From: "Keith Willshaw"

snip

You know here in Europe we caught on to hard surfaces for runways quite some
time ago. I think you'll find most RAF bases have runways that are a little
higher in standard than unimproved.



Keith

I think what was meant was the cold war theory where we would block forward
deploy aircraft in case some bad guy dropped a nuke on the home bases. In that
event the aircraft might be parked at rest stops along the Autobahn and use the
roadways as runways. Last I heard highways are not built to the standards of
runways and thus must be considered "unimproved runways."

There were also a few other ideas, but you get the idea.

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired