‘Littoral’ – the term was appropriated by the Navy to describe a form of warfare that was, supposedly, unique and beyond the capability of then current Navy platforms. The only solution, said the Navy, was to buy lots of Littoral Combat Ships and so the LCS debacle was birthed.
The defining characteristic of the ‘littoral’ fiasco was that the conversation jumped immediately from theoretical concept to implementation. What was ignored was reality and validity. There were no studies, no exercises, no concepts of operation … nothing to establish the validity, or lack thereof, of the concept. We went straight from concept to implementation and, from the Navy’s perspective and goals (budget) this was quite understandable. The Navy knew there was nothing unique about ‘littoral’ as a form of warfare. Ships have fought in shallow water for hundreds of years. Images of WWII destroyers standing barely offshore to provide fire support on D-Day are iconic. What the Navy wanted was to get Congress to fund more ships before someone had the forethought to question the concept. Thus, we committed to a production run of 55 LCS without ever establishing the validity of the concept, analyzing alternatives, or establishing concepts of operation.
This phenomenon of jumping straight from concept to implementation is not unique to the military world. It is common throughout industry and society. For example, diversity (whether gender or racial) burst upon the scene and we leapt immediately over validity and straight into implementation. Diversity would have us believe that a man and a woman or a black and a white are somehow inherently superior to two women or two blacks. A moment’s reasoned thought would reveal this as ridiculous. Despite that, we’ve jumped immediately to implementation. There is hardly a corporate board or governmental organization today that does not mandate (formally or informally) quotas to ensure diversity. Whenever there’s a Supreme Court vacancy the cries immediately arise from all corners for the position to be filled by a woman or a black or a Leprechaun or whatever gender/racial characteristic the particular group is advocating for. That’s ridiculous. The only ‘cry’ should be to find the best possible person regardless of gender, race, or type of car they drive.
Corporations have moved from finding the best people for their boardrooms to finding the most diverse people. Presidential cabinets have gone from finding the best people to finding the most diverse. Army Rangers and Navy SEALs have gone from finding the best people to mandating diversity.
The latest example of this phenomenon is the ‘loyal wingman’. It is the latest craze and we have already jumped right over validity and straight into implementation. No one is asking whether the concept makes sense, whether it can work, whether an already combat task-overloaded pilot can control multiple other aircraft while fighting for his own life, and whether pale imitations of manned aircraft can perform well enough to make a difference. No one has asked how a loyal wingman will work, what it will do, under what circumstances it can be useful, and what situations are not appropriate for it? No one is asking why, if a manned combat fighter aircraft costs $100M each, we think we’ll be able to build unmanned versions cheap enough to be expendable?
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| Loyal Wingman Concept Art |
What will the loyal wingman aircraft do? Try this description:
The cornerstone of the concept is a low-cost unmanned platform to work alongside traditional manned combat aircraft and operate as a force-multiplier, adding “mass” while also undertaking more hazardous tasks and missions when required. (3)
How’s that for some truly impressive buzzword bingo that says nothing? It leaves us with no worked out concept, no proof of validity, no exercises demonstrating effectiveness, no nothing.
No one asked about the LCS and we see how that turned out.
No one asked about the Zumwalt and we see how that turned out.
No one asked about the Ford and we see how that turned out.
No one asked about the F-35 and we see how that turned out.
Nope, it’s all about implementation.
Ignore the reality.
Ignore the analysis.
Ignore validating exercises.
Ignore the CONOPS.
Ignore alternatives.
Just implement it.
Okay, that was the general warning about the loyal wingman concept. Now, let’s look at some specific potential problems.
Communications – We don’t have artificial intelligence, yet, that even remotely approaches combat capability despite the public relations stunt put on by DARPA. That means the wingman aircraft cannot perform on its own in any meaningful way. It will need to be closely controlled by a human pilot/controller and that, in turn, requires constant communications. Presumably, the comms will need to be omnidirectional because it will be impossible to maintain a direct, point to point comm link when both the transmitting control aircraft and the receiving wingman are engaged in high-g, violent maneuvers.
Situational Awareness – I’ve not heard of anyone talking about using two-seater aircraft to control the wingman aircraft so can a single pilot in the controlling aircraft establish and maintain situational awareness to direct the wingman aircraft while simultaneously engaging in aerial combat, himself, and fighting for his own life? Can he do it for more than one aircraft? There’s a reason why the F-14, EA-6B, and other aircraft have multiple crew. The workload is too much for one pilot.
