Loyal Wingman No Longer Expendable

After years of Loyal Wingman proponents trumpeting the ability of the unmanned drone to be expendable, thus saving manned aircraft, the Air Force now says that the drone is not expendable. 

The push for affordability “doesn’t mean… that this is an attritable type of platform,” Jobe [Maj. Gen. R. Scott Jobe], Director of Plans, Programs, and Requirements at Air Combat Command, said during a panel at the Air and Space Force Association’s Air Warfare Symposium. “That’s a common misconception.”[1]

Simple logic dictates that if the drone is not going to be expendable then it will have to be extremely capable, meaning on par with modern 5^th generation fighters, in order to survive.  If they aren’t equally capable, they won’t survive.  Of course, simple logic also dictates that if they’re on par with 5^th generation fighters, they’ll cost what 5^th generation fighters cost and that violates another commonly touted characteristic:  affordability.
 
As the Air Force notes, 

Officials said a careful balance must be struck between their affordability and capability.[1]

Of course, when was the last time the military was able to strike an appropriate balance between affordability and capability?  Let me repeat … if you want survivability, you need 5^th generation capability and that means 5^th generation cost.  This is pretty elementary logic.
 
 
 
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On a closely related note, why have we already committed to a production run of at least a thousand drones before we’ve demonstrated the first proof of combat effectiveness?

 
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[1]Breaking Defense, “CCA fighter wingmen drones won’t be ‘attritable,’ despite ‘common misconception’: General”, Michael Marrow, 8-Mar-2023,
https://breakingdefense.com/2023/03/cca-fighter-wingmen-drones-wont-be-attritable-despite-common-misconception-general/
 

Air Force Loyal Wingman

Contract competition will begin soon for the US Air Force version of the Loyal Wingman unmanned UAV, the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).

 

The US Air Force could kick off a competition for a drone counterpart for its sixth-generation fighter as soon as fiscal 2024, the service’s top leader said Wednesday.[1]

 

That makes sense.  After all, we have no Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for the drones so why not jump into procurement?  We have no field experimentation to demonstrate the capabilities of an unmanned drone so why not jump into procurement? What could go wrong?

 

Regarding cost,

 

In terms of cost, the Air Force wants drones that are no more than half the cost of an F-35 — which would put the most high-end CCAs at about $40 million — with Kendall [Frank Kendall, Secretary of the Air Force] stating that he would like to spend “a factor less than that” because some will be lost in battle.[1]

 

The number one characteristic of a drone in combat is that it will have a very short lifespan since we don’t have Terminator level Artificial Intelligence, yet.  Drones will be the equivalent of single digit IQ pilots – you know, as if Admirals were flying – with no ability to do anything but execute a very tightly defined set of actions (well, that rules out the Admirals).  They’re going to drop like flies in combat so they’d better be dirt cheap.  Very few will come back from a mission.

 

With that in mind, $40M drones seems insanely expensive for a drone that will need a precision Swiss watch to measure its lifespan.  Kendall seems not to appreciate that reality despite saying,

 

“The expectation is that these aircraft can be designed to be less survivable and less capable …[1]

 

How can Kendall acknowledge that the drones will be less survivable and less capable – that’s the definition of ‘throwaway’ in combat - and then set a price target of $40M?

 

I wish that were all that Kendall and the Air Force were confused about but it’s not.  Kendall, and the military, in general, has developed a serious case of delusion, manifested in the recent trend of believing the enemy will be ‘confused’ by everything we do.  This concept of enemy ‘confusion’ has been cropping up in everything, lately.  The Navy believes that the enemy will be ‘confused’ by individual, weak, distributed lethality ships.  The Marines believe that the enemy will be ‘confused’ by platoon size, missile shooting units hiding on small islands.  Now, the Air Force believes the enemy will be ‘confused’ by drones.

 

“The expectation is that these aircraft can be designed to be less survivable and less capable, but still bring an awful lot to the fight in a mixture that the enemy has a very hard time sorting out and dealing with,” Kendall said. “You can even intentionally sacrifice some of them to draw fire, if you will, to make the enemy expose himself.”[1]

 

Options include adding weapons, sensors, electronic warfare systems or other effects, and there is a benefit to fielding CCAs with differing mission packages.

 

“That’s a way to keep the cost down,” he said. “It raises the uncertainty that the adversary has to deal with, because he doesn’t know which is in any given aircraft, he has to take each of them seriously as a threat. And so whether they all carry weapons or a subset carries weapons, he’s going to treat them all as if they do. He has no choice.”[1]

 

Merely swapping out payloads will plunge the enemy into the throes of debilitating uncertainty.  Kendall seems to believe the enemy will wind up in a corner, balled up in the fetal position, sobbing from the confusion and uncertainty we inflict on him.  When has uncertainty about a ship or plane’s payload ever been a problem for any enemy?  In war, you destroy everything of the enemy’s and you don’t give a rat’s ass what it was carrying.

