Desert Storm - The Air War, Day 1 - Animated
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as a deeply researched, visual series that shows how overwhelming the coalition air campaign was.
What it is
An animated account of Day 1 of the Desert Storm air war on 17 January 1991, covering the 2,775 sorties flown against Iraqi strategic targets in the first 24 hours.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2021 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec remarkEon · 2021-06 · on “Midair plane refuels done by a drone for the first time”
That whole channel is amazing. Check out the Desert Storm series if you need to burn an hour or two on the weekend refreshing yourself on the history of modern warfare. [this video]
Strong rec systemvoltage · 2021-11 · on “Could the U.S. Lose a War with China over Taiwan?”
For those who have forgotten, the US won Operation Desert Storm in the most overkill way. It was so insane and completely overwhelming. I highly recommend watching this series about it, no one has dug into history like the Operations Room channel: [this video]
Recommends systemvoltage · 2021-12 · on “The leader who's standing up to China”
> US couldn't defeat couple of goat herders and they're going to level up to S-tier opponents? I wouldn't even bet on US against Venezuela or Iran at this point. Operation Desert Storm was a success and completely overwhelming. The amount of power projected was incalculable. Here is an extremely detailed account of it: [this video]
Cites trevorishere · 2022-10 · on “Cobra Maneuver”
It's an airshow maneuver. Speed is life. USAF (and presumably other AF's) send out 2 to 4 ship (or if we look at Desert Storm, over 70 ships). If you "stall" or perform this maneuver, whomever is behind you might overshoot, but his or her buddy will nab you. Check out Stroke 3. This is an F-16 strike on an oil facility in Iraq. Stroke 3 avoided six Iraq (Russian-made) SAMs /without/ deploying any counter measures. Simply amazing to listen to. [LINK] And here's a visual illustration of the entire strike package that went out. 76 aircraft as part of Package Q. [this video] Fun (?) fact -- the first strike in Desert Storm was performed by eight Apache attack helicopters with two Pave Low helicopters
Cites mmh0000 · 2026-06 · on “US Government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5”
That video makes a lot of claims that sound reasonable, but doesn't provide data to back it up. For example, in the first 30 seconds, he says that at the beginning of the Iran War, AI was used to strike 900 targets in 12 hours. Which he calls "unprecedented" but then never backs up. For context, in the 1991 Gulf War "Operation Desert Storm" the U.S. struck about 1500 targets[1][2][3] in 12 hours. [1] [LINK] [2] [this video] [3] [LINK] -