Having largely failed to develop and field a new long range
anti-ship cruise missile (LRASM), the Navy is now asking industry to develop
yet another new missile with the capabilities of the LRASM for a small fraction
of the price.
In fact, the Navy’s notice suggests that the new missile
should be even better than the LRASM.
So, the Navy is asking for a better missile at a
substantially lower price.
But wait … the fantasy grows!
The Navy is looking to field this new missile in 2027.[1] For comparison, the LRASM began development
in 2009 and production began eight years later in 2017. Even today, 15 years after beginning
development, we’ve only produced a grand total of 258 missiles, as shown in the
table below, and the Lot 4,5 missiles are not expected to be delivered until 2026.
The US Navy is seeking industry’s assistance to rapidly prototype and field a new air-launched, stand-off weapon inexpensive enough to manufacture en masse and perform on par with the service’s current anti-ship cruise missile.[1]The Navy solicitation notice to industry states that the new missile “should be “complimentary” to the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile”.
… the service posted a public notice earlier this month that it should have “increased range at lower costs” and “integrated a high-maturity propulsion system with proven payloads.”[1]Note that it is not unambiguously clear from the notice that the ‘increased range’ refers to the LRASM although that is the Navy’s current air-launched anti-ship missile.
Possible proposals from industry should aim for a cost no greater than $300,000 per all-up-round with a production capacity of at least 500 rounds per year, the notice states.[1]For comparison, the LRASM costs around $3M per missile. Thus, the Navy is asking for better performance at 1/10th the cost. Does anything seem out of whack about this? ComNavOps has long been calling for cheaper weapons that can be mass produced quickly and affordably but this goes well beyond the realm of reasonable and deep, deep into the world of pure fantasy. Even allowing for some degree of profiteering by industry, if they had the technical capability to produce a missile with better performance than the LRASM for 1/10th the cost, they’d already be doing it.
Let’s check the reality-fantasy ratio on this. Ideally, you’d like a 100% reality to 0%
fantasy, right? Common sense and history
tell us with absolute certainty that when you start subtracting from reality
and adding fantasy, you fail. So …
The Navy wants a better LRASM at 1/10th the
price. Does that seem like reality or
fantasy?
The Navy wants the new weapon fielded by 2027. Even if you consider this year to be the
start of development (and no development contract has yet been issued), that
means the Navy is looking to field this weapon in just three years versus the
eight years it took to field the LRASM.
Does that seem like reality or fantasy?
The Navy wants a production capacity of 500 missiles per
year compared to the LRASM demonstrated production rate of 258 missile in 7
years which is a production rate of 37 missiles per year! Does that seem like reality or fantasy?
We have to be a little bit fair, here, and note that the
Navy is just exploring the concept.
Now, as stated earlier, ComNavOps has long called for
cheaper weapons. However, hand in hand
with that call is the call for simpler weapons … it’s the ‘simpler’ part that
makes the ‘cheaper’ part a reality.
Could the Navy develop a cheaper and simpler anti-ship cruise
missile? Yes!
How can we produce a simpler missile? A good start would be to eliminate the
network capability and all the mid-course handoff, pass back and forth,
guidance by a Boy Scout in Utah capability that is total garbage and adds
nothing to the combat capability. Make a
missile that flies to a spot, opens its sensor ‘eye’, looks for a target, and
then attempts to fly into the target.
Eliminate the choosing a specific rivet to hit and just settle for a hit
anywhere. Modern ships aren’t
armored. A hit anywhere will be a
mission kill or sinking (ask the Russians!).
Eliminate all the sensor imaging garbage that only increases the
software complexity and cost and wrecks schedules. You don’t need an image library on a
missile. In war, just let it hit
anything that meets a few basic sensor criteria. Anything you hit is going to hurt the enemy.
Let’s stick with reality and leave fantasy in the
laboratory.
_______________________________
“The objective of this notice is to help the government determine if there are existing sources with the capability and experience to rapidly prototype, integrate, test and field a long-range, network-enabled weapon system capable of launch from a F/A-18E/F and F-35A/C,” according to the notice.[1]They may find out that it’s utterly unrealistic and drop it but the point is that the stated desire is so far from reality that someone is wasting a lot of time and effort on something that should be patently obvious is impossible.
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/02/navy-seeking-to-rapidly-prototype-new-air-launched-stand-off-missile/
To be fair, some of those capabilities could be done fairly cheaply these days. You could have a bunch of undergrad engineering students duct-tape an iPhone to the nose of a missile, and use visual AI image-recognition to recognize types of ships, in pretty short order.
ReplyDeleteBut thoroughly testing those capabilities adds time and cost, I don't don't expect defense contractors to ever do anything cheaply.
