Okay, Mac, it's getting suspicious. This is the about the fifth time now you've posted a thread directly related to information I've been looking up recently.
Anyway, the only time this is really an advantage that can be pressed (i.e. the only time when a dozen or more missiles aren't ready to fly at anything even thinking about going airborne with the wrong IFF) is early on, probably several weeks at least before the thousand hour war (! we even read the same books). If Iraq pulls off a full scale air raid, the Coalition will certainly shoot down nearly every aircraft, but if even two or three bombs and missiles hit the ground, it's a PR disaster and everyone gets hunkered down- the delays caused by the fortification could easily set the geound war back weeks, if not months, and make some coalition partners very antsy.
Another interesting idea: what if Saddam, rather than using his planes against the US and Saudi Arabia, instead sends them west- to Israel. SCUDs weren't
serious; the PATRIOTs took care of them, and it's just a rocket- heck, Israel gets rocket fire so often they could probably set their watches by it. But an air force- that's some serious stuff. Even if every plane gets knocked down before a single hit is scored, that is
serious stuff. Israel is going to retaliate, and that breaks up that tenuous coalition.
What effects this has, I'm too tired to say, because it's past midnight. So yeah.