 

Returning to the CONOPS issue, consider the following gem of damnation:

 

As the Air Force begins developing CCAs [Cooperative Combat Aircraft, the loyal wingman drone], the service also needs to take steps to begin learning how to use combat drones alongside fighter aircraft … [1]

 

As we begin developing drones (we’re already starting the production process!), we need to take steps to begin learning how to use them?  Pardon me, Air Force, but shouldn’t you know how you want to use them before you begin procurement?  That’s called a CONOPS and a CONOPS must precede design or you wind up with a useless product as we’ve seen with so many acquisition programs.

 

The Right Path

So, what should we be doing before committing to production?

 

1. We should be conducting actual exercises using some low level aircraft as a simulation for a drone and install whatever autonomy or control software we’re planning on using to see how it performs.  Oh wait … we don’t have any actual software yet, do we?  We’re going to procure the drone and then develop the software concurrently.  What could go wrong?  Hasn’t concurrency worked every time it’s been tried?

 

Can you imagine a ‘less survivable and less capable’ drone simulator, say, a T-6B Texan II Turboprop trainer or a T-45 Goshawk trainer, thrown into combat against Chinese equivalents to the F-15, F-35, and F-22?  What would the lifespan of those be?  What could they productively accomplish in combat?

 

2. Via demonstration exercises, we need to determine a realistic attrition rate of drones and balance that against cost to determine an affordable price point.  I guarantee you it isn’t anywhere near $40M.  By the way, when has any acquisition program come anywhere near its initial, hoped for price target?  Never!  The actual cost of whatever debacle we produce will be closer to $80M than $40M;  history guarantees that.

 

3. Based on the demonstration exercises, we should then – and only then – develop the CONOPS.  The CONOPS will then tell us exactly what performance requirements we need for the drone.  Without the CONOPS, we’re just randomly guessing.  That’s how you wind up with a Zumwalt with no mission, and LCS that has no use, and Afloat Forward Staging Base whose captain has orders to sail around and look for a mission (see, “AFSB– Looking For Something To Do”), a Ford that costs twice as much and offers no improvement, etc.

 

 

This Loyal Wingman / Collaborative Combat Aircraft is another in a long series of fads (see, “Fleeting Trends”) that the military jumps on with no supporting evidence or experience.  So far, none of those have ever turned out well but, hey, this one will be the exception, right Air Force?

 

No CONOPS, no demonstrations, no performance specs, no cost/attrition analysis, guaranteed runaway costs  …  what could go wrong?

 

 

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[1]Breaking Defense website, “Coming soon: A US competition for sixth-gen drone wingman could begin in FY24”, Valerie Insinna, 7-Sep-2022,

https://breakingdefense.com/2022/09/coming-soon-a-us-competition-for-sixth-gen-drone-wingman-could-begin-in-fy24/

Loyal Wingman

‘Littoral’ – the term was appropriated by the Navy to describe a form of warfare that was, supposedly, unique and beyond the capability of then current Navy platforms.  The only solution, said the Navy, was to buy lots of Littoral Combat Ships and so the LCS debacle was birthed. 

 

The defining characteristic of the ‘littoral’ fiasco was that the conversation jumped immediately from theoretical concept to implementation.  What was ignored was reality and validity.  There were no studies, no exercises, no concepts of operation … nothing to establish the validity, or lack thereof, of the concept.  We went straight from concept to implementation and, from the Navy’s perspective and goals (budget) this was quite understandable.  The Navy knew there was nothing unique about ‘littoral’ as a form of warfare.  Ships have fought in shallow water for hundreds of years.  Images of WWII destroyers standing barely offshore to provide fire support on D-Day are iconic.  What the Navy wanted was to get Congress to fund more ships before someone had the forethought to question the concept.  Thus, we committed to a production run of 55 LCS without ever establishing the validity of the concept, analyzing alternatives, or establishing concepts of operation.

 

This phenomenon of jumping straight from concept to implementation is not unique to the military world.  It is common throughout industry and society.  For example, diversity (whether gender or racial) burst upon the scene and we leapt immediately over validity and straight into implementation.  Diversity would have us believe that a man and a woman or a black and a white are somehow inherently superior to two women or two blacks.  A moment’s reasoned thought would reveal this as ridiculous.  Despite that, we’ve jumped immediately to implementation.  There is hardly a corporate board or governmental organization today that does not mandate (formally or informally) quotas to ensure diversity.  Whenever there’s a Supreme Court vacancy the cries immediately arise from all corners for the position to be filled by a woman or a black or a Leprechaun or whatever gender/racial characteristic the particular group is advocating for.  That’s ridiculous.  The only ‘cry’ should be to find the best possible person regardless of gender, race, or type of car they drive. 

 

Corporations have moved from finding the best people for their boardrooms to finding the most diverse people.  Presidential cabinets have gone from finding the best people to finding the most diverse.  Army Rangers and Navy SEALs have gone from finding the best people to mandating diversity.

 

The latest example of this phenomenon is the ‘loyal wingman’.  It is the latest craze and we have already jumped right over validity and straight into implementation.  No one is asking whether the concept makes sense, whether it can work, whether an already combat task-overloaded pilot can control multiple other aircraft while fighting for his own life, and whether pale imitations of manned aircraft can perform well enough to make a difference.  No one has asked how a loyal wingman will work, what it will do, under what circumstances it can be useful, and what situations are not appropriate for it?  No one is asking why, if a manned combat fighter aircraft costs $100M each, we think we’ll be able to build unmanned versions cheap enough to be expendable?

