One of the topics that keeps cropping up is airfield attacks and one of the most common rejoinders to discussions about attacking an airfield is that a runway can be repaired in hours so, therefore, it’s not possible to put an air base out of commission for any length of time and attacks are pointless. Well, this is a complete fallacy so let’s address it and dispose of it.
How can an attacker halt the operation of an air base? Well, the way to answer that is to list all the things an air base needs in order to operate. In no particular order, some of the major needs include:
- Runways
- Aircraft
- Munitions for the aircraft
- Maintenance facilities
- Spare parts
- Fuel
- Mission planning facilities
- Control tower
And, of course, there’s always the simple attrition of the personnel. Kill enough people and the base ceases to operate. For the sake of this discussion, we’ll set the personnel issue aside and focus on the equipment side of things.
Now, let’s consider the impact of the loss of each of those.
- Runways – easily repaired; just an annoyance
- Aircraft – easily replaced within limits
- Munitions for the aircraft – no weapons, no useful flight; relatively easily protected by dispersal and bunkering but a severe problem if a significant portion is lost
- Maintenance facilities – no fix, no fly; nearly impossible to protect though hardened maintenance hangars are possible; modern aircraft require constant and copious amounts of maintenance; this is a vulnerability
- Spare parts – easily replaced but can be problematic for extended periods
- Fuel – no fuel, no fly; fuel storage is almost impossible to protect and dispersal is not really a viable option; resupply is a major difficulty that requires specialized ships; major vulnerability
- Mission planning facilities – no planning, no productive missions; tough to eliminate; easy to hide/disperse
- Aircraft control (tower) – easily replaced; easily moved; difficult to eliminate
So, what did that tell us?
It tells us that the wise attacker is going to ignore certain air base targets, such as runways, as unproductive and ineffective and focus, instead, on other targets that are easy to destroy, difficult to repair/replace, and produce large negative consequences for the base.
Foremost among these attractive targets is the fuel storage and dispensing facilities. Almost by definition, the fuel storage has to be in extremely large tanks. It’s simply not practical to try to operate an air base using small, dispersed storage containers such as bladders or 55 gal drums. The number required and the degree of difficulty moving and manipulating them is prohibitive. This might have been feasible, to some extent, during WWII when we had small prop planes that didn’t require all that much fuel but that’s not the case with today’s jets.
Below are a few fuel capacities for single aircraft, just to provide an idea of the amount of fuel needed to operate an air base. Take the numbers below and multiply them by many dozens of aircraft, every day. Bladders and drums are just not a viable option. A centralized, very large fuel storage facility is required along with a robust dispensing system consisting of extensive piping and pumps.
- F4F Wildcat fuel capacity is 117 gal to around 140 gal, depending on variant
- F-35 internal fuel capacity is 18,250 lb (2765 gal)
- B-2 internal fuel capacity is 167,000 lb (25,500 gal)
While fuel storage can be broken down and dispersed into somewhat smaller storage tanks, they would still be quite large and fixed in place.
Underground tanks with some hardened covering could provide some degree of protection but, again, given the fixed – and known! – location of the storage, an enemy would have no problem targeting them with penetrating weapons. Underground tanks are an engineering and regulatory nightmare which shouldn’t matter to a military but it does. I’m not aware of any active, underground fuel storage tanks at air bases but I don’t follow that kind of thing so maybe there are.
Once damaged or destroyed, the fuel storage and dispersing system is not an easy thing to repair or replace. It would take months, at best, to construct new fuel facilities.
As a historical reminder, while the Japanese put Pearl Harbor and the US fleet out of business for a [very] brief period (Enterprise refueled and replenished in Pearl Harbor 36 hrs after the attack), the real damage and long lasting effect would have occurred if they had destroyed the fuel storage facilities. Instead, they misguidedly fixated on destroying the Navy’s obsolete battleships. The true vulnerability of Pearl Harbor was the fuel storage.
