Abstract:

To maintain the operational capability of airports during wartime, an analysis was conducted on the vulnerability of the airport runway to deliberate attacks with conventional weapons. By analyzing the target and functional characteristics of airport runways, a vulnerability assessment framework for airport runways under deliberate attacks by multiple types of conventional weapons is constructed based on the Monte Carlo method. A airport runway vulnerability assessment model is established, and a runway at an airport on the coast of China is selected as a case study. The results show that the binary attack strategy is significantly superior to the random attack strategy. When attacking airport runway targets, the impact of the weapon's circular error probable (CEP) decreases as the weapon's lethal radius increases, while the impact of the weapon's lethal radius decreases as the weapon's CEP increases. Both the CEP and lethal radius impacts decrease with an increase in the number of strikes. Optimization of attack strategies can to some extent compensate for the shortcomings of weapon performance. Under the binary attack strategy, the strike effectiveness of different weapon systems can be ranked in descending order as follows: conventional foreign cruise missiles, large unmanned aerial vehicles, long-range rocket launchers, and howitzers. In terms of protective measures, measures such as multi-band smoke screen interference, Global Positioning System (GPS) jamming, and enhancing the strength grade of concrete can be adopted to reduce the accuracy of weapon strikes and the radius of weapon damage, thereby improving the take-off and landing efficiency of the airport runway.

Key words: deliberate attack, airport runways, vulnerability assessment, Monte Carlo, conventional weapons, minimum operating strip