Originally Posted by
Wensleydale
More than three would be good - I agree. However, the aircraft are allocated to the NATO AEW and Control Force tasked by NATO, and therefore numbers include the E-3A fleet at Geilenkirchen (which has also reduced since the 1990s), and therefore the force is viable (and shares boom tanker assets etc).
Are they
allocated to, or are they the UK's
contribution to? Because they are different things.
The former would suggest that they are indeed part of a bigger fleet, and so the 3 number isn't so important. The latter would suggest that they are a UK asset that we assign to the NATO mission as and when required, and so the 3 number means we probably aren't going to have too much slack to do that.