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| Fuel Storage at Pearl Harbor - 1943 |
Clearly, fuel storage and dispersal is a major weakness of any air base and offers the potential to put an air base out of action for an extended period. Add in damage or destruction of munitions storage, maintenance facilities, and spare parts storage and a base would have a very difficult time restoring itself to operational status … all without touching the runways.
This is how an intelligent enemy would attack an air base. This puts an end to the ‘runways can be quickly repaired’ rejoinder.
We should draw a difference between air forces that expect to be operating under fire, and have adjusted their plans for that, versus air forces that just plain don't bother to defend their bases (i.e. the USAF).
ReplyDeleteFor example, Singapore and Taiwan use decoy fuel farms for their airbases, and Singapore maintains offsite fuel stores that can be trucked in to the airbase or a nearby highway (all Singapore airbases have taxiways connecting the individual HAS network to a long enough stretch of road that the planes can drive to). A refueling truck carries 6000 gallons of fuel, enough for two F-35s and change.
This is, of course, not viable in the long term - it's an effort to maintain some level of combat power, however degraded, from an airbase under attack. So long as the airbase can still function, however degraded, the attacker must continue to spend effort to suppress said airbase.
It is certainly more commendable than the USAF, who have completely abandoned the idea of airbase defense, making no effort to protect their airbases or harden them against attack. In my opinion, it's institutional inertia from when Strategic Air Command's bomber generals ran the Air Force, when the focus was on ICBMs and strategic bombers, when the expectation was that the airbases would be destroyed by ICBMs, so it was more important to get the bombers in the air before the ICBMs hit.
" Singapore and Taiwan use decoy fuel farms"
DeleteI've never heard of that and I can't imagine it being effective. A brief period of pre-war observation by an enemy would quickly differentiate between real and decoy. Now, one could construct a network of real storage tanks and only use a portion at a time and constantly cycle among the tanks so the enemy is never sure which tanks are currently in use. That would be somewhat effective. However, unless one builds many dozens of tanks and widely disperses them (a major, costly undertaking), the enemy would simply target all the tanks and be done with it.
Do you have a reference for these decoy fuel farms?
"the enemy would simply target all the tanks and be done with it"
DeleteWhat I was told was that , the large visible storage tanks we see are decoys, in the sense that these are the most obvious targets. They do contain fuel, but these aren't the only storage tanks - there are underground pipelines to other storage tanks located elsewhere, ready to send fuel in the event the main airbase fuel farm is completely destroyed.
Assuming this is true, it would seem to me that the best way to disguise said fuel tanks would be to locate them in the industrial zone in the northeast, where the oil refining industry is located. When the government owns everything, having part of your civilian industry serve as a backup to your military is a lot easier to do than it is in America...
My understanding of the defensive situation is that if the airbases come under tube or rocket artillery attack, the Army's Apaches and guns will be doing the counterfire mission, while aircraft relocate to the roads and fuel is trucked in so that austere sorties can be launched. Against Chinese MRBMs... it seems to me that they're rolling the dice on the US Navy presence at Sembawang and Changi Naval Bases being more important targets worthy of eating Chinese MRBMs than Changi or Paya Lebar Airbases.
This is where the offshore and domestic oil industry could knock this problem out easily if the Navy knew anything about anything else that floats on water. We could easily make fuel barges to be moved with tugs. Simplest option. We could also adapt offshore ships for dispersed fuel storage.
Delete"these aren't the only storage tanks - there are underground pipelines"
DeleteIf you know this, wouldn't you assume that Chinese Intelligence has developed a pretty good understanding of the entire layout, decoys and real?
Don't get me wrong, any survivability effort is worthwhile but there's no real way to hide or decoy fuel storage tanks. They're just to big and obvious.
Defense (don't get hit) is the only sure thing but that's unlikely to be 100% effective.
Dispersal is effective but very inefficient and costly.
The military (US or other countries) has to recognize that they will take hits in a war and they have to plan for how to continue operating albeit at a reduced level, perhaps. I don't know about other countries but the US military is certainly not planning for that. War is going to be a major eye-opener for us!
