Naval Air Refueling Needs Deferred in Air Force Tanker Plan

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Kevin Brooks wrote:

snip


Kevin, while it's highly unusual for me to support anything that HJC puts
forward, I find the article in question pretty accurately reflects the
issues.
A boom typically has double (or more) the transfer rate of a
drogue/fighter-sized probe.

Yep.

That's why the USAF decided to adopt them in the
first place, for SAC's bombers, so that refueling took much less time.
Single
point drogues are better than nothing, but just as the article says, they
limit
the size of the strike flight (or require far more tankers), because the
first
a/c to refuel has used up most of the fuel it has received by the time
that the
last guy is done.

Yep.

From DS on the USN has relied increasingly on USAF and
foreign land-based tankers, because their own tankers lack the
numbers/offload/loiter/drogue stations to allow them to go far inland
with
large strikes. The USMC has its KC-130s, which are at least dual-point,
but
they're limited to perhaps 6 a/c in a flight pre-strike, with four
preferred,
before they meet the law of diminishing returns. A single-point boom
tanker is
about the same. It's not that the navy can't use their S-3s or F-18E/Fs
exclusively, it's just that they're limited in the size/radius of their
strikes
when they do so.

Which is why the USAF will still have the capability of supporting the USN,
with both single and dual point refueling. The fact that the 767 won't have
that multi-point capability up-front is NOT going to create a critical
situation for the USN.

But it may be critical for bed-down and other operational issues, and it's
definitely inefficient. Besides,who says we're only supporting the USN? In
various conflicts we've had help from Canadian and Spanish Hornets, plus the
RAF, AMI, KDF, RNAF, Luftwaffe etc. They've helped us with _their_ multi-point
tankers on occasion.

Given our increasing jointness, it does seem odd that the KC-767 isn't
planned
to have provision for wing drogues from the get-go.

Not necessarily. The USAF is getting to the desperation point in regards to
the 135E's--they are either going to have to poop a lot of money to upgrade
them (not the wisest choice, given their age and condition), or they have to
get a replacement in the air, and rather quickly.

The justification for that has always been somewhat questionable. Only a few
years ago they were projecting the 135E's fatigue life out 30 or 40 years,
although the engines were probably going to need replacement. Let's face it,
the 767 deal has more than a little to do with keeping Boeing's 767 line open
and people employed. Would it be a good thing to get some newer tankers?
Sure. Do we need them right now, because the 135Es are falling apart? That's
arguable.

That last part (quickly)
seems to merit a sort-of-spiral approach, to me; get them into service ASAP
with the boom and single-point drogue (while still having the 135R's in
service, some with the multi-point hoses), and then worry about bringing
them up to a higher standard later, when the time-crunch is not so critical.

I see it as entirely budget-driven, with the huge bow-wave they've already got
going restricting them. Indeed, that was the primary reason for the KC-767
lease rather than buy in the first place.

It's clearly an
inter-service budget issue, but single point drogues just don't cut it for
big
strikes; if they did, we wouldn't have fit out those KC-10As and KC-135Rs
for
wing drogues (Flight Refueling MK.32s IIRC). It's a simple matter of fuel
throughput per unit time.

Which KC-10's and KC-135R's will still be serving, you should add. Correct
me if I am wrong, but the aircraft that the 767's are destined to replace,
the 135E's, do not have the multi-point refueling capability, either, do
they?

No, they don't, and the 767's will at least be able to refuel both types of
refueling systems on the same sortie, and they'll have a proper drogue rather
than that ******* afterthought on the end of the boom. OTOH, we're also buying
fewer of them than the 135Es they're supposed to replace (differing MC rates
obviously play a part). But in big strikes, it's the number of refueling
drogues/booms in the air that determine the service rate, and it's silly to have
to use (and bed-down) double the number of a/c if we don't need to.

Large, land-based drogue tankers should have at least
two drogue stations, with three preferred (see the Victor K.2; there was
even a
USN Convair seaplane with FOUR drogues):

http://www.aviation-history.com/convair/tradewind.html

Less than two drogue stations is not making use of a large a/c's wingspan.
Naturally, they don't all have to be fitted with them all the time, as
there is
a weight, drag and maintenance penalty, but they sure as hell should be
capable
of fitting them. Hell, Boeing is even talking about a BWB tanker with two
_booms_.

So what you are saying is that we should delay the program even further than
it already has been, so that all of the new aircraft are capable of
performing a mission that only a certain portion of the joint force (the USN
strikers and whatnot) can receive from them the same level of support...that
they can already get from the other aircraft that will be remaining in
service? I don't necessarily agree with that analysis (and neither does the
USAF, apparently).

