The U.S. Air Force is seeking a military air base defense option that can stop cruise missiles and drones before they reach its installations. The service issued a Request for Information to identify a Ground-Based Launcher solution, and industry responses are due Aug. 6.
Michael Peck, a correspondent for Defense News and a columnist for the Center for European Policy Analysis, reported that the request asks contractors to “identify industry partners capable of providing a Ground-Based Launcher solution to protect United States Air Force assets” and to “outline operational performance metrics, specifically the firing rate across all magazines and the total magazine depth, while demonstrating seamless command and control (C2) system integration for rapid sensor data dissemination and weapons cueing.”
Ground-Based Launcher requirements
The Air Force wants missiles that can defeat drones from Group 1 through Group 5, a span that runs from drones with a maximum gross takeoff weight of less than 21 pounds to drones with a maximum weight of more than 1,320 pounds. The same request also calls for cruise-missile interception, integrated sensing, a laser illuminator for fire control, and a self-contained system that is easily transportable.
The request lists 11 critical baseline attributes for the Ground-Based Launcher, including cost, transportability, manpower requirements, and built-in testing diagnostics for maintenance and safety. Contractors are also asked to refer to the 2012 Joint Staff publication JP 3-01, Countering Air and Missile Threats.
Middle East base attacks
The search follows attacks on U.S. and allied military bases in the Middle East by Iranian drones and missiles. Iranian weapons destroyed a U.S. E-3 Sentry AWACS, damaged at least five KC-135 tankers at Saudi airbases, and devastated multiple air defense radars.
Those losses explain why the Air Force is pressing for a ground-launched defensive option rather than waiting for another service to fill the gap. The service wants its own air-defense solution even though a strategist on the Air Staff argued last year that the Air Force should stop relying on the Army for primary air defense of airfields.
Air Staff debate
The strategist said expeditionary airbases lack sophisticated systems like the Patriot and warned that the Air Force’s own security forces are poorly equipped for air defense. That leaves the service trying to define what a base-defense package should do, how much it should carry, and how quickly it can cue weapons from sensor data.
Aug. 6 now sets the pace for industry. By that deadline, companies that can build a transportable Ground-Based Launcher with integrated sensing and command links will have shown whether they can meet the Air Force’s baseline requirements, and the next choice will be whether any proposed system can cover the full range of drones and cruise missiles the service wants to stop.
