Well, here is what I know on the topic, all sanitized so I don't tread into any classified areas, and edited to avoid any "I love Spain, so VQ-2's gotta stay there" emotions. Odds are, I'll never see the squadron (officially, anyway) again, though I'd relish the chance. These thoughts most definitely ARE my opinions, and if you aren't pissing at least some people off in the course of a day, you're obviously not 'leaning foreword' enough.
Yes, the deliberations are raging in full force again. Should VQ-2 relocate to CONUS (Whidbey being the rational choice, but most folks thinking SEN Cohen will take it for NAS Brunswick and political reasons).
The Real Answer---Up-Front
First, the cold reality of things. We can debate this thing until it hurts (and already have), 'Point Paper' and P4 it to death (fellow staffies know what I'm talking about), and cost-effectiveness study it to the seventh decimal place, and in the end, budget will triumph. Quality of life - yeah sure, looks good in a press clip. Operational effectiveness - sounds great in a FITREP or Battle "E" input. Mission readiness - c'mon, the cold war is over, we're all friends here. These are the 90's, and what counts is the BOTTOM LINE. After all is said and done, the 'green visor, pointy-nosed' types will either cough up the cash to keep VQ-2 in Rota or they won't. And if they don't, it will be without so much as a 'by your leave.' I truly believe in the squadron and its mission (or I would have bailed to a more stable, promotable community a decade ago), but we just don't have the horsepower to win a budget battle. All VQ Flag officers raise your hands....u-huh.
That being said, lets look at the academic side of things and pretend that reason has at least something to do with the problem and its solution. You have to examine the core of what VQ-2 is and why it is here in the first place.
What does the squadron do that nobody else can or will?
The first is FOCUS. Nobody covers the hot spots of the MED better. Sure, the USAF pulls in a lot more volume (mental note: prepare classified point paper cross-indexing NSA total take versus platform for the past 20 years) but VQ-2 pulls out the pertinent information in real time, and puts it directly into the hands of whoever needs it most. Partial information, right now when the bullets are flying, is a whole lot more valuable than a complete analysis and national database entry two months down the line.
The next is RESPONSIVENESS. In a perfect (albeit Orwellian) world, reconnaissance would cover DC-to-daylight over every inch of the globe, 24 hours a day. Only problem is, even Reagan couldn't sell a budget to cover that kind of activity. We must choose our presence carefully. The MED is a boiling cauldron of crisis (actual 'crisis count' is probably classified, so lets just say it happens a lot). When US interests are threatened, decision makers need information RIGHT NOW. This is another VQ-2 strong suit. When the party starts, we fall all over ourselves to be first to the dance. We stay for the WHOLE party, and, if need be, NATOPS be damned. In just the past year, I've seen plenty of instances where VQ was on track for the second or third day straight before other collectors got their act together and decided to play too.
But you could do all that from CONUS (couldn't you?)
I don't think so. Lets work from the ephemeral to the concrete. The MED is our backyard. We live here, so naturally take great interest in what is going on. Now move the squadron to CONUS. First off, you can expect some dilution of mission focus - other CINCs are going to grab mission time away from the MED (South America and the drug war, CENTCOM and Iran, Iraq, India, Pakistan). The MED would become just another mission area (any other old-timers remember how we used to gloss over the Baltic in mission boards, because we so seldom deployed north - same idea). Sun Tzu called it - "watching the fire from the other side of the river." I call it ---"sure sucks to be you!"
Now lets look at numbers. I love numbers - was even a math major. But remember, Mark Twain said there are three kinds of liars: "Liars, Damned Liars, and Statisticians." Keep me honest, question the base assumptions, and try to keep up.
Assumption 1: Airplanes break down. Even when they don't break down, they require down-times of varying length for scheduled maintenance and inspections. Crew members get sick. Even when they don't get sick, they require down times of varying lengths for training, leave, liberty, and personal lives. Assumption 2: VQ-2 needs to fly about a mission a day to maintain coverage and proficiency. Assumption 3: With alarming regularity, a crisis will erupt, and decision makers will want 24-hour a day coverage.
Now, the fun part. When you factor in everything (scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, upgrades, and inspections), there is a number that will reflect the probability that any aircraft, on any day, will be mission ready. Lets say that is 70% (actual mileage may vary, and is probably classified, but this WAG is sufficient to prove my point). So if you deployed with one aircraft, the chances of being mission-ready (probability of success or Ps) on any day is 70% - you can plan to drop roughly 9 missions a month - unacceptable. With two aircraft, the odds shift to 91% (probability of failure, Pf, is 0.3 for one aircraft. Pf for two is 0.3*0.3=0.09. Ps=0.91)---you'd drop 3 missions a month---maybe acceptable, maybe not. With three aircraft, it's 97.3% - maybe one dropped mission a month. That is good enough for most purposes, and you don't gain a whole lot more reliability tacking on more aircraft past that. Look at the chart.
