Sunday, January 23, 2011

Rant Time. Cutting defense the Sweetman way.

Think Defence said this...
Sol, hear what you are saying and I have railed against the corrosive inter service bitching that has beset UK defence for far too long.

Unfortunately, it shows no sign of getting any better, at least at the higher echelons.

Looking in from the outside, the US has 5 air forces each operating manned, unmanned, rotary and fixed wing; Army, USAF, USN, USMC and SOCOM. Now I could be dead wrong but that looks like duplication to me which as I have said may be perfectly fine in times a plenty but of you look at all western nations, the budget deficits are crippling and simply have to be tacked with reductions in spending. Different countries will of course see defence as different priorities, that is only natural, but defence will surely form part of a deficit reduction plan so all armed forces and industry had better get used to that fact for the next 10 or 20 years

Lean times are coming
Sorry for picking on my boy Think Defence but he's thinking along the lines of Sweetman.

Time to bury this bone of thought, kick dirt on it and not let its ugly head rise again (this is a no zombie zone)!


First, lets take this to its most outrageous place...

If you get rid of Marine Air because the Navy and Air Force can perform that function then why not get rid of the Marines entirely.

But wait while we're at it, the US Army is always complaining that the US Air Force doesn't provide close air support or enough transport aircraft for its troops and we once had the Army Air Corps so....

LETS PUT THE Air Force back into the Army.

But wait their is more.  Lets kill the Coast Guard, fold its law enforcement functions into Customs, its rescue facilities into the Navy...

More you say????  We got along without a SOCCOM so we'll send all the snake eaters back to their respective services and save money there.

Who needs land based ballistic missiles?  We can put them all on subs and be more survivable that way...

Oh and the Army?  Yes we folded the Marines and Air Force into it but guess what, we need to downsize it so we'll have it maxed out at say 200,000 men.

Wait a second!  We already had that.  So really lets save money and KILL THE ARMY AND THE USAF AND LEAVE THE DEFENSE OF THIS NATION TO OUR SEA SERVICES!

The Marine Corps is 202,000 strong right now, and can certainly take care of any land battles!

So if you really want to save money, don't kill Marine Air...KILL THE ARMY, KILL THE AIR FORCE AND YOU HAVE ALL THE CUT BACKS YOU COULD EVER NEED!

F-117 wreckage bought by China used to help develop J-20?


via Fox News...

First this---

"At the time, our intelligence reports told of Chinese agents crisscrossing the region where the F-117 disintegrated, buying up parts of the plane from local farmers," says Adm. Davor Domazet-Loso, Croatia's military chief of staff during the Kosovo war.
"We believe the Chinese used those materials to gain an insight into secret stealth technologies ... and to reverse-engineer them," Domazet-Loso said in a telephone interview.
A senior Serbian military official confirmed that pieces of the wreckage were removed by souvenir collectors, and that some ended up "in the hands of foreign military attaches."
Then this---

Zoran Kusovac, a Rome-based military consultant, said the regime of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic routinely shared captured Western equipment with its Chinese and Russian allies.
"The destroyed F-117 topped that wish-list for both the Russians and Chinese," Kusovac said.
Russia's Sukhoi T-50 prototype stealth fighter made its maiden flight last year and is due to enter service in about four years. It is likely that the Russians also gleaned knowledge of stealth technology from the downed Nighthawk.
Hmm.

Either a viable counter measure to stealth already exists with earlier generations of stealth----or those airplanes (the escorts for the B-2's) were flying missile pickets or expendable targets if the jamming didn't work.

I would pay good money to hear what the escorting pilots briefing was before those missions.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Kill or Be Killed.

Update:  I originally had a little commentary with this film.  It didn't do this film justice.  Just watch it.

Sharkeys World Blog..




Did you think that the fight to get the Harrier back into service was over?  If so then you haven't read Sharkeys World Blog.

I don't know how wide spread the movement is, but British Forces will suffer a power projection nightmare for at least 5-10 years if this decision isn't reversed.  The Royal Air Force is professional but a Naval Air Arm is essential.

Update:
The Ark Royal is finally being paraded to the scrap yard  ...  this quote best states my opinion  ...

What will be the next strategic shock? I cannot predict it - nor can the Government. To lose our maritime strike capability in such dangerous times is short-sighted.
Lord West of Spithead


China Defense Blog on the new trainer.

China has a new trainer according to the China Defense Blog.


Aircraft retired too soon...Part 2!

In my previous post, I listed a few aircraft that were retired too soon.  But in light of technological advances this must be modified...my new roster....