Just as a side thought. You seem to imply that your information is of the 'heard it from someone who heard it from ...' type. How confident are you that the information is real? Does it seem likely that information, if true, would be public, common knowledge? I'm dubious.
" make fuel barges to be moved with tugs"
DeleteAre you referring to resupply to forward bases via fuel barge or are you referring to just moving barges around a harbor as a survivability measure?
"adapt offshore ships for dispersed fuel storage."
Are you suggesting permanently anchored tankers or, again, constantly moving tankers?
Presumably, at some point, the barge/tanker would have to pull up to a fixed, permanent transfer station to pump the fuel ashore. That transfer station represents the single point of failure and is an attractive target.
Maybe you have something else in mind?
Why not pump straight from the barge? In short, yes. Move them from place to place and around the harbors.
Delete"Why not pump straight from the barge?"
DeleteThere are two issues here that you're overlooking:
1. Pumping fuel from an afloat platform (barge, ship) to shore is no easy task. Laying the pipeline along the seabed is difficult and you still need a receiving station ashore to connect to. That receiving station is the fixed point, vulnerability of the system. The military has enormous logistical units dedicated to exactly this task, because it's so challenging. Toss in the slightest bit of weather and seas and it becomes impossible.
2.A barge has a very limited fuel storage capacity. A tanker ship would have more but still limited. For perspective, the pre-WWII above ground oil storage at Pearl Harbor consisted of a tank farm with 15 tanks and a total capacity of 4.5 million gallons. The modern Pearl Harbor Red Hill underground fuel storage facility (now closed with no replacement) has a capacity of 12.5 million gallons. As we calculated in a comment below, a base would need on the order of 150,000 gal per day (more if refueling ships), every day. What do you envision the fuel storage capacity of a barge being? 5-10k gal, perhaps? More than that and the barge becomes a giant, easy target. It would be somewhere between a nightmare and impossible to try to run a base from an offshore vessel/barge just due to the very limited storage capacity. You would need many dozens of barges to even begin to meet the capacity requirements and then you run into the very difficult mechanics of manipulating barges and their pumping requirements.
There's not really any way around it. You need storage tanks on the order of 100k - 300k gal, and lots of them in order to operate a major air base. You can disperse them so that a single hit doesn't wipe out an entire tank farm and you can bury them so that the enemy has to expend larger, penetrating munitions but that's about the extent of what you can do. Beyond that, you have to defend your tanks from attack with a very robust, layered defensive scheme ... something we seem to have no interest in doing.
Oceangoing tank barges for Jones Act use are large. Eample Bollinger which is small, built 55k barrel barges = 2,310,000 gallons. As an example.
DeleteSo a quick google shows a typical US gas tank truck carries 12,000 gallons of fuel and a gas station has about 40,000 gallons of low profile underground storage. If you take away the gas station and let it grow over with grass it would seem hard to know if it was a fuel site.
ReplyDeleteSeems like you could at least create a buffer of low profile storage. It might be annoying but seems like you could put a simple fabric and loop covering over a tanker truck and now it looks just like the grain truck next to it.
Obviously you would have to accept paying for two systems one you design as basically the secret back up and don't really use outside of war. And one you use for daily operations.
Delete"If you take away the gas station and let it grow over with grass it would seem hard to know if it was a fuel site."
DeleteYou do realize that China monitors our bases just as we monitor theirs, right? They'd have exact coordinates of any underground storage we build. Whether it was covered over by grass is immaterial. It's not like the Chinese would forget where it was.
You also need to run through the arithmetic of operating an air base. Using the F-35 as an indicator for example, let's say each aircraft needs 3000 gal per sortie. During war, a major base would generate what ... 50 sorties or more a day? Let's say 50 for something to work with. That's a total of 150,000 gals for a single day's operation. Of course, if you have bombers, AWACS, P-8 patrol aircraft, KC-xx tankers, or other large aircraft, that 150,000 gal per day climbs drastically. So, you might work out some scheme to use dispersed fuel containers, bladders, or trucks to fuel a handful of planes, one time, but operating a base on an on-going basis requires immense fuel storage. There's just no getting around it.
