I'm not going to argue with you about military exercise results, because we will never know the full story. And frankly, military exercise results don't necessarily translate into real capabilities. I doubt we let the Indians in on all our secrets. And AFAIK, the performance of every Russian radar guided missile has been abysmal when actually used. Granted our AMRAAM hits are something around 50% IIRC. But I don't think any of the late generation (C7) variant have ever been used in combat
And of course tankers are important. But you are completely ignoring sortie rate and aimpoints. The Marianas are the closest place to China that you KNOW USAF air will be able to park. A round trip of 3,000+NM, and that's just to the Strait of Formosa. Each F-35 can only carry two GBUs when VLO'd. We'd basically be attacking one of the largest countries in the world with pin*****s.
PD
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