Remember, it isn't so much the Russians you need to worry about - it is those who buy or license build their technology.
In the backgrounder, they raise some critical points that need to be remembered for this simple reason; our forces rely on air supremacy as an enabler for everything we do.
It has been almost 40 years since we have faced a legitimate opponent in the air - and over 65 years since our ground forces faced any real threat from the air. That didn't happen by accident. If we get complacent, we will get in trouble.
You aren't born with a right to supremacy - you have to earn it, keep it, and maintain it.
Here are the talking points from the backgrounder.
• Russia recently unveiled its PAK FA stealth fighter, which may prove superior to all fighters except the U.S. F-22.The abstract:
• Russia will develop the PAK FA in partnership with India and could sell it to China, Libya, Venezuela, Algeria, Syria, and Iran, which would be destabilizing and have unintended consequences.
• With the closure of the F-22 production line underway, the U.S. has effectively lost its ability to hedge against PAK FA proliferation.
• Delays and other problems plaguing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program are worrisome because the F-35 may be less effective as a force multiplier for the F-22 if it is built in insufficient numbers.
• American air supremacy is no longer as assured as the U.S. Department of Defense once predicted.
• To preserve a favorable balance of power in the skies, the U.S. will need to increase investment
in modernization and explore new partnerships with its allies, such as Japan and Israel.
Russia’s development of the PAK FA fifth generation stealth fighter could challenge American air supremacy, especially if Russia sells the PAK FA to its usual buyers of military equipment. In the U.S., closure of the F-22 production line has severely limited America’s ability to respond to PAK FA proliferation by building more F-22s and potentially selling them to U.S. allies. The U.S. needs to revise its assessment of U.S. air superiority needs and then explore ways to modernize and strengthen the U.S. tactical fighter force.As with most discussions of air superiority, there is a focus on the F-22 and then a discussion of the F-35.
The F-35 is a strike fighter - it is not like the F-22, an air superiority fighter. Kind of like the difference between a P-47 and a P-51, though the comparison is inexact.
Enough of the ground centric discussion, maybe we should be thinking more along the lines of the F-4/F-8 vs. the A-4/A-7 and the Navy. Not so much the F-14A/B vs. A-6, they were too pure in their roles No, from a historical perspective, right now we have a deck full of A-4/A-7, and no F-4.
Can you go against a MiG-21 with a A-4 or A-7? Sure. Do you want to? No.
When the 21st Century hostile fighter heads towards our Fleet, why do we assume that we will always have the F-22 out there to protect it? When you go to intercept and then go into the merge - does the F-18 and/or the F-35 have what it takes? Are they really a viable Fleet Air Defense Fighter?
Can you go against a MiG-21 with a A-4 or A-7? Sure. Do you want to? No.
When the 21st Century hostile fighter heads towards our Fleet, why do we assume that we will always have the F-22 out there to protect it? When you go to intercept and then go into the merge - does the F-18 and/or the F-35 have what it takes? Are they really a viable Fleet Air Defense Fighter?
Has the time returned to start thinking that way again - just when we can't afford it?
Another thing - I love me some BVR ... but in a day where you have to positively ID everything most of the time - do we not put ourselves at risk if we lean too much on BVR? What happens if the fight doesn't happen until after the merge?
I think Navy Air knows this. Take a peek at the following - specifically read the intro and then skip to the meaty parts of para 5. Yes, I know there are about 6 posts in this message alone - but let's try to focus.
POST WIKILEAKS NOTE: This is an UNCLAS message. This is open source and is being emailed all over the place, as have other POM messages through the years - and other such items related to priority lists. As I get these "take this post down" emails everytime I post an UNCLAS message - once again, this is not classified, it isn't even FOUO. As if I need to say this; I would never publish anything classified.
POST WIKILEAKS NOTE: This is an UNCLAS message. This is open source and is being emailed all over the place, as have other POM messages through the years - and other such items related to priority lists. As I get these "take this post down" emails everytime I post an UNCLAS message - once again, this is not classified, it isn't even FOUO. As if I need to say this; I would never publish anything classified.