What is your point and how does it relate to the post?
Delete"some of those capabilities could be done fairly cheaply these days"
No. Every program we've done demonstrates that NOTHING can be done cheaply, for a variety of reasons.
" use visual AI image-recognition to recognize types of ships, in pretty short order."
You're engaging in hyperbole - at least, I hope you are - but it's hyperbole that is not well founded. Even something as seemingly simple as image recognition requires immense amounts of coding to account for any approach angle to the target, changes in the target image due to damage or camouflage, recognition in the face of obscurants or weather, and so on.
It doesn't require immense amounts of coding at all anymore to account for those things. You just have to collect labeled images of ships from various angles and conditions, and train an AI to recognize them. Little human work is involved. If you don't have enough images, you can probably use renderings as well. Lots of AI training is done on synthetic data these days.
Delete"It doesn't require immense amounts of coding at all anymore to account for those things. "
DeleteThe entire F-35 Block development would disagree with you. The manufacturer has been working for decades to field the Block 4 weapon/sensor software and has failed to the point that they have given up on much of it and pushed off into a nebulous 'future' effort. You have no idea what's involved in even the simplest software coding effort.
You're welcome to your belief but it is entirely unrealistic.
I should add, with modern missiles using visual and IR target recognition, it makes me wonder if we'll see a return of camouflage to ships. My idea is having a bunch of inflatable structures that inflate and deflate at random in order to change the silhouette of the ship. I wonder if that would work.
ReplyDelete" I wonder if that would work."
DeleteNo, because image recognition isn't that important or useful. In war, you're going to want to sink EVERY enemy ship, commercial or military, and image recognition is not need for that. Imaging might be slightly useful for prioritizing targets but even that can be generally handled with a simple 'kill the biggest target' command instead of imaging.
An emphasis on image recognition is the result of watching too many science fiction or Mission Impossible movies.
Visual guidance has an advantage that it isn't susceptible to radio jamming. The only way to jam it is if you can manage to his its seeker with a laser. I don't know how easily that's done on a fast missile.
DeleteAnd it could keep you from wasting missiles on decoys.
"Visual guidance has an advantage that it isn't susceptible to radio jamming."
DeleteIt's susceptible to multi-spectral obscurants, bad weather, camouflage, darkness to an extent, simple smoke, etc. as well as laser blinding which the Chinese have used quite successfully against our aircraft.
There's a reason electro optical weapons have been retired and we're now using thermal imagers.
DeleteI want to point out, by the way, that the Imaging Infrared Mavericks, the ones that had IIR cameras of such great quality that they could lock onto COLD, STATIONARY TANKS, only cost 100k back in the day. Which is still only around 180k today, which is still hilariously cheap for a weapons procurement. Quite frankly it's the radar guidance that drives the cost of the guided weapons up - note the increase in cost in SDB II over SDB I, with the biggest cost driver being the radar seeker.
On the other hand, IIR has range limitations, but currently the Stormbreaker guided bomb shows that we can get effective IIR guidance at 70km, or 3 times the range of Maverick. 70km is still hilariously close within the AAW engagement envelope of a serious warship with long range SAMs, but it's a very comfortable standoff distance for dealing with Chinese corvettes and frigates, let alone their missile boats which are effectively defenseless against air attack.
Yes, 5-inch would be a much cheaper and more cost effective way of servicing Chinese missile boats, but by the time your DDG has gotten in range to use 5", the missile boats have fired off their shipkillers at you, and you'd have needed to run that gauntlet. It would have been nice to have a fast corvette that could range ahead of the battlegroup to skirmish and screen for the missile boats, but we all know what happened to LCS.
Unrelated, but Biden's announcement of a "naval aid mission" in Gaza makes very little sense, unless I'm missing something.
ReplyDeletePowered JDAM could achieve this if it were fed the target data via datalink or had additional means of guidance installed. Cheap and many is coming, even for the tough to go cheap MIC. https://www.boeing.com/content/dam/boeing/boeingdotcom/defense/weapons-weapons/images/powered_JDAM_product_card.pdf
ReplyDeleteThe LCS was going to change the way of future warfare.
DeleteNumber of weapon systems that have been claimed to be 'game changing' - hundreds.
Number of weapon systems that have actually been 'game changers' - around none.
Number of weapon systems that have been claimed to be affordable - all of them.
Number of weapon systems that have actually been affordable - none.
Bring this back up in ten years when it has been completely forgotten and superseded by twenty more game changing weapon systems ... that also didn't deliver.
We've learned our lesson on this blog, not to believe manufacturer's claims.