Or, is this a case where we fantasize that the single pilot will cruise around the aerial battlefield, undetected and unhindered by any enemy actions and leisurely direct swarms of wingman aircraft?
Combat Effectiveness – I have yet to hear what, exactly, the wingman aircraft is going to do. It can’t successfully engage in aerial combat on its own or even with a controller. There is no unmanned aircraft that can do that. It could be an aerial missile ‘barge’ for the controlling aircraft but, again, can a single pilot, fighting for his life make effective use of such an aircraft? It could be a decoy or missile sponge but we already have a variety of much cheaper chaff, flares, and decoys (towed and flying) so I don’t see what would be gained there. So, if the wingman can’t defeat an enemy aircraft, what will it do? I’m failing to see the combat effectiveness.
Some articles suggest its role is ISR and early warning.(1) If so, that’s a lot of hype and cost (see the next section on cost) for an extended sensor and nothing I’ve seen indicates they’ll be able to supply another aircraft with a real time combat picture (see the section on communications).
Another article suggests that the loyal wingman will be tasked with ‘absorbing enemy fire’.(2) If so, that’s an incredibly expensive way to defend another aircraft. Plus, how would that work? In order to be physically close enough to ‘absorb fire’, the wingman aircraft would have to be almost flying a welded wing formation. Do we really think we can formation fly in combat without collisions? And with an unmanned aircraft?
Cost – If the wingman aircraft is going to attempt to engage in aerial combat, it will need the same performance, speed, range, weapons, and sensors as our best manned aircraft which means it will cost the same as a manned aircraft and that’s not cheap. Are we going to use $100M wingman aircraft as throwaway expendables? We’ll go broke real fast doing that. So many people have the mistaken notion that unmanned somehow automatically means cheap and that’s just not the case. If you want high performance fighter aircraft capability it’s going to cost what high performance fighter aircraft cost.
Attrition – As noted, we don’t have the AI to produce aerial ‘Terminators’. That means that the wingman aircraft are going to suffer extreme attrition which brings us back to the cost issue.
Summary
So, in our pursuit of technology as the magical solution to all our problems, we’ve latched on to this wingman concept and jumped right over validation and straight into implementation. We’ve got to learn some lessons from our past failures and start asking questions before it’s too late. We need a CONOPS for this concept and we need extensive validation exercises. Failing that, the loyal wingman concept will be just another example to add to the list of poorly conceived disasters.
_______________________________
(1)https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/loyal-wingman-unmanned-aircraft/
Even if this "loyal wingman" concept worked, simple communication jamming can kill it, and it's cheap to implement.
ReplyDeleteWrong side of the cost curve again.
While I very much agree with you, bear in mind that jamming is an inverse square effect. You have to be quite close to make even high-power jammers work well.
DeleteLoyal Wingman will never work well without adequate AI to at least achieve the mission assigned. I can see ground attack, or perhaps tactical bombing as the first reasonable missions.
I'm not an aeronautical engineer, but I am making some assumption that like ships, you need a certain size to be achievable of the kind of speed you are looking for. I welcome correction. Size is expensive.
"While I very much agree with you, bear in mind that jamming is an inverse square effect. You have to be quite close to make even high-power jammers work well."
DeleteTrue, and this is the sort of thing that should be tested heavily?
How powerful are the jammers mounted on Chinese fighters, for example?
What happens to those UAVs if communications are disrupted for 1 second? 15? 60?
What if they're simply degraded, or the UAV is fed fake data...
Instead, EW testing is highly unpopular.
Small, expendable drones are fine for ISRT (intel/surveillance/recon/targeting) missions. But this concept, like the unmanned ship concept, strikes me as at least one bridge too far.
ReplyDeleteThe littoral analogy with which you started prompts one question in my mind. What is the value of littoral shipping? To integrate with forces ashore and provide support? If so, what is the most important capability? NGFS? If so, why put a 57mm popgun on a littoral ship?
LCS might have worked out okay if someone had checked to make sure the engines would work, and they had thrown on some more readily available remote system and engine monitoring stuff to allow smaller on watch crews. Bet a senior officer could have checked on the design first.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how RPVs escorting manned fighters will work when the Chinese start launching EMP jamming rockets. But I am sure no one in the US Navy senior officer corps will check first.
