USAF Europe

[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...

[RN7]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

[Olefin]

the chance that there is no avgas at all left is not realistic - there is no way that every tank at every airport, every storage terminal, every railcar, etc.. is gone - we know France has avgas for instance - and where there is a scarce supply there is a black market - so no matter how well guarded and rationed it is some will make it to the Germans and Brits and Americans

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Olefin

the chance that there is no avgas at all left is not realistic - there is no way that every tank at every airport, every storage terminal, every railcar, etc.. is gone - we know France has avgas for instance - and where there is a scarce supply there is a black market - so no matter how well guarded and rationed it is some will make it to the Germans and Brits and Americans

In addition, the vast majority of US aircraft use JP-8 (I've seen TONS of this) or JP-12 (never used this newer jet fuel). This is a form of purified kerosene NOT Avgas (which is high test gasoline). Avgas requires several steps to produce a sufficiently pure and high powered gasoline. This can only be done using Light-Sweet Crude oil. This oil can only be found in the Middle East and a few wells in Romania and Nigeria. Thus, small aircraft like the Cesna, who are dependent on Avgas, would be grounded by a lack of fuel. The bulk of the world's remaining Crude is heavier silted crude more suitable for Fuel Oil or Diesel. This crude COULD be refined into Kerosene but the cost would be greater. However, Virgin Airlines proved that you can fly a large airliner on purified Biodiesel so the large transport aircraft could still be flying.
One more note about fuel. There would be plenty of JP-8 in any US Theater after 1990. The US Army began a program called "One Fuel Forward" in 1989. This program removed ALL gas powered support vehicles from service (all the Chevy and Dodge SUVs, all Jeeps, and all other gas powered equipment but the Abrams). All of the remaining Diesels were then given JP-8 jet fuel to run so that the Army was only trucking one fuel type to the front. This did set off The Law of Unintended Consequences though. This fuel had detergents in it that scrubbed "scale" from vehicles that had used the dirtier Diesel. We were going through a fuel filter about every three weeks for about six months. We would have been in BIG trouble if we had to deploy during the fuel change (which was completed in August of 1990).

[Targan]

We've had extensive discussions on Twilight War fuel stocks before, and I recall that a major problem would be that even though there would be stockpiles of various grades of gasoline and kerosene, those fuels degrade over time until they become either less effective or unusable depending on the engines they're being put through. When I'm home from work I'll search through the old threads for the specifics.

[RN7]

There is also the issue of the North Sea oil rigs. Even canon states that the British have secretly reactivated a few offshore oil rigs, and there is strong possibility that Britain has a still functional oil refinery in Teeside facing the North Sea. Small oil resources and refining capacity by pre-war standards but its very significant by Twilight War standards and is under military control.

[lordroel]

Question the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron operates as part of the 32d Tactical Fighter Group out of Soesterberg Air Base, the only United States Air force unit to do so, would they still be at end of the war be deployed in the Netherlands or would the squadron be operating from United States Air force bases in West Germany.

[Apache6]

RN7:

If the cannon has 2d Marine Divsision in Europe, then I'd recommend that you add 2d Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW), and group most if not all of the Marine Corps and a lot of the Navy aircraft/units into 2d MAW.

Also, I think the USAF (and I know USMC) uses a Group (Commanded by full Colonels) as the intermediate command echelon between Squadrons and Wings.

For at least the Marines, I'd add a bunch of non-standard stuff, including ultralights and what ever else they can get into the air to serve as air recon, artillery observation, casualty evacuation and light attack. See the discussion I posted on 'improvised aircraft' on the other thread regarding T2K, close air support.