Saturday, February 21, 2015

US airpower doctrine confused, rudderless and lacking direction? Op-Ed via Defense Aerospace.

Defense Aerospace (read the entire article here) has a blistering critique of the F-35, US airpower doctrine and contradictory statements by the leaders of our Air Forces...The entire article is a must read but a few tidbits that stood out to me....
This is the first time a US service has cut its F-35 buy of its own volition, and so is of major significance, yet it was largely ignored by news media.
Then this....
“We’re paying billions of dollars to buy the F-35, and now they tell us that low observability isn’t of much use,” one Italian defense official said.
And then this....
“Another weapons system program may be something we need to consider as we look at the gaps and seams for the future” of the CAS mission, it quoted Carlisle as saying. “What provides that close air support in the future is something we’ll continue to look at. It could be a follow-on,” so a single-mission aircraft for CAS is not the financial perversion the Air Force says.
I note the above passage for one reason.  It is such a lie that I once again marvel at who we call defense journalists!  How is the USAF going to afford a follow on Close Air Support airplane when it is having to fund a large fleet of F-35's (I still doubt that they will get the full programmed buy), the KC-46 and the next generation bomber?   They can't, he's knows it and instead of getting laughed out of the room those in attendance simply took notes, nodded and obeyed like good little boys!

Drink the article in, share it with others and if you disagree I'd love to hear why. 

36 comments :

  1. Let's put 25th ID into a relevant frame of discussion. 4 Brigade Combat Teams, two Light Infantry, two Stryker. One of the light infantry is Airborne and in Alaska. The other light infantry is "Airmobile" (25th ID runs their own Air Assault school on Hawaii the same way 101st runs the Air Assault school at Fort Campbell).

    So you are looking at 3 Infantry BN's that can parachute in, and 3 Infantry BNs that can ride in on helicopters. That leaves the bulk of the 25th ID in Stryker units with no direct fire weapon systems bigger than the 105mm on an MGS that the Army has stopped buying and fielding (the maintenance issues are such that we don't get the combat hours to maintenance hours down to where we want them to be, so the Army cut sling load on MGS procurement and said make do with what is already in the inventory.)

    The Stryker units are not amphibious so they need a secure landing zone, which could be provided by the Airborne or Air Mobile BNs. The Army has enough Landing Craft to maybe get one Stryker BN ashore in a timely manner. Remember 88 Strykers to a BN.

    And there is the rub. We have plenty of ships, but to get an entire Stryker or Armored BN onto shore we run out of ass really quick. But, there is very little point in bringing Stryker vehicles to move inland with only 50 cal and Mk19 on the turrets, so MGS variants get front loaded to provide big gun fire support. But even then the most 25th ID could provide by MTOE is less than 20 vehicles. You could get more combat power by also offloading the 120mm Mortar Carrier Variants, but they can't out range proper artillery although very useful for prepping objectives.


    So until the Army adopts at least a 20mm cannon for the ICV Strykers, the only real threat to the USMC mission in the Pacific is Airborne or Air Mobile forces working Joint with the Navy, USMC, and USAF. Otherwise we don't have the right mix of capabilities to be an effective power projection formation. As a credible threat and theater reserve, definitely, but as of right now probably not the tip of the spear.

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  2. The F-35 is perfectly fine. 10 years ago. The problem isn't the technology, it is the fact that it is taking so long to get into service that the potential enemies that it can be used against have already taken steps to blunt the F-35's effectiveness.



    So the F-35 is a fine plane. For Gulf War 1 and 2. Not now. Now, it's a posterboy for why you should get kit out in a timely manner before it becomes obsolete.

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  3. US
    already has a very powerful weapon. The ATK Bushmaster III 35/50. US can do the
    same.

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  4. rogue, it is possible and one of the ideas I had. Problem is the cost of the "one shot" FAST packs. (Fuel Ammunition Sensors and Thrusters). Unless you can recover the pack, it gets very expensive very fast. Which is what LCUs are. Manned FAST packs that self return after dropping off the vehicle.

