The
Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report of military
aircraft availability and sustainment.
It paints a pretty grim picture along with dozens of other such reports
and testimony from service leaders.
The reasons
for the readiness shortfalls are well known and include all the usual suspects
such as depot funding, manning levels, parts shortages, overuse, stupid use, etc. I’m not going to bore you with the
details. Instead, let’s jump to the
report’s recommendations.
The report contained
two recommendations: (1)
- The Secretary of Defense should
ensure that the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment
updates or issues new policy clarifying the requirements for documenting
sustainment strategies for legacy weapon systems, including fixed-wing
aircraft.
- The Secretary of the Navy
should update or issue new guidance clarifying the requirements for
documenting sustainment strategies for legacy weapon systems, including
fixed-wing aircraft.
Paper.
Paper was
the recommendation.
More paper
to write down more policies that won’t be followed any more than the previous
policies.
I’ve
generally liked the work done by the GAO but this was a complete failure on
their part as far as the recommendations.
GAO could
have issued specific recommendations to improve spare parts availability,
support industry logistics, increase depot manning, modernize depot facilities,
etc. – not that such recommendations would do any more good than the
hundreds/thousands of recommendations that flow from reports about the military
each year and are ignored and forgotten.
Or,
GAO could
have made the one recommendation that would actually have an immediate and
positive impact on aircraft availability:
Stop wasting aircraft
hours on stupid, worthless tasks.
- Using F-18E/F Super Hornets to
plink pickup trucks is idiotic in the extreme.
- Using military helos to deliver
supplies in humanitarian missions is wasting the combat flight hours on
non-combat tasks.
- Using top of the line Super
Hornets as tankers is just plain stupid.
- Engaging in missions that only
have a 10% - 20% or so chance of ordnance release, and doing so on a
sustained basis, is hugely wasteful.
- Routinely launching seven+ hour
sorties in a permissive environment is just wasteful. (2)
The
corollary to the recommendation is
Eliminate the
Combatant Commander system.
The
Combatant Commander (CC) system, as we’ve discussed previously (see, "Combatant Commanders and OpTempo"), is the single
biggest source of useless, pointless, worthless tasking for the military. The system operates with no checks and
balances and, indeed, rewards excessive requests by the CCs.
GAO had an
opportunity to make a truly meaningful recommendation and failed.
_____________________________________
(1)Government
Accountability Office, “Weapon System Sustainment”, Sep 2018, GAO-18-678,
(2)Naval
Today website, “Aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt returns from
seven-month deployment”, 8-May-2018 ,
From the
article, “Approximately 70 aircraft from the squadrons of Carrier Air Wing
(CVW) 17 flew 8,319 hours and 1,164 combat sorties and performed
counterterrorism operations in Syria Iraq Afghanistan
On the subject of using military helos for humanitarian missions, consider von Clausewitz: "War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means." This is the reverse of that: conducting war by other means. Humanitarian missions are among those thongs one attempts to use to build goodwill and political credit, and if the US doesn't do disaster relief, that just leaves an avenue open for other nations to step in, particularly in SEA. Consider Operation Tomodachi, the US military relief effort after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami: sure it was conducted for altruistic reasons, but there was also a political aspect to that: shoring up the US-Japan alliance, building goodwill, reminding the Japanese people that there is a benefit to the US-Japan alliance (as I recall, political anti-US sentiment did decrease in the wake of Operation Tomodachi - or so I've been told from people around there, anyhow).
ReplyDeletePlus, I really don't think America can get away with avoiding humanitarian missions, not so long as America self-styles as the world policeman, as so long as Americans think they're the good guys. "I'm American, how can I help?" It's kinda hard to go against the grain in that regard. It is what it is. Hell, as we saw with the Texas floods and Hurricane Katrina, the US can have its own share of domestic humanitarian crises.
Agreed wholeheartedly on Super Hornets, btw. I've seen figures that something like 40% of all Rhino sorties are buddy tanking, which has led to the fleet hitting the service life faster than projected. CBARS can't come into being fast enough.
"I really don't think America can get away with avoiding humanitarian missions"
DeleteWho said America should not conduct humanitarian missions?
You're playing semantics games. :V We're talking about the American military doing humanitarian missions here, I literally open up with "on the subject of using military helos for humanitarian missions." We are talking about using the American military to conduct humanitarian missions, That's the context of the discussion. I'm not opening the context towards the greater geopolitical question of whether America should conduct humanitarian missions.
DeleteAs I've told you before, stick to what's actually written for your arguments.
