US and European forces face two Gulf War choices in Libya, retired Air Marshal Geoff Shepherd says.

Either a Gulf War I scenario where the tyrant survives, or a Gulf War II situation where he is removed by force, according to the former RAAF chief.

"The best outcome would be for Gaddafi to go back into his hole and for the rebels to sweep him from power without any foreign troops touching the ground," Air Marshal Shepherd said yesterday.

The former Mirage fighter and F-111 pilot predicted that the conflict would not spill over to other parts of the Middle East, but would be contained in Libya because Gaddafi was isolated and the Arab League supported the UN mandate.

The Libyan situation resonated strongly with Air Marshal Shepherd whose uncle Gilbert Brookes died there during World War II as a 19-year-old machine gunner with the Rats of Tobruk.

He said the early strikes by American and British Tomahawk cruise missiles, fired from ships and submarines, destroyed most of Gaddafi's fixed missile and radar sites.

The next phase would be eliminating his mobile forces such as tanks, armoured vehicles and missile launchers and that would be done by jets operating inside grid referenced, three-dimensional "kill boxes".

Those jets include French Rafale fighters, British Tornado and Typhoon strike jets and American B-1 and B-2 stealth bombers backed up by carrier-borne US Navy Super Hornet and Hornet fighters, spy planes and unmanned aircraft including missile-armed US and Italian Predator combat vehicles.

The B-1s carry a massive payload of "smart" missiles and bombs and a large fleet is based at Al Udeid air base near Doha in Qatar in the Persian Gulf.

The best that Gaddafi could deploy against this massive air force would be old French F1 Mirage jets and Russian Mig fighters.

He would be reluctant to launch those in case any more of his pilots defected and because American F-22 Raptor stealth fighters would shoot them down at will.

The biggest risk to NATO jets would come from the mobile launchers, but Air Marshal Shepherd, who ran the RAAF from 2005 to 2008, said an even greater threat would be civilian casualties if Gaddafi chose to hide among the people.

"The big question is, if Gaddafi goes into his stronghold and refuses to budge will the UN support regime change?"

He said any sensible person faced with the might of the US and NATO would back off, but there were question marks over Gaddafi's state of mind.

Originally published as No allied troops 'best option'