HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A hardened aircraft shelter (HAS) or protective aircraft shelter (PAS) is a reinforced
hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...
to house and protect
military aircraft A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat: * Combat aircraft are designed to destroy enemy equi ...
from enemy attack. Cost considerations and building practicalities limit their use to fighter size aircraft.


Background

HASs are a passive defence measure (i.e., they limit the effect of an attack, as opposed to active defences, such as surface-to-air missiles) which aim to prevent or at least degrade enemy attacks. The widespread adoption of hardened aircraft shelters can be traced back to lessons learned from
Operation Focus Operation Focus ( he, מבצע מוקד, ''Mivtza Moked'') was the opening airstrike by Israel at the start of the Six-Day War in 1967. It is sometimes referred to as the "Sinai Air Strike". At 07:45 on 5 June 1967, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) u ...
in the 1967 Arab-Israeli
Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...
, when the
Israeli Air Force The Israeli Air Force (IAF; he, זְרוֹעַ הָאֲוִיר וְהֶחָלָל, Zroa HaAvir VeHahalal, tl, "Air and Space Arm", commonly known as , ''Kheil HaAvir'', "Air Corps") operates as the aerial warfare branch of the Israel Defens ...
destroyed the unprotected Egyptian Air Force, at the time the largest and most advanced air force in the Arab world, at its airfields’ airbases. As with many military items, whether structures,
tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engi ...
s or aircraft, its most prolific use was during the Cold War.
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
and
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist repub ...
countries built hundreds of HASs across
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
. In this context, hardened aircraft shelters were built to protect aircraft from conventional attacks, as well as nuclear,
chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...
and biological strikes. NATO shelters, built to standard designs across the continent, were designed to withstand a direct hit by a 500 lb (226 kg) bomb, or a near miss by a larger one (i.e., 1,000 lb+). In theory, HASs were also built to protect aircraft in a nuclear strike; however, the effect of such an attack on
airfield An aerodrome ( Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for pub ...
taxiway A taxiway is a path for aircraft at an airport connecting runways with aprons, hangars, terminals and other facilities. They mostly have a hard surface such as asphalt or concrete, although smaller general aviation airports sometimes use gravel ...
s,
runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concre ...
s, support facilities and personnel would have made any retaliatory mission extremely difficult, and subsequent return and rearming almost impossible. In the post-Cold War era, the value of the HAS concept was further eroded by the introduction of precision-guided munitions (PGM).
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
's HAS hangars were built to a standard somewhat higher than NATO or Warsaw Pact shelters, but nevertheless proved almost useless during the
Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
. Early attempts to defeat them typically used a "one-two punch" using a TV-guided missile to blast open the doors, followed by bombs tossed in the front. US efforts soon turned to simply dropping a 2,000 lb
laser guided Laser guidance directs a robotics system to a target position by means of a laser beam. The laser guidance of a robot is accomplished by projecting a laser light, image processing and communication to improve the accuracy of guidance. The key ide ...
bomb on the top, which would easily penetrate the roof and explode within. With that being said, however, NATO
hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...
s would still remain useful against the forces of any enemy as might conceivably engage Europe in an armed conflict in the short term (whose capabilities generally lack precision guidance systems needed to defeat the defensive shield such hangars offer).


Advantages

*Reduces vulnerability of aircraft to all but the most accurate precision weaponry *Provides protection against
chemical weapon A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a ...
attack. *Prevents satellite/aerial reconnaissance seeing whether aircraft are present. *Permits aircraft maintenance and turn-round in weathertight and relatively safe conditions. *Combined with active airfield defences, increases survivability of defender's aircraft and cost to enemy's forces in destroying them. *An alternative option, dispersal of aircraft to many different bases, reduces the efficiency of aircraft at both
squadron Squadron may refer to: * Squadron (army), a military unit of cavalry, tanks, or equivalent subdivided into troops or tank companies * Squadron (aviation), a military unit that consists of three or four flights with a total of 12 to 24 aircraft, ...
and air force level. *Weapons, including
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
s, can be stored in the HAS, sometimes in a vault under the aircraft; e.g., the
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...
Weapons Storage and Security System Weapons Storage and Security System (WS3) is a system including electronic controls and vaults built into the floors of Protective Aircraft Shelters (PAS) on several NATO military airfields all over the world. These vaults are used for safe spe ...
(WS3).


