Originally Posted by
Asturias56
Interesting breadcrumb trail here on "sources", don't you think?
The graph is labeled "Center for a New American Security" and the attribution was The Economist, but the original link in the post is from arstechnica and you have found its origin at yet another non governmental foundation (think tank?) with a last "analysis" date of 2016 on the graph.
Hooray for the internet.
Something to ponder: hasn't the USN since 2016 settled on a new carrier borne tanker?
(1) There's the UAV Tanker initiative (but I don't think that's IOC (MQ-25) as of this writing) and there is also, I think, a tanking role for the V-22.
(2) I am puzzling over whether the CMV-22B has a tanking capability, but I think that only the USMC V-22B will have that for the F-35B.
I think I need to check on that, what I am seeing about the V-22 has me a little puzzled.
CVW ops for about 40 years included organic tanking. I will suggest that the graph (of whatever source) presented above may reflect a loss of
organic tanking in the CVW. That's been (IMO) a running sore for quite a while.
The S-3 sundown happened in .... 2009. And the S-3B tanker capability was not quite as robust as KA-6D tanker IIRC.
They retired the Tomcat in 2006 -; love her or loathe her had a substantial fuel capacity. The Hornet has always been problematic as regards fuel: I remember the F-18As in the 80's being a whole new ball game in fuel management at the BG level. (Granted, the E/F has a bit more gas/range, as did the C/Ds).
But nothing like the A-6.
OK, just ran through 80+ PPT slide. (Which is two years old)
Beyond 700 nm, all available F/A-18 E/Fs or FA-XX are needed for tanking
So they agree with me, and I don't need to be paid millions per year to run a think tank.