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Thursday, June 6, 2024

Weapon Selection Case Study

The Republic of Stupidia (formerly the Kingdom of Idiotonia) has been considering which of two competing weapons it should acquire.  Here’s a brief description of them:
 
1. Surface to Surface HARE missile
 
  • Guidance – combined GPS, terrain following, semi-active radar homing, laser guided, optical with mid-course guidance from any platform anywhere in the world
  • Targeting Sensor – combined electro-optical, infrared, infrared imagining, microwave, LIDAR, active radar, library image matching with individual rivet target selection
  • Terminal Maneuver – infinite maneuvering through subspace with interdimensional terminal popup
  • Networking – ‘on the fly’ spontaneous networking creating a mobile weapons cloud network automatically integrating with all regional networks for up to the nano-second data linking
  • Range – intercontinental with planned upgrade to interstellar
  • Speed – 70% lightspeed
  • Warhead – hyperfusion with dark matter enhanced antimatter core and selectable high explosive, fragmentation, or shaped charge modes
  • Cost – four million quadtrillion dollars (2024 $) each
  • Production Rate – one per century
 
 
2. Surface to Surface TORTOISE  missile
 
  • Guidance – inertial navigation
  • Targeting Sensor – active radar
  • Terminal Maneuver - none
  • Networking – none
  • Range – 1000 miles
  • Speed – cruise Mach 0.7, terminal sprint Mach 2
  • Warhead – TNT
  • Cost – $50,000 each
  • Production Rate – 1000 per week
 
 
Update Result:  Stupidia chose the HARE missile and subsequently lost the war against the neighboring godless heathens of Commonsenseica due to the one missile per century production rate and the HARE’s cyber vulnerability discovered by a teenager in Commonsenseica who was trying to program a video war game and wound up inadvertently taking control of the HARE missile.
 
 
 
Think this is silly?  Let’s take a look at what the US Navy is actually doing.
 
The US Navy is looking at a new anti-ship missile as described below
 
AGM-158C LRASM (Long Range Anti-Ship Missile)
 
  • Guidance – jam resistant GPS, Inertial Navigation, data link for mid-course guidance and updates
  • Targeting Sensor – Infrared thermal imaging with image reference library, passive RF, EO, automatic scene/target matching recognition with AI software guidance for target selection, passive electronic support measures (ESM), data-link for off-board real-time electronic picture of the enemy battlespace provided by other assets, on-the-fly missile-to-missile networking for data sharing and attack coordination
  • Networking – on-the-fly missile-to-missile networking for data sharing and attack coordination
  • Range - >200 nm
  • Speed – subsonic
  • Warhead – 1000 lb WDU-42/B HE blast fragmentation penetrator
  • Cost – $3M+ each
  • Production Rate – something on the order of 100 per year
 
 
Does the LRASM sound eerily similar to Stupidia’s HARE missile with its attendant high cost, complexity, and very poor production rates? 
 
Now consider what a non-existent, theoretical missile based on ComNavOps’ (K.I.S.S.) principles might look like:
 
Non-existent, Basic Missile
 
  • Guidance – inertial navigation
  • Targeting Sensor – active radar
  • Networking – none
  • Range – 1000 miles
  • Speed – cruise Mach 0.7, terminal sprint Mach 2
  • Warhead – high explosive
  • Cost – $50,000 each
  • Production Rate – 1000 per week
 
Does that sound eerily similar to the TORTOISE missile with its attendant simplicity, low cost, and ease of production?
 
So, which one is the Navy pursuing?  Yeah, the LRASM HARE. 
 
All four of our LRASM missiles should be finished with production in time for the coming war with China and I expect they’ll work just as well as the other weapons we’ve sent to Ukraine.
 
Are we selecting the right weapons?  TORTOISE or the HARE?

98 comments:

  1. The Air Corps wants a 150k$ cruise missile, available in bulk.
    Somebody has been paying attention to the Ukraine war.

    https://www.twz.com/air/cheap-long-range-cruise-missile-designs-to-be-tested-by-air-force

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    1. The military wants invisible missiles that cost one dollar each ... but they're not going to get them. I've seen the military's wish list and it's pure fantasy because they're not willing to give up any capabilities which is how you achieve affordability.

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  2. I assume the HARE Missile was recommended by the notorious Interdisciplinary PORK Committee?

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    1. "notorious PORK" is a rapper, isn't he?

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    2. The most listened-to among military officers!

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  3. Infrared thermal imaging with image reference library, passive RF, EO, automatic scene/target matching recognition with AI software guidance for target selection, passive electronic support measures (ESM), data-link for off-board real-time electronic picture of the enemy battlespace provided by other assets, on-the-fly missile-to-missile networking for data sharing and attack coordination.

    Sounds a lot like what the various Tomahawk & Harpoon versions have had over the years.

    The early DASMC used a rudimentary AI to compare what the camera sees and the onboard image library. Inertial nav is great but drifts so if GPS updates are good and imaging terrain to do the same.

    The anti-ship used ESM to help find targets and then pick out ships based on the radars before activating the radar. IIR and visible has the capacity to pick out different targets all by it itself.

    Talk back from the missile to control is old hat with the Walleye bombs having a TV that the operator could pick the target and lock on as the bomb flew.

    Ships can't carry hundreds of land attack/anti-ship missile so you have to give the missiles every advantage including some stealth.

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    1. You seem to have missed the point(s) of the post, completely!

      "Ships can't carry hundreds of land attack/anti-ship missile so you have to give the missiles every advantage including some stealth."

      That is the EXACT opposite conclusion!

      Oh well *sigh*

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  4. Great post CNO. Its nice to have a chuckle amid all the mind-numbing idiocy we discuss!!! Not sure I have much to add, and certainly nothing to argue with. So, a simple "yup" will probably suffice....

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  5. I don't think we can get the basic missile for 50,000 dollars, not if you want it to be powered, reaching 1000 miles, and having mach 2 terminal sprint. A big driver of costs is fuels because they need to be energy dense and powerful - especially when you're fighting for fuel storage volume in the missile body. Fuels based on cyclopentadiene, for example, cost 3000 USD PER KILOGRAM.

    Even the simplest legacy versions of Tomahawk cost 1 million dollars apiece, despite only having GPS guidance and maintaining a purely subsonic flight profile and running on JP-10 jet fuel (which is also more expensive than JP-8 on account of being formulated to be more energy dense).

    We could get a basic air launched missile for around that price point, with the caveat that the range is significantly shorter than 1000 miles. GLSDB costs 40,000 a pop and has 100 mile range from the ground, so I could easily see it reaching out to about 150 miles or more if air-launched.

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    1. 50k$ is probably not the key. Maybe 100 or 150, irs the KISS principle that is key. Can we all move to Commonsensica?

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    2. Even at that price, you're going to have to give up on range. Production of rocket fuels is complex and costly - remember, you're spending 3 grand per kilo of rocket fuel. 50 lbs of rocket fuel - not a large amount! - will cost you 75 grand alone.

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    3. Maybe we need a cheaper fuel? Maybe there is a tradeoff with 80% of the performance for 20% of the cost?

      The lesson of these long-range kamikaze drones is that it is possible to cheaply and rapidly produce "crude" cruise missiles. Somewhere between a $10,000 Iranian propeller drone and a LRASM, there's got to be a sweet spot delivering most of the capability of an anti-ship missile at 10% of cost. And by going with cheap, proven tech, it will probably be more reliable and faster to produce as well.

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    4. "I don't think we can get the basic missile for 50,000 dollars"

      Neither do I. That was a bit of ridiculous hyperbole to make a point.

      We need to decide which characteristic of a missile is most important and emphasize that. Is it range? Speed? Warhead size? Maneuverability? The secondary characteristics have to be maximized to the extent feasible consistent with affordability.

      Of course, the entire point of the post was affordability. It's pointless to produce the world's greatest missile if you can only produce a handful. We need the best missile that can be affordably produced in massive numbers. That means simplifying the missile requirements and design. We need a $50,000 dollar missile because our current $3M-$7M missiles can't be produced in sufficient quantities.