"if it were fed the target data via datalink or had additional means of guidance installed. "
And then it becomes yet another million dollar plus missile.
Powered JDAM makes more sense as a shorter ranged complement to Tomahawk, where you're conducting standoff strikes on large numbers of static targets - airbases, infrastructure, facilities. It makes less sense as an antiship weapon - unless you get the opportunity to do a pearl harbor attack on the enemy, but that is statistically improbable.
DeleteAn interesting look at the cost reduction potential for the Tomahawk engine. I think it comes down to what the goal and focus is. If they really wanted to knock out 75% of the cost of these missiles they could. But not with the typical procurement process. Then if things scaled significantly you might get to that 90% reduction, but won't happen at low volume.
ReplyDeletehttps://x.com/Rashomon2/status/1754327174239371580?s=20
If we turn the request into "what can I get for $300k?", then I think it's a worthy exercise. Perhaps worst case we get a cheaper missile that we can use against drones and missiles than what we we're firing off now.
ReplyDelete"what can I get for $300k?"
DeleteWell, a Sidewinder Blk II missile costs around $390,000 so there's your comparison point. Now, do you think you can turn a Sidewinder into a ship-killing, few hundred mile, cruise missile while removing the $90,000 odd extra money? Yeah, I don't think so. Not even close.
I think what you can get for $300,000 without a new very low cost engine, like we hope the Kratos TDI-J85 will be, is a winged, plywood construction, prop powered missile/drone. Might work against the Russians since their point defenses seem to be sailors shooting RPKs...
Deletefor 300k, you should be able to get a new Maverick missile. The old Maverick missiles cost 100k per shot, just fyi.
DeleteThe issue with fighting the Chinese Navy is they have a lot of corvettes and missile boats. The missile boats are effectively defenseless against aircraft, and the corvettes at best have point defenses. However, using up stealth AShMs like LRASM is tremendously overkill - you need to save the LRASMs for the chinese DDGs, CGs and CVs.
Having a Maverick-class weapon would be an excellent tool for dealing with these weapons. It's using a tack hammer for nails and a sledgehammer for boulders.
Alternatively, while a maverick's warhead isn't really the biggest, an enemy DDG certainly isn't going to enjoy getting slammed with half a dozen of them or so, and gives us the opportunity to do a massive saturation strike. For the sake of illustration: assuming we can fit two new small AShMs into an F-35's bomb bay, 2 nominal 12-ship squadrons equals 24 aircraft firing a total of 96 weapons. Assuming that we can carry an additional 8 weapons on the wing, purely for the sake of a maximum airstrike, this means that 24 aircraft could theoretically deliver a salvo of 288 weapons, which ought to be enough to overwhelm the defenses of a PLAN CVBG.
In contrast, with the existing JSM missile, a nominal 2 squadron attack of F-35s can deliver 144 missiles, but would cost more than that theoretical 300k Maverick-ish missile.
"DDG certainly isn't going to enjoy getting slammed"
DeleteIf an aircraft is within effective Maverick range, the aircraft has probably been dead for some time.
Yes, but I'm talking purely about the warhead weight, not actually building exact copies of the Maverick missile.
DeleteMaverick was a slow, cheap, fat, short ranged missile designed 60 years ago. When I said "a new Maverick missile," I don't mean literally restarting the Maverick production line, I'm talking about making a new weapon within that same class, taking advantage of 60 years of advances in propellant chemistry, rocket motors, and aerodynamic lifting body design to give it better range than Maverick's 25km. The unpowered Stormbreaker guided glidebomb can hit moving targets at 70km, that's three times Maverick's range, and it's doing it at about a third the weight, purely by gliding. Surely we can get better range in a weapon weighing 700 to 1000lbs that's powered with a rocket motor!
On the other hand, the Air Force is already buying Stormbreaker at 195k a pop, it's got a heavier warhead than MACE (105 pounds vs 75 pounds), a penetrating puse, and they can fit 4 weapons into each internal bay (so 8 weapons internally carried by an F-35), it has a radar seeker and it's already got an open production line. Seems to be ticking most of the MACE program's boxes. Maybe the Navy should stop trying to make bespoke solutions and go with something off the shelf that's close enough.
The only way USN could realistically cut the cost, IMO, is cut way back on speed and LO capability. My guess is USN would want to keep the range so make the air-frame the most simple cheap plastic shaped you can get out of a mold with a super cheap motor, warhead shouldn't be too expensive and use COTS electronics. I think you could get it under a $1 million which already would be significant progress! I think that is doable.
