Originally Posted by
KenV
Hmmm. "Current policy" is subject to change as new technology and tactics are developed. This "current policy" certainly did not take into account whatever survivability measures have been included in the KC-46. How effective are those survivability measures? I have no idea. And neither does anyone else on this forum. Consequently no one here has any idea what is and what is not "inviting disaster" with regard to how the KC-46 is employed. For all anyone knows, the KC-46 has a Klingon cloaking device aboard. ;-)
As I noted earlier, the KC-46 has a whole bunch of external features that I've not seen on any other 767. Some obviously related to the AR mission, many not so much.
I don't know what all that extra stuff is intended for (and obviously couldn't talk about it if I did), but consider this - when I worked on the current 747 based Air Force one aircraft 30 years ago, it incorporated an anti-missile system (no, I won't elaborate except to say it was nothing like what was portrayed in that horrible Harrison Ford Air Force One flick) - and 30 years later it's quite probable that system has been upgraded or replaced with something better.
As Ken states, we simply don't know what protection systems my have been incorporated into the KC-46, but it would be naive to think there isn't something.