      One possible outcome is that we find we simply can't produce affordable missiles in sufficient quantities. If that's the case, then we need to rethink how to accomplish the missile's task ... but that's another topic.

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    5. "Somewhere between a $10,000 Iranian propeller drone and a LRASM, there's got to be a sweet spot delivering most of the capability of an anti-ship missile at 10% of cost."

      Congratulations on being the first person to grasp the point of the post. Succinctly summarized, too, by the way!

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    6. "50,000 dollars"

      Good grief! That's not a real price; it's a placeholder for a concept. The concept being that the weapon has to be affordable and producible in massive quantities or else it's useless. That's the point of the post. "$50,000" was simply easier to say than a whole paragraph and easily recognizable as such. I'm not going to dumb down posts so learn to grasp the premise.

      If we could produce a missile with the MINIMUM characteristics we need for $50,000, that would be great. If it has to cost $100,000, that's better than $3M-$7M. If it has to cost $500,000, that's still better than $3M-$7M. And so on.

      We've got to reduce costs to the point of affordability (meaning, massive production quantities) and the way to do that is by simplifying the design requirements. If we can't do that then we need to find another way to accomplish the mission.

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    7. "We need to decide which characteristic of a missile is most important and emphasize that. Is it range? Speed? Warhead size? Maneuverability? The secondary characteristics have to be maximized to the extent feasible consistent with affordability."

      Agreed. We also need to consider our requirements and the CONOPS of this missile. What is Tortoise being aimed at? It's GPS/INS guided, and it's meant to be fired at bulk at static targets. So, to me, that means that we can cut one requirement - Mach 2 terminal sprint - to reduce costs and missile size. Note that the Kalibir missile, which cruises at Mach 0.8 and sprints at Mach 3, was estimated to cost export customers 6.5 million USD dollars (!) in 2016, and that was just a simple terrain-following GPS guided missile with a terminal radar seeker.

      Coming back to GLSDB for a moment, it won't 100% apply to Tortoise, but it does give us at least some benchmark for how much we'll need to topup to meet our requirements. At 40 grand, we've got a small warhead with about 100 lbs of explosive and range of probably 100-150 miles.

      To an extent, I think Boeing's Powered JDAM concept is something worth exploring. With Powered JDAM, you're getting a 500lb HE bomb with GPS guidance and 300 miles of range. Not great per se, definitely inferior to LRASM in terms of range, stealth and warhead, but it'll definitely be an entire order of magnitude cheaper than an LRASM or Tomahawk, which are going to be around 3 million or so, which means we should be able to get multiple PJDAMs for the price of a single LRASM, and because it's a kit compatible with existing Mark 82 bombs, that's just one less item in the production line: the warhead segment has already been produced in bulk, independantly of the kit (vs cruise missiles, where the whole missile has to be produced at the same time, making it difficult to scale up production). Boeing, afterall, went from making 10 JDAM kits a day to 150 JDAM kits a day...

      It's definitely a compromise, but I think it could be a viable interim weapon that can be deployed in a relatively short timeframe, while we further explore how to make Tortoise a reality.

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    8. "So, to me, that means that we can cut one requirement - Mach 2 terminal sprint - to reduce costs and missile size. "

      Without agreeing or disagreeing with your conclusion, that's a good job of analyzing and following it to a conclusion. This line of thinking also suggests that salvo size (number of missiles arriving as simultaneously as possible) becomes more important since each individual missile is less likely to survive. This, in turn, suggests that our current ship armament of 8 or 16 anti-ship missiles is woefully inadequate. See? With one simple analysis, you've arrived at a solid foundation for a CONOPS and a ship design!

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    9. "Powered JDAM ... definitely inferior to LRASM ... but it'll definitely be an entire order of magnitude cheaper"

      You've grasped the concept and you're applying it to an analysis of our weapon needs. Excellent! It's interesting that your analysis is leading you/us down a different path than the military is taking. Who's right? I'm pretty sure I know!

      Excellent comment!

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    10. "A big driver of costs is fuels"
      Is that true? (Genguine question, not trying to be sarcastic) whats the cost breakdown on a missile between the fuel and everything else? SpaceX has famously saved money on orbitial rockets by reusing the rocket, with the analogy that disposable rockets are like throwing away the plane after every flight.
      "Fuels based on cyclopentadiene, for example, cost 3000 USD PER KILOGRAM."
      Ok, but why is that stuff so expensive? They cant make it in bulk?

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  6. "STEM"

    Comment deleted because I'm tired of debunking STEM nonsense.

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  7. https://breakingdefense.com/2023/06/dumb-and-cheap-when-facing-electronic-warfare-in-ukraine-small-drones-quantity-is-quality/
    "With Ukraine losing up to 10,000 drones a month, mostly to Russian electronic warfare, it’s tempting to invest in anti-EW protection – but, experts agreed, it’s probably more cost-effective to accept high losses and just buy more bare-bones drones."
    My take: So can the high cost LRASM missile be disrupted in flight by active EW emitters ( microwave for example) ? Perhaps a "swarm" of low cost anti ship missiles can make to the target. ( The Navy should be testing this, using the SWIP block 3 or 4 ) It is possible that the low cost missile could have it's flight disrupted in flight as well.

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    1. ""With Ukraine losing up to 10,000 drones a month, "

      I flat out don't believe that. The production, procurement, and logistics of acquiring, distributing, and using that many drones (plus the ones that aren't lost!) seems beyond belief.

      That aside, the concept of quantity over quality is completely valid, within limits.

      The Navy refuses to test LRASM under realistic conditions so nobody knows how susceptible they are to electronic attack.

      The more complex and sophisticated a weapon is, the more susceptible it is to countermeasures. For example, a missile is vulnerable to many kinds of countermeasures whereas a rifle bullet cannot be decoyed, cyber-hacked, microwaved, spoofed, shot down, or have its guidance disrupted. It is invulnerable to countermeasures.

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    2. I agree that the 10K figure is questionable. I take your point about quantity vs quality within limits.

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  8. So one thing thats a key to a missile design, and will drive weight and size, is the range. The Navy is reconfiguring about 50 Tomahawks this year for antiship use. But what range do we truly need?? Whats the range where we will have consistent targeting grade data? 500 miles? 250? Or is the old Harpoons range actually adequate? We have a bit of apples n oranges since LRASM is air-launched, which suggests a CVN is nearby to help expand detection ranges. But what would a ship based ASM look like? Having the TLAMs 1k mile range is nice, but maybe quite unnecessasary. So do we need different missiles for (numbers undefined) long, medium, or short ranges? All of the above, just one, or (??)

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    1. That's all good discussion but now go the final step and tell us which missile characteristic is most important and what value it should have. Your waffling about range (due to targeting limitations) suggests that you think range should be a secondary criteria. Okay, what's the primary?

      If it makes you feel better, there's not really a wrong answer. It all depends on how you anticipate fighting (can't shake that pesky CONOPS!) and what criteria that fighting will require.

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    2. Well im not sure Id say range is secondary, because if a target is out of range, the missile is worthless. I guess Im really trying to sort out the CONOP before I design the missile. In doing so, Im trying to figure out what the most common engagement distance us going to be. Because if most ship to ship engagements are say around 100 miles, then we dont need maritime Tomahawks, just updated Harpoons. So maybe we should be looking at Chinese ASM ranges (i know thats not easilly verifiable info), and build somthing that gives superior range and stand-off capability, whatever that may be.
      Also, knowing what the major contributor to a missiles cost is comes into play. Is a TLAM a $1M+ missile because of its range, or its guidance, or its sensors? Im assuming its not the explosive package.

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    3. "most ship to ship engagements"

      Just something for you to think about ...

      The ocean is vast. Even in WWII, how many actual ship to ship engagements were there? Not many. The Chinese aren't likely to be coming out into the open Pacific to fight and we aren't going to enter the first island chain until we've significantly rolled back defenses so what does that suggest to you about ship to ship engagements?