R 230330Z NOV 10
FM COMNAVAIRFOR SAN DIEGO CA//N00//
{multiple addressees removed for post}BT
UNCLAS //N00000//
SECTION 01 OF 03
SECINFO/-/-//
MSGID/GENADMIN,USMTF,2008/COMNAVAIRFOR SAN DIEGO CA//
SUBJ/AVIATION TYCOM PRIORITY LIST (TPL) FOR POM-13//
REF/A/MSGID:MSG/COMNAVAIRFOR/250130ZNOV2009//
REF/B/MSGID:MSG/COMNAVAIRFOR/250330ZFEB2010//
NARR/REFS A AND B ARE CNAF TYCOM PRIORITY LISTS (TPL) FOR POM-12//
GENTEXT/REMARKS/1. THIS TPL IDENTIFIES CNAF'S POM-13 PRIORITIES TO OPNAV RESOURCE SPONSORS AND NAVAL AVIATION STAKEHOLDERS. THERE MAY BE REFINEMENT OF THIS INPUT AS WE EXECUTE FLEET FORCES COMMAND'S READINESS AND WARFIGHTING CAPABILITY REQUIREMENTS GENERATION PROCESS PRODUCING FORMAL PROGRAM ENHANCEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS TO OPNAV.
2. THIS MESSAGE SEEKS TO HIGHLIGHT THE MOST IMPORTANT PROGRAMS AS THEY RELATE TO OPNAV N88 AND N2N6. OPNAV N4 SPONSORED READINESS PROGRAMS ARE IN DEVELOPMENT AND WILL BE THE SUBJECT OF A LATER N4 READINESS/INFRASTRUCTURE SPECIFIC TPL.
3. THIS TPL REPRESENTS CNAF'S KEY ISSUES FOR POM-13 AND IS ENDORSED BY NAVAIR, CNAFR AND CNATRA. CNAF'S OVERARCHING
PRIORITIES HAVE REMAINED CONSISTENT FROM POM-04 TO THE POM-13 BUDGET CYCLE:
1. SUSTAIN THE FORCE TO GET TO THE RECAP VISION.
2. RECAPITALIZE TO FIELD THE FUTURE FORCE.
3. MODERNIZE TO PACE THE THREAT.
4. POM-13 PORTENDS TO BE A FISCALLY AUSTERE BUDGET CYCLE. AS SUCH, ALL PROPOSED INVESTMENTS SHOULD BE CAREFULLY SCRUTINIZED AND MUST PRODUCE THE REQUIRED CAPABILITY IMPROVEMENTS TO ELIMINATE GAPS OR PLATFORM WHOLENESS ENHANCEMENTS TO ENSURE THE RIGHT READINESS AT THE RIGHT TIME AND COST. IN ADDITION TO THE PRIORITIZED ITEMS LISTED IN PARA 5, ISSUES RELATING TO THE FOLLOWING KEY AREAS MUST ALSO BE ADDRESSED IN POM-13:
...
5. SUB-PARAS A AND B TOPICS ARE SEPARATED BY RESOURCE SPONSOR, PRIORITIZED, AND ARE ALL CONSIDERED MUST FUND. FUNDING VALUES ARE BASED ON BEST KNOWN DATA AS OF 01 NOV 10.
A. N88 ISSUES
(1) MISSION PLANNING. JMPS IS THE NUMBER ONE N88 AND N2N6 FLEET PRIORITY FOR POM-13. JMPS IS A CRITICAL ENABLER REQUIRED FOR PLATFORMS TO FULLY UTILIZE THEIR AVIONICS/WEAPONS SYSTEMS AND EMPLOY WEAPONS. N88 FUNDING IS NEEDED TO UPDATE THE F/A-18 AND EA-18G UNIQUE MISSION PLANNING COMPONENTS (UPC) IN ORDER TO OPERATE IN THE NEW WINDOWS 7 MISSION PLANNING ENVIRONMENT (MPE) SCHEDULED FOR A 2014 MIGRATION. WITHOUT FUNDING, THE F/A-18 AND EA-18G WILL NOT BE FULLY MISSION CAPABLE AND THEREFORE UNABLE TO SUPPORT KEY MCO MISSION REQUIREMENTS. (FY13 $17.0M FYDP $31.1M)
...
