Contract competition will begin soon for the US Air Force version of the Loyal Wingman unmanned UAV, the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).
The US Air Force could kick off a competition for a drone counterpart for its sixth-generation fighter as soon as fiscal 2024, the service’s top leader said Wednesday.[1]
That makes sense. After all, we have no Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for the drones so why not jump into procurement? We have no field experimentation to demonstrate the capabilities of an unmanned drone so why not jump into procurement? What could go wrong?
Regarding cost,
In terms of cost, the Air Force wants drones that are no more than half the cost of an F-35 — which would put the most high-end CCAs at about $40 million — with Kendall [Frank Kendall, Secretary of the Air Force] stating that he would like to spend “a factor less than that” because some will be lost in battle.[1]
The number one characteristic of a drone in combat is that it will have a very short lifespan since we don’t have Terminator level Artificial Intelligence, yet. Drones will be the equivalent of single digit IQ pilots – you know, as if Admirals were flying – with no ability to do anything but execute a very tightly defined set of actions (well, that rules out the Admirals). They’re going to drop like flies in combat so they’d better be dirt cheap. Very few will come back from a mission.
With that in mind, $40M drones seems insanely expensive for a drone that will need a precision Swiss watch to measure its lifespan. Kendall seems not to appreciate that reality despite saying,
“The expectation is that these aircraft can be designed to be less survivable and less capable …[1]
How can Kendall acknowledge that the drones will be less survivable and less capable – that’s the definition of ‘throwaway’ in combat - and then set a price target of $40M?
I wish that were all that Kendall and the Air Force were confused about but it’s not. Kendall, and the military, in general, has developed a serious case of delusion, manifested in the recent trend of believing the enemy will be ‘confused’ by everything we do. This concept of enemy ‘confusion’ has been cropping up in everything, lately. The Navy believes that the enemy will be ‘confused’ by individual, weak, distributed lethality ships. The Marines believe that the enemy will be ‘confused’ by platoon size, missile shooting units hiding on small islands. Now, the Air Force believes the enemy will be ‘confused’ by drones.
“The expectation is that these aircraft can be designed to be less survivable and less capable, but still bring an awful lot to the fight in a mixture that the enemy has a very hard time sorting out and dealing with,” Kendall said. “You can even intentionally sacrifice some of them to draw fire, if you will, to make the enemy expose himself.”[1]
Options include adding weapons, sensors, electronic warfare systems or other effects, and there is a benefit to fielding CCAs with differing mission packages.
“That’s a way to keep the cost down,” he said. “It raises the uncertainty that the adversary has to deal with, because he doesn’t know which is in any given aircraft, he has to take each of them seriously as a threat. And so whether they all carry weapons or a subset carries weapons, he’s going to treat them all as if they do. He has no choice.”[1]
Merely swapping out payloads will plunge the enemy into the throes of debilitating uncertainty. Kendall seems to believe the enemy will wind up in a corner, balled up in the fetal position, sobbing from the confusion and uncertainty we inflict on him. When has uncertainty about a ship or plane’s payload ever been a problem for any enemy? In war, you destroy everything of the enemy’s and you don’t give a rat’s ass what it was carrying.
Returning to the CONOPS issue, consider the following gem of damnation:
As the Air Force begins developing CCAs [Cooperative Combat Aircraft, the loyal wingman drone], the service also needs to take steps to begin learning how to use combat drones alongside fighter aircraft … [1]
As we begin developing drones (we’re already starting the production process!), we need to take steps to begin learning how to use them? Pardon me, Air Force, but shouldn’t you know how you want to use them before you begin procurement? That’s called a CONOPS and a CONOPS must precede design or you wind up with a useless product as we’ve seen with so many acquisition programs.
The Right Path
So, what should we be doing before committing to production?
1. We should be conducting actual exercises using some low level aircraft as a simulation for a drone and install whatever autonomy or control software we’re planning on using to see how it performs. Oh wait … we don’t have any actual software yet, do we? We’re going to procure the drone and then develop the software concurrently. What could go wrong? Hasn’t concurrency worked every time it’s been tried?