I agree with a lot of what you said, however I could see a use as follows:
ReplyDeleteManned aircraft (could be a fighter or a P8 or airforce 1) comes under attack. A wingman is told to destroy one of the in enemy. As it has no pilot it is not restricted to the same constraints as a manned plane ( g force etc). Once the threat has been neutralised it returns to its escort role next to the manned platform.
Now it could probably be argued currently a missile could do this. However I think it is worth pursuing, BUT as an R&D project, NOT production.
How do we make sure the wingman destroys the bad guy instead of our guy?
Delete"A wingman is told to destroy one of the in enemy."
DeleteSo, you're thinking that a cheap, expendable drone will have enough performance capability (and artificial intelligence) to do what our F-35 could not - cause, if the F-35 could, the pilot wouldn't need the wingman. In other words, you think a ?$10M? drone can perform as well or better than a $100M F-35?
Remember, we're not talking about someday, down the road. We're (Australia seems to be leading the charge) developing this wingman right now. There is not drone/AI combo that is even remotely capable of successful combat, currently. Heck, we're struggling to automate the Navy's unmanned tanker!
Didn't say it would be cheap or disposable. (The Navy might think it can make them cheap but I wait to be convinced). Probably didn't make myself clear. I would describe this as an additional system, not a replacement. It's advantage is it is not constrained by the human body. It's disadvantage is it doesn't have a human on board. All weapons have trade off (choppers can land vertically but are slow etc and have not replaced planes).
Delete"Didn't say it would be cheap or disposable."
DeleteGiven that we have no unmanned aircraft capable of even remotely matching manned aircraft performance, the unmanned drones would suffer an enormous attrition rate so if they're not cheap and disposable, we'll be way far on the wrong side of the economics curve!
If we want an unmanned aircraft that can match physical performance with a manned aircraft (setting aside the control and/or AI issue), it will cost what a manned aircraft does which is $100M each and that's definitely not cheap or disposable. If that's the case, what does the unmanned aircraft gain us?
What you/we need to do is come up with a way for unmanned aircraft to actually be EFFECTIVE given our current technology and that doesn't appear to be as a combat UAV. So, what does that leave? How else can we EFFECTIVELY utilize unmanned aircraft? Honestly, I can't come up with a use. I'm open to ideas, though!
We already have loyal a wingperson, MALD.
ReplyDeleteHas a defined function, sort of cheap, can carry a few.
EA-18G even has the crow to run it.
I know they upgraded them as well recently but I doubt we actually have a good stockpile of them they should be the kind of thing we can toss toss out like bread crumbs to pigeons or flares, but I suspect we what a few thousand at best.
Delete"MALD"
DeleteThey're getting expensive-ish but yes, good reminder.
Why do they never get attention.
There's also the ALE-50/55 towed aerial decoys.
DeleteCNO I think you hurt yourself with the digression into corporate boards(*). A very good piece. Particularity after "The latest example of this phenomenon is the ‘loyal wingman..." I can't see how this works frankly with less than a 2 seat aircraft maybe 3-4+ a demonstrated testing against not neutered aggressors.
ReplyDelete* Corporate boards are basically wealthy socialism by and for people already wealthy/ very well off or well known.
They do really nothing much. Quick name a US cooperate disaster deflected by good governance of its board. The Board of Enron noticed thay were getting checks from a scam? The Board of Theranos noticed it was shilling snake oil? The board of Boeing noticed what a disaster the 737 Max was (hard since only the CEO had any engineering experience). The Board of Lehman Brothers signed off on the financial robustness of the firm right up till the day it collapsed. If you own stock tell me the last time you got a shareholder voting card that did not see the board simply rubber stamp whatever proposals the executives submitted and recommend no on any share holder proposed measure. Realistically a diversity requirement for them probably can not really hurt something that serves no particular useful function anyway. Let some women and not white old men eat at the rich money grab buffet too.
Sorry Its just I find corporate boards are more or less a useless waste of shareholder money. So I could care less if they are mandated to be diverse or not.
DeleteYou can effectively put whoever in pointless jobs since they are, by definition, pointless.
DeleteThe problem is that we're picking people on race/sex/whatever basis for jobs that actually matter, too.