(3) AIM-120 IMPROVEMENTS (KINEMATICS, EPIP). ANALYSIS REVEALS SIGNIFICANT USN STRIKE FIGHTER CAPABILITY GAPS AGAINST THREAT REPRESENTATIVE AIRCRAFT EMPLOYING ENHANCED A/A MISSILES. ... WITHOUT FUNDING, ADVERSARY A/A CAPABILITIES WILL CONTINUE TO EXCEED THAT OF DON TACAIR.
(KINEMATICS FY13 $42.7M, FYDP $214.0M), (EPIP FY13 $13.6, FYDP $44.3M)
(4) AIM-9X BLOCK 2 INTEGRATION. BLOCK 2 UPGRADE, WHEN FULLY DEVELOPED, WILL PROVIDE EXCEPTIONAL CAPABILITY AGAINST EVER-IMPROVING THREAT AIRCRAFT CAPABILITIES. ...
...
(11) C-40A ACCELERATED PROCUREMENT. TWO YEAR ACCELERATION OF C-40A WOULD COMPLETE THE 17 AIRCRAFT REQUIREMENT AND ALLOW FOR A $377M LIFE-CYCLE COST SAVINGS THROUGH EARLY C-9 DIVESTMENT. WITHOUT ACCELERATED PROCUREMENT, POTENTIAL SAVINGS FROM THE C-9 DIVESTITURE WILL BE WILL BE LOST. (FY13 $237.0M, FYDP $-11.0M).
...
(17) COD RECAPITALIZATION. CURRENT C-2A AIRCRAFT ARE PROJECTED TO BEGIN RETIRING IN LARGE NUMBERS AS THEY REACH THEIR FATIGUE SERVICE LIFE LIMITS AS EARLY AS 2019. IN ORDER TO ENABLE A POM-14 NAVY DECISION FOR C-2A CAPABILITY RECAPITALIZATION STRATEGY, POM-13 FUNDING IS REQUIRED TO FUND FATIGUE LIFE ASSESSMENTS AND COMPLETE A REPLACEMENT CDD AS WELL AS OTHER PRE-MATERIAL SOLUTION PHASE EFFORTS. IF NO POM-13 FUNDING IS PROVIDED, THE LOGISTICS SUPPORT OF CVN/CSGS IN THE FUTURE WILL BE IN JEOPARDY. (FY13 $3.5M, FYDP $10.5M)
...
6. POM-13 WILL BE A RESOURCE CONSTRAINED BUDGET CYCLE, SO EACH ISSUE BEING CONTEMPLATED FOR FUNDING MUST BE CONSIDERED CRITICAL TO NAVAL AVIATION AND MUST MAXIMIZE THE CONTRIBUTION TO READINESS OR WARFIGHTING CAPABILITY. ALL OF THE ABOVE ISSUES MEET THESE CRITERIA AND THEREFORE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED IN PENDING DELIBERATIONS AS THE HIGHEST PRIORITY FOR NAVAL AIR FORCES.//
BT
Lex is pondering as well.
32 comments:
The reason I harp so much on air domination is that without it, you cannot do all the other important work needed in a war. Big air domination ability piles on to deterrence also.
The Navy needs to find itself a nice affordable Frigate, it needs to fix ship building, it needs to keep the wonderful skilled people it has and so on. And... it needs to KILL the F-35C commitment and press on with F/A-XX.
Weight and carrier requirements mean that you might end up with an F/A-XX that has the same range as a Super Hornet. So be it. However F/A-XX needs to get done and... we all have learned a lot from the "why can't daddy program manage days" of the F-35 and... the A-12; and to a lesser extent the incredibly safe but Super Slow Hornet (SUU-79 pylons point outward 4 degrees and all that). Then there is just the evolved Flanker to worry about.
http://www.ausairpower.net/FA-18EF-vs-Flanker-1.png
And you should be able to get two seats and two engines with the F/A-XX=sanity for carrier ops. Tailless wideband stealth will help.