      The vast majority of missile launches are going to be land strikes, I would think. Remember, these principles apply to all missiles, not just anti-ship missiles. For that matter, they apply to all weapons, not just missiles.

      "range"

      Missile range is whatever the targeting sensor range is. Figure out what land or sea target sensors we have and what their range is and you'll know the required missile range. If you've got a ten mile sensor then all you need is a ten mile missile. I've stated repeatedly that we don't have a survivable thousand mile targeting sensor so we don't need a thousand mile missile, at least not for anti-ship work. Our sensors are radar (horizon) and ... uh ... hmm, this could be a problem.

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    4. "The Chinese aren't likely to be coming out into the open Pacific to fight and we aren't going to enter the first island chain until we've significantly rolled back defenses so what does that suggest to you about ship to ship engagements?"

      So what defenses are the ones we have to roll back? Are we concerned with a Chinese CVBG holding us at arms length? Sub launched ASMs? Max range attacks from their corvette/missile boats? Island outposts with AA/ASMs? I see the point about needing long range attack capability to directly and immediately intervene in a Taiwan contest, but the majority of threats the Navy has to eliminate (in order to get closer with our CVBGs) would seem to be shorter ranged. Im mostly dismissing long range 'carrier killers' because of the targeting problems. So keeping in mind the idea that the escorts, not the carrier/air wing are the "shooters", and land attack is the main mission (at least until the Chinese field multiple CVBGs), maybe we just dont need to worry about long range ASMs. Maybe a 200 mile range is sufficient since that range, coupled with the aircrafts range is significant, and we dont need to push deep into the first island chain to reach the ground targets that will be Tomahawk tasks. Maybe im over-(under??) thinking this, but how badly do we truly need ASMs beyond the LRASM? A VLS version would certainly be nice as a backup if say a carrier cant conduct flight ops, or if we operate surface action groups without carriers, but Im starting to question how much navy vs navy capability we truly need.

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    5. "starting to question how much navy vs navy capability we truly need."

      For the Navy, that's one of the key questions. The answer to that depends almost exclusively on the Taiwan issue. Will we contest the Chinese assault on Taiwan which any war will begin with? If so, that would be the main Navy on Navy battle with China's ships on the western side of Taiwan and ours on the eastern. China will use its long range search and bombers to launch long range cruise and ballistic missiles at us. We, in turn, will use ... ah ... well, we don't actually have much in the way of long range anti-ship missiles so that's a problem. That aside, we'll try to use long range search aircraft (and land observers) to pinpoint China's ships. Our carriers will use their fighters to protect our search assets and try to deny theirs - hence, my constant statement that the carrier's role, today, is long range air superiority. Whoever wins the sensor battle will win Taiwan by crippling the other side's invasion fleet or defense fleet. The battle will be all air launched cruise missiles versus ships with targeting being the great unknown.

      China will have a disadvantage since the invasion fleet has to be tied to an unmoving location. The US carriers will enjoy a degree of freedom of movement, being on the Pacific side of Taiwan although they'll still be somewhat tied because they have to remain in strike range of the Chinese invasion fleet.

      Taiwan aside, there won't be much ship versus ship.

      This also illustrates why the 60 mile Harpoon is such a poor choice. It puts the launch platform (ship or plane) way too close to the enemy for survival. We desperately need long range air and ship launched anti-ship cruise missiles and yet we seem to be almost ignoring the need with a paltry hundred missiles per year production rate, if even that.

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    6. "So what defenses are the ones we have to roll back? "

      Scouts/search assets! Eliminate those and we can operate with relative safety.

      Secondarily, roll back China's fighters. With air supremacy, the war is essentially over because we can freely and safely move about, striking where and when we want. This means eliminating not just the individual aircraft but their airfields and aircraft support logistics. In WWII, we crippled Germany's aircraft and fuel production which, in turn, crippled their individual aircraft. China, being much larger and with more resources, will be more challenging to do that to but that's the kind of planning and rehearsing we should be doing.

      Hopefully, you're beginning to see that with some logic and an understanding of the fundamentals of warfare, you CAN predict pretty accurately the course of a war and prepare for it. Prior to WWII, we developed War Plan Orange which almost totally predicted the course of the war and both Japan's and our actions. Our pre-war Fleet Problem exercises were all rehearsals of the expected war. Bafflingly, we're doing none of that today even though the course of a war with China is easily predictable. Sadly, outside think tanks, blogs, and observers are putting more thought into the China war than the Navy is. Conversely, I'm pretty sure China has their own War Plan Orange aimed at us and they appear to be rehearsing aspects of it, notably large scale aircraft and bomber operations over and beyond Taiwan. They're practically telling us how they intend to fight and what their objectives are ... but we aren't listening.

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  9. So thinking about minimizing cost, my brain decided to color outside the lines a bit- apologies in advance. But heres my thought-
    Usually the words 'modular', or 'family of _______' are a sign of an awful idea. This may be no different. But, focusing on the ship based ASM, what if we reverted to twin arm launchers, and had magazines where we could assemble missiles tailored to their target? Short or long range engine sections. Very smart, or fairly "dumb" sensors. Different explosive packages, etc. Basically giving the ability to penny-pinch in combat.
    Of course this would be an entirely different class of ship, and it would be focused on ASuW, but could also be utilized for ground attack. Itd depend on other ships for AAW. You'd probably keep a couple premium versions on the rails for emergencies, but otherwise you could choose what level of expenditure you make dependent on threat level, range, what the target actually is and what defenses it has etc... Yes this adds complexity in some ways, plus a more complicated supply/rearm chain. But maybe having choices in weapons, rather than everything being high end, would be worthwhile(???)
    My second thought- how confident are we in missile-to-missile comms?? Because maybe having "smart" missiles that lead an attack and allow the bulk of the missiles to be relatively "dumb", relying on the smart ones to give them terminal data is a way to save $$$?? We all know comms will be degraded in a war zone, yet we're making missiles that share information. Maybe that'll work, maybe not. But if its viable, then maybe a hi/low mix of seekers could save $$$...(???)

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    1. "could assemble missiles tailored to their target? "

      That's some excellent thinking but would it really save money? You still have to produce the same number of [expensive] components. They just wouldn't be final-assembled until the moment of use. Interesting thought, though.

      A larger potential problem with that would be the software. Each missile would have to have the ability of every individual component combination. That's a prescription for a massive, glitchy program!

      Good out-of-the-box thinking, regardless!

      "missile-to-missile comms"

      This is one of the big unknowns that we refuse to test. Personally, I experience network outages at work and home on a regular basis. I have a very hard time imagining we can create and maintain a spontaneous, literal on-the-fly network in the face of jamming, cyber-attacks, electronic warfare, and missile attrition. But ... who knows since we refuse to test it?

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  10. Reducing costs means reducing profits. Increasing costs means increasing profits. It's that simple, and since most Admirals and Generals become multi-millionaires after retirement via legal kickbacks called "jobs" this will not change. Congress likes the profits too since it means more "contributions."

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    1. Working at a for-profit company, our leadership is savvy enough to focus on dollars, not numbers of widgets. We are indifferent between selling 10 fancy widgets or 1,000 basic widgets if they deliver the same dollars. I may be crazy, but I'd like to think that our defense contractors would be equally indifferent between 10,000 basic missiles and 100 fancy missiles that both deliver the same profit dollars.

      If the Navy said "I'm going to award a $1 Billion contract to whoever can deliver 500 missiles next year with x minimum requirements" I'd like to think at least a couple companies would bid on the contract. The Navy needs to ask for this!

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    2. "Reducing costs means reducing profits. Increasing costs means increasing profits."

      I have to disagree. A salesman once told me that the bigger the sale, the smaller the profit and if the sale was big enough, there was no profit. This is recognition of the inescapable fact that the buyer demands bigger and bigger discounts for bigger and bigger sales.

      A person might accept a 50% profit margin on an item that costs ten cents but would flat out balk at a 50% margin on an item that costs one billion dollars.

