When the balloon goes up in time of war, history has shown strategically important fixed targets take a beating. Just ask the Iraqi Air Force about January 17, 1991, the Pakistani Air Force about May 7, 2025, or Admiral Kimmel about the morning of December 7, 1941. Breaking news! The enemy has the precise coordinates of every two-mile runway in the world, knows the location of a majority of our fuel farms, and possesses the stick to reach them. Carl von Clausewitz — a scary brilliant 18th-century Prussian General — called a force’s source of strength from which everything flows the center of gravity (COG). You don’t need to slog through his On War to spot air power COGs: runways, fuel farms, hangars. They’re at the top of the enemy’s Day One target list and will attract missile salvos like magnets. Early in the 20th century, U.S. Navy ships pulled into established ports to refuel and resupply, making the U.S. Fleet predictable and targetable. Ensign and eventual 5-star Admiral Chester Nimitz saw this as a problem and pushed a radical idea: replenish at sea. That single logistics shift changed naval warfare, and today, the U.S. Navy reloads, refuels, and resupplies while moving at sea — anywhere on the planet. This mobility confounds the enemy’s ability to target the Navy’s supply lines.

Full report : Shield AI’s X-BAT is a bad-ass autonomous combat platform that smashes the status quo and shitcans the needs for traditional basing.

For more see the OODA Company Profile on Shield AI.