RIH, a masterly treatise, thank you.
ICM, thank you too. I just think that the Air Box didn't really get its policy head around the concept of AAR. The USAF had it so we had to have it too. Of course modifying a few bomber types rather than building dedicated tankers like the KC97/KC135 was not the way we could afford as the V-force was sucking up most of the procurement money.
Equipping the Argosy and the VC10 was probably in case of rapid long range deployment but never enough tankers to do that.