DeleteIf you want to branch out and offer your own thoughts on the American military doing (or not doing) humanitarian missions, go ahead but do not attribute anything to me that I haven't actually stated.
"We are talking about using the American military to conduct humanitarian missions"
No, "we" are not. You are. My statement was a simple statement of fact:
"Using military helos to deliver supplies in humanitarian missions is wasting the combat flight hours on non-combat tasks."
I offered no opinion about the question of should we or should we not be conducting such missions.
"If using military helos for humanitarian missions is, in your words, a waste of combat flight hours, then what do you suggest?"
DeleteWell, since you ask, assuming America wants to conduct humanitarian missions, there are any number of government and civilian organizations that, with some additional funding, would be far better qualified to do so and for far less money.
For example, USAID. From their mission statement:
"U.S. Agency for International Development leads the U.S. Government's international development and disaster assistance ..."
With the purchase of a few pre-loaded, pre-positioned (to the extent possible) commercial cargo ships and lighters/helos they could provide far more assistance at a fraction of the cost of, say, a carrier battle group or MEU. The military should focus on warfighting and let other agencies handle disaster assistance.
There are any number of other organizations that could do the job equally well. Using highly specialized, hugely expensive, rare, aircraft with limited flight hours to deliver meals and water is insane. Similarly, using CVs and LXXs is the least cost effective way to supply disaster relief.
Whether the US military should participate in humanitarian missions and disaster relief isn't a question I'm asking. All I was doing was commenting on the state of affairs: so long as the military is considered a tool of American diplomacy, so long as American culture has that self-appointed role of world policeman, so long as Americans believe in the ideals of America and helping people, you're not going to get away from military involvement in humanitarian missions. For as many people insisting the military should focus only on warfighting, you're going to get as many people who believe that the military should help where it can, whether at home or abroad.
DeleteI actually do agree with you that USAID and even the Peace Corps need to take a more proactive role in disaster relief and humanitarian missions, but I think far too many aid agencies are more than complacent and comfortable in piggybacking off the US military's (and also because they either can't afford or don't want to pay for their own pre-positioning and logistics).
If only we had some sort expeditionary air power organization that could plink HiLuxes.
ReplyDeleteMaybe with a big cannon, 100rds of 30mm might be cheaper
than a JDAM, where could we find such a plane ?
Mr. FrogFoot
I assume you're referring to the A-10. That would still be a vast overkill and waste flight hours on a front line aircraft. Alternatively, we've discussed the use of a "peacetime" force of Super Tucanos or the like to conduct such work.
DeleteThe problem with a super tucano is that it doesn't quite have the range to hit Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan from the sea - manufacturer claims combat radius of 342 miles with 3,300 lbs of external stores. It's a short ranged, regional aircraft.
DeleteThe other problem a Super Tucano has against it is its flight profile and kinematics out it in the threat band for IR MANPADS and AAA. It's all about tradeoffs. A Super Hornet's oodles more expensive buy and run, but it's got more range, more payload, and can stay outside SHORAD. It really depends.
A note btw: Iraq and Afghanistan may be permissive environments, but Syria is much less so: the only reason it's still permissive is because the Russians haven't gone full throttle on defending Assad. If they suddenly shift to a more aggressive posture it's going to complicate things very quickly.
"The problem with a super tucano is that it doesn't quite have the range to hit Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan from the sea"
DeleteWho said it had to be from the sea? We have bases and airfields all over Iraq and Afg that could operate Tucanos. Syria, which is only 200-300 miles across, depending on where you measure, is easily accessible from both the sea to the west and Iraq bases from the south and east.
"Iraq and Afghanistan may be permissive environments, but Syria is much less so"
Who said we should use Tucanos in threat areas? That would be foolish. We have actual, high end, combat aircraft specifically for that. A Tucano would be for "peacetime" use in permissive environments.
You insist on trying to create arguments where none exist.
Or maybe i was gonna come back to this and elaborate more after getting out of the shower and making my drive, lol. Plus I recall you mentioning once that a CVL with Super Tucanos might make a good idea for COIN work. ;D
DeleteTheoretically you could base in Iraq. But it's my understanding that the idea of sending units back to Iraq is politically untenable (i mean, there was that whole pullout from Iraq and Afghanistan in the Obama era). Long ranged aircraft mean you can stage from the Gulf and hit Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria, it's just a matter of moving through the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf (trying to hit Syria from the west with a single carrier means transiting the Red Sea and the Suez Canal). My problems with the Super Tucano's range and loiter go away if you can get basing in the AO; I'm not knocking the aircraft, it's a good little bird for what it does, I'm just pointing out things you gotta deal with.