People, I know I brought it up in the post but let's not wander down the sociology rabbit hole. I used the diversity example just to illustrate the concept of jumping from concept to implementation without validation and then tied it back to the military. Let's steer ourselves back to the military aspects and let the sociology sites deal with the pure sociology. Thanks!
Delete"Quick name a US cooperate disaster deflected by good governance of its board. "
DeleteOf course, we only hear about the disasters. There would also be good board decisions made that averted a disaster but you never hear about them because the disasters never happened and also because good board decisions, when they happen, tend to occur well ahead of time.
Even if the Boeing board had decided to kill off the 737-Max development, even after significant development & cost, but before any planes made it out into the inventories of real airlines, no-one would have known it prevented 2 or 3 aircraft from falling out of the sky & all that ensued.
If the decision to cancel or alter & delay the 737-Max program had been made, many would probably have (incorrectly) ridiculed the decision as short sighted, irresponsible, out-of-touch etc, yet it would clearly have been the right decision.
I figured you would say that and I will say no more. But I think I was a making a trained economist argument not a social one they do nothing and suck up share holder value. They are a sunk cost. So not a social commentary venture just a waste of time and money of back scratching. Sorry I am contradicting myself about not saying anything more But literary the people flipping burgers at the worst run fast food restaurant are doing more to earn their check than the average board member.
ReplyDeleteOK again sorry on the political commentary.
ReplyDeleteBut back to the point how to get the Pentagon back to not just building on gee whiz buzz words.
They have have been hammering the drum of reducing manpower for decades and congress seems to just not a smile when they do. Buddy ideal just seems like the most current implementation.
How do you convince Congress to subject this to real high quality tests which would be fatalistically useful but unlikely to be done.
"how to get the Pentagon back to not just building on gee whiz buzz words."
DeleteWe're in search of the magic beans … the quick technology fix instead of doing the hard work of constant, steady development. We squandered the technology lead we had and instead of putting our noses to the grindstone to get it back, we're trying to leap ahead on the technology curve with utterly predictably failure as the result.
How to correct this tendency? We can't - at least not without a war and some spectacular failures.
What does this wingman get us anyway? It looks like it's going to cost as much as a real jet, and undoubtedly will be less capable. So what does it give us?
ReplyDeletePerhaps they would find utility as armed "picket" escort for big radar reflective beasts... like tankers, AWACS, B-52s, etc. Who just might be modifiable enough to add a human controller crew position. A Tail gunner whose armament roams.
ReplyDeleteOf course, when the inevitable teething glitches occur, the drones just might try to shoot down an approaching flight of thirsty friendlies. Better have a kill switch... that works.
It's about money. Because win, lose or draw, they profit. Nuff said, Skipper. I spent my life around those mutts professionally, they laughed their asses off at their profitable debacles. It bordered on traitorous from where I sat. But the round-robin on Generals and Admirals through DOD, the White House, the think tanks and back to DOD, then to corporate boards, rinse, repeat caused all this, made it profitable. Putin would imprison his defense contractors for U.S.-style debacles. I have zero confidence that their anything but wholly and utterly corrupt. These aren't oooopsies, these are failures of a criminal nature to me.
ReplyDeleteAs for the human/race/gender quotas and the sexual depravity quotas, that's just the softening of the crews at work, also criminal to my eye. Hey, someone show me where I'm wrong, I have big ears and an accepting heart.
Loyal Wingman is an Australian program with about $29 million (USD) in funding from the Australian government. As far as I know, there is no US funding. But, I suspect, Boeing has invested more money than Australia into the program.
ReplyDeleteConcept of operation aside, there appears to be some application of this program to developing future US military aircraft. According to Tyler Rogoway, Boeing used a 'digital twin' concept to create "a highly detailed virtual model of the aircraft and its related systems, allowing for a whole slew of testing, development, and training to occur without a physical manifestation of the craft being present." The 'digital twin' concept was promoted by Dr. Will Roper to develop the next generation of fighters.
Plus, the production line used automated production techniques that are expected to be used in production. The aircraft itself used composite manufacturing techniques developed from the 787 program.
"Boeing used a 'digital twin' concept to create "a highly detailed virtual model of the aircraft"
DeleteUnimpressed in the extreme. Every program for the last decade has claimed to use virtual models of the products to ensure flawless design and perfect performance. How many of those programs actually produced a flawless design and perfect performance? None.
