So it looks like the Air Force gets Midgetman instead of Peacekeeper, along with the C-14. I confess skepticism that the C-14 will replace the C-130; there are just so damn many Hercs out there, and ultimately the Air Force really does need strategic airlifters more than tactical ones after how badly Lockheed messed up the C-5s and with how the C-141s are aging away. The C-17 is going to show up in some guise or another sooner or later.
Oh they're not out to replace all of them, really not even in mainline service, the independent C-130H squadrons (not to mention the boutique little numbers of HC-130Ps or AC-130Hs or such) will still be there. But the three principal tactical transport wings in the regulars are now scheduled to convert. The "B" stretch for the -141s is a go, it's the kind of pragmatic make-do-and-mend thing that the McGoverners like and it pushes a strategic solution to the right past the budgetary situation of the mid-Seventies. The C-14 is a nice fat contract for Boeing that (1) has an actual purpose given what it can do and (2) keeps the Senators from Washington more pliant, well Maggie anyway. But there is still that bigger job out there and McDonnell Douglas are probably looking already at what they might do to stretch that YC-15...
On the ICBMs, the McGoverners prefer the LGM-120 Marksman type-classification they provide in '76 within the FY77 FYDP (the Five-Year Defense Plan for Fiscal Year 1977, which starts in Sept. 1976), but it's quite likely a more derogatory nickname "Midgetman" may stick to it from aggravated brass who wanted their Big Damn Missile and whose response to a system that is much smaller and thinner (though just as accurate and much more survivable than M-X in silos) is not Freudian at all, no siree...
Also, don't think I didn't notice how the Air Force appears not to have adopted the F-16 at all for its mainline squadrons (as opposed to ANG units). That's an...interesting decision, to put it mildly. Can't help but think that's going to be changed eventually.
It's one of those foot-in-the-door compromises that happens when administrations deal with Congress, and one the McGoverners can justify to themselves as putting muscle and sinew in the "total force" model they embrace, leaning more heavily on the reserve components to reduce high-cost mainline operations. But yes, basically everybody to the right of the McGovern wing of the Democrats is likely to have something to say about that in the longer term, past a McGovern administration.
In pure-numbers terms, when Nixon left office there were 22 tactical aircraft wings in the USAF (that doesn't count singleton squadrons like the F-106s on air defense or composite units like some of the ones in the Philippines and South Korea.) The Chiefs wanted a soft bump up to 24 in the short term (Nixon's unfulfilled second term ITTL) while they considered just how large to build beyond that. McGovern's campaign-trail Alternative Defense Posture called for 18 tactical aircraft wings and they've moved firmly in that direction. Given that four of that eighteen will be F-111s (as IOTL) and two will be F-4Gs (one fewer than OTL) on SEAD, that only leaves a dozen, and given how badly the service and the administration want the F-15 and A-10 respectively, there's not a lot of middle in there to squeeze in another type. Again, the McGoverners are the only folks who think in terms that low. So there's an easy "fix" sitting right there for folks who believe in bigger numbers.
(I did a wikibox on the C-14 a while back, so I've thought a tad bit more than the average bear about it...)
Awesome! Feel free to repost that bad boy over here - enthusiastic contributions from the Careful Readers add valued truthiness and are very welcome In the meanwhile let's us and everyone else in the thread enjoy a little YC-14 porn:
Love the title screen. Also that's just pretty, and the fact it could pack more or less the load of an Airbus A400M could make it bloody useful. And it may give Antonov some encouragement too on the overwing config...