Plus well...
"Who said it had to be from the sea? We have bases and airfields all over Iraq and Afg that could operate Tucanos. Syria, which is only 200-300 miles across, depending on where you measure, is easily accessible from both the sea to the west and Iraq bases from the south and east."
This is kinda implying using Tucanos in Syria, my man. :P ;D
But seriously speaking, IMO it was a mistake of the Iraqi Air Force to want to go to F-16s. I think given the things they're doing they need COIN aircraft more; Super Tucanos make more sense in that regard. The Afghan AF went to Super Tucanos, what they need IMO is more of them.
IMO the issue with having a "peacetime" low end COIN force and a "wartime" high end force is that whatever savings you make from getting small prop birds, you lose in your personnel and supply chain. You still need to pay for the pilots, their training hours, spare parts, mechanics and their man hours... all those costs add up. And if the peacetime low end aircraft aren't effective or survivable, if you can barely use them in wartime, in threat environments, how much have you really saved?
There's an argument to be made that instead of paying X for a high end airfleet and Y for a low end airfleet, it might instead be better to use the high end aircraft for high and low end missions, and use X+Y funds to support the high end airfleet with spares, midlife updates, and flight hour replacements.
"I recall you mentioning once that a CVL with Super Tucanos might make a good idea"
DeleteIt's a great idea - as all my ideas are - but that does not mean that a carrier is the only way a Tucano can be employed. Land basing is perfectly reasonable.
"the idea of sending units back to Iraq is politically untenable "
DeleteDo you really think that with the rise of ISIS, Iraq would have said no if we had squadrons of Tucanos (or similar) ready to assist? Of course not.
"This is kinda implying using Tucanos in Syria, my man"
DeleteNo, it's simply disproving your statement that Tucanos couldn't be used in Syria (the wisdom of such use in a higher threat area is a separate issue which I also addressed). You made an incorrect statement and I corrected it.
"how much have you really saved?"
DeleteWell we can buy lots of Tucanos (cited cost is $9M-$18M; cost would likely drop if bought in quantity) for the cost of a single F-35 or B-21. The savings would be immense.
The operating cost is a tiny fraction of the operating cost of a modern military jet (cited costs are $400-$500 per flight hour versus tens of thousands for jets). The cost savings would be immense.
Manning costs money but the number of personnel required would be relatively small. We're not talking about duplicating the wartime Air Force with thousands of planes. Probably around 50 aircraft would suffice. That just doesn't require that many personnel. Plus, many of those people could be absorbed into the war end of the military if needed so the cost is not a lost cost.
Parts would be unbelievably less expensive than corresponding military jet part costs. These are tiny little prop planes.
"all those costs add up."
You're correct ... they add up to nearly nothing on a relative basis. You really need to think this through and consider some actual, ballpark numbers. A tiny, 50-aircraft "peacetime" force is what the military would call pocket change.
It will never happen but I'm starting to wonder if we need a small permissive, humanitarian force. Have the regular services do their thing for first day of war, all the heavy lifting AND then move in with the "peace" force. Or at least have some kind of ANG/Reserve/civilian partnership with maybe 50 COIN Super Tucanos/T-6/etc, to provide security/police/training for local forces, maybe even a smaller gunship than AC130, some 20 CH-47s and some 20 UH60 for humanitarian lift. Would be a relatively small unit, nothing too big, try to save money by keeping it light and mobile.
DeleteNever happen but I bet this would be cheaper in the long run than having all the services provide this for years and years with all the high end gear and ammo.
We've never left Iraq, most of the infrastructure was "handed" over to the Iraqis, for housing and training purposes. Its my understanding that there was still American units, particularly aviation units, at most of the airfields for training the Iraqis in using American equipment. Deploying Tucanos from those, pose no real issues. The personal, equipment, and logistical support is already there, for the most part.
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of Syria however... one must wonder how we been providing aid to the rebels we've aligned ourselves with? How do we resupply our own troops that are there? Logically, the safest way is by air, which logically infers that we already have desert runways there. So the basing and use of Tucanos, while a political annoyance to Syria, is already a possibility with only dedicated maintenance personal and the ammunition needed to be brought in to maintain and resupply the Tucanos.
CNO "Using top of the line Super Hornets as tankers is just plain stupid."
ReplyDeleteNavy has admitted to ~30% of F-18 ops acting as buddy tankers to refuel the short range F-18's and using the maximum five fuel tanks on the Super Hornets, which puts a lot of fatigue on the planes and reduces service life fast.