I would love to say that UCAS-N will solve a lot of problems. It has that potential but only if it can launch and recover consistently without scaring everyone involved in flight ops. I hope it works because it will offer nice, long range ISR.... and maybe strike and some other things, but certainly the long range ISR will be big. For example-giving real time data to an underwater Tomahawk Block IV shooter before launch and the Tomahawk Block IV after launch.
Cont. in next post.
Cont. from last post-
About stealth. The PAK-FA doesn't have to be super stealthy. It only has to be stealthy enough to lower the PK of the AMRAAM to that of a Vietnam era Sparrow or worse and then you will have your hands full with this beast. And don’t forget things like SU-30’s, SU-35s and Fullbacks.
None of this is blue-sky marketing or even fear-mongering. The 2020’s have the potential to look ugly. What it is though is to take a harder look at our risk vs. real wars and not the permissive air brush wars.
Also another big elephant in the room. The USAF procurement system gets worse by the day. The Navy has to find a way to count on them less and less. Best the Navy find some funds some where (like the USAF) and for starters, procure a squadron of wide-body air to air refueling tankers for each of the big warfighter fleets. Just some friendly advice from someone who loves our Navy but also the USAF.
Finally, like it or not, the F-22 has to stay in production. Or, start teaching the all-knowing idiots in the State Department, how to negotiate from a platform of weakness.
Emergency procedure in case of JSFail:
Split funds for F-35 between more F-22s and renewed A-10s.
Make your aircraft perfect for their main job.
Air superiority and ground attack, respectively.
The performance envelopes and requirements just dont match.
I agree with Prowler AMDO over at Lex's place. Last Spring, he proposed a new carrier fighter, that would be just that, a carrier fighter. A modern Hellcat, or Crusader. Stealth is all nice for a A/F on the first day of the war, but is not as needed for a air superiority plane. A fighter bomber is neither a fighter, nor a bomber. It can do both, but will master neither. I would advocate having Grumman make Prowler's fighter, ( the F-37 Hellcat II ?). It will be, as noted a single purpose, no chrome machine, so it should be less expensive, and more effective than a plane that must be all things to all people. It can clear the skies, so the A/F -18s and F-35s can come in and do thier things.
Mongo has an interesting idea about a rebuild of the A-7F in the close air support thread at Steeljaw Scribe. I like the idea of Hellcat II/Corsair III air wings.
E40K,
That is great for the shore bubbas. But what about for the Fleet Air Defense? I mean we are hitting a point right now in US Naval Aviation where we might be reflecting the F2A/F4F vs A6M2 from the opening of world war 2. That is thier fighters our range ours, even with some of them passing gas. Let alone the strike packages that were trying to get the legs to put thier weapons on the bad guys foreheads. Again look at the numbers of the TBD/SBD/SB2U strike packages of 1939 to 1942 vs the Jill/Val of the IJN. Add in some of our suspected and planned for opponents will have longer ranged MPA aircraft as well. Hmm, the fleet will be at risk if we can't find them before they find us and even more so if we need to close range closer to them (so they can carry more bombs then gas). Dual role has a purpose, but there is also a need for single purpose units in the air wing as well.
Not trying to fairy dust anything away but will this Ruskie POS even fly? We wrung hands for decades over the commies supposed technical developments only to find out most of their stuff was junk. I am not saying don't worry about it, especially in the hands of a gifted aviator but I will definitely not lose any sleep over some Chavista bonehead behind the controls. Concentrating on USW, mine warfare and building a more modern, capable SUW weapon to replace Harpoon seems to be where our emphasis, as a Navy, should lie. Let's face it, F-22 is a very expensive trojan horse. Ole' Nordie got that after about two days on the job and he's a C-130 driver. Oh yeah, aren't you always saying better is the enemy of good enough?
