Some think that the future will be full of enemies that will never go after your satellites. You will always have access to bandwidth when you need it. No one will be able to jam. Your computer networks ashore will always be secure.
You see - you never will need someone in the theater in the loop. You will never need line-of-sight back-up systems. Yep. What a brave new world.
Fighter aircraft and surface ships will never need guns again; nuclear weapons will make traditional warfare obsolete. We need to decommission the SPRU, non-Aegis CG/CGN in order to recapitalize the fleet of 2010 with LCS and DDG-1000. And so the story goes.
From Flight Global,
The US Navy has confirmed plans to retire the special mission versions of the Lockheed P-3 by 2020, and replace them with an all-unmanned fleet.The reasonable way to go would be to parallel the P-8A/BAMS program of a mixed fleet with a EP-8/E-BAMS mixed fleet in order to validate their utility. Oh well. With hope we go.
The decision comes as a blow to contractors who had been hoping to extend the service life of the fleet beyond 2020, or introduce new manned aircraft as replacements.
In written responses to the Senate Armed Services Committee late last month, incoming chief of naval operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert said the navy’s ageing EP-3 Aries and special projects aircraft will be retired in 2019 and 2020.
They will be replaced by an $8 billion investment over the next five years in a family of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platforms, Greenert said.
Those investments include $1.1 billion in the Northrop Grumman MQ-8B Fire Scout, $3.9 billion in the Northrop RQ-4N broad area maritime surveillance aircraft, $2.5 billion in the unmanned carrier-launched airborne surveillance and strike programme and $1.1 billion in the medium-range maritime unmanned aircraft system.
Many of you here know the mission of the EP-3; if you don't there is enough open source to catch you up. Read the above and you will know where I am going.
Fire Scout does not have the endurance or payload capability to do much ES in the manner of even part of the EP-3 mission.
UCAV-ES by 2020? Interesting payload and COM challenges - but at least some ES comes back to the carrier. Will the intel weenies be local or via reachback? If reachback - nice peacetime project you have there. Oh, and what if no carriers are nearby?
Medium-range UAS doing ES operationally? Not by 2020, especially giving the funding challenges we know are going to be here in the run up to 2020.
That leaves BAMS. If you want to do ES in the role that the EP-3E - BAMS is about it. See payload and bandwidth issues in wartime.
In summary, where does that leave us? Contrary to all history of the last decade or so; we are throwing all away with a hope that technology risk will not take its course. Have we learned nothing with the A-12, DDG-1000, and ACS? It appears not. Pray for an exception.
Combine that with budget risk - and odds are there goes your ES - there goes your eyes, ears, and spies.
Mark my words, this "cost savings" effort will be seen in line with the British carrier plan.
How did we get here? Simple. Giving the EP-3 community to the P-3 community. The ACS dog's breakfast. Third, simple community money politics.
Hat tip Lee.
31 comments:
And compare the mishap rates of manned to unmanned platforms. We don't have the money to dump that many medium and high-end drones. And yes there is that thing about the network. Also, intel can't do a post mission interview with the crew who saw things/perceived things, not recorded on the mission equipment. Just when DOD is as stupid as you think they can get, they out-do themselves with more stupidity.
Sorry, NIPRNet and SIPRNet aren't secure now....
SIPR has been breached countless times in the last decade.
Possible (probable?) scenario:
1) Parts/personnel/mission neglect of VQ
2) UAV program bloats, delays, becomes the new ACS
3) Much happy talk, ppt fantasies ensue
4) Emergency recapitalization of VQ
5) New ppt wishful thinking with "modular" VQ mission platforms to go on VP P-8's
6) Modular program inflates to whole "new" modular suite that looks a lot like last iteration of EP-3E equipment.
7) At last minute, due to "expected" UAV program slippage to, oh, 2030+, old, high-time P-8A airframes receive "modular" packages. On a permanent basis for, say, a VP-24 Special Missions Det.
8) To ensure further feeding at the VP promotions trough, the Det is established as a full squadron and is named...VQ-1.
9) All the transformational visionaries associated with the UAV program are promoted, then retire to become suits at UAV companies.
10) Repeat. :'(
Dad was a plankowner at both VQ-1 and VQ-2, and in later years was the national secretary for the VQ association. 35 years later, I earned my AW pin with VQ-2 in Rota. Pennywise and pound foolish.
I'd like a little less DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! with my morning coffee.
Sorry... we're in an era that makes the malaise days of Carter years look like Happy Days are Here again.
Probably more doom to follow... :(
And, this would be the "good news?"
We can only hoe, as it is a lot better than the impending doom planned by idiots inside the beltway.
But look at the bright side! It transformational AND one doesn't need to worry about bigotry (for those of you that do not drink the diversity Kool-Aid), sexual harassment or gay sex aboard the aircraft! Yaaaaay! As Sheen says, "Winning!"
Jefe, verdad, amigo. (VQ-2, '76-'79)
Hey!
Shhh!!!!
You are disturbing some Important State Business!
Once this rube gets out of office, we are gonna have to recapitalize the VIP aircraft fleet too.
Here is what I do not understand. The P-3 can travel 4,000 miles at 330 knots. The P-8, which is the replacement for the P-3, travels 1,200 miles at 440 knots.
You gave up 3,000 miles of range, for speed. This in a plane used to track subs that move at less than 10 k. Really?
