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Narrowing the global-strike gap with an airborne aircraft carrier
Air & Space Power Journal, Summer, 2005 by George D. Kramlinger
Editorial Abstract: The United States faces a global-strike gap if it confronts a vast and well-defended adversary in an access-challenged theater halfway around the world. To close this gap, the Air Force should develop a fleet of airborne aircraft carriers to transport stealthy fighters and unmanned combat aerial vehicles over global range to protect, augment, and support the limited B-2 fleet.
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US AIR FORCE BOMBERS played key roles in Operations Allied Force, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. Throughout Allied Force, B-2s flying 30-hour round-trip missions from the continental United States (CONUS) struck high-value Yugoslav targets at night through airspace considered too hostile for nonstealthy aircraft. Fortunately, North Atlantic Treaty Organization airfields in nearby Italy enabled the proven tactic of packaging short-range defense suppression, fighter, and jamming aircraft to improve bomber surviv ability. (1) Two B-2 sorties originating from the CONUS during each of the first two nights of Enduring Freedom quickly created a permissive environment above Afghanistan by eliminating the Taliban's meager strategic air defenses. (2) As a result, B-1 and B-52 bombers conveniently based at the British-owned atoll of Diego Garcia cycled freely over all of Afghanistan, pounding al-Qaeda positions around-the-clock. (3) During the 10 months preceding Iraqi Freedom, multirole fighters patrolling the southern and northern no-fly zones systematically dismantled much of the Iraqi Integrated Air Defense System (IADS). (4) Consequently, the operation began with B-1s and B-52s based in Diego Garcia enjoying the freedom of action to loiter over most of Iraq with large payloads to rapidly engage emerging battlefield targets. (5) However, a permissive environment for nonstealthy bombers or favorable basing options for bombers and short-range support assets may not exist in the next conflict.
Nations that prohibit overflight or that deny basing rights, as well as adversaries who hold key airfields at risk or coerce allies with missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), can prohibit access to regionally deployed land-based airpower. Naval attack fighters operating from the sea and conventional long-range bombers cannot survive penetration of a sophisticated IADS that denies access to all but the stealthiest platforms. Standoff air- and sea-launched cruise missiles are becoming increasingly vulnerable to advanced air defenses and have only limited capability against mobile, hardened, and deeply buried targets (HDBT) that create access denial. Long range, survivability, and penetrating weapons make the B-2 stealth bomber a highly capable global-strike platform. (6) Unfortunately, the 16 combat-coded B-2s in our inventory are insufficient to conduct an unescorted enabling operation in places where access denial precludes the use of regionally based airpower. (7) F/A-22 and F-117 stealth fighters should protect and augment the limited B-2 fleet by engaging mobile and hardened high-value targets, but they lack global range because of the single pilot's limited endurance. In the very near future, Iran, North Korea, and China will likely possess the combination of weapons, missiles, and air defenses to negate access to theater-based airpower. Consequently, the Air Force may have to use CONUS-to-CONUS missions to gain access to denied airspace. Hampered by a limited B-2 inventory and an inability to operate stealth fighters over global range, the United States will face a global-strike gap if it confronts a vast and well-defended adversary in an access-challenged theater halfway around the world.
The Airborne Aircraft Carrier Solution
To close such a gap, the Air Force should develop a fleet of airborne aircraft carriers (AAC) to allow stealthy fighters and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) to protect, augment, and support the B-2 fleet. The AAC concept uses a Boeing 747-400 mother ship to transport and employ both a single stealth fighter in the piggyback configuration and a single UCAV carried under the fuselage. Air-to-air refueling will provide global range, enabling each AAC to remain airborne for days at a time. A retractable, protective shroud will cover the nose and cockpit of the stealth aircraft so its pilot can move freely between the AAC and fighter. Mechanisms to launch and recover the airborne stealth fighter and UCAV will facilitate multiple sorties by the parasite aircraft. Between missions both the fighter and UCAV will refuel and rearm while docked with the mother ship. After two or three coordinated strikes over the course of 12-24 hours, the mother ships will return the fighters and UCAVs to the CONUS for maintenance and regeneration as another group of AACs replaces them. The AAC concept will neither serve as a substitute for nor attempt to generate the sorties of a naval aircraft carrier. Instead, a fleet of AACs will enable the marshalling of high-payoff "silver-bullet" strike packages at the strategic and operational levels of war early in a campaign as a means of overcoming access denial and setting conditions for the deployment and employment of theater-based conventional forces.
