In response to the invasion, the largest military buildup since the Vietnam War commenced. By 15 August, the 1 TFW had deployed F-15Cs and F-15Ds in a fifteen-hour non-stop flight from their home station at Langley AFB, Virginia to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. They were standing alert within hours of their arrival and Operation Desert Shield was underway. By January 1991, numerous of TAC combat squadrons had been deployed as part of Desert Shield. Diplomacy had failed to resolve the situation and Iraq had been given the ultimatum, "...get out of Kuwait or suffer the wrath of the United Nations Coalition." Leaders from Iraq proclaimed that if the UN forces crossed into Iraqi territory they would suffer the "Mother of all battles," and as the deadline came and passed, there was no movement of Iraqi forces that indicated a pullback. In the early morning hours of 17 January 1991, anti-aircraft batteries in Baghdad erupted as the first strikes by F-117A Nighthawks hit critical command and control targets in the Iraqi capital. Operation Desert Storm had begun. During the next few hours, USAF tactical air assets, along with U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, Royal Air Force, French Air Force, Royal Saudi Air Force and Free Kuwait Air Force tactical aircraft, pounded command and control facilities, bridges, and other lines of communication. USAF Wild Weasel F-4Gs went after Iraqi SAM sites like they had in Vietnam, while USAF A-10s hunted Iraqi tanks and troops. In the first three days of the air war, eleven Iraqi aircraft were shot down by USAF F-15Cs. During the six-week air war, any and all Iraqi military assets were targeted by Coalition attack aircraft. The Iraqis responded by launching Soviet-built SCUD ballistic missiles against targets in Israel and the Arabian peninsula. With no accurate guidance system, the SCUD missies were very similar to the German V-2 rocket when it came to hitting a specific target. SCUDs that launched returned to earth with a chance of hitting something in the general area that it was pointed at. Classified as a terror weapon, the SCUDs became a top priority for TAC, USN/USMC and Coalition aircraft to find the mobile launching sites and destroy them. The ground war began in late February 1991 and lasted approximately 100 hours. TAC close air support A-10 aircraft supported ground forces as they had trained for in the United States and Europe for well over