Well just take a look at the potential threats out there right now. In the 4.5 to 5th generation fighter world you have the following aircraft:
PAK-FA
Su-35 (in all of its variants), The country named Hugo Chavez just bought 24 of these just a while ago
Eurofighter Typhoon
Chengdu J-10 (of which the Pakistani's are building a licensed copy in house with western electronics)
Chengdu JF-17 (again being licensed to Pakistan as the FC-1)
F-15S Silent Eagle
F-18E/F
HAL Tejas
SU-30MK series of aircraft
I listed a couple US aircraft cause we have sold them to allies who might not be allies in the future. We need to plan for the possibility that the F-35 will fail. So that either comes from extended the expensive F-22 buy, finding a new LWF program to run, or gutting it out with the fail that the F-35 may become. Take a look at the history of military aircraft of the post Korean War to start of Vietnam. There were a number of fumbles and fails, but plenty of sucess. For every F6U Pirate and F-104, there was an F8U Crusader and F-4E.
Also remember the PAK-FA just like the MiG 1.44 are attempts by the Russian Aviation industry to compete with Boeing, Lockheed, and EADS in the 5th generation fighter world. So that means being able to out fight and out flight such aircraft as the F-18E/F, F-22, F-35, Typhoon, etc. Just like the SU-27 and MiG-29 were designed to challenge the F-15/F-16/F-14/F-18 during the height of the cold war. I would also suggest that we got the F-15 cause of the fear of what the MiG-25 could have potentially become. Only to find out the MiG-25 was a pure interceptor while the F-15 has become a killer in both USAF, IDF, and RSAF inventories.
<span>C-40A ACCELERATED PROCUREMENT. TWO YEAR ACCELERATION OF C-40A WOULD COMPLETE THE 17 AIRCRAFT REQUIREMENT AND ALLOW FOR A $377M LIFE-CYCLE COST SAVINGS THROUGH EARLY C-9 DIVESTMENT. WITHOUT ACCELERATED PROCUREMENT, POTENTIAL SAVINGS FROM THE C-9 DIVESTITURE WILL BE WILL BE LOST. (FY13 $237.0M, FYDP $-11.0M)</span>
It is interesting how some things never change. The C-40 buy has been dragged out over ten years-it would have been completed now and we could have moved on to other things. For that matter the C-9 divestiture has been dragged out too. And that was for a commercially proven aircraft that required little modification. But it was always one of the first logs on the fire when budgets were cut.
All of Naval Aviation's problems are self inflicted.
The NAVAIR Head-shed has been preaching about this ever-increasing "bow wave" of procurement for the last 10 - 15 years, to pretty much deaf DoN, DoD and Congressional ears, it seems. Looking further in the past, this goes even farther back to the quietly conceded death of the A-6 & eye-wateringly horrific A-12 fiasco (thanks, Mac-D) and the ascendency of the Hornet mafia in the wake of the Tailhook long-knives and simultaneous unilateral disarmament declared with the "end of history." But knowing what went wrong doesn't solve our issues. It will take some sharp-eyed and vigorously propounded prioritization plus a Congress willing, in the light of a realization that we are bankrupting this country with entitlements, to spend money "for the common defense." As Sal and others point out, articulate and cogent communications by our senior naval leadership is not a strong-point right now.
I will posit a (weak and admittedly off the wall) theory that the seeds of this NAVAIR morass were sewn back in the '70s by some Flags who were in their midlife crisis years (which was a particularly vexing time to be in those straits) and who wanted to get things back like they were during the all F6F deck days....
why wasnt any follow-on to f-14 designed like F-22 to F-15?
cant F-22 and A-10 be navalised?
There was -- Tomcat21, but it was too late and was lost in the backwash of the A-12 debacle.
w/r, SJS
Well, I was baffled when I've heard F-14 are to be removed from CAG... F/A-18 is nice fighter-bomber, but not a dedicated fleet interceptor by any means...
they've BEEN gone ewok
Sid, I'd posit they were aided and abetted by A) The F-8 guys who didn't move on to the F-4 and B) a Congress who had already turned its back on the people of South Vietnam in their time of greatest peril. But things really didn't start downhill, IMHO, until we had the perfect bean-counter storm that started in the late 80's with the first BRAC and a SecDef (Carlucci) who was perfectly happy to forsee an end to the Cold War and all the money he could save. It's at least a two-beer story. A lot of programs changed or cnx'd for a future of "bright and shiney" new toys that were promised by sales and marketing departments with the complicity of the gold-platers.
