KC-135

The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker is the workhorse aerial refuelling aircraft of the United States Air Force, providing the inflight refuelling capacity that enables long-range strike, surveillance, and bomber missions. Introduced in 1956, more than 400 airframes remain in active service, making it one of the longest-serving aircraft in US military history. Refuelling tankers are a critical enabling asset: without them, fighters cannot reach distant targets and bombers cannot sustain extended patrols.

On 27 March 2026, an Iranian Ballistic missile struck Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, damaging five KC-135 Stratotankers on the ground. President Trump claimed four returned to service with 'virtually no damage'; one required further repair. The strike was part of a broader Iranian effort to degrade US power-projection infrastructure in the Gulf theatre. A two-week war audit by NPR and CSIS assessed the total US expenditure at .5 billion across 8,700 strikes, with KC-135 missions forming a backbone of that sortie rate.

The damage at Prince Sultan highlighted the vulnerability of high-value, non-dispersed air assets to modern Ballistic Missiles. With Israel simultaneously increasing sortie rates for its Lebanon offensive, demand for KC-135 refuelling capacity was at a peak. Losing even one or two operational tankers reduces the number of strike sorties the Coalition can sustain per day, creating a compounding effect on air campaign tempo.