And if you're refueling ships on a regular basis ... wow!
Fuel is an interesting dilemma for both the US and China.
ReplyDeleteThe US has the natural resources for fuel but then has to move it across the Pacific to where the assumed conflict will take place.
China is already located near the assumed conflict region, but must import the natural resources to produce the fuel.
Which side can securely move their fuel to the conflict zone most securely?
Our challenge is particularly daunting.
We could stage fuel along the logistics pathway, but Pearl Harbor, Johnston Atoll, Wake Island, Midway Island, Guam, etc, etc, are all fixed points on the map and easy targeting for ballistic missile attacks.
We can shoot down ballistic missiles, but all of them?
Submarines with cruise missiles?
That's a lot of area to defend.
Lutefisk
"That's a lot of area to defend."
DeleteAnd China is expanding into that area but negotiating for Pacific island bases. So far, they seem to be succeeding. That makes our fuel transport path (convoys) even more hazardous.
"convoys"
DeleteHave we done any war gaming or other studies to determine whether convoys are still the right way of transporting stuff in war? As opposed, for example, to dispersal and maybe decoys?
I read recently that the Navy has told the sea lift folks that there are no ships to serve as escorts for convoys !!
"As opposed, for example, to dispersal and maybe decoys?"
DeleteBear in mind that it doesn't matter what dispersal or decoy system you use or how effective it is. Once you [quickly] use up the fuel you have on hand, you have to replenish your storage and for our system of forward island bases, that can only mean convoys.
"you have to replenish your storage and for our system of forward island bases, that can only mean convoys."
DeleteI'm sorry. I wasn't clear. I was wondering if we've studied whether convoys are still the best way of getting merchant ships through, vs. dispersal or decoys OF THE MERCHANT SHIPS.
The Navy's talking about dispersing warships so as to not have concentrated targets. Does the same reasoning apply to merchant ships?
Delete" vs. dispersal or decoys OF THE MERCHANT SHIPS."
DeleteAh, I see. Well, the WWII experience demonstrated that with a few limited exceptions, convoys were the safest way for merchant ships to travel. Do you see anything that has changed significantly as to warrant dispersed (individual) ships proceeding on their own?
The Navy's thoughts about dispersal of warships is insanity on a plate and doing the same for merchants is worse. It's insanity on a plate with insanity for dessert.
It used to be that a fast merchant ship (a few of the large liners in WWII) could outrun U-boats and could, therefore, forego convoys. However, today, with cruise missiles having ranges of hundreds of miles, no ship is going to outrun an attack. Convoys seem the only solution.
Delete"Do you see anything that has changed significantly as to warrant dispersed (individual) ships proceeding on their own?"
DeleteWell, I'm not sure if it's significant, but consider unmanned vessels (probably as small and inexpensive as will survive at sea). Suppose we used the unmanned vessels to spread out over a large area with the maritime equivalent of the Air Force's MALD decoy. With the actual merchant ships scattered among the decoys. It could certainly spoof radar to the same extent the MALD does. Also, since the main threat in a large area of the Pacific is submarines, whose main sensor is passive sonar, it seems to me that it would be fairly straightforward to spoof that by having the decoy broadcast the sounds of the merchant ship it's a decoy for. I'm sure that some sensors are harder to spoof than others, so we'd need to decide if spoofing some is enough.
One of the problems with convoys is (at least it appears to me) that once you find the convoy, you've found a whole bunch of targets, not just one. So there's that.
On the other hand, now that I think of it, this is really just another form of convoy, rather than "ships proceeding on their own." Oh, well.
Delete"Well, I'm not sure if it's significant, but consider unmanned vessels (probably as small and inexpensive as will survive at sea)."
DeleteHow will these unmanned ships get to where they're needed? We have current and future problems with GPS jammers interfering with navigation- including guidance of satellite-guided munitions- not to mention electronic warfare preventing our units from communicating with each other- potentially preventing us from controlling unmanned aerial, land, and surface vehicles.