Can you imagine a ‘less survivable and less capable’ drone simulator, say, a T-6B Texan II Turboprop trainer or a T-45 Goshawk trainer, thrown into combat against Chinese equivalents to the F-15, F-35, and F-22? What would the lifespan of those be? What could they productively accomplish in combat?
2. Via demonstration exercises, we need to determine a realistic attrition rate of drones and balance that against cost to determine an affordable price point. I guarantee you it isn’t anywhere near $40M. By the way, when has any acquisition program come anywhere near its initial, hoped for price target? Never! The actual cost of whatever debacle we produce will be closer to $80M than $40M; history guarantees that.
3. Based on the demonstration exercises, we should then – and only then – develop the CONOPS. The CONOPS will then tell us exactly what performance requirements we need for the drone. Without the CONOPS, we’re just randomly guessing. That’s how you wind up with a Zumwalt with no mission, and LCS that has no use, and Afloat Forward Staging Base whose captain has orders to sail around and look for a mission (see, “AFSB– Looking For Something To Do”), a Ford that costs twice as much and offers no improvement, etc.
This Loyal Wingman / Collaborative Combat Aircraft is another in a long series of fads (see, “Fleeting Trends”) that the military jumps on with no supporting evidence or experience. So far, none of those have ever turned out well but, hey, this one will be the exception, right Air Force?
No CONOPS, no demonstrations, no performance specs, no cost/attrition analysis, guaranteed runaway costs … what could go wrong?
________________________________
[1]Breaking Defense website, “Coming soon: A US competition for sixth-gen drone wingman could begin in FY24”, Valerie Insinna, 7-Sep-2022,
"Drones will be the equivalent of single digit IQ pilots – you know, as if Admirals were flying"
ReplyDeleteHah!
There is another element of screw-up to this which would have been caught by exercises, in that the intended controller aircraft for these are mostly (all?) single-seat, and task-saturation is going to become a real problem in a high-intensity combat environment. Cockpit automation helps, but it's much easier and more effective to let a backseater control the drones and probably the radar/datalink picture while the pilot is busy employing weapons, notching and kinematically defeating incoming missiles, etc. Having a dedicated guy running the drones probably papers over their limited 'smarts' as well, since he can give pretty low-level directives frequently and thus employ them in complex or novel ways that would be infeasible otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI write my politicians. I don't write them about taxes or gas prices, enough people do that already. I write them about this. Getting our military (Navy) culture and procurement right are top priorities for this country.
ReplyDelete"I write my politicians."
DeleteSalute to you, sir!
Couple of thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. Even at $40 million a pop which is doubtful, it's not expendable. At that price point, USAF can't buy that many without endangering manned jets buys and USAF isn't ready to do that. Apart from first day of war and using them on the super dangerous targets or clearing SAMs for the manned fighters, it's not going to work out long term. The risk cost benefit really only works on that first day where you get maximum "value" for the losses that you will incur. After that, the losses just don't make "money" sense, plus and especially after that first day, your losses just deplete a very limited inventory of these CCAs.
2. Control is an obvious problem, those images of a manned fighter "quarterbacking" a couple of unmanned CCAs is just that, artwork. The work load is just way beyond what a pilot can handle. Almost make you wonder, why bother? Why not just launch them on their own missions and not even bother with a manned "escort" or "supervisor"? The odds seems against the manned pilot being able to do a whole lot of changing the mission "on the fly" anyways, are we asking the pilot to reprogram the CCAs tasking in the air?!? Maybe from the ground control or some sort of modified AWACS with multiple crew could pull it off but I doubt a F22 pilot or F35 could pull it off. It would have to be very low threat for the pilot to spend that much time changing the tasking, at the point, why do you need the F22 there then? or why are you even changing the tasking? Just seems to be something that needs to be worked out more.....
3. No clue what the Chinese are thinking or why they are doing it BUT interesting to note that J20 does appear to be coming out as a twin-seater....
4. To me, far more likely than the manned pilot doing the "quarterbacking" of the CCAs, I think the pilot will be there more to assist them in their mission than the other around! Really, why bother changing the tasking of the CCAs when it's difficult and hard to do on the fly, how much flexibility will the CCAs really have?!? Probably not that much, realistically. I see it as go-nogo, if they go, great, if there's a big problem, far more easy really just to send them back home. The most flexible part of this mission set is having the manned fighter doing the change and adapting and enabling the CCAs to do their mission!