This follows idiotic DOD/Navy/Admirals policy when the KA-6D's were phased out of service in the mid-1990s in a "cost cutting" move driven by the plan to reduce the number of different types of aircraft in carrier air wings and Marine aircraft groups, despite the production of new airframes in the 164XXX series and by a rewinging program of older airframes.
Navy also had the option converting ~90 S-3 Viking retired to the bone yard in 2009 to KS-3A/B tankers at a fraction of the cost of the planned MQ-25, 72 aircraft, $13B which be years before fleet in operation.
Now budgeting $Bs funded by O&M for F-18 SLEP, Rear Admiral Manazir "I have to get 563 Super Hornets out to 9,000 hours. Ten years from now I'm going to be in the middle of SLEP'ping 563 airplanes."
Breaking Defense February 2017 reported 62 percent of strike fighters and 74 percent of Marine F-18 Hornets out of service. Overused, under-maintained, and not replaced, the aircraft are simply worn out.
Continuing from the previous comment thread from the Hawkeye thread.
ReplyDeleteI’d like to see how it was an early sign to some that the battleships were on their way out according to some. I’m not of that camp obviously with I believing that battleships aren’t obsolete due to air power. I’d like to see as a person who thinks battleships have a place in the face of modern missiles and air power thoughts on it.
Speaking of missiles I’d like to see how they would effect battleship grade armor.
The only test that I'm aware of was a Navy test of a (Harpoon?) against battleship armor of unknown thickness and type. The result was that the missile caused no damage.
DeleteUnfortunately, the test was some time ago and I've been unable to find a reference.
Supposedly, the Soviets/Russians did some kind of missile/armor test but it was to support missile sales so the 'test' is highly suspect. Add in the Soviet/Russian tendency to make exaggerated claims and the 'test' is probably useless, if it even occurred.
I mean shaped charge warheads could go through but here’s the thing that battleships aren’t tanks. They have multiple compartments that can dissipate the blast before it reaches vital components. Basically internal spaced armor. I wonder if that could make for a good article idea.
DeleteMight destroy the ships barber shop though reducing crew morale.....
Delete@Dio: The shaped charge "jet" has the risk of setting things on fire, although that's an off-chance . If you really want to set things on fire, if you look at actual AShM warheads you see these are basically HE or blast fragmentation warheads, and even the HE warheads are going to have metal particles mixed so that when the warhead detonates you get the blast, the shockwave, you've got flash setting things on fire...
DeleteThing is, if battleships are still a thing, people are going to do one of two things with their missiles: either they're going to use popup top attack profiles to avoid the armor belt, or they're gonna make like the soviets and use big shipkiller missiles; the P-700 is 7 tons of missile with an armored nose and a 1500 lbs warhead traveling at Mach 1.6.
"Basically internal spaced armor. I wonder if that could make for a good article idea."
DeleteIt would but I don't know enough, myself, and I can't find enough relevant information to assemble a meaningful post. I'll keep looking.
"use popup top attack profiles to avoid the armor belt"
DeleteIowa class BBs had multiple armored decks to protect from plunging fire and bombing. The weather deck was 1.5" - 2", if I recall correctly with a 6" or so main armor deck and then an 1" or so splinter deck. Additional horizontal armor was provided for certain areas (magazines and the like). So, it is by no means certain that top-down attacks would be successful.
Also, if you're going to imagine that BBs are still a thing then you need to imagine that BB designers would know about missiles (since they've been around for decades) and design suitable horizontal armor. Trying to compare effects of a future missile to a WWII era BB is logically inconsistent.
As far as large missiles like the P700, no one has any idea what it would do to BB levels of armor. The closest thing to a relevant test or comparison is probably the US/Okun work post-WWII. BBs were designed to handle 2000 lb armor piercing shells traveling at Mach 2.2 (muzzle velocity - don't know what terminal velocity would be). Compare that to your 1500 lbs, Mach 1.6. The shell is a worse case and BB armor was designed to defeat it. So, it is by no means clear that a large missile would defeat BB armor.
DeleteIf the missiles are ignoring the armor belt or the turret faces that’s a good thing. With the all or nothing armor scheme vital areas are covered with armor while areas not vital or have backups elsewhere like with the fire control on the turrets themselves and on the main super structure are unarmored. Technically HEAT despite its name isn’t about melting through armor rather the missile itself shapes an explosion to send liquid metal through the armor formed by a liner in the warhead.