Loyal Wingman is different. Being unmanned, there is no cockpit, no life support equipment, no oxygen bottles, and the like. With no weapons or wing pylons, there's even less wiring to worry about. Loyal Wingman looks more like a giant R/C aircraft than anything else.
DeleteWhile multiple types of payloads can be fitted to the nose, the mechanical and electrical interfaces are probably simple. And, I'm sure the aircraft is well instrumented (e.g., strain gages, thermocouples, etc.) to validate the design, but that's pretty much standard equipment. In this instance, I could see the 'digital twin' concept work.
" In this instance, I could see the 'digital twin' concept work."
DeleteIf the design is simple enough, perhaps. However, that leads to your next statement …
"With no weapons or wing pylons …"
We have not seen any kind of Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for a wingman aircraft, yet, so we're just speculating. I've seen various articles that describe various tasks the wingman might perform. Most of them assume some type of aerial combat which is at odds with your statement about no weapons. Have you seen something definitive about that?
The problem is that if the wingman is not combat capable, what task is there that's of sufficient value to be worth the cost and effort?
Radar 'searching' seems redundant since the control aircraft (the F-35, presumably) will already be there with its supposedly undetectable radar (if you believe the F-35 fanboy claims - which I don't) so there's no need for a wingman radar.
What else is there?
"The problem is that if the wingman is not combat capable, what task is there that's of sufficient value to be worth the cost and effort?"
DeleteIn the real world where the F-35 was a bad idea and has been a terribly managed program, an "external radar" might be useful.
" an "external radar" might be useful."
DeleteIn concept, yes. The challenge of establishing an EFFECTIVE and USEFUL radar picture from a constantly maneuvering (if they aren't, they'll be destroyed) wingman aircraft and then transmitting that picture in real time to the host aircraft for use is daunting. I'm still hung up on how a host-control aircraft that's constantly maneuvering for its life is going to maintain comms with a constantly maneuvering wingman aircraft. Of course, you can always use an omni-directional transmission but then you give up any chance at stealth. I really don't think anyone has carefully thought this concept through.
"We have not seen any kind of Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for a wingman aircraft . . ."
DeleteOne step at a time. Let's see what Boeing and the Australians can do here. There's no direct US funding involved here. Though, if I were the Air Force or the Navy, I would embed a few smart people as observers.
"One step at a time. Let's see what Boeing and the Australians can do here."
DeleteI have no problems with sitting back and observing other countries, however, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT'S WRONG WITH OUR OWN ACQUISITION PROGRAMS!!!!! They're already well into the acquisition phase with no developed CONOPS, that I'm aware of!!!! How can you purchase something that you have no idea how, or even if, it can work?! We're currently doing the EXACT same thing with the Navy's medium and large unmanned vessels that will begin replacing some of the Burkes (and, I suspect, the Ticonderogas). We're already committed to production without ever having developed and proved a CONOPS!!!!
We've got to break this idiotic habit. This is how we wound up with the LCS, Zumwalt, F-35, Ford, etc.
You know Boeing is going to be pushing their wingman on the Navy and you know the Navy is going to jump on it, regardless of usefulness, just because it's cool technology.
Anybody read "Ghost Fleet"? If not you should. Yes there is a lot of crap in it, but their Loyal Wingman concept is not completely horrible and under the right circumstances I might get behind it.
DeleteThe politics are also interesting if not realistic, but food for thought.
I really suspect that without unheard of levels and not anytime soon AI, these loyal wing-man are going to be rapidly left behind on the ground by pilots during a real war. The task saturation is just going to be too much and how long will it take before loyal wing-man does something it's not supposed to do or pilot gets task saturated and gets shoot down because he or she was messing around trying to get wing-man to do something or get out of trouble?
ReplyDeleteHaven't played video games in for ever (8os?) but I remember this navy convoy game where you had to shoot at Soviets coming in, only problem you had to "jump" from ship to ship to command the radar and SAMs from your DDG and FFG, it was always great when u would forget what ship you were on and launch missiles and then wonder why they wouldn't track: "shit, forgot on what ship I was on!" We have all seen pictures on 1 manned jet and 1 to 3 wing man flying in formation, sure giving the impression that 1 pilot will control the other 3, I'm afraid something very similar will happen, pilots will start giving commands or changing what wing-man 1 to 3 is supposed to do and slowly get sucked in the overall picture and in a strange way, lose situation awareness!!! Before you know it, is he really in charge of his own jet or more worried about his 3 wing-man screwing up?!? How long before he starts to think he's in one of his wing-man jets? Then when missiles start flying, task saturation and pucker factor pretty much go thru the roof and pilot drops everything (hopefully for him/her before it's too late) and then what? We lose the 3 wing-men or the pilot! Did we really save any money then?!?