Yup, last one flew off about four years ago...just ask Pinch Paisely. He gets all stirred up whenever someone like Lex waxes eloquent about the plastic Bug :)
Those were my twilight days....
Don't forget Tailhook
If the crux of this posting came from anywhere other than message traffic, I"d have a lot to say.
JMPS = Joint Mission Planning System. I hate this system. Aviators like it, but once the action starts it is worthless. It does not integrate into any other system currently so that what you plan cannot be imported into other databases so that you can track airframes, armament, personnel, waypoints, etc. This is my major objection to JMPS-E (expeditionary). What good is a system that is only for planning, not real time mission monitoring? the solution should do both, and integrate into a single common operating picture.
Sigh.....there are EXISTING open architecture systems that do this RIGHT NOW in the amphibious community. But it is all...politics
That was me, above.
When NavAir can't buy 17 737s in two or three years, it's doomed.
While you are studying history, do not forget that there are unmanned airplanes, kamikazies with computer pilots, that threaten our ships.
A plane that could engage these high-speed unmanned aircraft is essential to defend a task group.
Because -historically speaking- navalizing AF/Army fighters is a losing proposition. Added weight for more robust landing gear, added weight for tailhook, added weight for wing-folding... All of which degrades performance. Then you get into upgrading the airframe in general, because carrier landings are more brutal than airfield landings. (Old Navy aviator joke: flaring to land is like squatting to pee.) After that you have to address issues of salt water corrosion.
When you look at designs (again, historically speaking) there are far more successes in the direction Navy -> land than the reverse. Take the British Seafire, for example, or the proposed North American Seahorse. The Vought Corsair and the MacDonnell Phantom II -on the other hand- proved to be equally deadly whether land- or sea-based.
Looking at the record of successful designs, it would appear that one should design the carrier model first, then tweak that for land-based operation.
Note that the F-111b and the F-14 are the only extant American swing-wing fighter designs. Note also we only have one swing-wing bomber, the B-1. Why? Because the maintenance is brutal for a swing-wing design.
It's the same conflict as between the P-51 and the P-38. The Lightning kicked buttocks, but was more expensive to produce, and more expensive to maintain, than the Mustang.
Gator,
You want to rage about JMPS. Talk to SPAWAR and oh the aviators are hating it in my community since some of the preset data for the fuel flow, drag coefficent, etc to help plan when turns are supposed to be and achieve timing for safe flight are built for totally clean configs for the new jet. Oh and us AT's hate JMPS as well. Since, it seems when they update software on the machines, they forget to update our maintenance card and we spend a couple of days with software mis-matches untiil someone pays attention and checks the software on the aircrew card and the maintenance card.
Only solution I can see now is remaking the F-14 the way F-15 S was created... as a stop-gap before dedicated fifth gen naval fighter can be produced.
even better, the aircraft should have range and equipement to kill the launch platform of the ASCMs before they send their deadly cargo...
Going back to Sal's original post, I have a question about some of the alleged fifth-generation fighters out there.
I say alleged, as there doesn't seem to be much real-world data available, just flight-test stuff. Reasoning by analogy, I recall that the B-2 has to be -to a degree- re-skinned after every flight in order to maintain stealth.
My question is: how high-maintenance is the F-22 in this respect? Is it more robust, or does it need tender loving care nearly every flight to maintain stealth? Also, just how good are the avionics & software? Most important, how good is the training amongst prospective opponent air forces?
History shows that -while a great pilot in a great plane is best- a great pilot in an average or poor plane can beat a mediocre or bad pilot in a great design.
So do we know how good the new designs are, and how well can other air forces employ them?
Even better...
Destroy their ability to launch and target them.....
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