      Boeing, for example, won't make a penny on the Pegasus tanker (and will lose untold amounts!) and that's a huge cost. Because the projected cost was so large, Boeing cut the bid to the point where there was little profit left even if they hadn't run into all kinds of problems. They hoped to make the profit on post-sales service which may or may not happen.

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    3. "the inescapable fact that the buyer demands bigger and bigger discounts for bigger and bigger sales."

      Except that Navy buyers don't demand discounts because they are negotiating with a future employer. Long ago, I remember when SECNAV Lehman caused a ruckus by demanding a cut in the F/A-18 price if they wanted more sales. He got it and was soon ousted.

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    4. "Except that Navy buyers don't demand discounts"

      Well, they do, actually. For example, the multi-year buys of ships are examples of demanding reduced profits from the manufacturer in exchange for multiple products instead of one at a time.

      The military routinely releases projects for bids which is an attempt to reduce profit margins via competition.

      Another interesting example is the incident of the Pentagon imposing a unilateral contract on Lockheed for Lot 9 of the F-35 in Nov 2016. Lockheed was furious.

      And so on.

      The Pentagon does negotiate for reduced costs and profit margins. It's just not widely and publicly presented as such.

      Where you're absolutely correct about future 'kickbacks' is the issue of cancellation of projects. Flag officers are keenly aware that out and out cancellation of a project is not going to get them a future seat on the board of directors and that's a serious problem for us, the taxpayers. Too many projects are continued that should be cancelled early on.

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  11. Relying solely on INS, how far off the target do you expect to be at 1,000 miles? At Mach .7, flying out to 1,000 miles will take almost 2 hours, which is a long time for positional errors to accumulate in an INS.

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    1. So instead of using one precise missile that you can't afford, use a couple dozen less precise missiles and blanket the target area so that one is sure to find the target. INS is pretty decent. It's not like it would be a hundred miles off.

      There have been some pretty interesting advances in INS accuracy via both hardware and software in recent years although I don't know the details or costs. Perhaps we should be emphasizing INS accuracy R&D over GPS hardening?

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    2. Note that GPS satellites can be shot down too. I've read the B-2 has a celestial navigation system atop that it can use while flying high. I've wondered if the Navy or USAF could build a high-flying drone or aircraft that can suddenly put out a GPS type signal hundreds of miles based on the stars. It would do this for 30-mins as part of a strike then shut off.

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    3. "At Mach .7, flying out to 1,000 miles will take almost 2 hours, which is a long time for positional errors to accumulate in an INS."

      Actually, I think the bigger problem (in an anti-ship context -- it's not a problem for land strikes on fixed targets) is that the target will move a significant distance in 2 hours. After 2 hours, a naval ship moving at 20 knots can be anywhere within a circle of radius 40 miles (especially if it's been alerted and changes course and speed), which has an area of nearly 5000 square miles! Even a carrier is tiny by comparison.

      This is why I think it's probably necessary to have at least some ability to communicate with the missile in flight. Not to micromanage it during the last few seconds, but to change its course during flight to get it in the general vicinity of the target when it arrives. I think the alternative would be a much more capable terminal guidance and targeting system on the missile (which is capable of searching 5000 square miles of open ocean to find the target), and I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be cheap either!

      This doesn't, of course, mean we need the global network, connected to every ship and aircraft in the fleet (plus the Boy Scout in Montana) and all the other missiles to boot. I envision some sort of stealth drone launched from the carrier in the same battle group that launches the missile, and which would usually be radio silent but occasionally send brief messages to the missile to update its targeting information. The communications (and data and network security) would be a far simpler problem in this case.

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    4. "This is why I think it's probably necessary to have at least some ability to communicate with the missile in flight."

      What sensor platform do you think we have that can leisurely hang around an enemy force for a couple of hours while occasionally broadcasting and without ever being detected? Mid-course guidance only works if you have that kind of miracle targeting sensor platform.

      " I envision some sort of stealth drone launched from the carrier in the same battle group that launches the missile"

      So ... this stealth drone flies out a thousand miles, finds the enemy, hangs around for two more hours (that's some incredible endurance and range!) and is never detected? That would be a great drone to have. Of course, we don't have such a drone.

      Just out of curiosity, would this drone be a one-way drone or would it return, adding another thousand miles to its already stunning endurance and range?

      What do you think this drone, with uber-stealth, thousand+ mile range, super detection and targeting sensors, and stealthy beyond-line-of-sight communications would cost? Again, would that be a one-way throwaway or a returnable drone?

      How big would this drone be? If it can only operate from carriers, that greatly limits its usefulness. In a war, carriers are only sporadically available as we saw in WWII.

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    5. "Of course, we don't have such a drone."

      Well, we don't now. But we did. The X-47B (which was admittedly only a prototype but did successfully operate off carriers) had a range of 2100 nm. And also a weapons bay holding 2000 kg of ordnance, some of which could probably be replaced by fuel in this application. So it's in at least the right ball park.

      Obviously we'd have to create a production version, but it wouldn't have to be all that much of an advance over the capabilities of the prototype. I would suggest flying around the periphery of the enemy fleet, or just darting in occasionally, rather than trying to be constantly over the fleet. After all, ships don't move all THAT fast. You probably don't need to be cruising directly over them all the time. And the X-47B WAS pretty stealthy. Could probably be made more stealthy in a production version.

      Regrettably the program was canceled nearly 10 years ago, to be replaced by a tanker drone, which will not have these capabilities. I believe that was a huge error.

      I was kind of thinking of a "could have been", or "should have been", rather than what a currently in production drone could do.

      My personal opinion is that, rather than going to the UCLASS proposal (for both reconnaissance and strike) and then the tanker only plan, we should have focused on the reconnaissance function. After all, as you've frequently stated, we already have long range strike capability in the form of cruise missiles, but the useful range is limited by targeting. So we should have focused on targeting. If we needed a tanker, we could have reactivated the S-3 Vikings for that purpose, which would have given us plenty of time to develop a drone tanker later.

      What would it cost? I'm not an aerospace engineer, so I really have no idea. My best guess is it might be similar to an F22. But remember, for reconnaissance you don't need hundreds of aircraft. So unit cost is somewhat less important.

      Obviously we don't have this now. But we also don't have your "tortoise" missile now either. In either case, my view is that the rule of trees applies. When's the best time to plant a tree? 10 years ago. When's the second best time? Now.

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    6. One additional point. You talk about "uber stealth". Note I'm not talking about a penetrating bomber that has to penetrate the Chinese Integrated Air Defense system on the mainland. It just has to get close enough to a fleet at sea to be able to recognize targets. I think that's a simpler problem than the one facing the B-21, for example.

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    7. "INS is pretty decent. It's not like it would be a hundred miles off."

      True. But, at that distance, you could miss the target by a few hundred meters. And, with that kind of accuracy, firing a a couple of dozen cheap missiles you're likely to hit anything but the target.

      To do what you propose, you probably need an accuracy of of a hundred meters or so, where you stand a much better chance of hitting a target with a couple of dozen missiles. But, an INS with that kind of accuracy could break your budget of $50k a missile.

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    8. "Relying solely on INS, how far off the target do you expect to be at 1,000 miles?"

      Bear in mind that we aren't asking INS to be the terminal targeting method. INS is only tasked with getting the missile to the target AREA. Once there, a terminal targeting sensor (active radar, for example) would take over and guide the terminal attack flight.

      What we don't want to do is get carried away with providing several different terminal sensors and targeting modes which is exactly what we're currently doing. That just drives the cost up for little benefit.

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    9. "Well, we don't now. But we did. The X-47B"

      Great reminder. I had forgotten about that.

      The downside is that it is likely insanely expensive (pure speculation on my part) and is quite large which means it requires a carrier and will impact carrier air wing numbers, cannot be a one-way asset. On the plus side, if it could enable thousand mile missile strikes then the cost is almost irrelevant.

