LJ,
"But you could run 3x 20hr ASW/LRSAR sorties a day with about 15% of the manpower currently at KIS".
No you couldn't and here's why. ASW requires the extensive dropping of sonobuoys and no unmanned platform currently has that capability or payload option. Added to that is the huge bandwidth requirements of passing acoustic data back to homeplate. Two options therefore would be a huge UAV (Nimrod sized) or lots and lots of Pred B sized platforms that had been suitably modded. Aircraft like the S3 Viking could only carry a small percentage of buoys required in this day and age, so you should be able to see the enormity of the problem. I agree that UAV's have a part to play in routine surface search, which is why the USN is bringing in BAMS to complement the P8. But ASW? - that must be at least 40 years off...