F-14
Think about the capabilities of this beast with modern engines, AESA radar in that huge nose, it already had FLIR but add to it a modern derivative...and then add the possibilities with small diameter bombs and you have an early 4th gen that could compete with anything flying...they gave up on it way too soon.
S-3 Viking
The Viking.  Hoover.  First real deal multi-role platform in Navy service.  Name one airplane that served in the Anti-Sub, Anti-Surface, Refueling, Attack, and Electronic warfare roles besides the S-3.  You can't.  It was an original, its still available and should be put back into service.  Especially with the threat of Chinese subs.
C-141
Criticized by many but only because they never understood its role.  Strategic long range airlift.  Fast, and long ranged, it could carry tons of paratroopers to far off lands so they could do their LGOPs thing (Little Groups of Paratroopers rampaging across the country side).  The C-141 filled the role between the C-5 and the C-130...the C-17 is adequate but geared more toward moving gear.  The C-141 has longer legs, is a better people mover and with modern engines would be even more effective.


I'm sure their are many more.  You'll notice that airplanes from our allies aren't included.  If you have good candidates, then send them my way.

Pic of the day. Jan 22, 2011.

Another Joe Copalman special!  A Tucano in the desert of Arizona?  Interesting!


J-20...just a demonstrator?

If the J-20 is just a demonstrator then someone had better tell the Chinese people...and quick!  I love anime' and sci-fi wall papers.  While searching one of my favorite sites for the latest offerings, what did I run across?  I ran across a little bit of Chinese nationalism in the form of the J-20.  Nothing wrong with nationalism, nothing wrong with touting your latest and greatest.

But there is something wrong with our companies helping the enemy all in the name of profits.

There is something wrong with our President bowing to a foreign head of state as if he were subservient (with the implication that the US was subservient to that nation).

Consider this a rant but I'm not pleased with many aspects of our domestic and foreign policy.


Kicking Pirates since the N. Koreans aren't available.


Numerous people have hit me with articles about the S. Korean Navy/Marine Corps retaking a hijacked ship off the coast of Africa.

My take on this?

The N. Koreans weren't available so the Pirates were a poor second choice.

If you believe anything believe this.  The S. Korean Marine Corps, Navy, Army, Air Force, their Leadership and its people all want to taste N. Korean blood after the atrocities of a few weeks ago.

The pirates just nutted up and attacked the wrong ship.

This got beyond interesting.  It got deadly for some misguided idiotic little boys that picked the wrong target because they didn't have a clue when it came to the political power of the people when they're sufficiently enraged. 

The S. Korean government had no choice but to act forcefully.  Another black eye and they would have been forced out of power.

Russian uproar over AK-47 replacement talk.


via FoxNews...
"The AK-47 is outdated because of it’s not an accurate weapon,” Scales said. “What I suspect is the Russian are looking for something that's a little bit more refined, a little bit more versatile, more accurate -- and their willing to sacrifice what the AK-47 brought in 1947."
Scales says an accuracy target of 400 meters is not good enough for modern day warfare. The gold standard for weapons in the West is the American M-4, which is accurate to 600 meters and beyond.
Interesting.  The Russians have done good work with the AK-74 and its many derivatives so the call to possibly buy a foreign weapon is curious to me.

I don't know whats going on inside Russia but something appears to be brewing.

First the buy of the Mistral...

Second the attempt to buy Israeli UAVs...

Third the idea of buying IVECO armored vehicles...

and now the idea is being floated of buying Western small arms!

What is going on inside there?

Sweetman is at it again.


If Sweetman didn't write this then the "dark lord" has a new apprentice.

via Aviation Week...