      One problem would be operating around the enemy target for two hours waiting for the strike to arrive. We do not have the AI required to play hide and seek with enemy assets, sensors, weapons, etc. At the moment, that would be a human judgement task, weighing risk against benefits while taking into account a myriad of factors.

      Another issue would be how to transmit data without revealing itself. I don't believe our communications are that good.

      There is also the issue of how to transmit data across a thousand miles. Satellite is the only method I'm aware of that would work in a war zone and that assumes that suitable satellites are available.

      Still, for the limited application of a carrier group, it's a potentially great choice.

      Now, my question is how did we get a full size airplane to have a 2400 mile range when every time I've brought up the subject of very long range fighters, readers have claimed that such ranges are not possible? Did that just solve the very long range fighter challenge? Just make it manned and see how many weapons it can fit internally?

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    10. OK. Well, let me talk a little about my thinking about the CONOPS for this type of aircraft. Obviously it's not a REAL CONOPS since I don't have access to either a platoon of smart junior officers to think through all the details, or the classified information needed to think through all details. So think of it as sort of a vague general "quasi CONOPS".

      First though, cost. Here's what Wikipedia says about the cost of the X47B program:

      "The project was initially funded under a US$635.8 million contract awarded by the Navy in 2007. By January 2012, the X-47B's total program cost had grown to an estimated $813 million.[49] Government funding for the X-47B UCAS-D program was to run out at the end of September 2013, with the close of the fiscal year.[38] However, in June 2014 the Navy provided an additional $63 million for "post-demonstration" development of the X-47B."

      So, under $1 billion for the entire program, including 2 prototypes plus the cost of the R&D, design, and testing. Plus there was an earlier smaller prototype called the X47A Pegasus that was used to resolve some of the R&D issues, and was, I believe, at least partially funded by the company!

      So it seems to me that the variable cost per aircraft for a production version will be FAR less than $1 billion, probably more like a few hundred million. Again, my guess is similar to an F22. I don't regard that as insanely expensive for a relatively survivable reconnaissance aircraft, since you don't need huge numbers of them.

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    11. Comment was too long for the system. Here's the rest of it:

      RE: impacting carrier air wing size. Well, maybe but probably not. Again, you don't need vast numbers of these for reconnaissance. Probably not entire squadrons. And you've repeatedly criticized the Navy for reducing the size of air wings significantly below what the carrier can actually handle. So I suspect we could probably add half a squadron or so of these without impacting the air wing at all.

      Ok, crude CONOPS. First of all, we need some sort of capability like this just to find the target in the first place at a range of 800 to 1000 miles. The Chinese will certainly attempt to neutralize our satellites, and most of our current reconnaissance aircraft are not survivable in the vicinity of a Chinese fleet. There is the RQ-180, which is a highly classified (and probably rather large) reconnaissance drone built for high altitude, long range, and penetration of denied environments. But they are expensive, and not particularly numerous, so they may not be routinely available for supporting tactical needs of a carrier battle group. So the battle group could certainly use an organic and relatively survivable reconnaissance capability, just like during the Cold War they had organic ASW aircraft (the S-3 Viking) even though there was also the P-3 ground based ASW aircraft.

      So, the aircraft flies out and does some sort of search to first locate the enemy fleet. Incidentally, one of the capabilities that was demonstrated during testing of the X47B was aerial refueling, so it could potentially have a much longer range than 2100 nm.

      The drone should be as autonomous as possible. The original version already was semi autonomous. I would not have constant communication with the fleet, but only occasional, burst communications. Especially when it is near a target. No full motion video or any other constant wideband communication. Maybe the occasional still photo or brief coded commands and responses. Communication should be as close as possible to "LPI" (Low Probability of Intercept) which as I understand it means that information is spread out over frequencies to reduce the amount of energy at any particular frequency (plus some other measures that I don't really understand). In addition, I'd suggest some form of directional communication. The F35 AESA radar, for example, can produce nearly pencil thin beams. Since it's a radio signal, information could certainly be encoded on similar beams as well. They'd need to be wider than the beams in the F35 radar since the drone doesn't know exactly where the target of the signal is (especially if it's talking to a cruise missile in flight) but the vast bulk of the energy would still be directed away from the enemy detectors.

      Sensors should be primarily passive. Infrared and optical mainly. In addition I'd add a surface search radar, which would occasionally do a single sweep for few seconds to identify the presence of ships, which would be followed by shutting down the radar and rapidly changing direction. Even today, AI is pretty good at pattern recognition, so potential targets identified by the radar sweep could be examined more closely with an optical telescope, and if it looks like it might be a target, then an image would be sent by burst communications back to the US fleet. The fleet would then decide whether to attack it.

      The drone does not need to remain in the immediate vicinity of the enemy fleet for two hours. Ships don't move all that fast, so it really needs only to revisit the area periodically. Maybe every 15 to 30 minutes, to update target locations. So I'd propose that it remain at a greater distance most of the time, and occasionally dart in to take another sweep to update the targeting information.

      to be continued

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    12. Ok, here's part 3 of 3:

      Regarding communication with the US fleet controller. I would recommend a relay aircraft. At 40,000 feet, the horizon is nearly 250 miles away. If the drone is also at 40,000 feet, that's a total distance of almost 500 miles. In addition, the relay aircraft could move a couple hundred miles toward the enemy fleet (while remaining in the battle group's defense area) to give maybe 700 miles or so. In a pinch, a second relay aircraft could be used, although that does add complexity and therefor makes it more error prone.

      So I believe the communication problem is solvable.

      As far as size, the X47B was 38 feet long with a wingspan of 62 feet and used the carrier catapult and arresting gear. So definitely not something that could operate from a destroyer. On the other hand, any aircraft that can operate from a carrier can also operate from a runway. And it could do reconnaissance anywhere within 1000 miles of the runway. So it doesn't absolutely need a carrier.

      RE: why can't we make a fighter with a 2100 nm range? Don't know. It's possible that the flying wing design may be more aerodynamically efficient than a design optimized for a fighter. Especially if there is stuff hanging off the wings of the fighter. But I have no idea whether a flying wing design (which is optimized for subsonic flight) would make an effective fighter. So there is that.

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    13. One last point. If you'd like a single use reconnaissance drone, I'd recommend repurposing a JASSM. The 1000 pound warhead could be replaced with a similar weight of reconnaissance gear.

      The JASSM, as I understand it, is fairly stealthy although not as good as the F35. Plus it's pretty small compared to an actual aircraft. Current range of the JASSM ER is somewhere in the 500 to 600 mile range. If we stretched the missile a bit (currently they are only 14 feet long), we could probably add some range.

      Probably too expensive (at 3 to 4 million $ a pop) for normal peacetime work (or targeting Houthis) but most likely fine during major power war, when compared to the cost of losing a carrier.

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    14. " a single use reconnaissance drone, I'd recommend repurposing a JASSM. "

      Within constraints, I've recommended this general approach but it is necessary to keep firmly in mind that a small UAV or drone-missile has a very small sensor range and field of view. They're NOT the equivalent of a P-8 Poseidon or E-2 Hawkeye or whatever.

      Also, unless you already know where the enemy is (in which case, you don't need a UAV or drone-missile!), you'll have to conduct some sort of search pattern. This means NOT moving ahead in a straight line but going side to side in some manner. That drastically REDUCES your range. If you want to be able to conduct a search, you need to 'reserve' half (or whatever amount) the theoretical range for the search pattern. Thus, that JASSM-ER drone with a nominal 600 mile range can actually only search out to perhaps 200-300 miles. Possibly far less depending on the search pattern and area that is desired to be covered.

      Consider even the simple notion of sending a drone-missile straight out (straight line) to search. If you miss flying directly over the enemy by more than a very small amount, you've completely missed detecting the enemy. Okay, let's say we program an 'S' shaped 'line' as we fly out. That instantly cuts the range in half since half the time we're flying sideways instead of straight out. You get the idea? More complex spiral or box searches would probably cut the effective range even further. 50%-70% reduction? Perhaps - don't know but it will be a significant reduction.

