So Pakistan has just retaliated by bombing Iran. You know, IRGC bombing Pakistan just shows that these IRGCs had no strategic planning and worked merely on impulse and prejudice. Today it's Pakistan, tomorrow who knows. Good for Pakistan they have a strong military at its disposal and all of Iran's territory is within reach of Islamabad's arsenal of missiles and jets. Not to mention Pakistan is a nuclear-armed country.
What if one day the IRGC decided that Indonesia is becoming a "Zionist ally" or no longer tolerate their tankers detained by BAKAMLA for illegally transferring oil in Indonesian waters, and decided to send a few ballistic missiles our way? What is our plan of retaliation for such contingency? As it stands we do not have the know-how to make missiles that can reach Thailand, let alone Iran.
The best we can do is create a cruise missile-submarine fleet, armed with long-range land attack cruise missiles that could sneak undetected close to Iran's shore before launching salvoes their way. A VLS-equipped variant of the T214 or Scorpene would be wise.
The other option is to train the Air Force for VERY long-range bombings, but that is not possible without the Air Force getting equipped with:
- YUGE numbers of tankers
- long-range air launched LACM (taurus KEPD, SCALP)
During Operation Blackbuck, it took RAF, 15 Victor tankers to support 4 Avro Vulcan long-range bombers to carry out airstrikes 12000+km away in the Falklands from their base in Ascencion in two waves
Considering that both Rafales and Eagle IIs have substantially less ferry range and even smaller combat radius than an Avro Vulcan, we would need something more or less the same number of tankers to sustain an estafet of refueling tankers on station, for a hypothetical flight of Rafales/Eagle IIs heading to Iran via the Indian Ocean 6000+kms away.
My wish is the air force to revise its requirements for tankers to at least 10 MRTTs/KC-45s with both drogue and boom-type refueling and twice that number of KC-130 with drogue-type refueling or even better A400M MRTT.
The A330 MRTTs and KC-130/A400M will be used to support each other to stay aloft while waiting for the strike package to come refuel. I'm imagining that our tanker's estafet would be as far as Sri Lanka or even much further, because nearing the Arabian sea, Rafales would have to significantly reduce altitude to sneak below Iranian coastal radars detection zone and flying low burns a lot of fuel.
It will also help if some of the Rafales we buy be equipped with a boom refueler for buddy-buddy refueling. It helps reduce the burden for the tankers on station as well.
and 300Km away from targets, its time for long-range cruise missiles like the SCALP to do their job
I
always consider tanker before AWACS btw, Whn it comes to AWACS we could nebeng to friendly allies just in case we are attacked and decide to join a collective military alliance. But tankers ? rarely do people want to borrow it for anyone for offensive missions except if you're part of a Western alliance.