Disadvantages

*They are in a fixed known position. *Hardened shelters are expensive. In 1999, a hardened shelter for a single aircraft would have costed the USAF $4 million, and this would not have included the cost of building hardened shelters for aircraft spare parts and other equipment, command and control etc. *Hardened aircraft shelters do not protect air force personnel. In the Gulf war, the number of personnel required for air operations reached the thousands. They were housed in tents in the desert, which were vulnerable to missile attacks. *Hardened shelters are usually too small to easily accommodate large aircraft such as strategic transport aircraft and large surveillance aircraft. *Time taken for construction requires forward planning regarding most likely combat zones. If a conflict flares up quickly aircraft may be afforded no protection; e.g., in both the
Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
and 2003
Iraq War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
many coalition aircraft had only sun shelters, not hardened facilities. *When first developed, the likelihood of a direct hit was minimal. Today, with precision-guided munitions (PGMs) and adequate training, delivering a direct hit on a HAS is trivial. Coalition aircraft destroyed over half of Iraq's HASs during the Gulf War.


Alternatives


Deployable shelters

Kevlar Kevlar (para-aramid) is a strong, heat-resistant synthetic fiber, related to other aramids such as Nomex and Technora. Developed by Stephanie Kwolek at DuPont in 1965, the high-strength material was first used commercially in the early 1970s a ...
lined deployable shelters could protect aircraft from bomblets (a common anti-airfield weapon). However, this would provide no protection from PGMs.


Dispersal at bases

Wider dispersal (distance between aircraft) at airfields would decrease the vulnerability of aircraft. This would also force an enemy to increase the number of attacking aircraft greatly, or spend more time over the target. Either way the effect of airfield defences would take a heavy toll on the aggressor. However, like HAS, dispersal can be expensive, requiring massive construction of hardstanding. Defense against enemy special forces is also more difficult.


Dispersal between bases

Dispersing aircraft between many bases greatly increases the cost of attacking a given number of aircraft, as measured by the number of attack aircraft required. However, this option similarly increases the defenders' cost of operation and degrades their efficiency.


Dispersal to highway strips

Dispersal of aircraft to
highway strip A highway strip, road runway or road base is a section of a highway, motorway or other form of public road that is specially built to act as a runway for (mostly) military aircraft and to serve as an auxiliary military air base. These runways a ...
s will present the attacker with a multitude of targets which cannot be simultaneously attacked. Survivability is enhanced if the defender also chooses to use mobile tactics, using each highway strip for a limited number of sorties before moving on to another. With penny packets of two to four aircraft at each location, such a tactic increases the difficulty of effective co-ordination, and command and control, it also increases vulnerability to attack from the ground. However, with adequate planning these are not insurmountable problems.


Underground hangars

Several air forces have used tunnels dug into a mountainside as
underground hangar An underground hangar is a type of hangar for military aircraft, usually dug into the side of a mountain for protection. It is bigger and more protected than a hardened aircraft shelter (HAS). An underground hangar complex may include tunnels con ...
s.


Sweden - Bas 60 & Bas 90

Sweden developed its own alternative during the cold war. In the late 1950s the Swedish Air Force introduced the Bas 60 air base system, which revolved around both the principle of dispersal between bases and dispersal at bases simultaneously. Road runways (highway strips) were also introduced as alternative bases. Bas 60 was primarily a response to the nuclear threat, so in the aftermath of the
Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...
in 1967, and the introduction of long range attack aircraft, such as the Sukhoi Su-24, the system was further developed into Bas 90. Improvements in the Bas 90 system included construction of short backup runways in the direct vicinity of the air bases and further dispersion of aircraft positioning and ground operations. The
Swedish Air Force Rangers The Swedish Air Force Rangers (SAFR) ( sv, Flygbasjägarna, FBJ), is an elite specialist ground unit of the Swedish Air Force. The name "Flygbasjägare" originates in the unit's old role during the cold war of conducting security operations aroun ...
were also raised specifically to counter the threat of infiltrating enemy special forces.


See also

* Christmas tree *
Revetment (aircraft) A revetment, in military aviation, is a parking area for one or more aircraft that is surrounded by blast walls on three sides. These walls are as much about protecting neighbouring aircraft as it is to protect the aircraft within the revetment; ...


References


External links


USAFE TAB-VEE shelters and their genesis


Sources

* {{Fortifications Aircraft hangars Fortifications by type Military airbases