      Finally, consider the one-way aspect of a drone-missile. You can't recover it so it's an automatic loss of a million dollars or whatever it costs by the time you add the search gear, sensors, on-board computer, comm gear, etc. If you want to cover the circular area around your battlegroup (of course you do!), you'd need to send out dozens of these drones because of the small field of view. That's dozens of lost million dollar drone-missiles. You probably want to conduct several searches per day, right? So, dozens x several x million dollars = Yikes!

      And, of course, there's the issue of production. Can you produce hundreds of these drone-missiles per day during a war to replace the usage?

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    15. "Obviously it's not a REAL CONOPS "

      Of course not! We deal in simplified CONOPS here which is still more thought than the Navy puts into CONOPS!

      "probably add half a squadron or so of these without impacting the air wing at all."

      Whoa! Think through the actual usage (part of the CONOPS!). Each aircraft can only search a limited area. For comparison, WWII carriers used to typically launch a dozen aircraft each morning to search 360 degrees around the carrier. Given the speed of the threats of that time period, one comprehensive search per day was sufficient. Today, with submarines, supersonic missiles, long range bombers, etc. you'd probably want to conduct 4-6 searches per 24 hour day. If you sent out 12 aircraft per search, 4-6 times per day, and allowing for maintenance between flights, you'd probably need something on the order of 24-36 such aircraft! That DOES impact air wing size!

      This kind of analysis, even simplified for our needs, is what a CONOPS has to address. Just coming up with the idea of one X-47 recon aircraft is nice but it's only an incomplete and not very useful concept until the basics of a CONOPS is addressed.

      So, with all that in mind, does that alter your thinking at all?

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    16. Good point. I hadn't thought that through well enough. Let's use your figure (the high end) of 36 such aircraft. Does it reduce the size of the current air wing?

      My answer is, probably not. Here's why.

      My understanding (correct me if I'm wrong) is that the 1980's air wings on these very same ships had a full additional squadron of combat aircraft compared to the current ones. Which suggests, crudely speaking, that we could add back a squadron (10-12) of x47B aircraft without further reducing the current air wing.

      There's a reasonable chance we could actually add back more, since the X47B is significantly smaller than the F18 Super Hornet. The drone has a wingspan of about 31 feet folded, while the Super Hornet has a full wingspan of 44 feet and change unfolded and only folds the outer parts of the wing (couldn't find a figure for that) so it's probably similar. But the x47B is MUCH shorter than the Super Hornet (38 feet vs 60 feet). While I haven't actually looked at detailed spotting charts, this suggests there's at least a chance of more than 12 X47's fitting in the space of 12 Super Hornets.

      So, let's say we can fit 12 drones on a Nimitz. But remember, you've stated many times that, in a major power war, aircraft carriers will never sail alone. They'll fight in groups of 3 or 4. Three Nimitz class ships can then carry 36 drones without reducing the other aircraft in the air wing. Maybe even a little more than 36.

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    17. Of course, one could argue that it would be better to just add another squadron of combat aircraft to the carrier instead of the drones, but that's beyond the scope of this discussion.

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    18. "Does it reduce the size of the current air wing? ... My answer is, probably not."

      You're correct ... and wrong.

      Would it reduce the size of the current air wing? No! We've got plenty of room!

      Now, imagine you're running the Navy and a full, peer war starts. What's the first thing you're going to want to do? Add squadrons of fighters to the carriers. Ideally, you'd like to add at least three squadrons (36 or so aircraft). You might also want to add additional EW, tankers, and AEW aircraft - maybe 2-6 more of each? That puts the total aircraft up to somewhere in the 100 range. NOW how does 12 additional X-47s impact the air wing? It has a significant impact on the wartime air wing size.

      So, current peacetime, no effect but, then again, we don't need a long range, stealthy, search aircraft during peacetime, do we? When war comes and we start up sizing crews, air wings, weapons, and everything else, 12 more aircraft IS a concern. Now you get into priorities. Which do you need more, 12 search aircraft, 12 fighters, or 12 EW/tankers/AEW?

      This goes back to the CONOPS of the carrier, the carrier group, the air wing, and the individual aircraft. All those individual CONOPS have to be merged and balanced.
      The devil is always in the details!

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    19. "What's the first thing you're going to want to do? Add squadrons of fighters to the carriers."

      Well of course you'll WANT to add squadrons to the carriers, but given that we don't have a lot of spare aircraft (or spare pilots) sitting around, where will all these extra squadrons come from?

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    20. My basic concern is, if you want to use long range (especially subsonic) cruise missiles to attack moving ships, then you have to accept the fact that the target will move, in general several tens of miles, in an unpredictable direction, before the missile reaches the vicinity of the target.

      So we have two choices:

      (1) Provide updates to the missile during flight to get it into the right general vicinity

      (2) Build in a much more capable (read expensive) terminal guidance and targeting system into the missile and have the missile run some sort of search pattern to find the target after it reaches the end zone. Thus dramatically reducing the range of the missile, while also increasing its vulnerability to being shot down by the enemy during the search process.

      (2) will increase the cost of the missile (more capable guidance and terminal targeting) and increase its vulnerability. Plus reduce its range.

      (1) Well, how do we do it? They'll attack our satellites, and they have several ways to do it even without destroying the satellites. Plus most of our reconnaissance aircraft are not survivable in contested airspace. Plus the "super network" is vulnerable to jamming, spoofing, penetration, malware, and who knows what else. Plus of course the Boy Scout in Montana doesn't know where the target is either.

      So what's worth more? The situational awareness that allows you to deliver a missile close enough to potentially hit the target, or an extra squadron of fighters? I agree, that's a larger scale CONOPS issue, and frankly it's probably above my skill or pay grade to answer it.

      If you don't like the X47 approach, I can think of a couple other possible options:

      - Some sort of ground based stealthy reconnaissance aircraft. I mentioned that the RQ-180 exists. perhaps we could build a bunch more of them.
      - Perhaps we could repurpose some of the aircraft on the carrier for this purpose when needed, and otherwise use them for their primary purpose.
      - Or perhaps some other relatively low observable drone that doesn't require a CVN to launch it. Perhaps something like the Kratos Valkyrie might be an option. This is part of the "low cost attritable" program. It is "stealthy" to at least some extent (good enough for this mission? Don't know), has a range of 3,000 nm, carries a smaller load than the X47 (600 pounds internally and 600 pounds externally) but is much less expensive, and is optionally runway independent (apparently can be launched with rocket assist from a shipping container or support ship). Not sure how the runway independent part works for landing - I seem to remember something about parachute recovery, which might be problematic with a moving ship. I imagine the aircraft will fairly frequently end up in the ocean using that approach.


      Got any preferences?

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    21. "where will all these extra squadrons come from?"

      That's a problem we should be addressing today but we aren't.

      In reality, we'll rob from other air wings to make any carrier on a mission up to full strength. Of course, that will limit the number of carriers we can sail at any given moment but, with battle damage repairs, that may not be a problem!

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    22. "that's a larger scale CONOPS issue"

      One completely viable alternative for anti-ship attacks is to use submarines instead of aircraft/missiles. That requires a rethinking of how we would use our subs but it's completely doable.

      Alternatively, we might downgrade enemy ships on our priority list and let them go unless we have a very favorable scenario. Their ships aren't that big of a threat assuming we stand off thousands of miles.

      "ground based stealthy reconnaissance aircraft"

      The obvious problem with that is we don't have any ground bases in useful range. Everyone assumes that Guam will be rendered inoperable on hour-one of a conflict so what does that leave?

      "repurpose some of the aircraft on the carrier "

      No amount of repurposing is going to turn a short legged, non-stealthy Hornet into a deep penetrating, survivable recon asset. An F-35C might (or might not) be stealthy enough but it doesn't have thousand mile search/loiter range.

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    23. Actually, I've just had second thoughts on your comments on how these aircraft would be used. You stated:

      "Today, with submarines, supersonic missiles, long range bombers, etc. you'd probably want to conduct 4-6 searches per 24 hour day."