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  5. LO is not a magic bullet, but it never was.
    The point still remains that any air defence net that can see an LO strike coming at 100 miles can see a none LO strike coming at 300, or 500, or further.

    An air defence net that can see an LO will need to be degraded, but its significantly easier to degrade that net enough to get LO aircraft through, than to degrade that same net enough to get Normal Observability aircraft through.

    Getting hundreds of radars to build a composite picture isn't easy, the network required to get them to speak, the command centres to process the data and staff to interpret the information. All expensive and therefore limited and vulnerable.
    Knock out the fusion and the individual sites can still knock out NO planes but they can't cooperate to knock out LO planes.

    Its even more one sided at sea.
    Its easy to build dozens of distributed radar sites on the ground, but even a US fleet is unlikely to have more than a dozen radars, and getting them talking to each other is dangerous, it means everyone is emitting like crazy.

    The USAF is struggling to get the sensors on board the F35 to speak to each other, that's a dozen or so passive receivers, a couple semi passive (controllable IR and NV cameras), and an active radar (possibly 3 eventually). But redfor is going to crack that no worries?

    Fusion isn't that complicated but it is hard to understand.
    The best example I can come up with is comparing papermaps, a pencil, rulet and a compass, to Google maps.
    It sounds stupid but thats the best example I can come up with, google maps doesn't do anything you can't do with a paper map, but it does everything much quicker and much better, verbally explaining coordinates for a fire mission is a long process, pointing on a touch screen is very easy and very quick.

    Finding a target on a radar, then switching to your ir cam and refinding that target, then padding that target to a missile all takes time. Unless they can all speak to each other, and its instant.

    I'm agnostic on CAS
    Sure, I'm sure troops under fire quite like it when a flier bombs the people shooting them, but its a pretty poor RKR ratio, bombing a supply dump, a command post, a martialling field, all better ways to win the war.
    CAS is awesome, but it should literally be last on the list, even the mighty A10 did most of its work as an independent hunter, strafing the highway of death was hardly CAS.

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  6. You make good points,


    If you have a good link comparing these relative velocities I would love to see it. The limited information I found suggested less power. As far as programmable rounds, that depends on the speed of the developer, this is why i put 'yet' in my argument.



    Ammo switching in a conventional Bofors turret is fast because there is a man loading it. With a fully automated turret you generally have a max of two types, since guns allow for one or two belts to feed them. Its interesting to see the CTA has other options.


    So, assuming all you tell me is correct, the CTA would be better, since it saves on weight massively. The only reservations left being proven reliability and having to pay for development.

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  7. Yeah I envision this as able to be manned or self return. My thought is if you can keep it cheap enough by using as much off the shelf stuff as you can, not gold plate the project, and get Congress and the DOD to buy them in job lots we might just have enough to actually do a contested landing WHEN the time comes where it's the only option. (including possibly even subbing out 90% of the builds to reputable marine OEM's like any of the ones that already make atv's for DOD)

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  8. All the new rounds are fine and dandy, but how likely are they to end up with the man in the field? We have APDS, HEI-T, HE/Frag (not airburst), all these are fairly cheap and simple, but once you hit "programmable" rounds, the cost is going to go up, and I really can't see an army paying for these rounds unless they have a massive effect like the 155mm or 227mm. Not only would the cost per round multiply over the hundreds of rounds needed in an IFV, multiply it over a whole army and you are talking millions if not billions and in an ongoing cost as you need to live fire the new rounds to train.

    My call is that there will be NO new type of rounds even with the new guns other than the old APDS, HEI-T, HE/Frag and HEAT. The cost effectiveness simply isn't there.

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  9. Hey dude
    Main page says 7 comments but this page just shows two comments, me and owl.