The only idea I like so far is the person here that said wing-men should be attached as escorts to tankers or AWACS. OK, I think that isn't a bad idea. At start, we are really just talking about escort/protection of high value assets with numerous stations already onboard to control wing-men in a "limited" role, I could see that happening and even maybe working. AS for combat jets, only way I see it working is going back to old days of 2 seaters, 1 pilot and 1 warrant officer in charge of the wing-man mission.
I've been thinking about this before in naval combat drones. I'd look to using S-3 Vikings or EA-6/A-6's upgraded to the A-6 F/G standard to ease engine maintenance. The BN would control the drone(s) leaving the pilot to fly the plane. Updated electronics and being in "close proximity" compared to other drone control systems would help keep the drones from being compromised. Depending on the control platform selected you could have 1-4 controllers. With an S-3 you could have a dedicated controller(s) for refueling, electronic warfare, or strike.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with using any control aircraft with drone pilots on board is that the drone aircraft are simply not capable aerial combat aircraft. Aside from performance limitations by the drone aircraft, remote control of an aircraft in combat is not going to be successful. A remote pilot simply hasn't got the situational awareness or real time picture to be successful in combat.
DeleteThe other problem with the concept is that all the enemy has to do is shoot down the host-control aircraft and all the drones are lost. If the control aircraft is a large, slow, non-stealthy S-3 Viking, it will stick out like a beacon and have a very short lifespan.
CNO,
ReplyDeleteWhile I am surprised that you've chosen to talk about an air asset, I totally agree with you.
When I saw the Loyal Wingman, I went for the specs. And it isn't really very big. People bemoan the retirement of the F-111 and replacement by the F-18 and F-35 because Australia now has no long range strike ability (though some missiles are now compensating for that).
So it makes no sense that a UAV to protect tankers and accompany F-18's has an even shorter range yet again.
And like the LCS, it's nose is supposed to be "modular". OMFG.
I mean, tankers could definitely do with a pair of armed escorts. But unless they use a lot of their stored fuel to refuel their Loyal Wingman's the escort isn't going to be the LW.
CONOPS.
Andrew
"While I am surprised that you've chosen to talk about an air asset,"
DeleteWhy would that be surprising? If successful (or even if not!), the US Navy will undoubtedly latch onto this concept and integrate it into carrier air wings so the topic fits perfectly with this blog.
"I mean, tankers could definitely do with a pair of armed escorts."
They're NOT EFFECTIVE armed escorts. They can't even remotely match a manned fighter performance. They'd be just a minor speed bump for an attacking enemy.
DARPA's utterly unrealistic publicity stunt aside, I've seen no unmanned aircraft that even remotely approaches manned combat capability. We just don't have the AI for these things to succeed, yet, and a pilot-controller cannot succeed in combat because the situational awareness and comm lag is nowhere near real time.
"I mean, tankers could definitely do with a pair of armed escorts."
DeleteHow do we keep them from shooting the tankers?
If the value isn't obvious, surely the sensible thing to do is just monitor the Australian programme and let them see if they can make anything out of it. If they do find some value then jump on board but otherwise why waste (more) US money?
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that Dale Brown had taken charge of Pentagon procurement. It does seem as if some people have been reading the type of fiction where the 'good guy's always have the technological superiority and this technology always works with minimal problems and, of course, minimal casualties.
ReplyDeleteNice reference!
DeleteBecause he didn't have some good ideas. Once the anti-sat battle is over and no one has an ISR asset left, the idea of cheap NIRTsats is not at all stupid.
DeleteAt this stage of tech, I dont see the wingman working, for all the reasons CNO cited. Sure maybe in the future when AI develops, but we are far away from that. My only thought is (and again the comm link issues are a major problem) that somthing "arsenal-ship-ish" would be a reasonable pursuit. Let the unmanned planes follow behind,
ReplyDeletesomewhat abreast, and use targeting data from the manned ones. Maybe separating the sensors and shooters makes sense here,( although not typically a fan of that idea ) to allow the manned fighters to try and stay stealthy. At some point the manned craft could open fire, but the initial volleys would be from the unmanned craft, which then turn and head for home, hopefully attracting enemy attention while the manned planes can follow up from a different direction. I think that kind of scenario is within current capabilities, with basic preprogrammed follow, fire, run flight profiles. Again the comms is the biggest hurdle to overcome...
