They avoid direct confrontation and usually move at night. They have great potential for sneaking onto air bases. They also can disrupt air operations in the rear area. Threat airborne forces can strike deep into the rear area assaulting airfields. Air bases that have special weapons are especially high-risk targets.
Airborne assaults can land directly on air bases.
Or they can land on as many as three nearby drop zones and converge on an air base. Zs are supposed to be screened from the objective area by terrain or vegetation. Routes from projected DZs to the objective are likely to be the most direct available and avoid, if possible, built-up areas. Threat doctrine calls for routes to the objective to be off-road as much as possible. Threat doctrine normally calls for a one-hour consolidation on the initial DZ before the entire element moves to the objective.