USAF Europe

[Ironside]

Many thanks for all the hard work.

[Graebarde]

That's nice but...c'mon, give us a squad or two of OV-10s! You know you want to! What's not to like

You refering to the Bronco's or the new designation of the Hawg

[raketenjagdpanzer]

You refering to the Bronco's or the new designation of the Hawg

Broncos.

[Graebarde]

Broncos.

TY

[kalos72]

Just found this amazing post! Love it...

Question, could the aircraft be "crated" and moved via ship possibly

I am trying to determine how or if, theses assets move back home within Operation Omega. I am thinking the expanded version versus straight canon.

[pmulcahy11b]

I think we'd at this point be down to light propeller aircraft, a smattering of small jets throughout the entire world, and yes, the hated ultralights and dirigibles. The amount of work required to field on Eagle outside of the Middle East would mean that they were almost never flown.

A don't forget gliders and especially sailplanes for reconnaissance duties.

[Olefin]

Most likely most of what is still flying would be transport aircraft of various types, with prop jobs like the Hercules being more abundant than jet powered ones.

As for attack and fighter aircraft, outside of the Middle East and France you are probably looking at A-10's and older smaller jets that were easier to maintain -especially as the F-15's, later model F-16's and F-14's really don't have other jet fighters to go up against. If there are any F-15's still being used it would be the E in an attack role and then only when it was needed for specialized bombs or missiles the A-10 couldn't carry.

I don't quite see it getting down to only ultralights - there is still enough fuel for some air operations, just not for anything large scale. And while a couple of Cessna's armed with machine guns or rocket pods doesn't sound like much, its a lot better than no air support at all.

The interesting thing is that now spare parts may actually be quite abundant - i.e. you have an awful lot of grounded jets and helicopters lying about for a relatively few active duty jets. It may be more a case of getting the parts to where you have the jets - i.e. if you have 15 grounded F-15's in Germany you can strip for parts but your three flyable planes are in the UK you have a little delivery issue.

[Raellus]

And you need skilled aviation mechanics. That's the kicker. Are they available in the numbers needed to keep substantial numbers of combat aircraft operational Considering the man-hours required to keep something like an Eagle or Falcon airworthy, that's probably a bigger obstacle to flight ops than the availability of serviceable airframes, spare parts, and possibly even jet fuel.

[kalos72]

So then with a sort of Morrow approach, do you think aircraft will go back to the old ways

Back to P-47's and and C119's

Surely the resources to keep an already manufactured Eagle, with many dead spares sitting around, would be less then to re manufacture and entire line of aircraft no

[Olefin]

And again it may be an issue of where the mechanics are versus where the planes are.

Would be an interesting adventure - you are sent by MilGov to escort a group of skilled mechanics and techs from an airbase that has no planes in flyable condition, along with any spare parts you can transport, thru marauder controlled territory to get back to the one base in their hands with flyable aircraft and fuel- but where a lack of personnel has kept them from using all but one or two aircraft.

Delivery of several trained mechanics and aviation techs could be worth quite a nice reward if it put the local MilGov air base back into business as a going concern.

[kalos72]

I am not familiar with the support needed for these modern aircraft but...with 2300 people...supporting 23 aircraft...that seems like this UK asset is very valuable if your thought on skilled mechanics and techs is correct.

Can these aircraft be moved by a cargo ship

In the years to come, do you think armies will stay trying to keep these modern aircraft running or try to run into a Morrow type process of re-manufacturing some of the older piston driven aircraft

I like the idea of designing an XC-120 using 40ft Conex containers...

[rcaf_777]

I am not familiar with the support needed for these modern aircraft but...with 2300 people...supporting 23 aircraft...that seems like this UK asset is very valuable if your thought on skilled mechanics and techs is correct.

Can these aircraft be moved by a cargo ship

In the years to come, do you think armies will stay trying to keep these modern aircraft running or try to run into a Morrow type process of re-manufacturing some of the older piston driven aircraft

1. Let not forgot is take about 7-10 persons if not more to maintain an aircraft, plus with squadrons you still need armorers for weapons, fueling personnel, and support staff for food, supply, weather, intel ect. Also I can also see Pilots and Ground Crew assigned to security shift when not on ops, why because no base is 100% secure in TW

I could also see certain personnel being loaned out to other units if nothing pressing was happened. I.E. Airforce Techs are loaned to the army to work on repair a long range communications site

2. Anything can be loaded into cargo ship provided it's small enough to fit into the hold. Wing can come off and engines and other components can we removed, but you have skilled personnel with the tools to break it down and load it. Do you have them on the other end to put the aircraft back together

3. Weather you have piston or jet aircraft, you have the same problem, where's the Fuel. Not to mention changing to new aircraft means training pilots and ground crew, I think it comes down to resources, the USAF might wait for more AVGAS or JP-8 to come in.

[kalos72]

Agreed. Not saying they have plenty but...all things considered I think there is enough skilled people to rebuild/retrain a new force over time.

Spare parts and fuel are the issues really.

I am sure there are thousands of little electronics that are REQUIRED to operate some of these craft. Hard to make on the fly so to speak...

[rcaf_777]

I am working a USAF Salvage Team Group, which travel around looking for usable aircraft parts

[RN7]

I think we'd at this point be down to light propeller aircraft, a smattering of small jets throughout the entire world, and yes, the hated ultralights and dirigibles. The amount of work required to field on Eagle outside of the Middle East would mean that they were almost never flown.

A don't forget gliders and especially sailplanes for reconnaissance duties.

Well your welcome to your own interpretation of what American airpower would be like in Europe in T2K. But there would have been hundreds if not over a thousand US military aircraft deployed to the European Theatre in T2K, and many would have survived and this list would include aircraft that remain in a flyable condition but would not be flying due to a shortage of fuel and parts. Its purely subjective but so is the assumption that NATO would have absolutely no Avgas supply by 2000, or that every airbase, storage and supply depot was destroyed or abandoned and that no aircraft would be left in a flyable condition.