From what I understand of the manning of ATrs the mil/civ split would enable the experienced mil staff to train the civ staff to the right standards under a sort of in-house TRTO arrangement. In return the civ staff will teach the mil staff how to fly large airliner types properly.
This interchange of training could also enable some of the lesser qualified mil staff to volunteer for ATrs and get qualified for a future career - in the same way that all the inexperienced military maintenance and engineering staff will be/are being given specific (and Bonded) training and qualifications to enable their work on this fleet - but they will be overseen by better qualified and more experienced civil maintenance and engineering staff and will work to civ rules at all times- even when it means restricting or denying flights due to MEL limits.
that's more of the positive attitude I had hoped to see - civil and military crew members learning from each other and creating a sum larger than its parts. We all have some things to contribute and some things to learn.
I had been under the impression, from what I have been able to find about the company plans on the web, that Airtanker were planning to operate a common fleet of aircraft, but that some would be military registered and other civil registered, with the respective crew operating their split domains. I got the impression, though only through hazy inference, that the civilians would not be conducting AAR, so i can only assume that the civil registered aircraft may have a ghost miltiary registration or that they could be operated under the quoted ANO directive allowing non-JAA licensed HM crews to operate CAA registered aircraft in the interests of the country.
I also got the impression that the aircraft would be configured to receive as well as deliver fuel, and that there may be a mix of centre line station fits of probe and drogue and flying boom (the latter for the F35, perhaps, but I'd have expected the B and C models to have retractable probes to be used in conjunction with USN carrier-borne F18 with tanker pods.