Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
That is a first class map. Nowadays you would have to add routes to and from Japan and Taiwan.
Generally I worry about the use of an air bridge as the primary means of supplying a major conflict. Additionally, the air routes to Korea (which you didn't mention), Taiwan/Formosa and the Japanese Archipelago could be threatened by potential opposition land-and sea-based IADS. So without having first won the SEAD campaign, I'd worry about aerial strategic resupply that far forward.

Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
Why would an airborne missileer type airplane not be able to use cueing from ground based long range radars? I am not being argumentative (for once), I just don't see why they couldn't benefit. The AWACS planes are going to be flying all the time all over anyway so I don't see that as something extra that would be needed. Maybe a big missileer could provide escort for that as well. It wouldn't need the tanker support fighters would require.
Didn't say they couldn't, but they would still need a controller (Airborne Warning and Control System, remember), the other function that the AWACS provides to airborne assets.

Quote Originally Posted by carl View Post
I think you might be able to get 20 knots in a container ship for free. The cursory reading I did on those ships seems to indicate that is around the base speed for those things. It wouldn't have to go that fast all the time but the speed would be very useful at times.
I don't see speed for such a platform as a key performance parameter, more as a nice to have.