Orion's Long Farewell

I think history will show that there is a certain class of aircraft whose design, maintenance, fit-for-purpose and operational success make them exceptional.

On the American side post-WWII, you have to put the C-130, F-4, A-4, F-16 & F-15 in that exalted group. A strong argument can be made that the P-3 Orion belongs there as well.

She's left for her last deployment in American livery, but as so many other nations fly her, she'll be with us for a few more years yet. 

Not bad for a converted 1950s era airliner.

The last of the U.S. Navy’s active duty P-3C Orion patrol planes are on their final overseas deployments, split between bases in Bahrain and Japan. The six-month rotations in the Middle East and Pacific regions come as the service prepares to retire all of its Orions in active duty units and replace them completely with the new P-8A Poseidon.

The Whidbey News-Times was the first to report that P-3Cs from Patrol Squadron Four Zero (VP-40), the “Fighting Marlins,” left their main base at Naval Air Station (NAS) Whidbey Island in Washington state at the end of March 2019 for their sundown deployments to Sheik Isa Air Base in Bahrain and Kadena Air Base in Japan. These Orions replaced their counterparts from Patrol Squadron Four Six (VP-46), the “Grey Knights,” at those locations. VP-46’s planes returned to Whidbey Island earlier in April 2019.

There will always be smugglers - there will always be war

There is a lot here to consider - and also a lot to be careful of;

For a long time, being out at sea meant being out of sight and out of reach.

And all kinds of shenanigans went on as a result - countries secretly selling oil and other goods to countries they're not supposed to under international sanctions rules, for example, not to mention piracy and kidnapping.

The problem is that captains can easily switch off the current way of tracking ships, called the Automatic Identification System (AIS), hiding their location.

But now thousands of surveillance satellites have been launched into space, and artificial intelligence (AI) is being applied to the images they take.

There's no longer anywhere for such ships to hide.

In peace, we are on the cusp - with AI, big data, and the processing power to fuse multi-spectral data streams - of being able to get a very real comprehensive maritime plot.

There are also a lot of things to ponder beyond just the visual range - but not on this net or this side of the SCIF.

A note of caution - how much do we rely on them? How secure - both physically and access via the electromagnetic spectrum - are these satellites? If we lash our war plans to them - what do we do if they are not there?

Sure, get excited, but also be careful.

It is a dangerous world out there for the complacent, arrogant, and lazy.

Keeping an Eye on the Long Game: Part XLVII

Just a friendly reminder - what is the one thing we seem to be putting so much of our ability to fight and win on? What is the one area that we take for granted will always be there? What is so incredibly fragile, hard to replace, and exceptionally expensive?

When the answer to all of the above is the same, then this should seem quite natural.

China’s military recently launched three small satellites into orbit as part of Beijing’s covert anti-satellite warfare program, according to a U.S. official.

The three satellites, launched July 20 by a Long March-4C launcher, were later detected conducting unusual maneuvers in space indicating the Chinese are preparing to conduct space warfare against satellites, said the official who is familiar with intelligence reports about the satellites.

One of the satellites was equipped with an extension arm capable of attacking orbiting satellites that currently are vulnerable to both kinetic and electronic disruption.

“This is a real concern for U.S. national defense,” the official said. “The three are working in tandem and the one with the arm poses the most concern. This is part of a Chinese ‘Star Wars’ program.”

Everyone loves their nice little C4I diagrams ... and I always enjoyed asking, "What do we do if we can't access that vox and data bandwidth for a few weeks."

Evidently, China has been wargaming that too for quite awhile. 

More fun stuff on the topic from Robert Beckhusen @WIB.

All usual disclaimers about open-source reporting applies, but still. Ponder.

Hat tip HLG.

UK learns a hard lesson on bad acquisition habits

The sad story of the British maritime patrol aircraft, the Nimrod, was covered for a bit with Dr. Norman Friedman in Midrats yesterday.

The path to the killing of the MR4 and then the entire Nimrod fleet - and with it the ability to do long range maritime reconnaissance - has left this island nation with less maritime patrol capabilities than the continental land power Germany.

The Brits have a problem similiar to ours - people who have no concept of how you actually execute assigned missions at the tactical and operational level are making decisions. Only a person who has never done ASW could think that it could be done only without long range aircraft as part of the tool set. Only someone with a PPT thick understanding about what it takes to have an accurate plot of what is going on in a large area of ocean could think you can do it without long range air.

Well - the team of fail in Whitehall has discovered - to its shock - that the UK is, after all, an island nation.

Cue the circus music;

Military strategists from the U.K. are weighing whether to rush a basic maritime patrol aircraft into service to compensate for recent defense cuts. The alternative would be to hope that the post-2015 budget climate will permit development of a more elaborate aircraft.

Marshall Aerospace, which specializes in modifying and overhauling planes for the U.K. military, has presented a proposal to the Ministry of Defence describing how it could modify an unspecified number of the country’s 25 C-130J Hercules troop and cargo aircraft for maritime patrol duties. At the moment, Britain is not flying any maritime patrol planes because of cuts ordered by the country’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat governing coalition to address a 30-plus billion pound ($48 billion) shortfall in defense spending.

The 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review led to the retirement this year of the Royal Air Force’s Nimrod MR2 planes and cancellation of a project to convert MR2s into more advanced MRA4s. The MR2 fleet provided maritime patrol, anti-submarine and search-and-rescue capabilities around the U.K., and it was increasingly called on for duty over Afghanistan, where its electronic surveillance and communications capabilities were valued. The scrapping of the Nimrods was one of the most controversial outcomes of the strategic review, as it left the U.K., a maritime nation, without long-range maritime patrol aircraft. In November, Defence Secretary Liam Fox said the country was using ordinary transport C-130s for maritime tasks as required. Current tasks include monitoring the route taken by the U.K.’s nuclear-armed submarines leaving the Clyde Estuary for the North Atlantic and conducting search-and-rescue missions.

Actually - as a temporary "good enough" fix as a bridge to something else - the C-130J mod sound like a plan given the money challenges right now. Something beats nothing and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good (use your own cliche from here). Beats the South African solution ... but if you want perfect ....

Boeing has an offer for you ....

Boeing has a new sales pitch for the international version of its P-8 submarine hunter: Buy soon before the commercial side of the company retires or significantly changes the design of the 737 airliner fuselage that forms the foundation for each P-8.

You see, you can approve the PPT and nod at the nice plans made by the nice people saying all the nice things .... but when you actually operationalize it and the truth of time, space, engineering, and communications needs show themselves in the 3D world - then you have to address the problems that wouldn't exist if you held people accountable and had operators having a significant say in program development.

What ever the British have been doing in product development in the last 15 years - they need to stop. Then again - so do we.

When you look at the Brit story - and then you look at Admiral Greenert's plan for our EP-3 capability - mark my words - don't laugh too much at the mother country. We are going to have the same reality check on ES in about 10 years.

Oh, and Nimrod mods have a bad track record - remember this ugly duckling?