I'm saying that it makes far more sense now to buy the capability up front that
we know we'll be adding down the road, especially since the R&D work is largely
being paid for by Italy and Japan, than to add it years from now when we know
it's going to be more expensive to do so. If that means we buy a/c at a slower
rate (and more refueling pods), good. We plan to be operating from more austere
bases, which tend to be somewhat limited in ramp space, so anything we can do
that limits that is a plus. That was indeed one of the USAF's arguments against
the A330 -- that it took up too much ramp space while providing no more
refueling stations than the 767. They considered the A330's somewhat greater
offload irrelevant for the tactical refueling mission; they were concerned with
the number of booms/drogues on station while minimizing the ground footprint. If
that logic is valid, then buying dual rather than single-point capability is
even more valuable as a way of minimizing the ground footprint. See below.

snip

So what? Your "source" says the USN *requires* multi-point tanking
capability--and that plainly is NOT the case.

For most of the deeper missions, including most of the combat missions
that have
been flown from DS on, they do. If they aren't going very far, and/or are
using
small strike packages at fairly wide intervals, they don't. Neither has
been
typical of USN combat ops for the last 14 years.

Then maybe they need to fork over some bucks for some additional multi-point
pods for the KC-135R's... In actuality, that would probably be the best
solution anyway--they would get their improved support capability a lot more
quickly that way (versus waiting for the 767's to come on line).

I completely agree.

So is the
USN really concerned about the level of tanking support they can count on,
or are they just posturing for the purpose of budget fighting?

As I said, there's a question of interservice budgeting, and who pays for what.

Another
thought--the USN has been buying C-40's of late--if they are so keenly
worried about their refueling capability, why did they never think about
including a secondary tanker role for that aircraft, or that class of
aircraft, such that they could help themselves out? Probably not, because
that would have required them to spend their own part of the budget
pie...much better to have the USAF spend their money, eh?

I'm sure they think so. OTOH, FAIK the USAF would have fought against any such
proposal with tooth and nail. The navy has in the past considered buying their
own land-based tanker fleet, but ISTR that SAC (at the time) in effect said
"over our dead body." IIRR the Tradewind was an attempt to get around that;
after all, the USAF could hardly complain about seaplanes.

I imagine AMC would act similarly proprietarily today, but the point (to me, at
least) isn't which service provides the capability, but that it be provided.

snip area of general agreement

Clearly you can
get a force of tankers in theater a lot faster than a force of tankers
PLUS a
force of fighters and all their support.

Can you? I am not sure about that (note how quickly we got the lead
squadrons of the 1st TFW into Saudi Arabia in 1990), especially since
getting all of those tankers into the theater is only going to do you some
good if the fuel for them to haul is also present, or readily available, at
that operating location.

The 1st TFW had an A/A role, IIRR deployed with a full loadout of missiles on
thea/c and could fairly easily bring an adequate number of reloads with them, or
fly them in later. A/G ordnance can be a very different matter, although PGMs
help that aspect. I can't remember if it was the A-10s or F-15Es, but in one of
Smallwood's books (I think), aircrews described just how limited their A/G
ordnance options were right after they deployed. Fuel, OTOH, is relatively
available anywhere a commercial airliner is able to operate from. Maybe you
need to haul in JP-5/8 for the tactical a/c, but the tankers themselves should
be able to operate on Jet A/A-1.

How much more trouble is it for the USAF to put a
force that could easily surpass the per-day delivered-tonnage capability of
a CVSG (given your premise that the CVN is having to operate from extended
range itself)?

If they've got sufficient time to get set up in advance, fine, but crises often
don't provide that kind of time. We've been lucky that most of our wars in the
past decade and a half (OAF somewhat excepted) have given us some lead time to
get ready.

Three or four B-1B's or B-52's alone can acheive that.

And provided you're willing to send them in without any SEAD at the start of the
war, and multi-hour cycle times are no problem, great.

OEF
demonstrated the use of both F-15E's and F-16's in conducting pretty long
range strike operations (from the PG around Iran, up to Afghanistan and back
again, at greater range than the CVN-based strikers were enduring).

Sure did. Using those USAF tankers with booms to maximise the transfer rate.
And it helped that we were already set up in the area flying Southern Watch
sorties. But we're not there now, although we do still have some presence in
the 'Stans, IIRC.

Worried
about an enemy air threat? Then you have your standoff attack systems, along
with B-2's. Yes, there are other issues (hauling in the bombs, etc.), but
they are not insurmountable (i.e., we still have a surface transport
capability, augmented by air transport assets).

Should we can the CVN's? No, of course not. But they can continue to operate
a few more years with the support of KC-135R's and KC-10's without HAVING to
have the 767's *optimized* for their very own use.

Provided we have sufficient space for all those tanker a/c in theater, fine, but
it's still wasteful to use two a/c and crews to do the job of one. Of course,
if you're cycling flights of two constantly through the tankers, no big deal,
but gorilla packages are another matter. And we may well need to help tank our
allies (assuming we have any). Many of them are buying their own multi-point
drogue tankers now, which helps both of us if they're along for the ride.

Guy