h/t to Noah Shactman and Danger Room here.  There appears to be a resurgence in interest, or at least proposals for, airships.  I cannot for the life of me figure out why someone can’t get the idea of a military airship to work. Over the years, as I’ve worked the numbers on deployment data, airships start to look attractive.  If you look at the expense of conventional aircraft, read what Air Mobility Command changes for a C-5 or the Russians/Ukrainians for their Antonov’s to haul your cargo , or the time delay from current sealift, an airship doing 100 knots start to really make sense.  The problem with the airships of the 30’s was their inability to predict and then avoid, severe weather. 

There is also this massive interest in UAV’s both for their ability to stay up for fairly long periods and their ability to keep humans out of harms way, that piece is not currently as attractive now as it would be during the opening salvos in any future conflicts against an adversary with air defenses.  General Doug Brown, the previous SOCOM Commander used the term “the unblinking eye” to describe the ability for UAV’s to maintain a constant view of the battlespace.  Now, the fairly well armed MQ-9 Reaper is making it’s way to the battlefield and the Brits are acquiring them among others.  And even Blackwater is looking at the possibility of airships, no doubt keeping segments of the blogosphere buzzing.  

With counterinsurgency operations expected to continue for some time, either at the high end in Iraq or at the low end in the Horn of Africa and the Philippines, I think it’s really time we took a good hard look at the idea of creating a “Battlestar Galactica” kind of airship.  Think about some of these as attributes/requirements:

-- Stay airborne for at least a week

-- Augmented crew for 24/7 operations

-- Onboard technicians to build payloads, change out weapons fuzes, modify sensors

-- Robust electro-optical/Infrared (EO/IR) sensors as well as synthetic aperture radar for improved ground mapping.

-- Carry/drop/aim a variety of gravity bombs and weapons, to include potentially a gun

-- The ability to drop parachutists and airdrop supplies

My basic vision would be for two of these to deploy to the COIN operations we have ongoing.  An aircrew of around 4 pilots, 2 crew chiefs, 3 weapons load personnel, 4 sensor operators and technicians, 1 comm technician would fly around for a week loaded with weapons, sensors, and humanitarian supplies including water.  They could be immediately restaskable in case there was a problem and in the case of a humanitarian situation like a flood or earthquake, could immediately drop supplies.

During a period of a heightened crisis, they could carry a small Quick Reaction Force and either airland of airdrop them as required.  I would initially buy three or so, one for training and experimentation and two to deploy, if the concept proved valid, look at a bigger version which could carry some small vehicles or even some zodiacs and drop guys right onto the water.

Where is the innovation?  Where is the ability to take new (or old) ideas and get them going?  Have we lost it, is the defense industrial complex, to include DOD program managers so comfortable with the status quo that it would take decades to get one of these?  I’m not holding my breath but this is a solution with real world problems in existence.  

Oh by the way, all you airship developers, send us an e-mail, we’ll help you write a CONOPS that would rock!