      Keep in mind, these drones are not appropriate platforms for detecting ANY of those things. For supersonic missiles, long range bombers, and other airborne weapons we have AEW. This drone with at most a small surface search radar would be useless. It's also useless for submarines. For them we have various versions of sonar, including submarines, hull mounted and towed sonar on surface ships, dipping sonar on helicopters, and the P-8 Poseidon. Again, this type of drone is essentially useless for that purpose.

      These drones are only good for detecting surface ships. And surface ships are only marginally faster (if that) than ships during World War 2. So why do we need to do 4 to 6 times as many searches for them as we did then?

      Perhaps we could reduce the number of drones required by focusing on their actual mission. For that, one or two searches per day ought to be enough, since even fast surface ships aren't able to travel much more than 700 nm or so in a day.

      Or perhaps we could rely on one or two scans per day out to 2000 nm or so from a land-based platform, which would identify candidates for concern. The RQ-180 does exist. It probably can't hang around for a long time, because I'm sure it would be heavily tasked, but perhaps (after acquiring a few more) it could do a couple scans per day. Then the ship-borne drones could focus on the actual candidates, and on guiding weapons when attacks are launched. This wouldn't require 360 degree searches every few hours. And could probably be done with significantly fewer drones.

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    24. "The obvious problem with that is we don't have any ground bases in useful range"

      According to Wikipedia, the RQ-180 has a range of around 12,000 nmi. It could be based in Hawaii. Or Australia.

      Delete
    25. "Their ships aren't that big of a threat assuming we stand off thousands of miles."

      True, but if we stand off thousands of miles, can the Navy actually do anything useful in the war? If not, why is that any better than staying in port in CONUS?

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    26. "these drones are not appropriate platforms for detecting ANY of those things."

      That's not quite correct. Any recon drone will rely primarily (exclusively, I would say) on passive sensors (EO, IR, SigInt). For example, the F-14 Tomcat's optical system was claimed to be able to spot bomber size aircraft at 100 miles. IR can detect almost any threat (everything has an infrared signature) although the ranges will vary greatly. SigInt has very wide ranging detection.

      As an example, the Chinese H-6K bomber is a high subsonic aircraft that can carry the YJ-12 Mach 4 anti-ship cruise missile. That threat can appear VERY quickly, hence, the requirement for frequent searches.

      This also illustrates why I've focused on smaller, and far more numerous throwaway UAVs that can be deployed from any surface ship and on a continuous basis. Search should be on a continuous basis, not once a day or even once every several hours. Search should be a layered function analogous to the layered defense of a carrier group.

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    27. "RQ-180"

      If you have reliable specs on the RQ-180 (assuming it's even real) please share them!

      Supposedly it has an endurance of 24 hours. If it's based in Hawaii or some such, subtracting the flight time to and from the surveillance area gives a loitering search time of something well under 24 hours. In order to provide continuous coverage you'd need relays of aircraft. If you had several task forces at sea at any given moment then you'd need several times relays of aircraft. Assuming the RQ-180 exists, no one believes we have more than a few and they'd likely be tasked with much higher priority missions than watching over ships.

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    28. "if we stand off thousands of miles, can the Navy actually do anything useful in the war?"

      Yes! That's the beauty of submarines in general and SSGN's in particular. It is beyond belief stupid that we're retiring our SSGNs without replacement.

      Beyond that, carriers will provide the air cover for whatever operations we conduct, whether on land or at sea.

      As in any war, the Navy will attempt to cut off China's merchant shipping with a distant blockade.

      Convoys will need escort.

      And so on. The Navy will be quite busy.

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    29. "If you have reliable specs on the RQ-180 (assuming it's even real) please share them!"

      Well, since it's a black project the usual rule applies. "Anyone who knows isn't talking, and anyone who's talking doesn't really know."

      So anything I'd have would be speculation from journalists and similar people. Some of them have picked up clues here and there, but probably nothing official. The speculation I've reported is in Wikipedia.

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    30. RE RQ-180. One of the clues is that the existence of this secret project may explain the Air Force's desire to stop buying the non-stealthy Global Hawk, and retire many of them.

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    31. "Yes! That's the beauty of submarines in general and SSGN's in particular. It is beyond belief stupid that we're retiring our SSGNs without replacement."

      Sorry about that. I mis-spoke. What I really meant was "Can the surface navy do anything useful in the war if it has to stand off thousands of miles from the action."

      Obviously you are correct about submarines.

      Speaking of the SSGN's, I agree with you about the problem with retiring them. I've been wondering. If we stopped the blue-gold crewing and switched to single crews with fewer deployments, would that allow us to get a few more years out of them, or is there a calendar time effect (they'll soon be 42 years old), maybe corrosion or something, that would require them to be retired soon anyway?

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    32. RE: the RQ-180

      "In order to provide continuous coverage you'd need relays of aircraft."

      Yes, I understand. I don't imagine the RQ-180 hanging around to provide continuous coverage. They are certainly going to be too highly tasked for that. I was just considering the possibility that it might stop to do a single scan of the region, on its way to some other mission somewhere else. Any loitering would be done by the organic drones of the task force.

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    33. RE: SSGN's. One thing I've been confused about is why the Navy insisted on having only four tubes in the new Virginia boats (plus the two in the front of course). For many years, our SSBN's had essentially the same beam as the Virginia, and had 16 missile tubes. Supposedly there was a concern with the "turtleback" structure (the bulge above the regular cylinder) perhaps causing additional flow noise. But the early SSBNs had turtlebacks, and so do the Ohio's, and they seem to manage the noise problem. Perhaps just having a few actual SSGNs for Tomahawks and operating them more slowly, and leaving the other boats as just SSNs without the missile tubes, might have worked better.

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    34. Hopefully, you're beginning to see how very important a well developed CONOPS is. What might seem a good idea at first blush, and in isolation, may not be as attractive after one delves into the CONOPS or it may turn out that it requires support that is not readily available in order to function effectively.

      The lack of a viable CONOPS is why we wound up with an LCS that is useless, an AFSB that is being prematurely retired, a Zumwalt that has no purpose, and a Ford that costs twice what a Nimitz does and offers no increase in capabilities.

      Delete
  12. I don't see the Navy will figuring this out in the next 5 years and we will end up digging into our old Harpoon inventory if (when) we start shooting it out with China.

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    1. "I don't see the Navy will figuring this out in the next 5 years"

      Sadly and tragically, I don't see the Navy figuring this out until an actual war kicks us in the teeth and forces us to figure these kinds of things out. The Navy has demonstrated, repeatedly, that they are incapable of learning lessons. We keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.

      Delete
  13. Navigation is a large proportion of the cost, so for static targets:

    Launch one expensively-accurate missile carrying an active beacon rather than explosives. Promptly followed by a volley of many dumber projectiles that home in on the beacon.

    The latter would need only the most basic (cheap) Proportional Navigation; each would be pre-targeted to a different offset from the beacon's impact location.

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    1. "Launch one expensively-accurate missile carrying an active beacon "

      Well, the only problem with that is that we have a word for aircraft (or missiles) that are constantly broadcasting in the immediate vicinity of an enemy fleet.

      That word is "dead"

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    2. That would be a seriously vulnerable single-point-of-failure!

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    3. The original idea had the beacon only go active after impact (in an innocuous location some distance from the targets) but was rather rashly altered based on this being a Naval blog where 1000mile-class ranges are desired. Commenters would have pointed out the enemy would in that case have time to disable the beacon.

      I think the original premise would be workable for up to a couple of hundred miles ie land-land targeting.

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    4. "each would be pre-targeted to a different offset from the beacon's impact location."

      There's a vast difference between truly blind, area bombardment which this seems to be describing and a single, basic sensor for terminal targeting. There's nothing wrong - and a lot right - with terminal targeting as long was we don't get carried away with providing several different sensors and targeting modes which is exactly what we're currently doing. That just drives the cost up for relatively little benefit.