Loyal Wingman Concept Art

 

What will the loyal wingman aircraft do?  Try this description:

 

The cornerstone of the concept is a low-cost unmanned platform to work alongside traditional manned combat aircraft and operate as a force-multiplier, adding “mass” while also undertaking more hazardous tasks and missions when required. (3)

 

How’s that for some truly impressive buzzword bingo that says nothing?  It leaves us with no worked out concept, no proof of validity, no exercises demonstrating effectiveness, no nothing.

 

 

No one asked about the LCS and we see how that turned out.

 

No one asked about the Zumwalt and we see how that turned out.

 

No one asked about the Ford and we see how that turned out.

 

No one asked about the F-35 and we see how that turned out.

 

Nope, it’s all about implementation.

 

Ignore the reality. 

 

Ignore the analysis.

 

Ignore validating exercises. 

 

Ignore the CONOPS. 

 

Ignore alternatives.

 

 

 

Just implement it.

 

 

 

 

Okay, that was the general warning about the loyal wingman concept.  Now, let’s look at some specific potential problems.

 

Communications – We don’t have artificial intelligence, yet, that even remotely approaches combat capability despite the public relations stunt put on by DARPA.  That means the wingman aircraft cannot perform on its own in any meaningful way.  It will need to be closely controlled by a human pilot/controller and that, in turn, requires constant communications.  Presumably, the comms will need to be omnidirectional because it will be impossible to maintain a direct, point to point comm link when both the transmitting control aircraft and the receiving wingman are engaged in high-g, violent maneuvers.

 

Situational Awareness – I’ve not heard of anyone talking about using two-seater aircraft to control the wingman aircraft so can a single pilot in the controlling aircraft establish and maintain situational awareness to direct the wingman aircraft while simultaneously engaging in aerial combat, himself, and fighting for his own life?  Can he do it for more than one aircraft?  There’s a reason why the F-14, EA-6B, and other aircraft have multiple crew.  The workload is too much for one pilot.

 

Or, is this a case where we fantasize that the single pilot will cruise around the aerial battlefield, undetected and unhindered by any enemy actions and leisurely direct swarms of wingman aircraft?

 

Combat Effectiveness – I have yet to hear what, exactly, the wingman aircraft is going to do.  It can’t successfully engage in aerial combat on its own or even with a controller.  There is no unmanned aircraft that can do that.  It could be an aerial missile ‘barge’ for the controlling aircraft but, again, can a single pilot, fighting for his life make effective use of such an aircraft?  It could be a decoy or missile sponge but we already have a variety of much cheaper chaff, flares, and decoys (towed and flying) so I don’t see what would be gained there.  So, if the wingman can’t defeat an enemy aircraft, what will it do?  I’m failing to see the combat effectiveness.

 

Some articles suggest its role is ISR and early warning.(1)  If so, that’s a lot of hype and cost (see the next section on cost) for an extended sensor and nothing I’ve seen indicates they’ll be able to supply another aircraft with a real time combat picture (see the section on communications).

 

Another article suggests that the loyal wingman will be tasked with ‘absorbing enemy fire’.(2)  If so, that’s an incredibly expensive way to defend another aircraft.  Plus, how would that work?  In order to be physically close enough to ‘absorb fire’, the wingman aircraft would have to be almost flying a welded wing formation.  Do we really think we can formation fly in combat without collisions?  And with an unmanned aircraft?

 

Cost – If the wingman aircraft is going to attempt to engage in aerial combat, it will need the same performance, speed, range, weapons, and sensors as our best manned aircraft which means it will cost the same as a manned aircraft and that’s not cheap.  Are we going to use $100M wingman aircraft as throwaway expendables?  We’ll go broke real fast doing that.  So many people have the mistaken notion that unmanned somehow automatically means cheap and that’s just not the case.  If you want high performance fighter aircraft capability it’s going to cost what high performance fighter aircraft cost.

 

Attrition – As noted, we don’t have the AI to produce aerial ‘Terminators’.  That means that the wingman aircraft are going to suffer extreme attrition which brings us back to the cost issue.

 

 

Summary

 

So, in our pursuit of technology as the magical solution to all our problems, we’ve latched on to this wingman concept and jumped right over validation and straight into implementation.  We’ve got to learn some lessons from our past failures and start asking questions before it’s too late.  We need a CONOPS for this concept and we need extensive validation exercises.  Failing that, the loyal wingman concept will be just another example to add to the list of poorly conceived disasters.

 

 

 

 

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(1)https://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/loyal-wingman-unmanned-aircraft/

 

(2)https://militaryleak.com/2020/12/21/boeing-australia-loyal-wingman-stealth-ucav-conducts-first-high-speed-taxi-test/

 

(3)https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35806/australias-loyal-wingman-drone-its-developing-with-boeing-has-been-photographed-in-the-wild