Passive protection of airfields

Why do Chinese airfeilds need passive protectiogn anyways? Due to radar coverage, it is impossible for taiwanese fighters to launch a sneak attack.The active defences in place right now, as well as future ones, are mroe thna enough.

Im also pretty sure PLAAF j-8II pilots are trained to make quick take offs, perhaps in 5 minutes or less.

True, against taiwanese they probably don't need any. Unlikely any taiwanese planes could get close enough unless they achieve absolute surprise, getting 100+ planes in the air and on route before chinese notice that. unlikely. Taiwan, however, may not be the only adversary in the future.

You did touch upon an interesting point though. Just what is the PLAAF policy on scrambling the planes for quick intercept? I'm sure it'd depend on the situation in the war theatre, but as a guideline rule - how many planes/pilots could be ready and waiting to get up in the air within 5 mins at your average plaaf airfield? How many airfields have more than one runway? There's, after all, only so many take offs you can do in a given time per runway.

Hardened shelters are a necessity in that part of the world due to frequency of typhoons. Against air raid, well-constructed aircraft shelters can protect your aircraft against bombardment from most non-first world air force. For an example if the PRC were to get in a minor scuffle with Vietnam today, it's unlikely that the Vietnamese Air Force could launch manny preciison strikes with LGB's against hardened PLAAF shelters.

But in terms of disabling air force assets at an air base, if you can't blow up the planes, you can always bomb the air strip, then scatter a whole bunch of mines or bomblets over the area to delay repairs.

Serbian Air Force sustained many attacks from NATO strike aircraft, yet it was still able to protect some of its air assets and even fly them, though they were hopelessly out-matched in the air.

Typhoons? Perhaps stronger hangers will do the job of prtecting j-11s againt mother nature just fine.

The serbs didnt have bunkers, they just used caves.

I’m from Croatia and I can tell you that ex. Yugoslavia had some of the best passive protected airfields in the World…
All airfields in ex. Yugoslavia had bunkers and most important airfield in Yugoslavia were(are) nuclear proof since they were build to survive attack from NATO and Warsaw pact… Only a piece of runaway would be outside while the rest of it went in mountain...the large 1-2 m steel doors were fitted...so basically what would you have is a runaway outside and couple of hills with doors on them. the door opens mig is quickly pulled out and sent to air.
Even with such airfields Serbs lost 26 aircrafts in Golubovci airfield tunnel complex…
Ex. Yugoslavia(witch my country was part of) knew that planes on the open could not survive any mayor attack( 1967 Arab-Israeli war proved that they were right)…
Your airfields do not have to be attacked with fighters… Joust tray imagine in what shape would your fighters be if someone attack them in the open with few dozen stealth cruse missiles dropping thousands cluster bombs(somthing like British JP233 only
turned in the cruse missile) …

If an enemy plane could get close enough to an airfield to drop bombs the first thing it would destroy is the runway, because that gives the enemy very large strategic advantage. Before the runway is repaired they can do many things without worrying about air interception, including continuously pounding the airfield to hamper runway repair, SEADing the whole region, attacking vital installations in the region, etc. and they can take their time plucking out the parked planes one by one.

Wingman said:

If an enemy plane could get close enough to an airfield to drop bombs the first thing it would destroy is the runway, because that gives the enemy very large strategic advantage. Before the runway is repaired they can do many things without worrying about air interception, including continuously pounding the airfield to hamper runway repair, SEADing the whole region, attacking vital installations in the region, etc. and they can take their time plucking out the parked planes one by one.

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Damaging a runway can prevent an airforce from flying for hours. Destroying aircraft can prevent an airforce from flying for good.

Destroying aircraft on the ground is an easier way to gain airsuperiority than destroying aircraft in the air. That's what the Israelis did in the 6 Day War.

I think we all understand the principles.

The question is why has the PLAA not done this?

I can think of three possible answers

i) Rampant Corruption and Ineptitude? - To that scale? unlikely, China is not Somalia

ii) Fortifications are only Missile Magnets and guarantee your planes destruction? - Counter Intuitive but I read Isthvans post carefully.

iii) As quoted by the Chinese General last year - any attack on chinese territory by a major enemy would not stay conventional long enough to warrant the effort - scary lets not go there!!

So can you guys think of any good reasons not to build hardend shelters?

SampanViking said:

I think we all understand the principles.

The question is why has the PLAA not done this?

I can think of three possible answers

i) Rampant Corruption and Ineptitude? - To that scale? unlikely, China is not Somalia

ii) Fortifications are only Missile Magnets and guarantee your planes destruction? - Counter Intuitive but I read Isthvans post carefully.

iii) As quoted by the Chinese General last year - any attack on chinese territory by a major enemy would not stay conventional long enough to warrant the effort - scary lets not go there!!

So can you guys think of any good reasons not to build hardend shelters?

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I would say different strategy and doctrine. Maybe the PLAAF is using a dispersal strategy as opposed to constructing known hardened hangers that can be easily destroyed by TLAMs or JDAMs.

Maybe their waiting to have all of their J-10s and FC-1s to come online. But that wouldn't make sense, I mean why wait you know? All that I can think of, other than that the Chinese believe the mass of their country and their active dfences are a better investment. I would think that China would build some really high quality shelters that could protect the best of their aircraft.

Seriously, look at that Taiwanese air base with the hangars in the side of the mountain! Its cool!