KenV wrote:

If you're going to hit a tanker on your mission, you do it mid-mission, much closer to the target area.  You plan to fly to your prudent limit of endurance taking into account alternate landing sites plus some margin, and that's where you schedule your tanker rendezvous.  Better yet, you fly into the target area with fairly empty tanks and plan on hitting a tanker on the way OUT.

 You would NEVER intentionally go into a target area with fairly empty tanks. The more fuel the better (We are talking Vipers here) You can always drop external tanks if need be and internal fuel doesn't hurt much.

KenV wrote:

>>"If you need to dogfight (Which by the way is highly unlikely in todays world.) you just drop your external loads."<< If you dump your weapon load before reaching your target, the enemy has already beat you without firing a shot.  That's the LAST thing you want to do.  DCM (defensive combat maneuvering) calls for some very aggressive piloting to avoid getting shot down while reaching the target with your payload.

If you get to a merge (have to dogfight) you allready F***ed U*  and will in most cases have to drop your load. As a minimum you would drop your external tanks. Yes, your mission will suffer, but atleast your chances of killing the *** will be higher and you will fight another day.

Hopefully you are fortunate enough to have ROE's that allow for BVR engagement and can take the dude out long range with your slammer.

KenV wrote:

And I'm talking here about ground fire as well as from enemy fighters, so aggressive maneuvers are NOT limited to air-to-air dog fight situations.

Depending on your energy state you may also be put in a situation where you would have to get rid of you load during a ground fire situation, but normally a ground fire situation will not have the same requirements for sustainability as a dogfight situation, but it could !.