April 27, 2025: In an effort to better support Ukrainian military operations, Poland is converting fifteen more civilian airports to military/civilian use. Three Polish airports are already serving military and commercial aircraft as part of an effort to fly more urgently needed economic aid to Ukrainian cities. Poland is a veteran of working with innovative air/land transportation systems.

For example, seven years ago the U.S. Air Force tested its new Deployable Air Base System/DABS. This involved moving 161 shipping containers and 60 construction and airfield operation vehicles from Luxembourg to Poland largely by land via 19 railroad cars and 87 trucks. Two C-130s were also used to get everything to a small airport that did not normally handle military operations and was seen as likely to survive a Russian attack on Polish air bases. The land movement took 24 hours and then 57 air force logistical and airfield operations personnel spent another 24 hours to unload, position and get the equipment operational.

After DABS was set up the small airport was capable of arming or loading/unloading, refueling and repairing damaged aircraft with the support of the recently arrived Air Force airbase personnel and equipment. This included medical, housing, sanitary and dining facilities. DABS included tents and modular structures, generators, satellite communications and airbase support electronics. Poland would offer whatever resources they might have available in a wartime situation but DABS also worked on the assumption that food, fuel and other supplies would also have to come in from West Europe via rail, road and cargo aircraft.

The initial test found no serious flaws in the system, but there was a long list of those little things that would make DABS operation go a lot more smoothly. For example, there were no printed instructions about what was in each container and what had to be done with it. That is being changed because in wartime electronic communications might not be sufficient to consult sources back in Western Europe or the United States. The Polish site was surveyed via aerial photos and that approach did not contain enough detail about which areas near the airstrip were swampy or otherwise unsuitable for setting up the military facilities. You needed to bring enough fuel with you to get the generators going and operational until fuel supply for the base could be established. There were a lot of minor items like that but DABS was considered a success.

The air force plans to purchase and preposition up to half a dozen or more DABS sets in Western Europe and survey many more sites for setting them up in Poland and other East European NATO countries during a wartime emergency. First, however, air force planners want to tinker with the DABS equipment list because it was pointed out that DABS could also be used for crises short of major war to provide a base just for UAVs, aerial refueling tankers or transports. To deal with these possibilities the DABS equipment set would have to be larger and everything clearly marked for which “mission packages” it was used for. That will make DABS more flexible than earlier iterations of this concept.

The air force already has the capability to fly in personnel and some equipment to set up operations at a foreign airbase or large airport. DABS takes that one step further and makes it possible to quickly turn hundreds of sites in East Europe into operational military airbases. But to fly the DABS gear from the United States to Eastern Europe would require the use of a hundred C-17 transports or equivalent civilian ones like Boeing 747 freighters. These would be in high demand in wartime and DABS was created as an inexpensive solution to the air transport shortage. The air force will regularly assemble teams of air force personnel in West Europe or fly them in on a single military or civilian transport from the U.S. on short notice and deploy DABS to East Europe, set it up, handle some traffic then pack it up and send it back to West Europe. Air Force logistical and airbase operations personnel are accustomed to doing this, just not with an instant airbase kit available.