"the initial volleys would be from the unmanned craft"
DeleteOkay … so, you're assuming that our ?stealth? aircraft will be able to leisurely cruise around, finding targets, without being detected while the enemy apparently has no ability to detect us? I know that's not what you explicitly stated but that's kind of the implied assumption in your scenario. That's exactly the kind of 'everything we do will work and nothing the enemy will do will work' philosophy that dominates our leadership thinking.
Or … would it be more likely that neither side will be able to detect and target the other until fairly close range, at which point it would be unwise to start launching volleys of missiles from our unmanned aircraft into a sky with friend and enemy now intermixed?
I'm all for coming up with ways to utilize unmanned aircraft, if there are any, but they have to be realistic and take into account enemy capabilities. Remember, if we can do it, so can the enemy. Why wouldn't the enemy be launching volleys of missiles from their unmanned aircraft at us?
If we credit the enemy with the same capabilities as us, how does your scenario gain us an advantage?
I'm not trying to shoot down your idea, just encourage you to mentally game out the scenario and make sure it's realistic. What do you think?
Could it perhaps be repurposed as a arsenal-ish strike unmanned aircraft? I thinking that firing a volley of strike missiles could possible be done with AI? We leave the escort missions to the manned aircraft and then use the Unmanned aircraft for strike missions. Then, we could then optimize both aircraft types.
Delete"Could it perhaps be repurposed as a arsenal-ish strike unmanned aircraft?"
DeleteYou're mixing together multiple concepts. Are you talking strike or fighter? Are you talking arsenal (lots of missiles) or conventional aircraft (typically around 4-12 weapons depending on mission)?
On the face of it, an arsenal strike aircraft would be a B-2 bomber - a big aircraft carrying lots of weapons - and you'd like it to be unmanned. The B-2 cost $1B-$2B, depending on what cost source you use and what you include in the cost. Making it unmanned won't change the cost appreciably.
Alternatively, we're talking about small, fighter size aircraft that can be built cheaply (a dubious proposition!) and in large quantity. Small and cheap would imply few weapons which would negate the 'arsenal-ish' aspect.
In either case, in order to penetrate far enough to launch weapons, the unmanned aircraft would have to be escorted or have maximum stealth capability since they would be defenseless on their own.
Finally, I would remind you that we already have the thousand mile Tomahawk which is unmanned, cheap (a few million each), and expendable. Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to embrace new technology that we forget what we already have.
Focus on replacing the Tomahawk with a modern missile would be much more appropriate than this wingman fantasy.
DeleteHeads up. The Navy may scrap four new carriers.
ReplyDeleteFailure Rate
Behler’s assessment covered 3,975 launches and landing operations on the Ford during 11 at-sea, post-delivery trials from November 2019 through September 2020. The electromagnetic-powered catapult system is supposed to operate 4,166 “cycles,” or launches, between operational mission failures. Instead, it went 181 cycles between failures, or “well below the requirement,”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/navy-e2-80-99s-priciest-carrier-ever-struggles-to-get-jets-on-off-deck/ar-BB1cBCBI
You just beat me to it. Here's the report of the same news.
Deletehttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-09/navy-s-priciest-carrier-ever-struggles-to-get-jets-on-off-deck.
I just love the Navy's optimistic view of the situation. "There’s been some problems. There’s been some cost issues. Most of that’s history.” 181 cycles between failures is not history though. If President Trump has gotten the Navy to ripped the EMALS out and used Steam catapults instead, the carriers will have a chance of working now :)
"Heads up."
DeleteThanks! I hadn't seen that yet.
Well yes, if they can increase reliability by 2300% the Ford will work like a charm.
DeleteThey'll make a great hospital ship out of Ford Class.I assume Ford Class can land and launch helicopters? If there's a way for that to fail, I'm sure Lockheed Martin can make it so, for a few extra dollars. Having only one military contractor with zero competition and promised profit(they bought EVERYONE) brought us to this.
