section_path: History/Military airfields
section_name: Military airfields
paragraph_text: Military airfields
  
  Military airfields offer a fixed "target rich" environment for even relatively small enemy forces, using hit-and-run tactics by ground forces, stand-off attacks (mortars and rockets), air attacks, or ballistic missiles. Key targets—aircraft, munitions, fuel, and vital technical personnel—can be protected by fortifications.
  
  Aircraft can be protected by revetments, hesco barriers, hardened aircraft shelters and underground hangars which will protect from many types of attack. Larger aircraft types tend to be based outside the operational theatre.
  
  Munition storage follows safety rules which use fortifications (bunkers and bunds) to provide protection against accident and chain reactions (sympathetic detonations). Weapons for rearming aircraft can be stored in small fortified expense stores closer to the aircraft. At Bien Hoa South Vietnam on the morning of 16 May 1965, as aircraft were being re-fuelled and armed, a chain reaction explosion destroyed 13 aircraft, killed 34 personnel, and injured over 100; this, along with damage and losses of aircraft to enemy attack (by both infiltration and stand-off attacks), led to the construction of revetments and shelters to protect aircraft throughout South Vietnam.
  
  Aircrew and ground personnel will need protection during enemy attacks and fortifications range from culvert section "duck and cover" shelters to permanent air-raid shelters. Soft locations with high personnel densities such as accommodation and messing facilities can have limited protection by placing prefabricated concrete walls or barriers around them, examples of barriers are Jersey Barriers, T Barriers or Splinter Protection Units (SPUs). Older fortification may prove useful such as the old 'Yugo' pyramid shelters built in the 1980s which were used by US personnel on 8 Jan 2020 when Iran fired 11 ballistic missiles at Ayn al-Asad Airbase in Iraq.
  
  Fuel is volatile and has to comply with rules for storage which provide protection against accidents. Fuel in underground bulk fuel installations is well protected though valves and controls are vulnerable to enemy action. Above-ground tanks can be susceptible to attack.
  
  Ground support equipment will need to be protected by fortifications to be usable after an enemy attack.
  
  Permanent (concrete) guard fortifications are safer, stronger, last longer and are more cost-effective than sandbag fortifications. Prefabricated positions can be made from concrete culvert sections. The British Yarnold Bunker is made from sections of a concrete pipe.
  
  Guard towers provide an increased field of view but a lower level of protection.
  
  Dispersal and camouflage of assets can supplement fortifications against some forms of airfield attack.