ReplyDeleteApparently the MACE is only supposed to have a 75 pound warhead. It's supposed to be small enough to fit 4 in the internal bays of the F-35C. Implied is some combination of "giving the F-35C a way to deliver anti-ship missiles without sacrificing stealth with an external weapons payload" and "if we shoot enough of these cheap little guys we could overwhelm their air defenses."
ReplyDeleteThese aren't terrible ideas, but agree the price tag is probably off by at least a factor of 5. And the dinky 75 pound warhead means that a simply, hefty ship killer that can be mass-produced cheaply is still needed.
"only supposed to have a 75 pound warhead"
DeleteThat is not a ship-killer. It's barely a canoe-killer. For comparison, during Op Praying Mantis the Navy hit the Iranian 47m patrol boat Joshan with five Standard SM-1 missiles (137 lb warhead each) and did not sink it. The boat was eventually sunk with gunfire.
I agree! I apologize that my comment was not clear. My point was that even if they succeed in producing this as intended, a simple, hefty ship killer that could be cheaply massed produced would still be needed.
Delete"MACE is only supposed to have a 75 pound warhead."
DeleteTo be clear, the 75 lb spec is for payload, not warhead explosive weight. If a warhead is the payload, presumably the explosive weight would be less than 75 lb by some amount.
AS usual with USN, not a bad idea but the start of this program doesn't bode well. This is how I would have done it:
ReplyDelete1. AERO: USN should have an open aerodynamics design, somewhat fixed for companies that don't have that engineering expertise. That way, you open up the airframe to really anyone that has plastic or carbon fiber manufacturing capability. Could this be a aluminum frame and still be cheap, no clue. You just have to match the best you can to the shape and that's it.
2. ENGINE: USN should specify an engine or 2 for the same reasons and open it up if someone can make it cheaper or faster. This is where I think USN can make some serious savings in terms of manufacturing if they let go of going fast. Speed is expensive here. Keep the quality and precision to just what is necessary and nothing more, that opens up the number of shops that can make parts.
3. Warhead. Just give a general weight and size volume required.
4.ELECTRONICS. Maximize COTS and use simple INS to get to the general area. Targeting? What ever is cheap:
Radar? EO? TV? Something else?
5. TEAMS. This is the area where USN could help the most: most small companies can't do this project so they would have to team up BUT do they want too? They might not all be interested in that, they just want to do the work that they are good at and let someone else worry about the entire project so who's the lead?!? Now, we go back to big integrators and we know how that ends up! Super expensive and slow! IMO, at the start, let USN be the integrator and worry about it later who will be the lead, some of the smaller tier defense companies like Kratos or AVAV might be the leads but I wouldn't necessarily worry about it right away.
I think this was the perfect opportunity for DoD and USN to really have gone outside the box and put out tenders to companies that generally STAY AWAY from DoD because it's too hard, too long, too many regs and red tape,etc....Im almost tempted to add: keep the major big boys like BA, LMT, NG and others out of this program.
Too many say that USA doesn't manufacture stuff anymore, personally I disagree, we still produce a lot of stuff, it's just not geared to the crazy military programs BUT with a program like this that USN could super stream line and simplified to the max!, I bet you could bring in a surprising amount of manufacturing capability!
Basically, this is a fancy and more powerful RC model. That's how USN should approach this if they want something under $500k.
Wasn't JSOW-ER supposed to cost $350k and have a longer range vs LRASM (550km vs 370km)?
ReplyDelete"Raytheon is discussing co-development of a powered version of the AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon with Dutch aerospace firm Stork Fokker, with the cruise missile design to offer a range of 555km (300nm).
The US company has launched the JSOW-ER programme without a launch order, but hopes the maritime and land attack weapon will attract domestic and foreign customers. The missile will have a unit cost of $350,000, excluding development charges."
https://www.flightglobal.com/raytheon-launches-jsow-er-talks-with-stork-fokker/78751.article
It was a while ago so inflation might have increased the price but maybe committing to a large order will offset that.
Depending on the specific contract, JSOW seems to be going for around $1M each.
DeleteI suspect the plan is to have JSM supplant JSOW-ER. Air Force is already buying them.
DeleteI have no idea as to whether it’s theoretically possible for the U.S. MIC to develop such a missile and to sell it to the DoD for that price.
ReplyDeleteBut I’m pretty confident that it won’t happen, because there is absolutely no incentive for them to do that.
Why, when you’re making good money selling the Government an anti-ship (or whatever) missile for $X million would you want to shut down your production line, lose those sales, and replace them with sales of a missile that costs a fraction of that figure?
Also, I hope that in the RFT or wherever we are with this atm, the guy who drafted it meant to write ‘complementary’ and not ‘complimentary’.
ReplyDeleteI feel it shouldn't be a new LRASM but a kamikaze drone to meet those requirements.