DeleteCarlton, Hello! You and the Skipper here (He's my Skipper, not CDR, he doesn't seem to mind) have been wailing against this debacle since the start of carrier quals on these pigs. I was aboard Nimitz 76-81 and never once saw a cold catapult. Happened to Kennedy once or twice, probably others, but steam was always the way to go. Trump went to Norfolk and came back howling and USS Ford. A year or two back. Anyway, Carlton and Skip, you guys always seem ahead of the pack, but then you aren't so connected for your succor. Much better to be outside looking in. Looks like a tar pit today. Kudos!
DeleteIt would seem to me that the worst part of the whole EMALS system is that apparently if one cat goes down you have to shut all 4 down to work it. How could anyone be so brain-dead as to approve that sort of design?
Delete"How could anyone be so brain-dead as to approve that sort of design?"
DeleteHow could anyone approve of an LCS without cathodic protection? And yet we did.
How could anyone approve of an LCS without bridge wings? And yet we did.
How could anyone approve of an AGS and Zumwalt without a working gun? And yet we did.
How could anyone accept and commission a carrier with no working catapult, arresting gear, or weapon elevators? And yet we did.
How could anyone approve of eliminating all of the Marine's tanks? And yet we did.
I could list these all night but you know the list as well as I do. The inexplicable and unexplainable decisions by the Navy are simply baffling.
The worst part of the Ford disaster is they began construction of the 3rd and 4th Ford carriers after they knew the design was flawed. Here is my 2018 assessment "The EMALS Disaster".
Deletehttp://www.g2mil.com/EMALS.htm
"Here is my 2018 assessment "The EMALS Disaster"."
DeleteI've read that one and, like all your writings, it's informative and eye-opening! I particularly 'enjoyed' the Navy spokesman's utterly incorrect rambling about statistics. You can perform perfectly valid statistical analysis of any sample size. What changes with more samples is the confidence limits. So, ten launches or thousand, it doesn't matter. The statistics are equally valid, differing only in the confidence limits around the mean. The spokesman was either lying or ignorant and neither is good.
Feel free to leave links to your articles.
Let me know if you ever have any interest in doing a guest post.
How bad is it?
DeleteThink of it this way. If you had to go into combat with your choice of a Ford, as is, or HMS Queen Elizabeth, which would you choose?
Sad to say, there's a credible argument for the QE. Limited as it is, it can at least launch and recover aircraft. I’d rather have a working Ford, but we don’t have one of those, nor does it appear likely that we will get one soon.
And no, this is not a disguised argument for the Lightning Carrier. My comments in that regard (which got misunderstood) were always in the vein that we needed more carriers, specifically two-carrier CVBGs, one nuke and one conventional. We could afford that by building Nimitzes instead of Fords and building the conventional CV with the difference. But it would take a few years to get a conventional CV designed and in the fleet, and meanwhile we had these incredibly expensive hulks that weren't really suited to the purpose intended (amphib assault), so why not get some use out of them as an interim Lightning Carrier until we can build those CVs, and build a real amphibious force to replace them? The alternative was to park them, and we could be sure that Congress would have enough of a cow over that to make it difficult to impossible for the Navy to get procurement money for anything.
Now multiply the price tag times 5 and revisit that quandary. And we're going to have four of them. Rip the EMALS out and put in steam might be the best answer. One question I have, other than cost, is can the engineering plant make enough steam make that viable. I would presume so, but I don't know. And given the Navy's demonstrated capacity to screw up anything, who knows?
They notice, Skipper!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/navy-e2-80-99s-priciest-carrier-ever-struggles-to-get-jets-on-off-deck/ar-BB1cBCBI
Funny how the military never mentions maintenance and parts for these assets. The promise is that these are cheap enough to buy a lot more assets, but we can't keep our current fleet operational. Plus you would need more airfield capacity at forward bases to stage the planes from.
ReplyDeleteThe concept art shows four LW around an F-15 (https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2019-02-27/boeing-lifts-lid-loyal-wingman). Even if they are 25% of the cost of a manned aircraft, are the sustainment requirements 1/4? We know they won't take up 1/4 of the space of an F-15. The ainonline article suggests a length of 38 feet so it's about the size of an A-1 and a bit smaller than an A-4. They also suggest a range of "more than 2000nm" but I'd bet that's ferry range, not combat radius.