Where Are You Shopping?

Of late, I’ve been seeing nothing but a non-stop parade of proposed products from industry that are the cutting edge (and beyond) of high technology.  I’m seeing exquisitely high tech, artificial intelligence assisted, battle management, unmanned, cross domain, synergistic …  well, that’s enough buzzwords strung together.  You get the point.  No one is offering the military basic, simple firepower that costs next to nothing even though that is likely a better product.  Why not?  Well, it’s all about where you shop.

On a personal level, if you shop at the local thrift store, you’re going to see cheap, basic items.  If you shop at the Apple store, you’re going to see the latest technology stuffed with every function and app that the designers at Apple could conceive.

If you’re the military and you shop at Lockheed Martin, you’re going to see AI-assisted battle management computer products.  What you’re not going to see is offers of bulk quantities of mortar shells.  Which one is likely to be of more use on the battlefield to say nothing of which one is more likely to work?  LM is going to offer what they know how to do and what can make them the most money.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  It’s what business is supposed to do.  The problem is that if the military doesn’t shop at the low level, basic firepower stores then they’re never going to see low level, basic firepower solutions even though those solutions are far more likely to useful on the battlefield.

Here’s the kind of product being offered at the store the military is shopping at.

The Air Force is launching a next-generation airborne surveillance and command and control technology intended to successfully synchronize air, ground, drone and satellite assets onto a single seamless network, service officials said.

ABMS [Advanced Battle Management and Surveillance] seeks to harvest the latest ISR-oriented technologies from current and emerging systems as a way to take a very large step forward – and connect satellites, drones, ground sensors and manned surveillance aircraft seamlessly in real time across a fast-changing, dispersed combat area of operations. (1)

Wow!  You can’t get any more exquisite and less firepower than that!

Wait …  I bet we can do better.  How about this,

The Missile Defense National Team is conducting a feasibility study on connecting the Missile Defense Agency’s integrated command and control system with the U.S. Army’s Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System.

The team, which is led by Lockheed Martin, consists of Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics and other companies. This team develops C2BMC, the system that integrates separate elements (Aegis, THAAD, SBIRS etc.) of the ballistic missile defense system into a global network. Through C2BMC, commanders can link any sensor, any shooter, at any phase of missile flight in any region, against any type of ballistic threat. (2)

Outstanding!  A global network linking anything to anything.  Is that pretty much the definition of exquisite?  Is there any possible way to top that?  How about this,

Lockheed Martin today unveiled its new HI-Vision Air-Space Integration Lab, a state-of-the-art development and integration facility designed to enable collaboration with customers and industry partners for future advancements in Joint command and control (C2) across air and space domains.

“We are focusing our resources within Lockheed Martin to help address our customers’ increasing requirements for horizontally integrated, network- centric solutions,” said Al Smith, Executive Vice President, Lockheed Martin Integrated Systems and Solutions business area.  …

Modeled after a functioning Air Operations Center, The HI-Vision lab creates a collaborative environment where military and industry personnel will address current and future architectural challenges to achieve greater synergy across air and space go-to-war C2 systems. The lab will serve as an integration proving ground for a wide range of current and future systems, including the C2 Constellation, Theater Battle Management Core Systems (TBMCS), E-10A Battle Management Command and Control (BMC2), Integrated Space Command and Control (ISC2), Distributed Common Ground Station (DCGS), and Missile Defense National Team efforts. (3)

Now we’re integrating the totality of air and space and doing so without any mention of firepower.  Zounds!  I’m lightheaded and my hands are trembling from excitement. 

What do all these proffered products have in common?  None of them involve actual firepower.  You remember what firepower is, right?  Yeah, it’s that stuff that actually kills the enemy.

Another thing they all have in common is price tags that would make even the US government take notice and gulp.

It’s all about where you shop.

When the Navy wanted a gun for the Zumwalt did they shop at the local 155 mm artillery gun maker who’s been cranking out artillery and ammo for half the world’s armed forces?  No, they went to BAE for the exquisite, non-standard, rocket assisted 155 mm gun maker and bought a gun that, despite nominally being the NATO standard 155 mm, couldn’t use any other gun’s ammo.  A gazillion dollars spent and we got nothing out of it.

When the Navy wanted a new stealth fighter did they go to Grumman Iron Works (now Northrop Grumman) for the latest version of a rock solid, basic fighter?  No, they went to a worldwide consortium representing a United Nations of suppliers for an aircraft so complex that it’s been twenty years in development and is just barely now entering service and has sustainment costs that even the military has acknowledged is unaffordable.

When the Navy needed a way to kill drones did they go the neighborhood Oerlikon store and look at the basic, 20 mm machine gun (Oerlikon 20mm/85 KAA, for example, capable of 1000 rds/min at a range of 1+ mile) that’s been a staple on naval ships since the Revolutionary War?  No, they immediately jumped on the laser bandwagon.

When the Navy needed a weapons elevator for their new carrier, did they go to elevators-R-us?  No, they went to the science fiction, quantum physics store for non-existent, theoretical electromagnetic pulse elevators.  How’d that work out?  Well, I’ll let you know if and when the Ford elevators ever get working properly.

If you shop at high tech stores you’ll get high tech products.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean high performance products.  In fact, all too often, it means products that flop miserably.  With high technology comes a high risk of failure and a certainty of difficulty in support.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Artillery, We Got Data.  Let's Buy Ten Of These!

We can’t blame the high tech companies.  It’s what they do.  Of course they’ll push high tech solutions.  That’s where the money is and making money is what they’re supposed to do.  Lockheed isn’t going to suggest binoculars and a note pad for battle management.  They’re going to push bio-matrix, artificial intelligence battle management, with nodes linked by telepathic relays using subspace inductive communications and multi-dimensional, interactive, spatial displays.  Sure, the binoculars and notepad are probably more reliable when the enemy starts raining artillery shells on you but that’s not what will make Lockheed money.  It’s incumbent on the Navy to know what will really work and not be lured by shiny toys.

We need to stop shopping at the high tech stores and start shopping at the bargain basement, firepower clearance stores.

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(1)The National Interest website, “The Air Force Is Creating a System to Manage the Military's Forces in War”, Kris Osborn, 1-Mar-2018,

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-air-force-creating-system-manage-the-militarys-forces-24701

(2)https://navaltoday.com/2014/06/27/lockheed-martin-led-team-conducts-study-on-battle-management-systems/

(3)http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/26379/lockheed-unveils-new-air_space-lab-(sept.-30).html