In addition to the 10-12 hour average sorty times and 10+ refuels in the Afghan theatre for the F16's, F18's and F15's with light loadouts, tankers offloaded in an average 24 hour period 2 million pounds of gas. The aircraft to shine were the B52 and B1's who had a long loiter time waiting for target vectors. This "compressing of the kill chain" reduces from hours or days in the tarditional bombing model, to minutes. Once again an environment where the F111 would excel.
It is also important to note after these 2 campaigns that the US has decided to pull 23 of its recently mothballed B1's out of storage from AMARC, and added Litening II pods on the B52's.
Statistically the most successful strike fighter in Desert Storm was the F111, with no loss to enemy fire in the highest density of air defence outside of central Europe. The F111F was the backbone of the coalition precision bombing fleet, outnumbering all other types equipped with laser designating equipment. This success is attributed to its combination of range, payload and speed.
The early retirement of the F111 from the US fleet was also politics as funding issues arose with the development and introduction of the B2 and the F22 raptor. To keep McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) and General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin) in business concessions had to be made....bye bye F111.