Leaving out the greed of corporations, admirals, and politicians, genuine cost boils down to guidance (affected by range and type of target), speed, and stealth.
The L for long range presents guidance challenges in that it must travel a long distance before activating its targeting systems. While GPS is cheap, it is vulnerable, so they are coming up with a new, fancy, inertial guidance for the initial flight path--expensive. And using a new targeting system for the final attack-expensive. And also GPS, because of course it does.
A Kamikaze drone uses a simpler autopilot + GPS style guidance or even remote piloting for the initial bearing. Then for the terminal phase uses either visual or cheap radar targeting akin to that of a hellfire missile--if its big and metal its a target. Not as great at target discrimination but cheaper.
For speed, LRASM is high subsonic. High subsonic means a jet engine. A disposable jet engine, but even that means jet engine sophistication and cost.
Drones—at least the ones on the cheap end—use propellers and cheap piston engines. It may take a while, but it will get there at a lot lower cost. As a bonus they have a lower IR signature.
LRASM uses expensive shaping and stealth materials. A drone would do it old school by flying at wavetops heights.
Drone drawbacks: most have low payloads, so it would have to be a new drone. And it has to be cheap because its not very stealthy.
Or how about a hybrid solution: A cheap propeller driven drone that launches off a small carrier with a single refurbished Harpoon missile which we still have plenty of in storage. The drone flys out till it is in Harpoon range, launches it, then returns.
Anon (I encourage you to put a username at the end of your comment to distinguish yourself from the many other anons), rather than critique your comment, I'm going to let you do it yourself by answering a few questions:
Delete1. What size existing UAV can carry a 13 ft long, 1500 lb Harpoon?
2. What do existing UAVs of that size cost?
3. What is the EFFECTIVE range of a Harpoon?
4. What distance from the target does that put the host/launch ship?
5. How does the launch ship obtain initial targeting?
6. What size 'carrier' would be required for the size of UAV needed? What would that carrier cost?
7. How does a drone flying at wavetop find its target for weapon release?
8. Given the propellor driven, slow speed and the target distance, how far will the target have moved before the drone/weapon arrives and what does that do to the terminal search area?
Let me know what you come up with.
1. What size existing UAV can carry a 13 ft long, 1500 lb Harpoon?
DeleteAs I stated, most have low payloads so it would need to be a new one.
2. I won’t go by existing UAV’s but an existing aircraft, the Cessna Caravan. Since a drone requires no cabin, seating, or pilot, you would need a ton or so less in weight so we can reduce. the wingspan etc. by 15-20% or so. Since the useful payload of a Caravan is (3300lbs) is roughly two harpoons, we could reduce the size even further by only making provision for payload of say 1800 lb. So say 75% that of a caravan in wingspan and length. A big bird but not prohibitively so. Roughly the size of an F3U corsair but not as tall and lighter—smaller than a modern fighter plane but larger than most drones.
3. What do existing UAVs of that size cost?
Existing UAVs are overpriced for what they do, but since I am using a commercial aircraft as the baseline, lets look at what it should cost not what the navy will be overcharged. A new Caravan with the bells and whistles is about 2.7 mill. Add another million for the unmanned systems and you get 3.7 million which we will run up to 4.5 million for safety margin. Expensive for a drone? Yes, but you could buy 12 for the price of a manned F18 or about 40 for the price of a P-8 which are the current launch aircraft for Harpoons/LRSM.
4. 3. What is the EFFECTIVE range of a Harpoon?
I only have what is on Wikepedia, and since it will be launched low level, probably no more than 50 miles. But remember we are not risking a pilot or ship when we do so.
4. What distance from the target does that put the host/launch ship?
Turing the cessna’s range into a radius, about 480nm if we wish to recover it. If it is a truly high profile target such as a Chinese carrier we can turn it into a one way mission which makes it expensive but about at a 1000nm 5x times the range of a LRASM.
5. How does the launch ship obtain initial targeting?
I have read your numerous blogs about the problem of long rang targeting and concur with you conclusions for the immediate future, but have 3 suggestions: first is the orbital ISR that Space Force and the Army are collaborating on where constellation of small cheap survelleilance sattelites akin to the Star link com sattlelites would provide targeting. Second really cheap drones that ONLY do surveillance to keep down costs (if shot down, hey we found the enemy!) and finally Submarines who could deploy a semi-submersible buoy (so they can leave before it transmists) whose signal is pinged off a satellite to the drone. We flew drones in Afghanistan from Conus via satellite.
6. 6. What size 'carrier' would be required for the size of UAV needed? What would that carrier cost?
Since it is the size of WW2 fighter, a Casablanca classed carrier of WW2 would suffice.