It's possible the unmanned cargo ships you proppsed, will simply sail in circles until they either run aground, or get boarded and then towed to a harbor- possibly one in the enemy's hands- due to the aforementioned issues with jamming and communications.
"unmanned cargo ships"
DeleteI wasn't talking about unmanned cargo ships. I was talking about small unmanned ships to be decoys.
Regarding the navigation and other concerns, these will be no different from the same concerns with other unmanned Navy ships. Either they will be solved or they won't, but if they're not, these decoys will be the least of our problems.
Actual you can render a runway unusable for a longer period, you just drop scatterable mines on it after you crater it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a land combat person but I would imagine an armored bulldozer would clear the runway in short order then you fill the holes and you're back in business.
DeleteNeutralising runways is worthwhile for short tactical gain ie ground enemy forces for a short period of time (often very short) so you can accomplish other tasks.
Delete"short tactical gain"
DeleteAbsolutely. If there's a mission that requires neutralizing an air base for several hours then, sure. That would be a rare and unusual event.
The post is addressing the ability to put an air base out of operation on a very long term or permanent basis as opposed to the widespread belief that it can't be done because runways can be quickly repaired.
Do you suppose that MAYBE the USN should actually PRACTICE "convoys" including "where/how to get the civilian ships to convoy" and "where the USN ships would meet the convoys at to
ReplyDeletebegin escorting them"? (Note that I am ignoring "exactly WHAT forces/supplies are being convoyed and how do they get to the embarkation ports).
I don't think that this has been looked at even semi-seriously done since the 1980s. Remember the KNOX and OHP classes were supposed to be focused on "convoy support". They are both GONE now with NO replacement. "Ooops"..
Great article!
ReplyDelete"Aircraft – easily replaced within limits"
Just on this. It really depends on the air force and what the aircraft are as well as numerical strength of that fleet.
Some of those aircraft can't be replaced quickly and their losses are much bigger than their fleet sizes indicate.
Eg splatting 10 AEW&C jets is a significant loss (actually in future that's 2/3rd of USAF fleet) and much more significant than taking out 10 F-16s or 10 J-16s.
Eg If China losses 25% of its Flanker derivatives, it's probably lost 50% of its actual combat capability because at least a quarter of the Chinese fleet is short legged 2nd and 3rd generation (J-7, J-8, JH-7) and another 25% is relatively short legged J-10 and thus of marginal utility in the most likely battle. Even 10 lost J-20s is a substantial loss when the fleet is small.
It's been interesting over Ukraine that a huge amount of the Russian fleet is not being used, probably due to obsolescence.
We have confirmed heavy use of Su-25, Su-30/34/35. Su-24 seems to be used rarely despite it being the most numerous combat aircraft in Russian service (295 which is 49% of strike/ground attack fleet, and 26% of whole tactical fleet).
The second most numerous air defence aircraft (MiG-31 - 122 airframes) has at best been used only in the most limited fashion - launching a hyperonic weapon.
There are no reports of Su-27s being used (119 aircraft still in service) despite some percentage being upgraded.
Not the Russians only received 136 Su-30s and 97 Su-35s but both these types have been used heavily.
MiG-29s hasn't been used at all which is not surprising as it only equips two combat coded fighter squadrons (1 in Armenia, 1 naval) and rest are used as LIFT (mainly MiG-29UB dual seaters).
However it's evident that the Russians don't want to risk older Su-24/-27 or MiG-31 in combat as they are effectively obsolete.
HOW DOES THIS FIT INTO MY POST?
It shows that losses of airframes have different values. Russia is confirmed to have lost* at least 16 Flankers (5 x Su-30, 10 x Su-34, 1 x Su35) and 17 Su-25s. This might seem insignificant - only 3% of total tactical fleet inclusive of all types including MiG-29s, MiG-31s, dual seat Su-25s, Su-24 and older Su-27).
But it climbs to 7% of modern fleet fleet (Su-25SM, Su-30/34/35) and when it comes to operational aircraft it is possibly a much higher percentage - possibly anywhere up to 20-30% of fleet if you exclude aircraft out for overhaul or assigned to training squadrons.**
If Ukraine were to take out an A50 AEW&C it would have a massive impact as Russia does not have many of these aircraft in the first place.