"can't buy that many without endangering manned jets buys"
DeleteAnd that's the real issue in this, isn't it? The Air Force is all about pilots and they aren't going to give up manned aircraft buys, as you point out. If they can get all the manned aircraft they want AND some additional unmanned then, sure, they'll go for that. But woe unto the program that threatens their manned aircraft quotas! Excellent observation.
"super dangerous targets"
By definition, we won't risk manned aircraft around 'super dangerous targets' so how will the unmanned drones get there and how will they be controlled/directed without manned aircraft around. This is all the kind of stuff that should have been worked out in the non-existent CONOPS.
Has anyone considered that, for the pilot of the manned aircraft to be "quarterbacking" all these unmanned aircraft, the manned aircraft will have to be emitting a lot of radio signals? What does that imply for the detectability of the expensive and supposedly stealthy manned aircraft?
ReplyDelete"Has anyone considered that, for the pilot of the manned aircraft to be "quarterbacking" all these unmanned aircraft, the manned aircraft will have to be emitting a lot of radio signals?"
DeleteThey're probably adopting the same approach to that problem as the Navy with the Ford class, an approach called "hoping nobody notices".
Assuming the Chinese will fight, as we would, with their version of supporting electronic warfare aircraft (EA-18G Growler), we'll be trying to communicate with drones in a comms-challenged environment. Can we do that? Can the tiny transmitters and receivers on fighter and drone aircraft overcome that level of jamming, hacking, interference, false signals, etc.?
DeleteWe haven't done any testing that I'm aware of and yet we're plunging ahead with production. What could go wrong?
"an approach called "hoping nobody notices".
DeleteThe degree of assumptions involving the enemy cooperating in their own destruction that has crept into military thinking is alarming. Most of our designs and concepts are predicated on the enemy passively allowing us to act as we will.
I just need to know bearing, and due to intelligence about your transmit power and antenna capability, I can kill you.
DeleteIf anyone thinks the Chinese are not sophisticated enough to bring high end EW to bear, I can sell them a bridge in New York.
Good point! Stealth-until-transmitting, innit?
DeleteBut they'll use a squillion-Hz band that The Enemy won't know they're using. That'll fix it.
"After all, we have no Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for the drones so why not jump into procurement?"
ReplyDeleteHey, why should the Navy have all the fun (with CONOPS free purchasing decisions)? After all, it's certainly worked well for them. NOT !!
A "precision Swiss watch?" A $20 Casio could measure time more accurately than any Swiss watch ever made.
ReplyDeleteThere may be a lesson in there for budgeting for drones relative to F-35s...
"Loyal Wingman" is *kind of* a CONOPS (a very thin one admittedly). This is supposed to be a UAV that will support and operate WITH manned aircraft. It acts as a wingman, escort, decoy, and or magazine for the manned aircraft it flies with.
ReplyDeleteBecause of this CONOPs it has to match their flight/performance envelope and it has to be super-smart so it doesnt shoot at or fly into the manned aircraft. It will have to take instructions from the manned plane, so it has to communicate with and be controlled by the manned jet in addition to being semi-autonomous for certain roles and potentially controlled remotely from the ground at times.
Due to the nature of the "Loyal Wingman CONOPs", the UAV will have to be incredibly expensive, incredibly cutting edge, very high performance, and not expendable at all. Furthermore, the biggest current flaw in this CONOPS is that it really needs the manned aircraft to be designed to USE the loyal wingman. Where are they going to put all the comm gear? How is the pilot supposed to fly his own aircraft, use his own eeapons, and control his wingmen all at the same time in a cockpit that was never designed for it? Oopsy; all our F-22s and F-35s are single seat.
"Loyal Wingman" is *kind of* a CONOPS"
DeleteNo, it's a piece of equipment.
"a UAV that will support and operate WITH manned aircraft. It acts as a wingman, escort, decoy, and or magazine for the manned aircraft it flies with."
