Utilizing Air Force cargo planes to fire at targets

Rapid Dragon Airdrop Mission. (Air Force Research Laboratory)

A Chinese military publication raised the alarm over a capability that the U.S. Air Force is working on. Using air-launched capabilities, missiles could be loaded onto cargo planes, dropped from the cargo plane, and then launched in midair. This capability would increase the number of aircraft that the U.S. could use to hit targets. One of the things that the Chinese are worried about is that this capability would allow for launching attacks from outside of a target’s defense perimeter.

From Business Insider:

The article was published in the outlet’s Science and Technology section, which “tends to publish straight news,” Solen wrote. Previous Chinese commentary cited challenges to Rapid Dragon, including the availability of cargo aircraft and the effectiveness of the JASSM-ER missile, but the November article “was almost alarmist” in its assessment of the program’s benefits, Solen wrote.

The Chinese author notes that US cargo planes could carry a large number of missiles and would be hard to track, as they could pick up pre-positioned palletized missiles while performing other duties and then launch them from “just outside a defensive perimeter.”

“One can predict that once it is armed with palletized munitions, the agility of the US military’s distributed method for strike missions and the suddenness of those strikes will increase immensely,” the author wrote, according to Solen.

The author credited Rapid Dragon with “cost effectiveness,” as using cargo aircraft to drop weapons is cheaper than building more bombers and that militaries without bombers could quickly add the capability to their cargo planes — both features that Minihan and Bauernfeind highlighted.

“When it comes to palletized effects, I’m not looking for big modifications. That’s an example of what a basic air-drop crew can do,” Minihan told reporters. “I just need to make sure my crews are trained to get it out of the airplane safely and precisely.”

While many US allies and partners don’t have bombers, Bauernfeind said, “they have mobility platforms, and so these mobility platforms can leverage like-capabilities.” (Bauernfeind’s predecessor said last year that the capability was “easily exportable.”) Japan’s military is now reportedly considering using its cargo planes to drop missiles.

The Business Insider has more information here.

Category: Air Force