Narrated by Bernard Shaw

Autumn, 1990. To the world's most ancient of battlefields came the newest, most powerful coalition of armed might in history. With a dazzling array of the most high-tech firepower ever, the US-led Air Forces set out to liberate oil-rich Kuwait from its Iraqi invader. The operation: "Desert Storm".

To prepare for what Saddam called "the mother of all battles", the allied military readied their Apache helicopters, AWACs, and Stealth and F-15 bombers.

The air war began. The coalition Patriot missiles effectively shot down Iraq's less advanced SCUDs and the "smart bombs" cleared the battlefield for the ground war to come.

CNN's award-winning documentary "Special Reports" team tells of the air war that crippled the Iraqi fighting machine. This in-depth look at the technology and the equipment that made allied victory possible, also includes exclusive reports from CNN correspondesnts in Baghdad on the dramatic beginning of the War in the Gulf.