It's what makes the F-22 problematic - low availability, low airframe numbers and complex maintenance means that any losses represent a huge loss in combat capability.
Thus replacement of aircraft is actually potentially a very difficult proposition.
*Obviously the losses are much higher.
**We already know that it takes time to overhaul aircraft and that many air forces including the USAF struggle to do repairs in a timely manner due to shortages of spare parts and personnel. And we know Russian logistics are dire at best of times. Many operators of Russian aircraft have complained about inability of Russians to provide spares.
As long as roads are still passable, air force can use fuel tanker to re-fuel.
ReplyDeleteEven if all roads are not passable, you can still fuel small amount of fuel and re-fuel in air (use KC-135).
Therefore, just destroy fuel storage is not good enough.
" just destroy fuel storage is not good enough."
DeleteThe idea that a major air base can be operated using a few odd fuel tank trucks is absurd. That might suffice for a couple of sorties but has no hope of supporting major air ops on an on-going basis. The same goes for a tanker aircraft.
Slight expansion of AndyM's idea of the fuel barges. Perhaps we could even have submersible fuel barges, and move them around frequently or even constantly inside the harbor (or even in the ocean outside the harbor) to make them hard to target. Then they could be used, either for Naval bases or air bases that are close to the ocean -- like Anderson in Guam, North Field in Tinian -- currently mostly abandoned but could be upgraded, Kadena in Okinawa, Wake, or Hickam and Kaneohe Bay in Hawaii. For a naval base, we could bring the barge directly to the ship, or bring the ship to the barge, and pump fuel directly from the barge to the ship. For an airbase on the shore, we could bring the barge up to the beach and then pump fuel from the barge into trucks, which could carry the fuel to the aircraft. Obviously we need shelters to protect the trucks from the attack.
ReplyDeleteI'll repeat my comment/reply to AndyM:
Delete"Why not pump straight from the barge?"
There are two issues here that you're overlooking:
1. Pumping fuel from an afloat platform (barge, ship) to shore is no easy task. Laying the pipeline along the seabed is difficult and you still need a receiving station ashore to connect to. That receiving station is the fixed point, vulnerability of the system. The military has enormous logistical units dedicated to exactly this task, because it's so challenging. Toss in the slightest bit of weather and seas and it becomes impossible.
2.A barge has a very limited fuel storage capacity. A tanker ship would have more but still limited. For perspective, the pre-WWII above ground oil storage at Pearl Harbor consisted of a tank farm with 15 tanks and a total capacity of 4.5 million gallons. The modern Pearl Harbor Red Hill underground fuel storage facility (now closed with no replacement) has a capacity of 12.5 million gallons. As we calculated in a comment below, a base would need on the order of 150,000 gal per day (more if refueling ships), every day. What do you envision the fuel storage capacity of a barge being? 5-10k gal, perhaps? More than that and the barge becomes a giant, easy target. It would be somewhere between a nightmare and impossible to try to run a base from an offshore vessel/barge just due to the very limited storage capacity. You would need many dozens of barges to even begin to meet the capacity requirements and then you run into the very difficult mechanics of manipulating barges and their pumping requirements.
There's not really any way around it. You need storage tanks on the order of 100k - 300k gal, and lots of them in order to operate a major air base. You can disperse them so that a single hit doesn't wipe out an entire tank farm and you can bury them so that the enemy has to expend larger, penetrating munitions but that's about the extent of what you can do. Beyond that, you have to defend your tanks from attack with a very robust, layered defensive scheme ... something we seem to have no interest in doing.
We already have ships to run fuel lines ashore for landings. Expand on that. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/29987/this-old-tanker-looks-like-its-about-to-sink-but-its-just-doing-its-job-for-the-marines
DeleteGetting fuel ashore from a ship or barge is not nearly as difficult as its being painted here. Coflexip has been doing exactly this for decades. Their flexible high pressure armored hoses take most of the work out of getting a ship to shore pipeline running. Beats the heck out of hard line, which is why its almost universal in high pressure well control applications offshore, as well as being widely used in the petrochemical industry onshore and offshore.
