can someone tell me how the tanker think comes into play...
2-3 hours away
Cummings trying to discredit Hicks
If you are talking about the air refueling plane, it would be needed, at least, for the return trip of the rescue/assault aircraft.
Tanker thing?
Our combat aircraft rely heavily on tankers. They can either carry quite a bit of fuel or enough fuel and a combat weapons load but not quite a bit of fuel and a combat weapons load.
Our tankers are old, too few in number and tasked too thinly. Some of the KC-135s are decades old. They have newer engines and are maintained but they are old, you can’t keep everything fixed that breaks all the time.
When Reagan was President and we bombed Tripoli, France would not allow us to overfly their territory.
F-111's had to fly from England around France and Spain into the Mediterrean. And then back to England. That meant refueling mulitple times.
However, when Reagan was President (especially in his second term), our Army, Navy, and Air Force were significantly beefed up.
Obama is hacking our military to the bone right now in favor of... ...finding more people to put on food stamps...