That's not a CONOPS, that's a fantasy wish list. Let's remind ourselves what an actual CONOPS is. It's a description of EXACTLY how an asset will fit into overall operations, what specific tasks it will be given and HOW it will accomplish those tasks. It would describe control schemes and HOW they will work in the face of EW/jamming. It would describe HOW a manned aircraft will control the drone and under what circumstances (all while the manned aircraft is fighting for its own survival). It would describe the organization of the asset (squadrons?, swarms?, individuals?), where it will be deployed from (will a drone that is smaller and less capable have the range to accompany the manned aircraft? if not, how will it get to the operating area?), how it will be supported, flight profiles, etc. In short, a CONOPS describes, IN DETAIL, how the asset will function and what it will do.
Vague statements like, "It acts as a wingman, escort, decoy, and or magazine for the manned aircraft it flies with", are not CONOPS, they're generic wish lists that have no connection to reality.
"When has uncertainty about a ship or plane’s payload ever been a problem for any enemy?"
ReplyDeleteRemember how, when they saw a kamikaze approaching, the USN crews wondered whether the plane was really loaded with enough explosives to matter, or whether the pilot would really ram the ship, or maybe close his eyes and splash into the water 100 feet short, and did nothing because they were so uncertain?
Oh, wait. They fired every piece of AAA at it until they ran out of ammo or the barrel melted off!
An adversary with four times our population, a similar sized economy and a marked disregard for the life of their citizens should be a cakewalk. We can totes count on them to be fatally tentative.
Aren't missiles the unmanned flying craft you send to highly dangerous missions. They also force the enemy to expose their defences and they have been tried and battle tested.
ReplyDeleteCherry on the cake they are far cheaper.
Some may argue that missile are single use, but the big question is how many mission would a 40 million dollar uav be involved in to justify being a cheaper option than a few missiles.
-BM
I watched an internet video about this loyal wingman program. It was very enthusiastic about it.
ReplyDeleteBut as I watched it I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong during combat with this complicated system.
It will also take a number of years to be deployed.
Now my understanding is that, due to demographics, the probability of peer war is highest during the next decade or so.
Why don't we work on developing the weapons that we have now, like the F22 for example. Evolutionary improvements, not revolutionary leaps with high failure rates.
There's a lot of value in weapons that actually work.
There's not a lot value in weapons that might work in a decade or so.
Lutefisk
"It was very enthusiastic about it."
DeleteAs were the videos about the LCS ... and the Zumwalt ... and the Ford ...
One case where a drone “wingman” (a poor name, since there is zero chance it will be capable enough to act as a true wingman) would be useful would be as a munition carrier slaved to a stealth aircraft. The unmanned nature frees up room for more munitions with a lower profile. Such a platform would be useful in cases such as the theoretical one in your “Stealth Air-to-Air Combat Story” article.
ReplyDeleteThat said, to use such a drone effectively we’d really want a 2-man manned aircraft so the pilot can focus on his job and the second person can manage the drone, process the massive amount of information modern 5th generation aircraft are getting from their (and hopefully other platforms’) sensors, and assist with ECM and weapons targeting when that phase of the engagement begins.
The fact we currently have no 2-man stealth fighters (the strategic bomber platforms do not seem relevant to this sort of discussion) is frankly bewildering to me. There may be some information I am not aware of that makes a 2-man fighter less advantageous than it used to be, but I rather doubt it. Asking a single pilot to pilot, target, manage all the sensor and ECM systems, and potentially manage these drones seems to be a drastic overestimation of a human’s multitasking ability.
"munition carrier slaved to a stealth aircraft."
DeleteOne of the aspects that I'm unsure about is how a manned aircraft would pass usable targeting data to an unmanned drone. In the usual course of events, an aircraft gets targeting from its radar and the aircraft's missiles are slaved to that (so many miles ahead, at a bearing of, and an altitude of). With a separate, unmanned aircraft, the targeting is not valid because the UAV doesn't occupy the same physical location. If the UAV is wingtip to wingtip then the data would be good enough but if the UAV is, say, several miles away, the targeting is no longer valid. A computer could correct the data IF THE RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE MANNED AND UAV AIRCRAFT ARE KNOWN TO EACH OTHER. However, I don't know how the two aircraft would keep track of each other throughout an aerial engagement. Radar is limited to a frontal view and, in an engagement, the radar is going to be locked on the target, not the UAV.
