• Forces available: Under Goldwater-Nichols, CENTCOM was apportioned certain forces—primarily the 1st TFW (F-15s at Langley) and the 363d TFW (F-16s at Shaw). There were also F-111s, A-10s, C-130s, intelligence assets, ground radar units, a number of E-3 AWACS, a Red Horse engineering unit (for construction services), the Ninth Air Force staff and commander, and so forth. The CINC of CENTCOM could also obtain units apportioned to other CINCs, but for that he needed the approval of the Secretary of Defense. Thus, CENTCOM was later given the Army’s VIIth Corps, which came from EUCOM and was an enormous addition to its ground forces; and CENTAF was also considerably augmented before the actual beginning of the war in January of ’91. (All of these changes were several months in the future.) In August, Chuck Horner’s position was to fight the forces that were already apportioned to CENTCOM. Since, as CENTAF Commander, Horner was not just the Central Command Air Force component commander, but also the joint force air component commander (JFACC), the forces available additionally included the fixed-wing aircraft that belonged to the Navy, Marine, and Army units assigned to CENTCOM. He looked at all of these forces day to day, to keep track of their readiness posture, so he knew what forces he could count on.

• Types of units: Though all types of units make up an air force, the basic breakdown of roles is Air Superiority, Air Interdiction, Close Air Support, Reconnaissance, and Airlift. Some of the units were dedicated to one role. For example, the F-15s were used only in air-to-air missions1; the F-16s could do any role except Airlift; the A-10s were best used for Close Air Support (though they could do much more than that); and the C-130s hauled men and materiel, mostly Army, around the theater. However, C-130s had also been used in Vietnam to drop huge bombs to make helicopter landing pads in the jungle. So when Horner looked at an aircraft, he considered all its possible roles.