Technically the P-700 weighs in at 15,400 pounds but the warhead was around 1,653 pound of explosives in a huge missile. The munition to filler mass percentage is also a thing with the P-700 with a ratio of 10%. The lower the ratio the better your armor penatrator is. The Iowa’s shells for the HE/HC and AP are 8% and 1% respectfully. HE being a 153.6 pound filler with 1900 pounds of total mass. AP is 41 pounds of filler and the total mass is 2700 pounds. It isn’t just about the size of the warhead it’s about how the shell and the warhead work together to detonate in vital parts of a ship.
DeleteEver hear of the Gathman gun? It was a 18in coastal gun built by Louis Gathman who was convinced a heavy bursting charge shell was better than a naval AP shell in 1901. The projectile of the gun packed 500 pounds of guncotton in a 1830 pound shell. This gave it a 27% filler to munition ratio. This was tested against a contemporary naval gun of the period that being a 12”/40 rifle. This had a filler of 27.4 pounds of explosive D and the AP shell weighed at 870 pounds giving a 3% filler to munition ratio. These two were tested against 11” thick armor slabs at the Sandy Hook Gunnery Range. The result was the 12” gun went though the armor while the Gathman gun barely dented the armor.
Delete@ComNavOps: Never said it would be, my point was that people would focus their efforts where they had more chances. It's the same thinking with going for top and side attacks on MBTs with ATGM; yes the top and side are still armored, but it's not as armored as the front glacis, so the ATGM has more of a chance to penetrate and do damage.
Delete"BBs were designed to handle 2000 lb armor piercing shells traveling at Mach 2.2 (muzzle velocity - don't know what terminal velocity would be). Compare that to your 1500 lbs, Mach 1.6."
Point of order: the P-700 is a 15,000 lbs missile (or 10 times the weight you mention). That 1,500 lbs is the _explosive warhead_. Now, sure, a fair amount of that 15,000 lbs is fuel and that's going to get burned off in flight, but even if you assume that it's got 5000 lbs of fuel (this is a superhigh assumption) that's still 5 tons of missile and warhead impacting the belt at Mach 1.6, vs 1 ton of AP shell hitting the belt below Mach 2.
@Dio: I feel I need to reiterate that the way the Russians designed the Granit was that it has an armored nose and the warhead is behind that armored nose: the idea is that its speed and mass would let it punch into a ship, with the warhead detonating _inside_ the ship.
A pure HE shell doesn't work so good on armor beacause the point of impact is on the armor itself and a lot of the blast is reflected away; only a portion of the shockwave and blast goes into what you're shooting. That's why the P-700's flight profile is supposed to punch into the ship and detonate inside so that the shockwave goes into the ship.
"has an armored nose"
DeleteWhile the P700 does appear to have an armored nose for the warhead, it would be improper, I think, to call it an armor piercing (AP) warhead. Comparisons of cross sections of the WWII heavy naval shells and the P700 show the huge differences between purpose-designed AP shells and a P700 warhead which just has a little additional thickness over the warhead.
Battleship armor was designed, specifically, to decap incoming shells. Presumably it would do the same to a missile, just easier. Again, there is no reason to believe a modern missile would defeat battleship armor. It might, but there is no evidence for that and much circumstantial evidence against.
You might want to read Okun's works to get a better understanding of exactly how armor works and what the results of the tests/calcs were.
We'll only know for sure what happens if a P-700 gets fired against Missouri's belt. *shrug* It's not a pure true AP round, but even if it doesn't penetrate the belt entirely that's still 1500 lbs pf explosives going off right against the ship, the shockwave and blast from that one hit is still going to hurt the battleship and break things, particularly when it's hitting with something like 4 times the impact force of the AP shell. *shrug* And nobody fires just one missile, they'll fire at least 2 for redundancy's sake, if nothing else.
Delete"that's still 1500 lbs pf explosives going off right against the ship, the shockwave and blast from that one hit is still going to hurt the battleship"
DeleteThe closest data point we have is the Cole bombing. I've seen explosive size estimates from 400 lb to over 1000 lb. Whatever the amount, it exploded right up against the UNarmored destroyer hull and caused moderate damage. It is almost a surety that it would have caused absolutely no damage and no penetration to an armored battleship hull.
With that in mind, a P700 that fails to penetrate the armor would, presumably, cause minimal damage and little or no penetration of the armor from the explosion, itself.
As I've said, there is no evidence that modern missiles, even large ones, would penetrate battleship armor and much peripheral, circumstantial evidence to suggest that they would not and that overall damage would be minimal.