Maybe this can be done but I'm dubious. Every account of aerial combat I've ever read indicates that it is very difficult to keep awareness of any aircraft other than the immediate target once actual combat maneuvering begins.
For strictly BVR engagements, this might be manageable but, again, once maneuvering begins, awareness is lost.
Perhaps you have some idea how this would work?
“Stealth Air-to-Air Combat Story”
DeleteGlad the stories are memorable!
I am far from an expert on stealth communications. I simply hope that the US military has accounted for it since “sensor fusion” and other communication-centric ideas seems to be a major touted benefit for the newer stealth platforms. It’s a bit of an annoyance for people like me working with open-source stuff, since that sort of information is exactly the sort that would hopefully be kept secret as long as possible to prevent the enemy from using it, but also leaves the claims of the US military looking pretty unsupported in their absence.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to try to find the ideal way to use them right now, using them as stealthy bomb carriers (freeing the manned aircraft to carry self-defense munitions) or missile carriers for BVR. Dropping a bomb on a stationary target should be simple enough for any updates to be given using at a range where there is little risk of giving away either platform. For closer work, such as designating moving targets or relaying targeting data for a BVR engagement some sort of directional communications method (laser, focused radio/microwaves, etc.) should still be safe.
Once real maneuvers start they’d be best sent away at best speed if carrying bombs or munitions unsuited to air-to-air work, or used as decoys and “threats in being” (unmanned aircraft running purely on their programming might be terrible at close maneuver combat but they are still a threat that must be accounted for by the enemy). If things have gone wrong enough for that kind of fight to happen I’d prefer the manned aircraft focus on survival and let the survival of the drones be a far second to the survival of the manned aircraft. This sort of thing is much more practical if the manned aircraft has a second person to help with the workload (which is the case with almost all real combat). This is also a good reason for the drones being as cheap as practical, though an unmanned aircraft is still cheaper to lose than a manned aircraft of the same cost, since the people represent a large expense in and of themselves.
On the subject of the drones being cheaper, I have doubts that they will be able to get costs below half of the fighter they are to operate alongside. The systems they can easily outright omit are the life-support (air tanks and hoses, ejection seats, pressurization systems, physical space for the pilot), interactivity devices (visual displays, controls, etc.), and possibly some survivability considerations and safety margins. But the most expensive parts of an aircraft are the electronic systems, engine and related systems, control surfaces and control systems, and various other systems that will still be required on an unmanned aircraft. Shrinking the size of the aircraft due to lack of pilot may allow the use of less powerful engines and less fuel, but that’s not going to save you half the cost. Maybe cutting deep into the maneuverability capabilities (keeping the speed but having far lower g-limits and control surface capabilities compared to the fighter they are to fly with) will represent a large cost savings, and an unmanned drone has little need for exceptional dogfighting capabilities if the drone’s programming can’t handle them in the first place.
" the ideal way to use them right now, using them as stealthy bomb carriers"
DeleteDon't we already have that? They're called Tomahawks.
You aren't wrong on that. The manned stealth fighter + stealth drone might be able to handle more complex missions (defeating air defense and "wild weasel" type missions with drones carrying munitions and/or acting as the bait/decoy is an example that just came to mind) but for direct strike missions against stationary targets a stealthy cruise missile is simply better. Far less risk to people, and if the stealth communications technology is good enough then you could even have a surveillance satellite relaying last-minute targeting data to allow the targeting of moving targets.
DeleteBut we don't even make enough tomahawks for a minor skirmish with a peer threat, so the ability to crank out massive numbers of stealthy long-range missiles is dubious. I doubt even a saturation volley of the non-stealth tomahawk against would get through a modern air defense net, and we don't have the munition manufacturing to make that many in the first place.