# Aircraft
1
2
3
4
5
6
Pr[Success]
0.7
0.91
0.973
0.9919
0.99757
0.999271
Pr[Failure]
0.3
0.09
0.027
0.0081
0.00243
0.000729
Missions complete/month
21
27.3
29.19
29.757
29.9271
29.97813
Mission lost/month
9
2.7
0.81
0.243
0.0729
0.02187
Same idea for aircrew, but more factors. Due to NATOPS limitation of 120 hours a month (quit groaning, this is for PLANNING purposes, not what actually happens) you'd need three deployed crews to make the daily flights. Theoretically, those three crews could keep up this pace ad infinitum. I'd want to be four deep, at least in critical positions, just in case somebody gets hit by a truck, or shot (remember Jim Campbell?). OPSTEMPO/PERSTEMPO says they should be home 50% of the time. That means six crews in the rotation pattern (eight in mission critical areas). Can the squadron consistently provide six qualified aircrews? No. VQ-2 is manned for nine aircrews, and it takes 18 months to grow a SEVAL/EWAC/LAB - half their tour. 9 EWACs * 0.5 availability = 4.5 EWACs, steady state. (mental note: insert joke here about who that half-an-EWAC is.) Sure some folks will qualify faster. Sure the sine wave will top out with more quals every now and then. In the long run, house odds win. To "reverse engineer" this, you'd need to be manned to 12 EWAC/SEVAL/LAB to make the six you need deployable. Make that 16 if you want eight deployable. The same math can be applied to other positions, if you knew all the details about qual time and tour length---I don't. Now, who thinks, in these days of downsizing, the squadron could pick up 14 more officers and 7 more CTT's in a budget-saving relocation to CONUS?
On to the crisis situation. Let's assume that we'll get a crisis every six months, and it will last an average of three weeks (actual mileage is both classified and worse). The first 3 days of that will be VQ-2-only, 24-hour-a-day coverage. With a time-to-station of two hours or less, you can pull off 24 hour ops with two aircraft. More than two hours to station, and you need three. You all know what parts of the world we are talking about. Now, lets go back to that aircraft availability number of 70%, and look at what it means to need two or three planes a day. (Don't ask me to explain the statistics, I barely understand 'em myself).
# Aircraft
2
3
4
5
6
Pr[Success]
0.606369
0.865488
0.955784
0.985638
0.995353
Missions Lost out of 9 (3*3 days)
3.542677
1.210604
0.397944
0.129258
0.041826
# Aircraft
3
4
5
6
Pr[Success]
0.585936
0.856068
0.952424
0.984519
Missions Lost out of 12 (4*3 days)
4.968772
1.727184
0.570915
0.185775
So what does this chart tell us, Cyber-Rangers? If the 24-hour coverage requires only two aircraft, you're gonna need at least four planes on det, or you WILL drop one of those critical missions. Likewise, if the 24-hour coverage needs three aircraft (because of the remote location and staging time), you'd better have five planes on det.
The aircrew aspect of this is more straightforward. NATOPS tells us that you should only plan on 50 hours flying per week (quit the sniggering, you in the back of the room, I know we bust that when the mission requires. This is planning, not reality.) In the best case, lets assume VQ-2 covers the first three days solo, then splits things 50-50 with our buddies in the USAF. Guess what? All three crews on det hit 'burnout' in four days - gotta replace them (at least for the next three days). Or, if you just fly them into the ground, their NATOPS 'month' is up in 17 days or less. Now, 17 days may be enough to see you through the crisis, but who picks up the steady-state load after we declare victory and return to ops normal?
If, however, you roll in extra crews early (before the 4 day 'burnout') point, they can keep it up forever. But wait, those extra crews could just as easily be staged from CONUS, yes? No. Many crisis situations creep up on you. I'd be surprised if even a super-attuned CO or OPS-O (especially one out of theater) would recognize a true crisis from a 'flash-in-the-pan' in less than a day. Then a day to get the crews and aircraft together, a day's transit, and a day's recovery. Voila! You got the new crews generated on station just as the old ones drop dead. Now, suppose you aren't so super-alert. Or you have aircraft/commercial air holdups. Or all your backup EWACs are on leave because it's Christmas. HOSED!
What Have I Left Out?
Probably a lot. Not having much Maintenance background myself, I'd be interested to hear how close to reality that 70% figure is. I'd like to know how much of the planned maintenance and inspections could be done deployed, and what the plane has to leave for (aircraft rotations get harder from CONUS, as I'm sure VQ-1 would attest.) I don't know how many maintainers it would take to keep up those 3-5 det aircraft. I don't know how much the increased transit time and increased number of crews/maintainers would cost in TEMAD. I don't have any idea what the rest of the squadron would be doing when 3-4 crews are deployed doing the real work, and I don't know how this would impact trainees. I don't know how single-site training will impact all this.
I'd be glad to hear what you think, what you can add to (or take away from) this discussion. Maybe some of my assumptions are off. Maybe some of the percentages are off. I'd be willing to bet they aren't off by much. If any of you have been in this business for a while, the general feeling (Murphy excepted) is right. You can't guarantee daily flights with two airplanes. You can't guarantee 24-hour coverage with three. There are never enough qualified personnel in key positions when you need them. Move the squadron out of the MED, and these problems get much worse.