7. How does a drone flying at wavetop find its target for weapon release?
Same as answer 5, by satellite link.
8 . Given the propellor driven, slow speed and the target distance, how far will the target have moved before the drone/weapon arrives and what does that do to the terminal search?
Not un like WW2, quite a ways. But again, up until the launch it would most proably use sattelites or if we don’t mind risking the drone, an active scanner derived from existing missiles.
Please note that I am replying specifically to the idea of a Harpoon carrying drone not a kamikaze drone as your questions seemed to lean in that direction.
DeleteYour assumptions are most definitely on the optimistic side! For example, "no cabin, seating, or pilot, you would need a ton or so less in weight". A cabin is mostly air. You may be greatly overestimating the weight reduction! Similarly, your assumptions about the presence and effectiveness of satellites in a peer war is extremely optimistic.
Delete"run up to 4.5 million for safety margin."
We already have an unmanned aircraft with a 1000 mile range, 1000 lb warhead, 550 mph speed, multiple guidance modes, doesn't require a dedicated carrier, and costs about $2M versus your estimate of $4.5M. It's the Tomahawk cruise missile. So, what's the advantage of your concept versus a Tomahawk?
Forgive the numerous typos and misspelling, my thumbs were getting tired.
ReplyDeleteNavy is not satisfied with LRASM thus want a new anti-ship missile.:
ReplyDeleteLRASM is not stealthy if a radar looks from above (like E-2 or E-3). It is slow (subsonic) thus can be intercepted relatively easy. Its self seeking target works like anti-radiation missile - seeking strongest radar signal, which can be fooled by enemy with strong electronic warfare capabilities.
China now has good anti-ship missiles like YJ-18, a combination of subsonic and supersonic (final attack), YJ-21 (hypersonic?). Pentagon wants a capable anti-ship missile for long term.
Regarding cost target, if follow Pentagon long enough, you know this is a normal in recent years. Call for low cost but end up cost a lot.
Before noticed China's rising, Pentagon paid little attention on anti-ship missiles because of supremacy of naval air power from carriers. F/A-18 fires Harpoons was considered good enough.
DeleteKey point is Pentagon can get a competent anti ship missiles from this exercise.
DeleteThe USN has never really pushed development of anti-ship missiles. Back in the 1970s, we had none while the Russians had Styx from 1960 and the French had Exocet from 1975. It was always explained to us that the Airdale community opposed development of anti-ship missiles, favoring using manned aurcraft instead.
DeleteI totally support airpower, but I also firmly believe that ships need the best possible anti-ship missiles in case there's not an airplane handy.
Thank you for your explanation. The real question for me was how - given the size of DoD budget - the USN has built so few of LRASM, compared to the tens of billions sunk in LCS.
Delete"in case there's not an airplane handy"
DeleteOf course, in 1970 we had 19 carriers so the chances of a carrier aircraft being present were significantly better. Still, believing that there would ALWAYS be a carrier around is foolish and, as the years went by and the carrier force dwindled, some adjustment in thinking ought to have taken place.
This also assumes that your explanation is correct. I've seen no documentation to support that. As with so many other Navy decisions (like dropping big gun fire support or armor), we can speculate about the Navy's reasons but there is no documentation that shows the Navy's thinking at the time.
Maybe Iran will pitch the Shahed 136?
ReplyDeleteJust depends on your definition of 'on par'
More seriously, someone wants to put a warhead on a MALD or turbofan on a SDB
ReplyDeleteJust think Spear3
A MALD weighs 250 lb and has an endurance of 45 min. Adding any kind of useful warhead weight (assuming there was internal room in the missile body), would significantly degrade the endurance, speed, and range.
DeleteSDB II ticks most of the boxes anyway: 105 lb warhead; GPS/INS, SAL, radar and IIR guidance; fits 8 in the F-35 weapons bay, 195k USD unit cost, 70km glide range against moving targets. Strap it to a booster rocket and we get 4 weapons in an F-35 bay.
DeleteWarhead is small, given that it's from an air force program against tanks and smaller targets, but this is how you get a cheapish missile at more or less off the shelf.
SDB. When you want to kill a tank coy in one pass.
The Navy solicitation notice to industry states that the new missile “should be “complimentary” to the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile”.
ReplyDeleteI don't see the problem. All the new missile has to do is be able to say nice things about the LRASM. That should be easy.
