US refueling aircraft are losing their ability to assist the US Air Force in projecting power overseas.

This conclusion is contained in the report "Sustainable Air Refueling Capabilities: Ensuring Global Reach for the US Armed Forces."

The document was prepared by the Center for Defense Concepts and Technologies of the Hudson Institute (Washington).

Its authors are the director of this structure, Brian Clark, and her research assistant Timothy Walton.

The study says the US military's air-to-air refueling operations are "a critical component of their ability to project power around the world to defend American interests."

At the same time, there is a degradation of the United States air tanker fleet.

“However, given the obsolescence of the tanker fleet and tight budget constraints, the question of whether the US Air Force is capable of deploying the aerial refueling force the country needs remains open,” the report said.

The Hudson Institute is a research organization that specializes in foreign policy, defense, national security and advises US statesmen.

The key goal of her work is to "promote American leadership."

At the stage of reduction

The authors stated that as part of their study, they assessed "the current and targeted US potential for aerial refueling."

As a result, they concluded that it "probably will not allow the implementation of the strategy and operational concepts of the United States in confrontation with equal opponents, such as the People's Republic of China."

The report notes that American air refueling operations today are fraught with a growing number of threats, "as opponents - primarily China - are increasing their ability to attack aircraft and air bases."

  • Airplane KC-135 Stratotanker

  • © US Department of Defense

“As the US military introduces new concepts to increase its lethality and gain an advantage in decision-making, air refueling is becoming an increasingly necessary factor to ensure greater dispersal and mobility of the aircraft,” Clark and Walton explain.

Meanwhile, the number of air tankers at the disposal of the United States has dropped significantly.

The report says that due to organizational decisions taken by the Pentagon, the number of refueling aircraft fleet has decreased from 701 to 473 units.

The reduction also affected the airfield infrastructure.

At the same time, according to the authors, for 30 years after the end of the Cold War, air tankers were widely used in foreign military campaigns and in peacetime.

The reduction in the number of aircraft has led to an increase in the load on this segment of the US aviation.

Along with this, analysts pointed to the problem of the obsolescence of the tanker fleet.

According to their calculations, the average age of the American aircraft currently in use is 52 years.

Today, the KC-135 Stratotanker and KC-10 Extender aircraft form the backbone of the United States' refueling aviation.

According to the authors of the report, there are 379 and 50 units, respectively.

The KC-135 Stratotanker was developed by Boeing in the mid-1950s to provide air refueling for the B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber.

Most recently, in November, the KC-135 took part in a US and British military exercise.

The tanks of the machine can hold up to 90.7 tons of fuel.

The most advanced versions of the aircraft are the KC-135R and KC-135T.

They continue to be upgraded.

According to current data from the US Air Force command, 153 aircraft are in active service, 171 units are in the National Guard fleet, and 72 in the Air Force reserve.

The KC-10 Extender is a more modern refueling vessel.

Its operation began in the 1980s.

In total, this aircraft has six tanks with a capacity of 160.2 tons of fuel, almost a widow more than the KC-135.

Also, the machine is equipped with a more advanced boom for pumping fuel.

  • Airplane KC-10 Extender

  • © US Department of Defense

A relatively new US Air Force tanker in service is the KC-46A Pegasus.

Their delivery should gradually replace the KC-135 fleet, but this aircraft is experiencing a number of serious technical problems, which Boeing specialists will correct for several years.

Disadvantages relate to the auxiliary power unit, on-board equipment and structural elements.

According to the American publication Defense News, the US Air Force intends to purchase 179 KC-46A units, but due to big questions about reliability and safety, the troops receive only two vehicles each month.

A Hudson Institute report says there are now 47 Pegasus aircraft in the United States fleet.

"Stand on the ground"

Experts explain the decrepitude of the American air tanker fleet mainly by the fact that with the end of the Cold War, the US aviation and armed forces were dramatically deprived of their previous volume of funding and were subjected to large-scale reductions.

However, since the second half of the 2000s, the military-political situation in the world began to change, and not in Washington's favor.

As military expert Yuri Knutov said in an interview with RT, recently, against the background of the growing defense potential of Russia and China, the Pentagon is increasingly seeking to use the Air Force as an instrument of "containment" of Moscow and Beijing.

In particular, the US military leadership relies on long-range flights of reconnaissance aircraft and strategic bombers to the borders of the Russian Federation and the PRC or to the zones where their troops are stationed abroad.

Meanwhile, the full implementation of such plans is objectively hampered by the lack of a modern and serviceable fleet of air tankers, the expert believes.

“The fact that the Americans have old tankers is a rather serious problem for them.

From information in open sources, it follows that a significant part of the US tanker aircraft is out of order - they are on the ground and are only listed in stock.

Their resource is very worn out, and the Pentagon has not yet decided whether to write them off or still repair them, "Knutov explained.

In a commentary on RT, Dmitry Litovkin, editor of the Nezavisimoye Voennoye Obozreniye newspaper, noted that the situation with the air tanker fleet is critically important for the United States.

Its improvement will allow to increase the combat duty of fighters and bombers.

“Another question is what plans the Americans are trying to implement by updating their tankers.

With regard to our country, this is the provision of strategic aviation flights, which, in turn, is practicing striking targets in the Crimea and other regions in southern Russia, as well as the military infrastructure of the Far East, ”Litovkin emphasized.

At the same time, according to the expert, the key task of modernizing the US air tanker fleet is to increase military pressure on China.

In his opinion, analysts at the Hudson Institute seem to warn the Pentagon that in order to "parry the Chinese threat" it will be necessary to keep a large number of bombers in the air almost constantly.

Clarke and Walton believe further degradation of the American tanker fleet can be avoided by allocating additional funds to modernize airfields in the Indo-Pacific region and more intensive procurement of new aircraft.

  • Airplane KC-46 Pegasus

  • © US Air Force

According to the authors of the report, the current and planned volume of budgetary allocations is insufficient to “bring about change”.

As a result, the researchers fear, the US Air Force may be left with "smaller and weaker air refueling forces."

From the point of view of Litovkin, the alarming report of the staff of the Hudson Institute was to a certain extent dictated by an attempt to justify the need to increase purchases of new air tankers, despite their technical imperfections.

“If the situation were so critical, the Pentagon would not be stingy with the allocation of money.

There is a problem with air tankers, but it is still sluggish.

Apparently, there is a lobby that wants to speed up the process of decommissioning aircraft that are part of the Air Force and conclude new contracts.

Therefore, an atmosphere is created in which the waste of additional funds is justified, ”says Litovkin.

Knutov adheres to a similar view of the situation.

The interlocutor of RT is sure that the conclusions set out in the report of the Hudson Institute only partially correspond to the real state of affairs.

“The foundation of the well-being of the American military-industrial complex is not at all the country's need for defense.

This is lobbying and various forms of corruption.

In order to push additional funding through Congress, there is a constant stir that, without massive purchases of weapons, the United States is not able to ensure the protection of its military personnel and defense interests, ”concluded Knutov.