Considering the immense deficit-reduction work that lies ahead to help restore U.S. economic strength—which underwrites the nation’s military power—the aerospace industry ought to have breathed a sigh of relief when Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently unveiled the Pentagon’s Fiscal 2012 budget. Even with $78 billion stripped from future spending and another $100 million reallocated internally, government suppliers for the most part still dodged the proverbial bullet.
One that did not was General Dynamics and its Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. The Marine Corps program was the poster child for paying more to get less. The same holds true for the intractable problems of other programs canceled over the past few years, such as the Army’s Future Combat Systems and the Navy’s DDG-1000 destroyer, among others. Whether they are actually gone is another matter. Most live on as declared goals of the U.S. military.
Ironically, by eliminating programs that were hopelessly over budget and behind schedule, Gates removed some of the anchors around the collective necks of industry and the Pentagon, while at the same time encouraging them to pursue more affordable systems that still satisfy the mission. Of course, the budget in which they must work will be incrementally smaller, but it is still gargantuan; what else would you call a spending plan of at least $553 billion and growing? In short, Gates effectively handed the Pentagon and industry a second chance to get it right.
That is not to say the challenge facing them will be easy. Underlying all the heated debates about how much money the U.S. really needs to spend to maintain robust national security are some inconvenient truths:
•Budget decisions made now will dictate what the force structure looks like in 2020. Yet increasingly those decisions are heavily influenced by the conflict in Afghanistan, undercutting the ability to build militaries prepared for different conflicts. In the U.K., for example, a question being asked is whether that country’s capabilities are overly skewed to land warfare as a result of its experience in south-central Asia. Many camps in the U.S. believe American forces must look very different in 2020.
•Too much emphasis has been placed on unit costs, with less and less consideration to the value that a new weapon system offers the warfighter. As long as Congress insists on funding weapon systems year-to-year, relying almost exclusively on metrics such as unit costs, we will continue to see program death spirals, virtually assuring truncated purchases of advanced capabilities that will be vital in the future such as active, electronically scanned array radar and imbedded sensors.
•Smarter purchasing practices by government customers and greater efficiency by industry have to go well beyond the usual arguments over whether one system or another makes sense in the global threat environment of the future. The competitive process dominates the front end of a program. The more complex and less frequent the new programs, the greater the incentive to underbid and overpromise. Result: a culture that suppresses reality until it is too late to fix a troubled program, and so it rolls on.
It should not take 20 years to develop a tiltrotor aircraft or an F-35. Even the F-111 program, hardly a model of management oversight in the 1960s, delivered the first workable aircraft, the F-111E, in seven years from contract award.
The Defense Department is long past the point where it needs to make tradeoffs in roles and missions. To put it another way, every armed service does not need to fulfill its own organic capability in all areas. For example, why couldn’t the Navy or Air Force be tasked with providing the Marines Corps with the air support it needs? Congress—which itself has failed in its duties lately—must stop allowing turf wars to block reforms.
•Industry has a credibility problem with its dubious record on program performance. The best strategy that contractors have in a severely fiscally constrained environment is to keep their promises, and fess up if they can’t. The Air Force may need a new bomber, and the Navy may want a new unmanned combat aircraft, but neither will be built on the unrealistic cost estimation process of the past.
Given the financial abyss in which this country finds itself, no one is going to support granting the defense community a special dispensation from responsible cuts in military spending. Nor should they. That means suppliers and customers alike better get it right going forward; a new generation of affordable weapon systems will be needed, and taking any longer than absolutely necessary to field them is not an option.

Talk about a personal jihad against land forces...against the Marine Corps...against anything that isn't USAF blue!  WOW!

Every bullet point I highlighted struck me as misguided but the last one takes the cake!

The Air Force may need a new bomber and the Navy MAY WANT A .....

Amazing!  Its obvious to me that Bill isn't grounded in American politics.  If he thinks that a Republican Congress is going to do away with Marine Air, or that his continued harping on the F-35 is going to sway policy makers then he's in for a serious disappointment.

As a matter of fact, several Ohio law makers are pushing against the EFV being canceled...one of them is the new Speaker of the House....

Bill ole' boy face it...what happened in the UK won't happen here.  Totally different style of government...two years ago when the Democrats were in control then yes...but now???  Not a snowballs chance in hell.

Friday, January 21, 2011

P-8 set for initial production.


via NAVAIR...
NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. - The U.S. Navy announced today the award of a $1.6 billion contract to Boeing for P-8A Poseidon aircraft Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) of six aircraft.

This first LRIP contract also includes spares, logistics and training devices. Production of the first LRIP aircraft will begin this summer at Boeing’s Renton, Wash. facility.


“In 2004, the U.S. Navy and the Boeing Company made a commitment to deliver the next generation maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft to support a 2013 Initial Operational Capability (IOC),” said Capt. Mike Moran, PMA 290 Program Manager. “This contract and these aircraft keep that commitment on track.”


Three of the six flight test aircraft, built as part of the System Development and Demonstration contract awarded to Boeing in 2004, are in various stages of testing at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md. The Integrated Test Team has conducted sonobuoy releases and counter measures deployments.


Recently, one of two static test planes completed full scale testing on the P-8A airframe. The first static test aircraft underwent 154 different tests with no failure of the primary structure. The second aircraft will begin fatigue testing this year.


The U.S. Navy plans to purchase 117 production P-8A aircraft to replace its P-3 Fleet. IOC is planned for 2013 at NAS Jacksonville, Fla.
Wow.

Want to talk about a program that was designed to replace a cold war relic?

Want to talk about a program that was filled with the possibility of failure and delay?

Want to talk about a program that seems to have not only survived, not only thrived but also is being welcomed by the Fleet?

Then you want to talk about the P-8A.