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    5. This would be jam-resistant precision mass bombardment with navigation costs similar to M1156 (ie negligible, given its <$20k cost includes fusing & guidance too).

      Since the positional data would be near-perfect, accuracy would be defined by the control surface's abilities.

      You could even forgoe the beacon being delivered by an expensive missile, and accurately park a civilian car somewhere. The beacon is after all little more than an easily-smuggleable radio set ... in fact it may not even need to be within enemy territory. Unless a HARM-equipped CAP is operating 24/7, it's unlikely to be destroyed before the cloud of projectiles arrive.

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    6. "Navigation is a large proportion of the cost"

      Not at all sure that's true. Please cite some data.

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    7. "each would be pre-targeted to a different offset from the beacon's impact location."

      That rules out naval use since the beacon would be under water!

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    8. "beacon"

      And if the beacon missile is shot down, the entire strike is rendered useless? Is that a good idea?

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    9. "park a civilian car somewhere"

      How are you going to park a car near a critical target deep inside enemy territory?

      I think you're just making fun of the thousand mile targeting challenge - and rightly so.

      "cloud of projectiles"

      ???? We're talking about missiles, not shells.

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  14. @hokie 1997: If you wish to link to something, please provide some sort of value-added commentary. Feel free to re-post with commentary. Thanks!

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  15. Navy RFI on cheaper weapon, in-line with comments above.

    https://sam.gov/opp/f43ae2cd4cd840a38be6ff3daff929c7/view

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    1. This refers to the MACE concept but it cannot be achieved because the Navy stops short of rigorously eliminating ALL but the absolutely minimal requirements. The RFI is hoping for 90% of the capability of existing missiles at 10% of the cost! May as well hope for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, too. There can't be a truly affordable missile (or any weapon) until we embrace the MINIMUM approach to requirements instead of the MAXIMUM which is what we do now. A slightly less maximum is still nowhere near minimum.

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    2. Honestly MACE looks more like a Maverick replacement rather than Harpoon or LRASM, and looks a lot like it could be met by combining the Air Force's Stormbreaker glide bomb with a rocket motor unit. At 195k a pop for Stormbrraker, plus say 50k at most for a rocket motor, you're looking at about 250k per missile - to put that into perspective, Maverick cost 300k, inflation-adjusted.

      This would be a more than adequete weapon against the swarms of Chinese missile boats, and while a single 250lb bomb is unlikely to cripple a Hinese DDG, at 250k we could readily afford firing a whole brace of these on a DDG. Today's lightly built ships aren't going to enjoy taking hits of any kind.

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    3. "MACE"

      You seem to have a misunderstanding of what the Navy wants from MACE. It wants the same, or better, missile as our current anti-ship missiles but at a ridiculously reduced price.

      "… 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."

      Read this post on the subject: MACE

      Here's a quote from an article cited in the post which addresses the Navy's requirements:

      "… 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."

      Here's a quote from a Forbes article:

      "MACE would be a long-range cruise missile that can be rapidly prototyped, manufactured en masse and be ready to begin fielding by Fiscal 2027."

      That's not a Maverick replacement!

      Do some research on MACE to give you a more accurate understanding of the program. You'll quickly realize how ridiculous the concept is!

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    4. I mean, they want to carry 4 weapons internally, they want a 75lbs warhead, they want longer range, it really does seem like rocket powered Stormbreaker ticks most of the boxes. Unpowered gliding, it's got 100km range against static targets and 70km range against moving targets: we can absolutely see triple digit range once a rocket motor is glued on. Not as much as LRASM of course, but the range should be competitive with NSM, which does 300km at a lo-lo-lo flight profile.

      Anyway you don't need to have all the range, just enough range to offer room for defensive action against enemy SAMs.

      Sometimes, you shpuld go for the partial solution you cannget fast, rather than the perfect solution that takes forever.

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  16. A simple solution to very long range targeting of ships is to program the missile to fly a search pattern if a target is not detected when expected. It could begin a big spiral search pattern covering a huge area.

    Another option is for a missile to broadcast a "tally ho" message with its location when it detects a target that nearby missiles can use should they fail to find a target.

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    1. "A simple solution"

      It's not quite as simple as it seems. If you want a thousand mile missile to have enough fuel to conduct a time-consuming search then you have to limit the missile to some distance well under its thousand mile range. I would guess something on the order of half the nominal range would be the useful range limit that retains a useful search capability.

      Also, bear in mind that missile sensors are very small and have a very limited range and field of view compared to, say, a search aircraft. In other words, missiles are not capable of large area searches. This means that a search has to have very tight, narrow search patterns which takes a great deal of time (barring a lucky 'find' right away). Again, this goes to the detrimental impact of a search protocol on useful range.

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  17. One minor point about the simple active radar final targeting system. Keep in mind that simple radars are usually vulnerable to simple electronic (or even other) countermeasures. Which may cause all the missiles to miss!

    So basically the real consideration is that the weapon should be as simple as it can be while still carrying out its mission. Including resisting likely countermeasures.

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    1. "as simple as it can be while still carrying out its mission"

      That's always been the case. I tend to use the word 'effective', as in, as simple as possible while remaining effective.

      "Including resisting likely countermeasures."

      The best way to resist countermeasures is to not be susceptible to them. A bullet is immune to countermeasures because it doesn't rely on guidance, electronics, circuit boards, software, signals, or anything else. Simplicity provides its own defense!

      A missile that doesn't rely on anything but internal workings, such as INS, would be ideal because it wouldn't be susceptible to countermeasures. Every additional capability we add makes the missile more susceptible to countermeasures. Our goal should be to make the simplest EFFECTIVE missile we can, with the least amount of capabilities that can accomplish the task. All this mid-course, hand off, multi-mode imaging, spontaneous networking, two-way comms, and other crap just makes the missile more expensive and more susceptible to countermeasures.

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    2. War is a situation where nothing is where it is supposed to be and nothing works the way it is supposed to work. In that environment the best systems are those that work best in the most disruptive situation. Simpler is better than more complex. No matter how great all the bells and whistles are, if they're not going to work then they are useless. Or worse, because they induce unjustified reliance.

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    3. "War is a situation where nothing is where it is supposed to be"

      Yes and no. There are two general types of targets: fixed and mobile. Fixed targets, as the name denotes, are at a known, unchanging location so they're always where they're supposed to be.

      Mobile targets can be anywhere, by definition. HOWEVER, mobile targets, almost by definition, are small and individually less important which strongly suggests that they are not worthwhile thousand mile targets. For example, destroying one tank a thousand miles from the battlefield doesn't really accomplish much.

      That puts us into the shorter range targets and, because they're shorter range, they won't move as much in any relevant time frame. Thus, they can somewhat be expected to be where they're supposed to.

      Now, at the very lowest, local level, there can be plenty of surprises because surveillance is limited to eyeballs, tiny UAVs, and such.

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  18. In my opinion, the USN has never really had a sensible policy for shipboard surface-to-surface missiles. I think a part of it is that the aviation community has always seen such missiles as an alternative to airpower, and thus a threat to their community. Relying on airpower is fine, unless there's not a carrier around. In any event, I think USN ships have been shoretchanged versus our foreign counterparts in this area.

    My own thinking is that it's fine to build a few HARES because there may be times when you need all those capabilities. But you'd better have a buttload of TORTOISES to cover the other 99% of the time.

    I have a funny story about the USN's reaction to shipboard surface-to-surface missiles, and particularly to a TORTOISE type that has bewen effective for 50 years, but I don't know if it has been declassified and I'm reluctant to share it for that reason.

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  19. Something for a future post. The USS Ike has been deployed for eight months and just got extended another month. Fleet tracker shows no one is on the way to relieve her.

    https://news.usni.org/2024/06/03/usni-news-fleet-and-marine-tracker-june-3-2024

    AND she's been in light combat much of the time. We have ten carriers and no one can help! I've always shocked people by saying it would take the US Navy six months to surge four carriers to fight near Taiwan. I now revise that to 12 months.

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