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  10. Second Line of Defense, big F-35 fan-boys, had s shocker up yesterday written by Ed Timperlake who usually teams up with fellow fan-boy Robbin Laird but Timperlake wrote this one alone. It's not on SLD this morning, it's been taken down. Here's an excerpt, copied yesterday:
    “You know that stealth may be over-rated,” Admiral Greenert, the Chief of Naval Operations, recently noted during a speech at the Office of Naval Research Naval Future Force Science and Technology Expo, Washington D.C.
    “I don’t want to necessarily say that it’s over but let’s face it, if something moves fast through the air and disrupts molecules in the air and puts out heat – I don’t care how cool the engine can be – it’s going to be detectable.”
    The CNO is exactly right.
    Admiral Jonathan Greenert, a nuclear trained Navy submarine officer, and General Mike Hostage the recently retired Commander of the USAF Air Combat Command and an F-22 pilot are in agreement on the dynamic nature of “stealth.”
    From General Hostage’s last interview before retirement and one which he did with us:
    People focus on stealth as the determining factor or delineator of the fifth generation. It isn’t; it’s fusion.
    Fusion is what makes that platform so fundamentally different than anything else.

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  11. The F-35 is not "a fine plane," it's still deep in development with many problems. According to the SAR its performance capabilities are "to be determined" plus it's got a bum engine which requires redesign but the fix has not yet been fully addressed.

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  12. We are on the wrong vector with aircraft selection. We need to mass produce A-10's for CAS; why mess with something that works, except they are cheap and there seems to be this need to spend tons of money.


    F-35's are not worth the money. Without delving into the classified, there are many ways around stealth, of which our more sophisticated enemies have had for a long time. When I was a test pilot at Pax River, back in the 90's there was too much political pressure regarding aircraft selection; it is even more so today. Politicians want more money to go to their districts, or they make deals based on anything but what the fleet needs, so the fleet is sent pricey crap that is so expensive you can't risk getting it shot down. This is why we name all our pigs on our farm after politicians!

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  13. I find it interesting that the different services have such differing views on the F-35. The Navy seems to be admitting how much it sucks. The Marines I haven't heard much from them on the matter and the Air Force is desperately trying to keep the thing and I have a feeling will defend it to the end.

    Personally I think that for the 6th Generation fighters that are in development we need to look away from stealth in the designs. We need to focus on better radars and sensors, improved BVR missiles(the AIM-120 is a joke for BVR give me an AIM-54 Phoenix that's harder to detect maybe dampened radar I don't know I'm not an expert on that sort of thing), Speed lets stop pussy footing around lets start looking into maturing the technology from the X-51 Waverider and finally get a hypersonic fighter. Finally and obviously we need to engineer the airframe not to be stealthy but for aerodynamics and maneuverability at hypersonic speeds. Obviously if we go with the hypersonic idea there would have to be an evolution in missile technology that would probably mirror the maturation of scramjet technology and could put us light years ahead of the Russians or the Chinese.

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  14. In the Air Force, Air Combat Command chief Gen. Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle has said that stealth will be "incredibly important" for the F-X aircraft that the U.S. Air Force is pursuing as an eventual F-22 replacement. General Welsh has been less enthusiastic about stealth: "It's also speed, low observability, different ways of collecting data, different ways of transmitting and protecting transmissions,' Welsh said. "It is a way of breaking kill chains, if you're sitting in an airplane or flying an unmanned aircraft."

    And listen to Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, USAF acquisition chief, at DefenseTech:
    Despite the suggestion that stealth technology will benefit from future innovations, Pawlikowski emphasized that stealth by itself is not necessarily the sole answer to the evolving or maturing threats presented by modern air defenses.

    “We can’t count on stealth to do everything for us. Stealth combined with other attributes that will allow us to deal with that threat. Speed and stealth are extremely important but also they don’t stand alone because when you are talking about air superiority it boils down to being able to act and react more quickly than you adversary can,” Pawlikowski said.

    Pawlikowski’s stance on stealth’s future was not too far off those of Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, who suggested in public comments that stealth technology may be losing its effectiveness in today’s modern technological environment.

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  15. @
    Charlie Spinks





    Aren't ROA, and concern for civilian aircraft and friendlies, problems for BVR?