But the military is funding research into using green fuels for tomahawks, so I'm sure their R&D priorities are in the right place. https://www.lanl.gov/discover/publications/national-security-science/2020-spring/tomahawk.php
"defeating air defense and "wild weasel" type missions"
DeleteHere's a bit of irony ... the wild weasel and anti-SAM type tasks ARE ONLY NEEDED TO KEEP MANNED PILOTS/AIRCRAFT ALIVE ! If we're using Tomahawk cruise missiles, we don't need to do those tasks. Sure, a few more missiles will be shot down but who cares?
With a $2M Tomahawk cruise missile, we could shoot 40 of them for the cost of a single $80M drone and, as you point out, the cruise missiles risk no one.
Land attack makes absolutely no sense for a loyal wingman scheme. The only scheme that makes any sense is air-to-air and no drone is remotely capable of successful A2A so I'm left wondering what the CONOPS is. Of course, like all of our programs, there is no CONOPS which is the problem.
I'm just no seeing where a drone is technologically viable and operationally useful. We seem to be pursuing this technology for the sake of technology.
I could see the desire to quickly clear out SAM sites to secure broader air superiority over a theater where we expect to be supporting ground troops, but you're right we could just send cruise missiles against those targets. Or use drones controlled remotely if we need the SAM sites to reveal their locations (paired drones with one as bait and one as munitions carrier). In this case stealth is actually a bad thing since we need the SAM site to see them and attempt to destroy them, so existing drones would do just fine.
DeleteThese ideas have been how I'd try to use these drones now, if pressed to. They are not situations that require them, and can likely be done better and cheaper with existing assets.
I do support R&D into technologies that we have no current use or doctrine for, but they are not selling these as experimental testbeds but rather as actual fieldable equipment which is the problem. I suspect (and hope) there is an element of exaggeration of their intended use in order to secure interest and funding, and that these are actually testbeds, but there have been so many ideas that have gone forward under dubious use cases (LCS comes to mind) that they could well be planning to field these things without any practical and tested ideas of how they'll be used.
"they are not selling these as experimental testbeds but rather as actual fieldable equipment"
DeleteYou're right on the edge of the real problem. The real problem is that these unproven, questionable assets (unmanned ships, unmanned aircraft, unmanned whatever) are already set to REPLACE manned equivalents. If they were just supplements to manned assets that would be bad but marginally okay but they're replacements. The Navy has already stated that Ticos and Burkes will be replaced to some extent (not a one-for-one) with unmanned vessels. With a finite budget, you know that unmanned drones will replace manned aircraft. When you buy two $40M (let's accept the Navy's ridiculously optimistic estimate) drones, you're giving up an $80M real, manned aircraft. The budget is a zero-sum game. If you put $40M to an unmanned asset, that's $40M you're taking away from manned asset acquisition.
That's the real problem ... we're replacing proven assets with unproven and highly questionable assets.
I'd go further and say the core of the problem, a mere symptom of which the foolish drive to replace manned with unmanned for "cost savings", is a combination of corruption (be it direct in spending money on bad programs to secure post-military work, or indirect in the prioritization of non-performance factors in appointing people to run these programs) and a mindset that the decline of US military power is inevitable and not something to be fought against but something to be managed and stretched out.
ReplyDeleteThis mindset seems to exist in the highest levels of the military as well as on the civilian side of government which is supposed to be providing oversight to the military and giving the military goals and funding (with oversight to ensure the funding is being well spent) to accomplish those goals. Right now the foremost goal is to "save money" rather than "make a world-class military".
Decline is a choice.
they needed to start with the Kratos series of drones, where you can have sub 5 million $ airframes, and they follow the pre-programmed flight paths to deliver weapons. As with the SDB's, they can have a target changed mid-flight, but the key with these even on the largest variations of them is they are cheap, therefore expendable (not that 5 mil is cheap, but Kendall has said that the top end drones will be half the price of the NGAD, which still means a 100 million drone, which, to your point, is stupid until fleshed out). Having an F-15 quarterback say 10 of those each carrying two Amraam's, potentially directed solely by the f-15, with an expected loss of 80% of those with an expected loss to the enemy of say 4-5 aircraft, might be acceptable and for once economically in the US favor. Key is to not overthink it for step one, flight profile is flight to this point, launch AAM's and hit the deck and rtb at once.
ReplyDelete