PBS Velká Bíteš sells a FADEC-equipped TJ-150 turbojet engine for drones and light aircraft with 337lbf max thrust and a 600W electric generator. That engine costs $80K and TSFC is 1.167lb/lbf/hr. MicroTurbo TRI-60 has twice the thrust for about $83K, but fuel burn rate between TJ-150, TRI-60, and J402-CA-400 is nearly identical. Pratt & Whitney uses TJ-150 in the JASSM-ER, IIRC. The Williams F-107 variants that power ALCM / JSOW / LRASM are about $300K, 700lbf thrust, TSFC is 0.683lb/lbf/hr, and equipped with a 5kW electric generator for higher-powered sensors. I would expect this $300K weapon to fly at 350mph, carrying a 500lb warhead vs the 1,000lb warhead of JSOW and LRASM, which are both moving at 500 to 600mph. To fly for 1 hour and cover 350 miles at sea level, it needs 350lbs / 51.5gal of JP5.
ReplyDeleteEchoDyne's Ku-band EchoShield 4D AESA software-defined radar weighs 39lbs, consumes 250W of peak power, and can track a moving car or truck-sized target at 11km, with a maximum detection range of 30km. Presumably, a large ship can be detected and tracked at 30km. They said that if they can manufacture thousands of units per year, then the price will drop to single-digit thousands of dollars, with their prototypes costing $10K per unit. EchoDyne has a number of systems flying aboard drones and small commercial aircraft for all-weather small drone detection and avoidance. Most of the weight appears to be a very beefy Aluminum heat sink / protective casing. The airborne variants only weigh 1.25kg, but they're hanging out in the breeze and have reduced peak power and detection ranges. Their "metamaterial" radar is a selectively heated printed Copper "antenna pattern" that uses selective heating of the "antenna circuit" for beam shaping and directing.
$80K - 45lb engine (2019 cost)
$50K - 500lbs GFRP airframe ($7K for S glass and epoxy, 5% kerf, 400hrs labor at $50/hr; remaining money and hours devoted to component install and test; airframe shop has 100 workers to fab 10 airframes per week, 50 work weeks per year)
$5K - 500lb BLU-111 warhead (USAF FY2024 purchase cost)
$165K / 105lbs remaining funds / weight allocation for flight avionics, sensors, flight control actuators, fuel management, etc
For 500 weapons per year, $40M/yr - engines; $25M/yr - airframes; $2.5M/yr - ordnance; $82.5M/yr - radars / avionics / flight controls / test equipment. 5% profit is $7.5M/yr. That's a nice small business opportunity. If flight control avionics must be radiation-hardened, then we're never achieving the Navy's demanded cost figure. Power-PCs are $50K to $100K per chip.
The Sonex JSX-2T jet trainer (2-seat very light jet) has a 530lb empty weight, 1,500lb max gross weight, is primarily constructed from 2024 and 6061 alloys, uses the TJ-150 engine, and estimated range is 360 miles plus a 30 minute reserve using 50 gallons of fuel, at a cruise speed of 200mph.
The airframe weight is about half of the total payload weight (warhead / fuel / engine / avionics / sensors), which is achievable using composites. You're giving up half the warhead weight of LRASM and about 35% of the cruise speed performance to fly to 1.5X LRASM's quoted range figure. If you fly waypoints to evade enemy radars on the way to the target, then your maximum flight range is likely reduced to something on par with LRASM's quoted max range. JASSM-ER or LRASM it is not and never will be. It's a slower Harpoon with a composite lifting body and much greater internal fuel capacity for LRASM-like range, but much less sensor capability. Harpoon's airframe, less warhead and fuel, including sensors and electronics, is 572lbs. S glass can triple the internal volume for equivalent airframe strength and weight. If you add thrust with TRI-60, then you increase speed and subtract range. I don't really see the point, though, except against far less capable ships.
kbd512
"Presumably, a large ship can be detected and tracked at 30km."
DeletePresumably a large, NON-STEALTHY ship can be tracked under good weather conditions. All modern naval vessels are stealthy to some degree with claims of a radar return the size of a fishing boat, whatever that means.
Manufacturer's radar performance claims are always theoretical and based on the largest, most non-stealthy object under ideal conditions. Cut the manufacturer's claims in half and you begin to approach the real capability ... if you're lucky.
You offered a lot of detailed information. Now, bring it home
Delete... what's your overall conclusion/recommendation?
CNO,
DeleteI can't identify a valid target set for such a weapon. We can only fire them at poorly defended missile boats, corvettes, or small amphibious ships, with a reasonable expectation of a hit. Harpoon is still effective against those kinds of ships. We could also drop a significantly more powerful and less costly JDAM. Either way, we already have effective weapons to service those targets, and we know that they work from decades of operational use. The warhead is too small and the sensors are too limited to effectively attack more capable air defense frigates and destroyers.