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  16. Right, JSF is being promoted largely as a jobs program now.

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  17. In a discussion yesterday, I heard a whole new view point: the F-35 is the budget justifier. Because it is unkillable, you can use it to justify a higher budget, more troops to maintain it, military construction to support it, etc. Without the F-35, the money currently spent on F-35 related stuff would be cut, not spent on AAVs or LAVs. In this view, we must jump on the F-35 wagon to justify anything and the more on board we are, the more we can get because of the deep support for the program. Has me thinking... Not sure what to think on this

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  18. Also it's the "can-do" attitude which is okay if its controlled, but extremely detrimental when it overcomes veracity and reasoned thought.
    Stripes
    Lying in the military is common, Army War College study says
    The new study found that many Army officers have become “ethically numb” in the face of overwhelming demands and the need to put their reputations on the line to verify that all required standards and training requirements have been met.
    SSI Study:
    Lying to Ourselves: Dishonesty in the Army Profession
    Untruthfulness is surprisingly common in the U.S. military even though members of the profession are loath to admit it. Further, much of the deception and dishonesty that occurs in the profession of arms is actually encouraged and sanctioned by the military institution. . . It takes remarkable courage and candor for leaders to admit the gritty shortcomings and embarrassing frailties of the military as an organization in order to better the military as a profession. Such a discussion, however, is both essential and necessary for the health of the military profession.

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  19. Yes but at the onset of an air action which would likely be at beyond visual range it doesn't pay to have the enemy be able to fire on you before you can fire on him. Right now the primary Russian BVR missile(Vympel R-77M) out ranges ours(AIM-120) by 90 kilometers and the main Chinese BVR missile(PL-12) out ranges ours(AIM-120) by 30 kilometers. Not to mention even the European MBDA Meteor out ranges the AIM-120 by 30 kilometers.

    The US has severely fallen behind in the aspect of Beyond Visual Range Air Combat.

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  20. When given an impossible task, there has to be someone intelligent and honest enough to say it can't be done rather than blindly dumb enough to keep parroting, "can do, sir, can do, we'll do our best" even if it comes at the cost of their career. It's called integrity.

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  21. I worked for a field grade officer (project manager) once who stopped a vehicle production line, stopped it cold, which is a VERY big deal, because the production quality was inadequate. But that's rare. (He went on to O-9, BTW.)

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  22. This is not my field, but as an observer it seems to me that "onset" is being over-emphasized to the detriment of post-onset sustainability. How long is onset, a few minutes? an hour or so? And then what happens....The F-35s turn their hot tails and run, for one thing. But they probably won't get very far.

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  23. no, the problem is the real hidden budget buster that no one is full wrapping their heads around.


    THE MAINTENANCE ISSUE!


    the USAF is signalling it by their desire to kill the A-10 to push maintainers over to the F-35. this thing is a bigger hog than even i imagined. i don't see how it isn't going to wreck a service like the USMC even further. additionally when do you think we're going to get another STOVL airplane? the F-35 is doing more than changing current USMC ops. it might totally wreck the WIng before its over with.

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  24. Lockheed has bragged that 1,500 F-35 maintainers have been trained at Eglin.
    USAF IOC is Aug 2016 - Dec 2016 with 12 to 24 F-35As.
    How many maintainers do they need for a dozen or two planes?

    Looking long term, Lockheed owns all F-35 tech data and owns the ALIS master computer at Ft Worth, so under the new-concept F-35 Autonomic Logistics Global Sustainment Program, nobody knows what it will cost to maintain complex electronic planes with 300,000 parts and eight million lines of software code. --hint: It won't come cheap, and it won't work in remote places.

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  25. Googled: "Fusion is what makes that platform so fundamentally different than anything else" for these references:
    http://www.sldinfo.com/shaping-an-s-cubed-combat-revolution-preparing-for-the-coming-hypersonic-cruise-missile-threat/
    &
    http://www.sldinfo.com/f-35-and-f-22-operational-integration-training-mission/
    &
    http://www.sldinfo.com/ffifth-generation-combat-training-f-35s-and-f-22s-train-for-joint-air-ops/
    &
    http://breakingdefense.com/2014/10/accs-gen-hostage-on-fifth-gen-combat-cloud-and-syria/

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  26. I believe this program is going to have bad ramifications on our defense relationship with our allies that will be difficult if not impossible to ever repair.

