The A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog" is the only aircraft in United States Air Force (USAF) history designed specifically for the close air support mission.  It was designed to be able to survive in an intense anti-aircraft environment including anti-aircraft guns, radar-guided and infrared missiles and be able to absorb battle damage and keep flying. In fact, the A-10 is probably the most difficult plane to shoot down ever built due to its extreme maneuverability, electronic countermeasures, self-sealing fuel tanks, widely separated jet engines, twin tails, manual backup flight control system and redundant wing spars.

A total of 165 of these most recognizable and feared aircraft from 5 different units participated in Operation Desert Storm.  All units were formalized under the 354th Provisional Wing 144 aircraft at a time.  The remaining aircraft were replacements standing by at an off-site location to replace aircraft damaged beyond continued combat status or aircraft destroyed.

Together, these A-10 and OA-10 aircraft conducted 8,624 sorties maintaining a 95.7% mission capable rate, 5% above A-10 peace-time rates, had the highest sortie rate of any USAF aircraft.  They destroyed 967 tanks, 1026 pieces of artillery, 1306 trucks, 281 military structures, 53 Scud missiles, 10 aircraft on the ground and 2 aircraft in the air.  Pilots often flew up to three missions per day with A-10's accounted for destroying 1/4 of Iraq's entire arsenal. [Read more on statistics....]

Often exposed to withering anti-aircraft fire and surface-to-air missile threats the slow, highly maneuverable A-10's incurred extensive combat battle damage during Desert Storm.  Five A-10s were lost in action, another destroyed attempting to land at KKMC Forward Operating Location #1 after being badly battle damaged, nearly twenty more sustained significant battle damage and many others incurred minor damage.

In all, about 70, roughly half of the total A-10 force supporting Desert Storm, suffered some type of battle damage, and six brave A-10 pilots lost their lives.

Our 652nd Combat Logistics Support Squadron (CLSS), formerly the 2951st CLSS, role was to repair battle damaged A-10's and get them back into the war.  My job was as Aircraft Battle Damage Repair (ABDR) Assessor to evaluate damages, develop a plan for the repairs required and prioritize those repairs in a triage method, although in a reverse triage philosophy than in a hospital emergency room where the worse gets treated first... in ABDR you get the easiest, or smallest damaged aircraft repaired first to get them in the air faster.

In addition to A-10 battle damage repairs we also performed major depot level repairs on some of the A-10's, as well as battle damage repairs and routine repairs on F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-4 Phantom, C-130 Hercules and C-5 Galaxy aircraft as well as a couple trucks, a front-end loader... Jacks of all trades!  I was assigned to the 2951st Combat Logistics Support Squadron, later re-activated as the 652nd CLSS, McClellan AFB from 1988-1993.