Sea-Land Basing of Air Refueling Forces

This discussion proposes a serious look at an old concept in a new application-providing sea-based support of US Air Force air refueling forces at forward land bases in the face of modern antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) threats. Given the proliferation of robust A2/AD capabilities in the hands of pot...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Air & space power journal 2015-03, Vol.29 (2), p.5-5
Main Author: Owen, Robert C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aircraft
Airport runways
Aviation
Defense programs
Information warfare
Land
Logistics
Military
Military aircraft
Military planes
Missiles
Refueling
Resilience
War
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Summary:This discussion proposes a serious look at an old concept in a new application-providing sea-based support of US Air Force air refueling forces at forward land bases in the face of modern antiaccess/area-denial (A2/AD) threats. Given the proliferation of robust A2/AD capabilities in the hands of potential enemies, this concept offers theater commanders the possibility of operating air refueling forces efficiently and with resilience. It would do so by freeing some of those forces from dependence on large, fixed, and heavily defended air bases. To set it apart from the many other versions of sea basing discussed in the literature of national defense, the article refers to this notion as sea-land basing (SLB). Essentially, SLB is a concept for the agile disaggregation of air refueling forces among austere military and civil airfields possessing minimal support facilities for large aircraft other than runways.
ISSN:1555-385X
1554-2505