• ACE Team—A small command-and-control node—usually a planner/ executor, an intelligence person, and one or two duty officers—located on board the AWACS and operating in parallel with the TACC current ops. Because it was closer to the fight, and more aware of what was going on than the TACC staff, the ACE Team had the authority to divert sorties. Normally, though, they kept in close contact with the TACC directors. They could also have acted as a temporary backup if a Scud hit had closed down the TACC.

• ABCCC (Airborne Command, Control, and Communications; pronounced “AB triple C”)—A C-130 aircraft used primarily for command and control of close air support. A command-and-control module in the cargo compartment held about fifteen people, half of whom were likely to be Army or Marines after the ground forces were engaged. The Marine ABCCC was called the Airborne Direct Air Support Center, or DASC.

• Compass Call—An EC-130H configured to jam communications, such as Iraqi military communications.

• Commando Solo—An EC-130 configured to conduct psychological operations by broadcasting television and radio.

• Rivet Joint (RC-135)—A special reconnaissance version of the Boeing 707 that provided data on enemy air defense systems and other intelligence information.

• Joint STARS (E-8A)—A modified Boeing 707, equipped with a large radar that provided Moving Target Information (MTI) and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images of surface targets. This information was presented to air controllers on the aircraft, who tracked, identified, and directed strikes against enemy ground targets. Because the E-8 was still undergoing testing, it was largely crewed by Northrop Grumman civilian engineers who had volunteered for the war. The Joint STARS radar and air controllers proved to be of immense value in halting the Iraqi ground attack into Saudi Arabia at El-Khafji in late January.

• Killer Scouts—F-16 fighters assigned to patrol kill boxes (twenty-mile-square areas in Iraq and Kuwait) and locate Iraqi army units visually or by radar. They provided target information to flights of attack aircraft fed into their kill box area by ABCCC, AWACS, Joint STARS, or the TACC.

After the ground war started:

• Air Liaison Officers (ALOs) and Ground Forward Air Controllers (FACs)52—Both connected ground units with air and handled close air support. The difference lay in their rank and the level of army units to which they were assigned. FACs were usually junior officers assigned at battalion level or below. ALOs were usually majors or above and assigned to brigade or above. For example, a colonel would be the ALO at corps level, a lieutenant colonel at division. The ALO role emphasized senior-level experience and thus made the ALO the air adviser to the Army commander. While the ALO could control a strike, most often strikes were controlled by FACs, who were closer to the battle.

• Air Operations Support Center—A mini-headquarters, usually a corps ALO, heavily equipped with communications and computers. It was to the corps headquarters, or Army group headquarters, what the BCE was to the TACC. The Marine equivalent was called a Direct Air Support Center.