A
quick side note, highly effective ways to take-out runways use cluster bombs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_munitionA cluster munition is a form of air-dropped or ground-launched explosive weapon that releases or ejects smaller submunitions. Commonly, this is a cluster bomb that ejects explosive bomblets that are designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles. Other cluster munitions are designed to destroy runways or electric power transmission lines, disperse chemical or biological weapons, or to scatter land mines. Some submunition-based weapons can disperse non-munitions, such as leaflets.
Because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, they pose risks to civilians both during attacks and afterwards. Unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians and/or unintended targets long after a conflict has ended, and are costly to locate and remove.
Cluster munitions are prohibited for those nations that ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions, adopted in Dublin, Ireland in May 2008. The Convention entered into force and became binding international law upon ratifying states on 1 August 2010, six months after being ratified by 30 states.[1] As of 1 October 2015, a total of 118 states have joined the Convention, as 98 States parties and 20 Signatories
They are, like chemical warfare, banned, and like chemical weapons, with wrinkles, because there are plenty still out there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_m ... en.2C_2015It's a bit complicated, though not really.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-runw ... ation_bombTrump is correct.
https://www.cnet.com/news/trump-suddenl ... ng-runway/"The reason you don't generally hit runways is that they are easy and inexpensive to quickly fix (fill in and top)!"
Mind, some folks don't quite get it:
http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/325346/ ... g-runways/ Which includes a link to the runway-busting-bomb Wiki page that I linked above. That entry ends with, "After the UK signed an international accord banning cluster mines, the JP233 was retired."
*slow clap for deathandtaxes not reading shit they linked to in their own article*
Runways are long, relatively thin, flat structures built of reinforced concrete, because they have to hold-up heavy things. To disable a runway for a significant period of time means putting lots of craters in it, not one largish one, or otherwise disrupting it in a significant way. Bombs, however large, tend to have spherical areas of effect, not lending them well to the job of hammering long, thin, flat runways.
The best, and cheapest, munitions to get the job done are illegal, and require an airplane for delivery.
Flying warplanes armed with illegal bombs into an area rife with quite capable Russian anti-aircraft systems would have been quite stupid, even in Trump terms (and the generals, I should hope, would have refused).
There is this munition:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matra_DurandalBut, it still needs to be flown to the target.
A Tomahawk can deliver 1000 pounds, total, because it has to drive its way to the target.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile)
It can pop-off multiple munitions (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile)#Munitions) but it (or fifty-nine of them) simply isn't capable of wrecking a runway.
This attack was a demonstration of 'reach-out and touch ya' power, which the US has - and how. Had the objective been to disable the airbase, it would have taken quite a bit more effort, not to mention tremendous risk at many levels.
A quantum state of signature may or may not be here... you just ruined it.