog7..............i just couldn't remember.

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FROG is actually an acronym for Free Rocket Over Ground. Basically it is just a large bottle rocket pointed in the direction you want it to go to. Hard to imagine it as an AA weapon.

Considering how much time we spent over there its hard to imagine that we lost all these planes.I for one never thought we lost this many.

I agree, but I know some rag-tag somali militia downed two of our Blackhawks with RPGs.
If it shoots, I guess one can use it for whatever they need it for.
I also remember a report of a allied aircraft using a AIM-7 to attack a Iraqi patrol boat.
Strange things happen in wartime.

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Considering how much time we spent over there its hard to imagine that we lost all these planes.I for one never thought we lost this many.

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We weren’t there long, but we really went to work during that short time. We flew 18,276 strategic sorties (missions) during that time. That figure is for all the allied forces, not just the United States. A strategic sortie is basically a single aircraft ground attack mission (bombs, air-to-ground missles, etc). This does not include electronic jamming, tankers, combat air patrols, search and rescue, etc. It is also worth noting that only 16% of the sorties during the war were strategic. That means the 18,276 figure is only 16% of the total missions flown. I don't feel like doing math but you can see that there where a ton of missions flown. When you look at that # and figure we can list all our losses on a single page, it is amazing. I have heard that if we had a training exercise that size we would have expected more losses even without someone trying to shoot our aircraft down.

I would encourage everyone to read a little about the gulf war. It is not anything like CNN showed us. There where some hard fought land battles. Iraq also had some good equipment. We weren't just fighting a bunch of idiots. They were a battle hardened army with some of the best Soviet and French equipment oil can buy (also some of our stuff, but thats a different story). We owe these guys and gals as much as our other veterans.