{"id":81283,"date":"2026-04-06T21:54:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T21:54:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2026\/04\/06\/calls-for-tougher-us-bunkers-hangars-go-back-years-analysts-say\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T17:34:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T17:34:42","slug":"calls-for-tougher-us-bunkers-hangars-go-back-years-analysts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2026\/04\/06\/calls-for-tougher-us-bunkers-hangars-go-back-years-analysts-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Calls for tougher US bunkers, hangars go back years, analysts say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On March 27, an Iranian missile scored a high-value hit on Prince Sultan Air Base<\/a> in Saudi Arabia, reducing an Air Force E-3 (AWACS) command center aircraft worth up to $500 million to splinters and shards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the strike underscored Iran\u2019s capabilities, it also reignited a longstanding conversation about the need for the U.S. to protect its aircraft and other high-value equipment with underground bunkers and hardened shelters \u2014 an area in which analysts say adversaries like China have invested far more extensively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are asking the valid question: What on earth was this half-billion dollar airplane doing sitting right out in the open, where commercial satellite imagery can see exactly where it was and target a weapon onto that, which apparently they did,\u201d said Tom Shugart, a retired Navy submarine officer and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security\u2019s Defense Program. \u201cI think there\u2019s really good questions being asked about, what are we doing here? And the bigger question is, why wasn\u2019t it already done?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As missiles continue to hit U.S. bases in the Middle East, the Pentagon is moving to ramp up investment in base hardening. As reported by The War Zone, which has been writing about gaps in infrastructure hardening and aircraft protection for years, March saw the publication of multiple contracting solicitations seeking near-term and long-term solutions, including a Space Force call<\/a> for \u201cprefabricated transportable bunkers\u201d and a seven-year task order<\/a> for infrastructure work at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has called for \u201cmore and more bunkers,\u201d saying during a trip to the Middle East that their rapid fielding was a \u201ctheater priority,\u201d as also reported by TWZ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the emphasis thus far has been on bunkers, Shugart said the protection gap can be seen more clearly in hardened aircraft shelters, which are visible and countable via commercial imagery. A paper, \u201cConcrete Sky,\u201d<\/a> that he coauthored last year with Timothy Walton of the Hudson Institute found that in the Indo-Pacific, China had more than doubled its number of hardened aircraft shelters between 2010 and 2020, reaching a total of about 800, while the U.S. and its allies had built just two in the same timeframe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper particularly highlights as \u201cfoolish\u201d the decision not to build hardened aircraft shelters for the coming fleet of B-21 bombers \u2014 describing the shelters as a $30 million investment to protect aircraft worth $600 million apiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent years, the Army Corps of Engineers has worked to make modest improvements to existing bunkers. Military Times reported in 2024<\/a> on reinforcement work including better blast doors intended to protect troops inside from traumatic brain injuries caused by overpressure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But calls to protect aircraft have been dampened in the past by concerns from leaders about the value of doing so. Shugart noted that Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, then commander of Pacific Air Forces and now chief of staff of the Air Force, said in 2023 that he wasn\u2019t \u201ca big fan of hardening infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou saw what we did to the Iraqi Air Force and their hardened aircraft shelters,\u201d he said, referring to U.S. strikes during the Gulf War. \u201cThey\u2019re not so hard when you put a 2,000-pound bomb right through the roof.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that was true at the time, Shugart said, it might not be as true anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While one missile with submunitions may be able to wipe out multiple aircraft on the ground, it would take one missile to destroy a single hardened aircraft shelter, he said. In that scenario, he estimates the missile would cost $20 million; the shelter, $5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt that point, you\u2019re at least on the right side of the cost curve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, he added, the Air Force\u2019s own think tanks have also pushed for better air base protection. A paper published in 2024 by J. Michael Dahm, a fellow at the Air Force\u2019s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, posited that air base defenses had \u201catrophied\u201d over the last three decades and budgeting for resilient basing had actually declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo date, neither Congress nor the Department of Defense (DOD) have adequately funded air base defense requirements. Without an immediate reversal of this trend, the Air Force may be unable to generate operationally relevant combat airpower in a near peer conflict, which would likely have devastating impacts on joint and combined campaigns,\u201d Dahm wrote. \u201cInadequate air base defense also strains alliances, incentivizes potential aggressors, and may ultimately result in a strategic loss that has existential consequences for the United States and its allies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Air Force does have a five-year contract<\/a> for new Expedient Small Asset Protection<\/a> shelters as part of its Agile Combat Employment strategy \u2014 \u201changars in a box\u201d for small aircraft or vehicles. It\u2019s not clear, though, how many have been purchased and deployed since the first one was unveiled at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walton, at the Hudson Institute, said past assumptions about hardened shelter space constraints \u2014 that they\u2019re mainly for fighters and wouldn\u2019t fit a large plane like the AWACS to begin with \u2014 may not hold true. He pointed to the large shelters at Andersen that have been constructed for typhoon protection, saying that could be a starting point design for sheltering the biggest and most costly warfighting assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis would give you an ability to put it in the large aircraft shelter, close the doors and have it not be vulnerable to drones or submission or weapons that are coming up top,\u201d he said. \u201cIt could still be probably penetrated by certain classes of unitary warheads, but it helps.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Walton and Shugart emphasized that the threat to U.S. aircraft on the tarmac shouldn\u2019t be considered limited to the Indo-Pacific or the Middle East. With the rise of unmanned aircraft crossing onto military installations, the threat is domestic, too, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a slate over the past years of incursions of U.S. airfields and other critical infrastructure, even within the contiguous United States; incursions by drones,\u201d Walton said. \u201cAnd it exposes how vulnerable U.S. aircraft are to attack at airfields.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Hudson Institute analysis<\/a> called for 12 small hardened aircraft shelters and three large ones per airfield in the Pacific, where it focused, estimating between $9 billion and $10.5 billion to shore up resilient structures and passive defenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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