This is another example of how useful a tactical platform Air Trains, composed of hybrid dirigible blimps, could be; especially in an always on station approach to air defense that such potentially large scale, flying lift units could be if not only linked together, but able to be specialized as to what each individual dirigible blimp unit might carry to support the mission as my design would allow.
My main point of their defensive contribution here, though, would be in their ability to support very large numbers of the inexpensive, flying claymore mine drones I've talked of before being used for platform self defense. And as incoming warheads as anti air threats aren't that much different than ballistic warhead coming down from a higher angle (except for the speed of course), at least as far as it concerns running into already placed mines very near the approach vector. The down side of which, of course, being that you do have to have very large numbers of circulating mines at the ready to make proximity detonations a reasonably high probability. If they're cheap, however, and easy to crank out in large numbers, the quantity requirements should be manageable. The real trick is to design the tethered, flying recharge stations, to be able to do recharging cycles fast enough via multiple, simultaneous recharging drogue lines, that each recharging station would have to support so that the total throughput from each station would be able to keep thousands of mines flying; doing so at least without the requirement of ridiculous numbers of the tethered stations having to be pulled along by each dirigible blimp unit (big though they are, I don't think you're too likely to get more than a few dozen for each unit, and still be able to maneuver without too much difficulty, but that would have to be one of the aspects we would have to determine as a part of the system's development).
In any case, though, the fact that you would already be leveraging the utilization of this platform for both civilian, and military, logistics gives you a degree of confidence that stretching platform use roles won't add any unnecessary risks to established roles. You would just be looking into further applications that might be applicable.
As a side Note:
Air Trains might be able to make a big difference in fighting forest fires as well:
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