USAF has 'studied every single piece of concrete in the Pacific' to find new places to fight from

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The prospect of a war with China, which has a rapidly modernizing military that can reach farther and farther across the Pacific, has the US military looking to spread out.

For the US Air Force, that means scouring the region for new places to operate, but rather building new bases, it's working with what's there, according to Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of Pacific Air Forces.

"What we're doing is taking advantage of airfields that already exist," Wilsbach told reporters last week. "If you're going to put [in] an F-22 or an F-15 or a C-130, the airfield has to have certain criteria, and so we've actually studied every single piece of concrete in the Pacific and Indo-Pacific ... for whether they would meet our criteria."

Air Force brass developed plans for expeditionary basing in the 1990s, and the strategy is getting renewed attention.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-air-force-studied-every-183344041.html

[Aristus]

1. It would be interesting and maybe a little ominous

if we re-opened the airfield on Midway.

[roamer65]

2. Tinian in Northern Marianas would be closer.

Tinian is shaped like a large immobile aircraft carrier.

Tinian holds a special place in WW2 history.

[Ilsa]

5. Midway came to mind first for me, too.

A place from where the Japanese Empire, eighty years ago, thought they could launch an attack on our west coast.

Both of the Midway movies were good, I thought. I used to see a lot of those names on base streets and airfields.

[Aristus]

6. I liked the more recent film.

CGI made it possible to portray aircraft carriers from the WWII era, instead of relying on obviously Cold War Era carriers, as in the 1976 film.

[Ilsa]

7. Yes, I've seen it so many times I think I can recite the lines.

Wonderfully done movie, and they did some research on many of the characters.

The book written by Edwin Layton, the intelligence officer, sells for about $280 on Amazon.

The movie felt so real for me, even though I'm a boomer born of WW2 vet and War Dept employee.

[VMA131Marine]

8. There is still an active runway on Midway

and the island is not uninhabited;

“ The usual method of reaching Sand Island, Midway Atoll's only populated island, is on chartered aircraft landing at Sand Island's Henderson Field, which also functions as an emergency diversion point runway for transpacific flights.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Atoll

[Blues Heron]

3. yeah lets attack the country that makes all our electronics

that's extremely intelligent.

These dipshits remind me of those Japanese soldiers that had no idea the war had ended years before.

[captain queeg]

4. How about Wake Island, though don't think it would beuseful nowadays

I read about a typhoon that hit it. Beyond anything ever seen in the Atlantic. I don't think its manned at all any more.

[onethatcares]

9. Kewl, let's keep killing them

and polluting the oceans and making the wealthy wealthier and the poor poorer.

Build us a bunch of new used bases to launch from and they'll build some new bases to launch from and keep this madness

going.

Meanwhile,

I'll be over on the group W bench

I'm 70 y.o. I'm tired of constant war everywhere It doesn't have to be this way.