Skipping over the SAW/SAM parts (important but I think already well covered), I found the emphasis on FOB/dispersed operations interesting. The USMC already doing road trials with the F-35B* - maybe we need to be reinventing the RAFG Harrier model...
*
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-coast-highway
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...nder-in-europe
Top Ukraine War Lessons From USAF’s Commander In Europe
With neither side in the now 542-day-old war in Ukraine able to
achieve air superiority, the U.S. and NATO are gathering valuable lessons for how they may have to fight on the continent in the future, the general in charge of U.S. and NATO air operations in Europe said Friday.
The U.S. and NATO will have to improve methods to counter integrated air defenses, defend against
incoming threats, communicate and move assets around the continent under the U.S. doctrine of
Agile Combat Employment (ACE). Those were the conclusions delivered by U.S. Air Force Gen. James Hecker - head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), as well as NATO's Allied Air Command and U.S. Air Forces Africa (AFAFRICA) - Friday during a Defense Writers Group virtual briefing.....
.....One of the main reasons the Ukrainian Air Force has been able to stay in the fight is its ability to move its aircraft around the country and still have the enough airstrips with stocked supplies capable of sustaining air combat operations.
Hecker said that success shows the U.S. and NATO need to step up their ACE efforts.
ACE has been around “way before the Ukraine-Russian war started,” said Hecker. “And it was mainly in response to the situation in the Indo-Pacific, knowing that China had several cruise missiles, very capable cruise missiles and things like that, and we had to move or else - you know we don’t want to lose all our aircraft on the ground.”
“So enter Ukraine, and now we kind of see how they're doing and what's being effective for them by them moving their airplanes around against the threat that we’d most likely face - definitely face - if we go to Article Five [NATO collective defense agreement]. We need to make sure that we can do that as well.”
The U.S. and NATO employ ACE to some extent in Europe as well, said Hecker. But nowhere as much as Ukraine.
“We have to make sure we can be as proficient as they are,” he said of the Ukrainians, who employ their own version of ACE every day, throwing off Russia's ability to target their aircraft with standoff weapons.
“Now as weapons get a lot more accurate, etc, they can just hit every single aircraft even if it's dispersed,” said Hecker. “So what we have to do now is disperse our aircraft amongst different airfields and potentially even on highways and these kinds of things that Finland brings to the plate.”...
The U.S. had more of that capability during the Cold War, when there were more bases in Europe for U.S. combat aircraft to land, receive needed maintenance and rearm. Restoring that ability is a priority, said Hecker.
“We're going to start off with 20 to 25” such bases, said Hecker. “Of course, I'm not going to tell you where they're at. But they're in strategic locations around Europe.”
Those bases will be supplied with equipment common “to any aircraft,” said Hecker.
“We're going to work with the nations and their maintenance so that we can get interoperable on different kinds of aircraft like we were able to do 30-40 years ago.”
Last, but not least, the U.S. and NATO need more robust communications, Hecker said.
"How are we going to command and control all these units, especially if they're taking off and landing at other airfields using the ACE concept? How are we going to make that happen? And especially if we get denied communications, because that will cut off from that from a cyber attack, etc."....