Supporting Combat Power Projection Away from Fixed Infrastructure

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Leftwich, James A.

Contributor:

DeBlois, Bradley

Orletsky, David T.

Language:

English

Place of Publication:

Santa Monica, Calif. RAND Corporation 2022

Summary:

Faced with the challenge of deterring and defeating aggression by the kinds of highly capable adversaries highlighted in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) is exploring alternative weapon systems and concepts of employment that will allow it to generate combat power without being harnessed to air bases and runways that adversaries may view as high-value targets. In this report, the authors examine the logistics and sustainment aspects of an emerging operational concept for employing a family of unmanned aerial vehicles that can be launched, recovered, and sustained with minimal reliance on runways, thereby improving operational resiliency in the face of adversary targeting of runways. The authors find that this class of weapon system—called affordable runway-independent unmanned aerial vehicles (ARIUAV)—can conduct high-volume combat operations with lower resource requirements than traditional platforms. The authors identify options for reducing the logistics and support "footprint" associated with ARIUAV operations by using nontraditional support concepts and incorporating design changes that enable reduced support requirements.