DeleteIts super expensive, but in military terms the cost is insignificant.
Getting this running is still not trivial, but its also not particularly difficult if you have people that know what they are doing. The hoses are stored on large diameter reels.
My biggest concern are the $100 million aircraft parked in the open, or taking off. Commandos may land by parachute, submarine, small boat or jumping from commercial ships. With new precision weaponry they can destroy aircraft from thousands of meters. You need at least an infantry battalion to protect a major airbase 24/7 with patrols more than 2000 meters out all around.
ReplyDeleteThis is the realistic wartime mission for the Marines. One infantry battalion to Anderson on Guam, one to the port on Guam, one to Iwakuni, one to Kadena on Okinawa, one to Darwin. Not a glamorous mission, but a vital one suited for light infantry. And get the SEALs back into the Navy to attack enemy airfields and ships in port! No longer play soldier in Iraq and Ukraine. I wrote about this a few years back.
http://www.g2mil.com/aircommandos.htm
While base security is important, I don't think that China is going to expend effort putting forces ashore at any of those places just to shoot up some aircraft. There are plenty of other simple ways to do that. I totally understand trying to find somthing for the Marines to do, but not convinced thats it. Now of course, if those islands were facing actual invasion, the yes, but...
Delete"My biggest concern are the $100 million aircraft"
DeleteI'm not concerned about individual aircraft losses. Dispersing parked aircraft will minimize losses due to missiles and commandos attacking an island base seems unlikely. Individual replacement aircraft can be easily flown in, IF WE HAVE SUFFICIENT NUMBERS. If we do, then individual loses don't mean that much. If we don't (and we don't !) then any losses, including the more likely combat losses or mechanical failures will cripple us in short order and render the concern moot.
Given that our ability to ramp up fighter production in wartime doesn't exist, every aircraft counts. Since our Navy/Marines lack enough aircraft for existing squadrons, we have no replacements available.
DeleteHundreds of aircraft were destroyed on the ground in Vietnam with extensive base security all around. Even North Korea can have a fishing boat drop off a dozen commandos who may be able to destroy a dozen aircraft from a hill overlooking a base. I'd be surprised if such attacks are not planned already. Look at this picture from an apartment building on Okinawa. A dozen guys with weaponry could do a lot of damage quickly.
http://www.g2mil.com/kadena3.jpg
US Army Green Berets in the cold war had a mission of doing HALO drops into enemy territory to disable enemy aircraft. A .50 round in the right place is going to do bad things to an aircraft. Can't fly if the engine's got a Raufoss hole in it.
DeleteI read a comment on a prior post about setting up land bases for naval air wings. My take is : Why not use a carrier that they want to retire as a mobile air base? It could be parked at a strategic point and then moved to another one.
ReplyDeletePer the comments about fuel barges, I once wrote about that. We need not spend millions of dollars for years to design one, just buy commercial bunker barges. They are the right size, big enough to carry a lot, but not so big to become a valuable target. The low profile makes them difficult to see and hit.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.g2mil.com/bunker-barges.htm
I actually read this. You can probably see some of your ideas in my post, although the part about making the barge submersible is mine.
DeleteI do apologize for not thinking to give you credit.
"bunker barges"
DeleteThe problem with any offshore fueling scheme is that regardless of the type of vessel, the fuel all terminates on land at a fixed point transfer station. That's a single point of failure/vulnerability that is defenseless and easily targeted and destroyed.
"Commandos may land by parachute, submarine, small boat or jumping from commercial ships"
I don't believe a commando threat is significant for an island base (on a large land mass such as a base in Europe, it's a major threat, of course !) but if you can postulate a commando threat to parked aircraft then you can equally postulate a threat to fixed fuel transfer points or any other fuel related facility or equipment.
