Guy Alcala wrote in message ...

The only way to settle this is to wait and see how the USAF reacts if, after
selecting whatever new tanker they pick, the USN says "hey, we want some of
those for ourselves, and here's the money." Myabe the USAF will say "you're
welcome, and thanks so much for helping out with the R&D." Or maybe they'll get
all territorial; it's not as if turf wars are dead just because we've been
fighting real ones.

Guy

If the USN were to pony up the cash to buy land based tankers then it
would be admitting that CV's are inextricably tied to land based
assets to complete their power of projection missions. Of course
thats always been true to some extent anyway-and is more true today
than ever.
Today's scheme of "borrowing" AF assets can be explained as playing
nice nice in the "Jointness" game. Buying USN land based tankers would
be a different story altogether.