My memory cannot recall the typical give of the Hoover, but I do remember that it sipped its own fuel so could hang around for a long time before offloading its fuel. This gave much-needed flexibility during launch & recovery cycles and reduced its own deck-cycle count. When full of gas you could see them flying for the better part of 10 hours.
Multi-role is how you define it as you will not see SHornets chasing subs or irritating surface groups for an extended vul. Regarding extra F-18s, the US carrier groups have not expanded their strike aircraft numbers to fill the vacated space, they are just doing without. The SHornet is a big, modern, highly capable and reasonably expensive platform. Using a third of this capability as a terminal tanker whilst leaving other capability gaps open makes questionable sense. Of course, other new capability requirements come to the fore and a long endurance BACN / Link capable platform is sorely needed for the Growler, F-35 and the wider Fleet.
Last edited by Just This Once...; 24th Mar 2017 at 21:07.