On the one hand, this reinforces my points about offshore fuel storage not being a viable, sustained means of operating an air base. On the other, it reinforces your point about needing a local Marine defense force.
On a related note, given the existence (indeed, prevalence) of modern, imaging, self-designating missiles, is a barge really any less vulnerable than a fixed storage tank on land? A cruise missile, given the imaging specs for barges and told to overfly a harbor, wouldn't really have much problem identifying and targeting a barge would it?
Another interesting article. You mentioned the Pearl Harbor attack where the fuel farm was not destroyed, but there is an interesting video on YT which describes the attack by 9 obsolete RAF bombers on the Italian fuel supplies in East Africa. This attack arguably prevented superior Italian forces from conquering the British territories in the Sudan, Kenya and Somaliland as it destroyed fuel for the army, air force and navy.
ReplyDeleteRA
Great example. No fuel, no fight !
DeleteFuel logistics was, arguably, the single most important accomplishment of the WWII Pacific war. Fuel logistics, today, are, arguably, our single biggest deficiency.
"Another interesting article"
Delete"Another"??????
Every article is a masterpiece! :)
Seriously, thanks. I try and I'll keep trying to maintain a high standard!
While dispersal, hardening, even decoys are all things that should be implemented, it seems as if airfield defense in depth, with overkill is the answer. Kill ratios of course are probably overestimated for most systems, so a sheer volume is probably the best fix. Aegis Ashore with deep magazines, Patriots, mobile defense systems and sensors, missile AND CIWS style, EW systems, etc should fairly bristle around anything in the Pacific. In the cold war we planned to defend CVBGs against saturation attacks from bombers, and thats the kind of scenario we should be planning to repel at anything west of CONUS. If we dont have the defensive depth and numbers to statistically and confidently defeat waves of hundreds of inbounds at a time, we're doing it wrong. Our biggest problem with land based air should be the maintenance and sortie rates of our planes, not the attrition of them and their needed resources on the ground.
ReplyDeleteDon't know if anyone will see this late reply (I'm a long-term but infrequent reader of this blog), but hear goes:
ReplyDeleteProbably the most practical way to harden storage would be to build the container with a tunnel boring machine. Seattle is currently boring a mile+ long tunnel along the north side of the Lake Union ship canal. According to a friend who works for a local water-quality agency, this tunnel will serve as a buffer tank for storm water to hold excess water while it is fed into the wastewater treatment system, which has a max intake capacity far less than the rate at which rain falls in large storms.
A "tank" can be bored deep below ground by digging a pit somewhat larger than the boring machine in in spot, letting the thing run all around (or outside) the perimeter of the facility, and digging another pit to recover it. Since the machine can be directed to go deeper than the original pit while boring, the bulk of the tank can be even deeper than the ends.
Connections can be made at multiple points along the length, for redundancy and to complicate targeting those nodes.
I'm not quite sure I'm following your idea. You seem to be describing an earth/rock tunnel to hold storm water. That's fine because it's just water. Any permeation into the surrounding earth is harmless and the tunnel only occasionally (maybe frequently in Seattle !) contains liquid.
DeleteFor fuel, permeation into the surrounding earth would be unacceptable for environmental and health reasons (groundwater contamination) and the tunnel/tank would be filled continuously.
That said, the idea of a very large system of fuel storage containers (tunnel, tank, whatever) with only a portion of them filled on a random, rotating basis has some merit although to be effective, the system would have to be enormously large. Otherwise, the enemy simply hits all the possible nodes and they're done. In other words, if you need 5 real tanks, you'd need something on the order of 50 empty tanks to actually complicate the enemy's targeting and weapons expenditure. The cost (and size !) of such a system would be staggering.
" infrequent reader "
DeleteWhat???? That's like saying you're only infrequently well-informed. Don't you want to be constantly well-informed?
The tunnel boring machines continuously line the tube behind them with concrete. They can't back up! That's why you need a second pit to recover the machine at the end.
DeleteI don't know what their turn radius is, but of course the smaller ones will be able to turn tighter. The "tank" could have some fairly unpredictable shapes.