The Pentagon’s top acquisition official, Ken Krieg, says he’ll “withhold judgment” until he’s had a chance to read the Government Accountability Office criticism that the Air Force didn’t fill all the squares in citing a preference for a hybrid tanker-cargo hauler in its KC-X competition. However, he left no doubt during a press conference March 15 that he believes the bean counters missed the big picture. Krieg noted that the Mobility Capability Study offered a “pretty extensive look” at mobility, concluding that “if the price was right for doors and floors,” that the agility of a tanker also being able to haul people and cargo in a sustaining operation “made a lot of sense inherently and analytically.”
With more than a third of the Air Force's entire E-3 AWACS fleet deployed to support the war against Iran, the ability to perform airborne battle management, or ABM, remains essential to the broader joint force, a new think tank report argues.