Isn't that the problem? There already is too much "hoe-ing" going on.
(sorry, realize that was a tYp0 but you mage my point)
Giving up range for speed? Where have I heard about that before...? =-X
It's faster so it can outrun Mach 5 AAMs. Duhhh.
The p-8 is based on the 737 which has about a 4000 mile range. What happened?
Another victory for the VP mafia. I have a VP pedigree and projects background. I once overheard the VP detailer on the phone with a future Department Head telling how he absolutely wanted to avoid projects because everyone knows "they are all Jerry's Kids and it's bad for your career." After he got off the phone, I confronted him on such nonsense and pointed out that while he was destined to spend his DH tour doing surface search, I just left a tour where the tasking was absolutely first rate and contributing to the fight. He again reiterated his bit about it being bad for your career and "besides, VP can do everything projects can do anyway."
That last bit of BS was a common theme some years ago in the VP world. Not sure why. Especially since whenever I flew around senior VP officers on operational flights, they all seemed bored by it and went to sleep in the back. But their career remained intact.
sorry...Freudian slip I guess...
<span>pressure release sh<span>U</span>t off valves</span>
To be fair...The -700ER numbers with aux tanks are likely closer (P-8 has a -700 fuselage with -800 wings if I understand things right)...
Still those rosy range estimates presume no descents and climbs while in a minimal maneuver cruise profile.
Intel wont need to a post mission dump debrief.. the intel will be in REALTIME and will immediately feed the COP...
old thinking Eric...
Mishap rate? Wont be a mishap if people are not injured and killed, it will be a new metric of Mission Capable or Non Mission Capable.
I used to think like you do after being in a Tactical Support Station as a Watch Officer, A P3 crewman and also a TAO afloat... the unmanned systems are cheaper, safer, full mission multipliers... the problem happens when the requirements are not defined and allowed to change over the cost of production... oh and how it is used...
I think their are several available platforms that can and HAVE done the MPR mission great success.. Look at IAI Heron MALE systems.... cheaper than the crap the navy wants to buy and already proven... and produced here in the good ole US.. payload is only limited by imagination but these come in at 1200 dollar a flight hour versus 56,000 for the P-3.. parts and fuels etc.... a complete deployable UAV system from the company I used to work for came in at less than 12 million with a 95 percent FMC rate.. and with only 19 people...
beat that
it is disengeniuous to continue to refer to UAV's as "Drones" they are piloted and manned on the ground by responsible and trained aircrew that are certified pilots, many with former TacAir and Mission Commander experience. they dont just "drone" around up there....
<span> they are piloted and manned on the ground by responsible and trained aircrew </span>
<span>Provided</span> they retain reachback comms...
I am still curious how the Global Hawk got to Japan after the Earthquake.
Flew out of Guam. Those things have <span>long</span> legs.
I spent two squadron tours as an S-3 Tacco and eight years as a Tacco in P-3's so I have a little time in the ASW/ASUW field. ASW is not a high speed pursuit. We used to wish for a return of airships and essentially unlimited on station times and huge search stores and weapons payloads. Give me onsta times measured in days and a cruise speed of 120 knots and we can rule the seas. Unmanned Sea Control? Now THAT is stupid. One thing I've learned however, never understimate the Navy's ability to do something stupid.
Back in the 1970's the A-7 Corsair had a sonobouy launching pod with MCJR. They actually bragged that they could do ASW. Are we going to revive that kind of platform?
BOOM! (sigh yes i know no sound in space)
Thats the sound of a chinese ASAT taking out the sat network. All of the drones, missiles, nav systems, com networks, along with dozens of other things we depend on in the US and especially the US military are now gone..........those drones are all worthless now.
Of course thats if they dont just hack the network and tell them all to slam into the ground or maybe fire on friendlies.
We have to be prepared for war with a major player or else we will fail. "Be strong where your enemy is weak".
OBF, I believe every word of what you wrote, but I am still floored that those senior VP officers were bored by the projects. Absolutely flabbergasted. I say that as a vet of both VPU-2 and VQ-1. Must have been a REALLY boring mission. You know as well as I do that the projects missions were first rate. I did "projects style" work on all types of platforms and my time at Barbers Point was the best operational tour I ever had.
More ISR, less analysis! Oh dear. I see no issues with that at all. None at all. Hell, we already take in more info than we can process. Sailors are too expensive. They are dragging down the Navy. How about MORE ISR LESS ADMIRALS!
LT B, you have struck to the very heart of the 'information age' in ISR. More is better. We use silly terms like "information dominance", and can't explain it the same way twice.
But information dominance is someone sitting on a river bank on our northern border with a walkie-talkie telling his cousin the smuggler when and where the police boat is.
Actionable intelligence when and in the form it can be effectively used.
The "more is better" thing is not new. Happened now for almost 20 years, probably longer, when you count all the electronic sensor programs out there.
Damn straight. We are drowning in data, but starved for information and true meaning...
Granted, we are doing amazing things with our programs and getting some good targeting, but let's look at the UBL deal for a minute. Some statement by a dude water boarded in GITMO leads us to start looking for, tailing, listening for, etc. a particular dude. That was years ago and oodles of man hours. This $h!t isn't magic. It takes due diligence, hard work, some misses and a fair amount of luck. Oh yeah, some ba!!s to hang out there when you need to present something nobody wants to hear, or running counter to the theme. NVA coming with tanks, etc.
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