Etgar Shpivak

#USAF United States Air Force - Middle East Activity 19/20 February Summary Since the 15 January, there has been at least 265 C-17/C-5 flights from the United States and bases in Japan, via Europe, to the CENTCOM AOR. Additionally, since 16 February there have been at least 58 KC-135 and KC-46 tankers deployed to various locations across europe - this is excluding tankers on Coronet operations. This represents almost 15% of the entire U.S. Air Force tanker fleet, with at least 18/77 KC-46 Pegasus and 40/314 KC-135 Stratotankers deployed to Europe in the last four days. I'm sorry for the lack of updates the past two days, I've been at the fence at Lakenheath and Mildenhall since Wednesday. Regular updates will continue next week. NOTE: All information is obtained through public sources (ADS-B/ACARS), and discrete movements are not included. Tanker Deployments U.S. Air Force Tankers have so far deployed to Lajes, Moron, Rota, Sofia, Chania and Prince Sultan. They appear to be deploying with others of the same type, such as Lajes where all are KC-46s. This is a total breakdown, with changes since the 18th in brackets: Lajes Field, Azores: 15 (+5) Sofia Airport, Bulgaria: 8 Moron Air Base, Spain: 5 (+5) Naval Station Rota: 15 Chania, Souda Bay: 10 Additional tankers, not including the ones already there on a rotational basis, have deployed to Saudi Arabia since the 16th. Prince Sultan, Saudi Arabia: 5 (+2) Combat Aircraft Deployments F-16s from Aviano, Spangdahlem and McEntire have been moved this week into CENTCOM, along with additional "LN" F-15E Strike Eagles from RAF Lakenheath, and "FF" F-22 Raptors from Langley AFB. Six E-3 Sentrys have passed through Ramstein and RAF Mildenhall, along with at least two E-11A BACNs, and a single U-2. This is not including what was already there before this week. Airlift Activity Since my last update there has been around 36 C-17 and C-5 flights that have arrived in the Middle East, along with a further 6 Army-related and 6 Air Force-related flights still in-progress. This brings the total to around 265 flights. The last week of flights are primarily supporting the deployment of the massive amount of fighter aircraft, with 9 directly from Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany, 6 from RAF Lakenheath, 4 from McEntire, 10 from Roosevelt Roads and 3 from Aviano. Due to the sheer number of flights, I won't be able to continue listing them in the updates as I have been, because I exceed the max number of hashtags for a single post - so please see the table below which is now only showing new flights. Analysis In theory, the U.S. should now be positioned to carry out their strikes against Iran. There are only now a few limiting factors that they may wait for before making a move: - The basing of Bombers. The U.S. Air Force tanker fleet is positioned to potentially support bomber flights from either CONUS, or (preferably I'd imagine) RAF Fairford. If the report of the British Government denying the use of this base is true, it does serverly limit the U.S. in how many bomber sorties they can generate. Basing at RAF Fairford would allow nightly, or every other night. Round trips from CONUS would be more difficult, particularly if only using B-2s. - F-22 Deployment. There are twelve F-22 Raptors from Langley AFB currently sat at RAF Lakenheath. The arrival of the second cell of six was delayed and they only all arrived on Thursday night. With crew rest taking into consideration, the earliest they can deploy is tomorrow, 21st February. This may be a deal-breaker for the U.S. and they will want to wait for these jets to arrive. - USS Gerald R. Ford. The Ford has been spotted preparing to transit the Strait of Gibraltar, this leave it ~5 days away from the Eastern Med at least. Taking these three factors into account, I believe the earliest the U.S. will be prepared to launch an attack on Iran is Friday 27th February. Summary I hope this format of post is still interesting, as it's a bit more "analysis" than my usual re-writing the spreadsheet, but with the amount of data now on there it's not really feasible to continue that format. Once I'm back home from Suffolk I will summarise the Coronet movements this week. Thank you all for reading this far, the response I get from these is really incredible. And thank you for 25,000 followers! :) Please let me know of any corrections, and I'll make sure they're fixed for the next update. - Armchair Admiral (not an Admiral) Photos: @havoc_aviation @MATA_osint @DefenceGeek @sipjack1776 @TheIntelFrog @Andyyyyrrrr @vcdgf555 @sentdefender @Osinttechnical @FaytuksNetwork @Faytuks @Andyyyyrrrr