Posted on 02/25/2016 6:31:54 AM PST by C19fan
The United States can no longer count on its Pacific air bases to be safe from missile attack during a war with China. On the contrary, a 2015 paper from the influential RAND Corporation noted that in the worst case scenario, “larger and accurate attacks sustained over time against a less hardened posture could be devastating, causing large losses of aircraft and prolonged airfield closures.â€
Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, due to its relative proximity, would be hardest hit. To up the stakes, China in September 2015 publicly revealed its DF-26 ballistic missile, which can strike Andersen Air Force Base in Guam — nearly 3,000 miles away — from the Chinese mainland. Andersen and Kadena are among the U.S. military’s largest and most important overseas bases.
Enter Tinian. The lush, small island near Guam is emerging as one of the Air Force’s backup landing bases. On Feb. 10, the flying branch announced that it selected Tinian as a divert airfield “in the event access to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, or other western Pacific locations is limited or denied.â€
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
Tibets Island
Thanks president ubama! It would have been cheaper and more environmentally friendly to have stopped China from destroying and rebuilding these coral atolls in the first place. We needed some of your “common sense” solutions.
Now our Airmen and civilians at Kadena AFB in Okinawa are in imminent danger every day. Not to mention every civilian airliner and ship in the area. What a POS POTUS.
The Chinese and Russian latest generation of missiles have a range greater than that of carrier-borne tactical aircraft. IOW, our carrier fleet will no longer work. But our SSGN fleet will. Bubbleheads just got promoted over airdales.
Range alone isn’t all that relevant. It’s range coupled with the ability to locate, identify and target our carriers. Otherwise the ChiComs are reduced to firing their long range missiles blind down a suspected bearing.
But yes, the SSGNs are playing a much larger role. With the CVNs providing various levels of support to them. The concept is very similar to the one developed for the Iowas back in the 1980s. Put the Battleship with its long range cruise missles out front, dedicate two CVNs to stay far back but provide air cover and the like. The difference being that the BB’s survivability was based on armor while the SSGN’s is stealth.
13 years ago the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing CG came to this same conclusion and sent his Wing Engineers to Tinian to ready it for a deployment of F/A-18s. Good to see Rand and the USAF figure this out after over a decade.
Maybe they will get the 509th back there.
The loading pits for Little Boy and Fat Man are still there, as is the 509th’s segregated area. You can see them on wikimapia.
Then its a go, send in the engineers to harden the place up.
Ping
OK , just tell enemies everything
It seems like we are losing our strengths one by one while our aging Cold War techniques and equipment get more obsolete while our potential enemies outbuild and out think us with new techniques and ideas and weapons.
I hope there is a lot we don’t know publically about our strengths, because it appears we are losing any level of advantage.
Chinese and Russian S-400s, supersonic anti ship missiles, anti ship ballistic missiles, man made island bases, combined with close proximity to an endless supply of Chinese bases and aircraft does not look like a very likely positive outcome for any attempt for us to do anything in the western Pacific.
Maybe if Obama were to apologize just one more time...
OK, I’m going to be first in with the question. Won’t the island tip over with all that construction?
Won’t the island tip over with all that construction?
Thank you for that good hardy laugh! :)
Be careful with that sort of humor. Some democrat might try to get you to run for congress.
The most effective weapon against a cruise missile is an airplane. They fly too low for ground weapons to be effective but if you put enough aircraft in the air with AA missiles, they can take them out. And it doesn’t matter what kind of aircraft or missile since the cruise missiles can’t shoot back. An old F4 with Sidewinders can do the job.
We should have helped our SEA allies fortify these islands long ago. We can still do it I some and we should. The good news is that with the seas rising they will all soon be under water.
Remember, there is “Stupid,” and then there is Dem. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee “STOOOPID!”
In the first Gulf War I read an account by a reporter who saw a crippled cruise missile fly down his street.
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