America's switch to air strikes against Taliban front lines, rather than targets in the rear, started in spectacular fashion yesterday. It was the first major use in the Afghan air war of carpet-bombing.
From the windowless control tower of the ruined Baghram air base on the Northern Alliance front line north of Kabul, the view was spectacular.
A giant B-52 bomber appeared over the mountains of the Hindu Kush, trailing white contrails through the blue sky.
It passed directly overhead, its gull wings visible through binoculars and had already begun a long lazy turn away from the Taliban lines when the bombs hit.
A wall of smoke and dust rose from the ground, soaring hundreds of feet into the air, as the great mass of bombs tore into the landscape.
Seconds later came the blasts - a tightly packed series of drumbeats that you felt as well as heard.
The dust hung in the hot still air as the bomber made a great arc back over the Hindu Kush, and came back again for more.
Again the slow turn, the invisible bomb release, and the smoke and thuds as an area of land stretching over several acres was obliterated - along with every living thing in it.
Then the plane turned away, to be replaced by swarms of smaller strike jets.
Suddenly the air was full of the noise of racing planes. The Taliban hammered back with bursts of anti-aircraft fire, all of it ineffective. And there were more huge bomb impacts, this time singly, or in groups of two of three.
All afternoon it went on. On the roofs of the mud-brick houses of nearby villages swarms of people appeared. Children stood and shouted and shrieked as the thunderclap detonations rolled over the plains.
Even as clouds came over in the late afternoon the strikes continued, the planes hitting what Northern Alliance commanders say were trench systems and a headquarters.
The American aim appears to be twofold: first, to destroy the Taliban units guarding the road to Kabul; and second, to push the Taliban away from Bagram, the largest air base in the country and an ideal base for US troops.
This base, built by the Soviets in the 1950s, is held by the Northern Alliance but Taliban forces are dug in on the far side of the runway, making it impossible for anyone to land there.
Like most of the airport, the tower is smashed, a bomb through the roof during a previous battle with the Taliban having long ago blown out the windows and wrecked the furniture.
But not everyone is impressed with the American bombing. In the ruined tower, the local commander, Gen Baba Jon, wearing smart green fatigues and sporting a bushy black beard, sat noting down each impact, its direction and time.
"This is not enough to push back the Taliban," he said sternly. "This country has been fighting wars for 23 years. We are used to such bombs."
As if to prove the point, on the plain far away, even as the jets continued racing in the skies above, a few vehicles dared to break cover, sending up great clouds of dust as they sped backwards and forwards in Taliban zones.
And though they cheered from the rooftops, few here think the Taliban will be cowed by this bombing.
So is there any chance that the war can be over by winter, now just a few weeks away? The question was put to Gen Jon. "Oh sure," he said with a laugh. "But not this winter."