Quote:
Originally Posted by rcaf_777
The US will still have a fair amount aircraft in the CONUS for bomber inception duty, no matter how bad the air war in Europe gets theses units are not going to short of aircraft.
The USAF even after the Nuclear strikes is still going to have around 70 airbases and another further 80 air national guard stations. (The majority of them located near an civilian airport.) These high numbers are due to Soviets targeting missiles silos and their headquarters and supporting structure.
All of theses bases are likely to have JP-8 fuel storage. who is going to use it? its not like you can burn it in a small single engine aircraft.
While is possible that some of the bases would be overrun by enemy troops or abandoned after the strikes. Many are going to in use after the strikes.
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I would agree that there will be many US aircraft in operational condition after the nuclear strikes. Considering the huge number of aircraft and helicopters that the US armed forces operated at this time that figure could be over one thousand operational aircraft worldwide. However the fuel to fly them and parts to keep them flying will be the problem. Pre-nuclear war stocks will dwindle between November 1997 and 2000, and we don't know if MilGov or CivGov is operating any refineries or has reactivated any factories to supply parts.