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  27. i see that the focus has gone from stealth to fusion. ok. but my question is what does fusion bring that the Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) does not? how will it bring war winning fusion to bear when its basic sensors are outdated? a next gen sniper pod and other such systems are years ahead of what is built into the F-35! you want to talk about IRST? the pod that the F-18 will carry is more advanced. fusion was once what we expected the E-3 and E-2D to get done. now they want to play quarterback out of a single seat airplane?


    its not gonna happen, its flawed reasoning and anyone with sense knows it. the best that can be hoped for at this time is that we will have a fleet of mini-U2's but even in that mission they're second best because we would never fly them over targets that we really want info on. they talk about giving grunts on the ground info? i would rather have a flight of armed UAVs instead of having the sometimes presence of a few F-35s.


    fusion is a sad joke that the supporters are clinging onto as a last resort

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  28. Long range kills are a myth.
    The longest range combat kill Is about 70km, a US cruiser and a Vietnamese fighter over Hanoi.
    Ukraine shot down a civie jet at 150km but that doesn't count.
    Ship to ship record is about 40km, air to ship about the same and air to air about 17km.

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  29. The new heavy IFV T-15 based on the Armata tank, will be armed with the standard 2A42 30X165 the same cannon used by the BMP-2 IFV, based on current reports.

    http://otvaga2004.ru/bronya-pehoty/advanced-ifv/bmp-t15-armata/

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  30. http://balkannovoteh.co.rs/en/?page_id=899#rollover-tabpanel-tab2 has the projectile masses and muzzle velocities for a variety of 40mm /L70 ammo that is consistent with various PDFs for 40/L70 ammo I've been able to find. Generally you are looking at 960-970g projectiles at ~1km/s.

    The CTA GP HE/AB ammo is 980g at ~1km/s as well. The APFDS is 550g @ >1.5km/s. The 1400g @ ~.9km/s.

    Also as an FYI, apparently the swedes have looked at switching from the Bofors gun to the Bushmaster IV for weight/volume reasons.

    They apparently have the programmable rounds in testing but not through qual, to at least some portion of the programming works.

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  31. 3P/AB rounds are pretty much happening. The cost differentials between new build 40mm rounds and 3P/AB rounds are on the order of 50%. And the 3P/AB rounds do have a massive effect. HE is great against fully fortified structures and the like, but is fairly sub-optimal against infantry. 3P/AB rounds on the other hand are wide area suppression/kill rounds that are very effective against Infantry and light armored targets including airborne vehicles.

    That's not to say you want only 3P/AB rounds. A typical mix will probably be roughly 20-30% AP, 20-30% 3P/AB, 40-60% GP-HE.

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  32. Any leads on which armies have bought them?

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  33. I haven an extremely informative book by Tony Williams, called Rapid Fire on his website I found some info and pictures about the CTA.

    http://www.quarryhs.co.uk/WLIP.htm


    I wonder about one thing, how does this gun get away with so much less mass in the barrel without overheating, deforming etc. One would think the Bofors gun is not as massive as it is without a good reason?

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  34. i'm all for the services standardizing where possible. sharing the USMC's cammies with the other services? sure. getting with the Army and working out the small arms issues? absolutely! using Army and Navy aircraft where possible? definitely. but when it comes to an amphibious assault vehicle that is UNIQUE! that is the one area where it makes sense to go it alone.

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  35. Well, I did say if we move to 40mm. I would certainly want to go to 40mm CTA over 40mm Bofors. Significant increase in ammo capacity plus better ammo feed system.



    As far as investment goes, the cannon and 2 different ammo have passed full qualifications for both the UK and FR.

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  36. At least it looked good on Parade.

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