US Navy Hornet Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Part One)

by HOLMES, TONYDAVEY, CHRIS

• ISBN13: 9781841768014
• ISBN10: 1841768014
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2004-07-25
• Publisher: Osprey Publishing

Summary

The F/A-18 Hornet, in its various guises, was the 'universal soldier' of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), with some 250 seeing combat during the campaign from land bases and the six supercarriers of the US Navy that were committed to the war from the Northern Arabian Gulf (NAG) and eastern Mediterranean. This volume, which is the first of three covering F/A-18 operations in OIF, focuses on the combat experiences of the twelve Navy units that saw action with the 'legacy' Hornet and the Super Hornet flying from vessels sailing in the confined waters of the NAG. The F/A-18 delivered hundreds of thousands of pounds of ordnance on a whole host of targets ranging from T-62 tanks of the Iraqi Republican Guard to the government buildings that housed elements of the Baath party regime in cities such as Basra, Baghdad and An Najaf. Aside from its ability to drop precision munitions such as JDAM and LGBs, the Hornet was also capable of launching anti-radar missiles and acting as an aerial tanker, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance platform for other strike types. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Tony Holmes has worked as Osprey's aerospace editor since 1989, having previously served as an author/photographer for this publishing house in Australasia. He established the critically acclaimed and hugely popular Aircraft of the Aces series in 1994.