Airpower 101: an expeditionary air base model

Air & Space Power Journal,  Fall, 2004  by John Dobbins

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

Eventually, the bare-base Harvest Falcon assets caught up with the pace of personnel deployments to Tallil AB; then, water, power, and facility infrastructures were constructed to support both airpower and people requirements. Communications infrastructure leveraged the existing Iraqi conduits; together they produced a functional grid on base--at least for work-center phones and computers and connected to long-haul grids to get us off base. Existing roads began to be repaired and additional roads constructed. Each of the nine elements of the three airpower components continued to develop even more capable and functional value chains. The base could now fully support airpower operations: close air support, strike, air mobility, rescue, and reconnaissance operations. In addition, Tallil provided base-operating support to other coalition members so they could build their airpower capabilities without having to endure the deprivation we encountered. I knew that Tallil AB had crested the infrastructure hill when, just prior to my departure in July, I flushed the first standard toilet that had been installed in a new hard-sided building using Air Force-produced and piped-in water--pretty good for just three and one-haft months on a decimated enemy air base.

Topics for Further Consideration

This model closely matches a base's organizational construct and can be used as the centerpiece for base support and operations planning and as a yardstick for evaluating the execution of those plans. I recommend that Headquarters Air Force (AF/ILX) rewrite AFI 10-404 using this model to standardize the language of assessing, building, and fighting an air base. It provides the organizational construct on how to write a base plan. I further recommend that a section be devoted to the components of "aircrew," "aircraft," "airfield," and "Airmen." Within those sections, chapters could be devoted to the value chains described herein for each of the nine airpower-element areas and the additional areas that support people and infrastructure grids. We should expand the instruction to include three different levels of planning: the current Expeditionary Site Plan (ESP), the survey of infrastructure; a BSP that includes detailed planning of what needs to occur to make the air base functional as listed in an operation plan (OPLAN); and a more robust Base Operating Plan (BOP) that includes all the element value chains. The BOP would be at the top of base planning and give commanders a better idea of how to fight the base. These plans, written by the wings that will likely execute them, become the basis for exercises and inspections. By planning and training with the Airpower 101 model at home, its use becomes second nature in the way we think of fighting. Even if that wing deploys to a different location, that model and the wing's experience in exercising it will still provide the framework for making the new location operational. The model could become a logical and unifying construct for all bare-base operations--that links airpower-process components, elements, and value chains to an organizational hierarchy (wing = airpower; group = airpower components; squadron = airpower elements; and flights = steps in value chains), providing a common language to all levels of command that are involved in standing up bare bases.