Range and persistence: the keys to global strike

Air & Space Power Journal, Spring, 2008 by Phillip S. Meilinger

(12.) Col Charles A. Anderson, "Air and Missile Defense," Army, January 2004, 41-47; and theodore A. Postol, "Lessons of the Gulf War Experience with Patriot," International Security 16 (Winter 1991/1992): 119-71.

(13.) Iraq fired 20 ballistic missiles in 2003, but only nine came within the Patriot's range and were intercepted. The rest, fortunately, fell in uninhabited areas. Anderson, "Air and Missile Defense," 46. See also Testimony of Dennis M. Gormley, Senior Fellow, Monterey Institute's Center for Nonproliferation Studies, before the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives, 108th Cong., 2d sess., 9 March 2004, http://cns.miis.edu/research/congress/testim/testgorm.htm.> (14.) For a discussion, see David A. Fulghum, "Cruise Missile battle," Aviation Week and Space Technology, 21 May 2004, 51-53.

(15.) Anderson, "Air and Missile Defense," 46; Improvements Needed to Better Contest Technology Exports for Cruise Missiles and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, GAo report 04-175 (Washington, DC: General Accounting office, January 2004), 13; and Dennis M. Gormley, "The Neglected Dimension: Controlling Cruise Missile Proliferation," Nonproliferation Review 9 (Summer 2002): 23. China is developing a new cruise missile with as-yet-undetermined capabilities. See "Chinese Developing new Antiship Cruise Missile," Aviation Week and Space Technology, 31 May 2004, 23.

(16.) An Internet search will turn up several aircraft kits and autopilot systems. Note that China's cruise and ballistic missiles have "satellite-aided" guidance systems for increased accuracy. Ironically, US-provided signals from the global positioning system could be used against it. Stephen J. Flanagan and Michael E. Marti, eds., The People's Liberation Army and China in Transition (Washington, DC: national Defense University Press, 2003), 23.

(17.) Alan vick, Snakes in the Eagle's Nest: A History of Ground Attacks on Air Bases (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1995), 68. In Vietnam, more US aircraft were destroyed on the ground by guerillas than in air-to-air combat.

(18.) For a copy of the report, see Lt Gen James F. Record, Independent Review of the Khobar Towers Bombing, parts A and b (tucson, AZ: Davis-Monthan AFB, 31 October 1996), http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/khobar/recordf.htm. To eliminate the threat from an 82 mm mortar, for example, one needs a defensive perimeter with a radius of four miles. Sidoti, Air Base Operability, 115.

(19.) David A. Shlapak and Alan vick, "Check Six Begins on the Ground": Responding to the Evolving Ground Threat to U.S. Air Force Bases (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1995), 41.

(20.) the Air Service had experimented with air refueling since the 1920s but found it impractical for the huge air fleets of World War II. With the onset of the Cold War, the concept took on added importance as air planners needed to ensure that bombers could hit targets deep in the Soviet Union. Air refueling was essential. Because far fewer bombers were necessary in the age of nuclear weapons, air refueling became more practical. Richard K. Smith, Seventy-Five Years of Inflight Refueling: Highlights, 1923-1998 (Washington, DC: Air Force history and Museums Program, 1998).