That low-cost AESA radar lacks the transmit power of Harpoon's DSQ-28 radar (250W vs 35kW peak pulsed power), and it works by selectively heating the antenna array. You can't dump 10X more power through the same antenna design, let alone 140X. They both operate in the same frequency band and both are frequency hoppers. I'm not aware of any way to overcome a 2+ order of magnitude transmit power differential, especially for minimizing the effects of jamming and water vapor induced signal distortion. Modern electronics reduce compute time and overall machine size and power consumption. This is a power throughput / output problem, which is not solvable through any sort of miniaturization. It's highly probable that the decades-newer EchoShield has much better angular resolution and target discrimination than the aging DSQ-28, but transmit power is still king. EchoShield can tell you what kind of ship you're about to attack. DSQ-28 simply knows it's a ship. Knowing what kind is only relevant when the engagement area is filled with civilian and military ships. A tech refresh could provide Harpoon with the same capability.
Any warhead smaller than 1,000lb is far too small for sinking ships. The 1,500t Vosper Mk V frigate, Sahand, required 3X Harpoon hits and 4X 1,000lb bomb hits to sink it. One of our 5,000t ex-Newport class LSTs required 7X 2,000lb bomb hits to sink. A modern frigate or destroyer might be an instant mission kill from a 500lb warhead hit to its superstructure, but it won't be sunk if the crew are half-way competent at damage control. China only has to tow survivors 100 miles away from Taiwan for repair or salvage.
We can get LRASM range or warhead weight or speed for a lot less money. We can't get LRASM range, speed, warhead weight, sensor capability, and stealth for less money. LRASM capabilities are not achievable without LRASM costs. Anyone who believes otherwise is not being realistic, or doesn't understand what they're asking for.
kbd512
Nice bit of writing and reasoning. Not knowing the Navy's intended purpose, I can't assess your reasoning although it's certainly plausible.
Delete"I can't identify a valid target set for such a weapon."
What a succinctly valid statement. This entire blog is, in large part, about identifying 'valid target sets', whether actual targets or simply capabilities, and the lack thereof. I use the phrase 'CONOPS' instead of target sets but the underlying principle is the same. Far too much (almost all?) of the military's systems lack a 'valid target set' (CONOPS). Our military has lost the ability to analyze anticipated threats and design systems to deal with those threats. Because we lack people who can achieve that level of analysis, we've fallen back on the idiot's sop of technology. We've substituted technology for analysis and now we just pursue technology, believing it will stand in for tailored systems ... but it won't. So much of our resultant technology is useless for any real world application (LCS, Zumwalt, F-35, MLP, JHSV, etc.) because it was technology for its own sake instead of in response to a CONOPS aimed at a specific threat or task.
"We could also drop a significantly more powerful and less costly JDAM."
Delete@kbd512:
We could totally drop laser JDAMs and Paveways on Chinese corvettes and missile boats, but the very short range of those weapons means when our aircraft attach these missile boats and corvettes, we'll be engaging close within range of land-based SAMs. You'd also have to maintain a steady flight profile, keeping that laser pointed for the entire flight time, which is more than enough time for a SAM to come screaming in and kill your aircraft.
On the other hand, as weak and puny as they are, missile boats are still a threat to be respected against our warships, and the Chinese have 90 Type 056 and 056A corvettes shared between the Coast Guard and the PLAN. That's a lot of targets that need to be supressed, especially when we need to make space for our subs to operate in these waters.
Given the many target points necessary, as well as how we need serious shipkillers like LRASM against the PLAN DDGs and CGs, CONCEPTUALLY, a smaller cheaper missile that we can fire off in bulk is not an inherently bad idea. We need it to have more range so we have more space to defend against SAMs, we need it to have self guidance so we can launch and immediately go evasive, we need it to be small and cheaper so we can fire a lot of these missiles out.
But maybe we should ask ourselves this question: do we need a spam missile for fighting the PLAN's corvette spam in Taiwan, if we DON'T fight in Taiwan? Why should we fight in Taiwan anyhow? We should be forcing the Chinese to fight us near the Philipines, where the distance favors us, where they can bring less of their strength to bear.
"Why should we fight in Taiwan anyhow? We should be forcing the Chinese to fight us near the Philipines"
DeleteSetting aside any geopolitical or moral answers to that, far and away the most likely scenario is a Chinese invasion of Taiwan and, if we choose to contest that, there won't be any choice about the location of the fighting. We'll have no choice but to fight in Taiwan.
That's basically the elephant in the room: we're assuming that we're going to contest a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. This is us throwing away all our advantages and playing right into their hands. It won't be a USN vs PLAN fight, it'll.be USN vs the entirety of the PLA's forces brought to bear.
Delete