Garbage In, Garbage Out

Here’s another Air Force issue that is highly relevant to the Navy and the military, in general.
 
Boeing’s T-7A Red Hawk is years behind schedule.  This is not a highly complex, F-22/35 type stealth combat aircraft;  it’s a simple trainer intended to replace the Air Force’s T-38 Talon.  As a Drive website article notes, the T-7A was going to revolutionize aircraft design and construction by using computers and digital models. 

Advertised by the Air Force and Boeing as the service’s first "digitally designed and engineered" aircraft, T-7A was lauded as a poster child for developmental speed.[1]
 
The Red Hawk was expected to begin a new era in rapid design and engineering with iterative development carried out in the virtual world via modeling and simulation without having to bend metal or conduct extensive real-world testing. Systems integration would be accelerated and the time from the first flight to production significantly compressed.
 
It hasn’t worked out that way.[1]

Foolishly, we assign an aura of infallibility, bordering on a religious faith, to everything digital.  The reality, however, is that everything in the digital world  …  everything  … let me repeat that  …  everything  …  is governed by the ancient computer programming adage, GIGO which stands for,
 
Garbage In, Garbage Out
 
It doesn’t matter how brilliant your program is, if you feed it garbage input, you get garbage output. 

“A funny thing happens when you move out of digits to reality,” Teal Group analyst J.J. Gertler said.  “Digital engineering has the capability to rapidly iterate but it’s only as good as the information you put into it. It may also help you get to a wrong answer faster which you then have to back out of.”[1][emphasis added]

 
There you have it.  GIGO. 

“Digital engineering isn’t going to make issues go away,” he [Dr. Will Roper, former assistant secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics] noted. “It’s going to create a new issue which is – do you trust the underlying models and simulation upon which your performance predictions are based?”[1][emphasis added]

 
When hand held calculators were introduced, teachers noted that they all too often helped students get the wrong answer faster.  The calculator was electronically correct but the students were too ignorant to input the correct data.  GIGO.  The same phenomenon is prevalent in industry. 
 
Closely related, students lost the ability to recognize obvious incorrect results caused by mistaken inputs (accidentally pushed the wrong button) because they lost the ability to quickly estimate expected results and be able to recognize that an answer was patently incorrect.  I can instantly estimate 18x20 by rounding it to 20x20=400.  Therefore, I can recognize that an answer of 3600 is an order of magnitude off.  Students no longer have the ability to do that and cannot recognize obvious errors - the calculator said it so it must be right.
 
We’ve become so caught up in our blind worship of technology that we’ve completely ignored the constant presence of the GIGO phenomenon.  Digital results are accorded unquestioned faith.  Whether it’s artificial intelligence, computer aided design, pilot or ship driver training via simulation, or command and control networks, they’re all plagued by the constant presence of garbage input. 
 
Every Navy and Air Force design and acquisition program for the last two decades has claimed to be computer designed and computer aided and yet none have been what anyone would judge a success.
 
We had far more successful ship and aircraft design results from people using paper, pencil, and a slide rule then we do now using computers.  Common sense is screaming lessons at us but we’re too busy worshipping at the altar of technology to hear them.
 
How’s that simple, straightforward Air Force KC-46 tanker coming along?  It’s been well over a decade and still counting! 
 
Remember the Ford?  Computer modeled and computer designed?  How’d that turn out?
 
The F-35’s ALIS logistics, maintenance, and mission planning program was going to solve all our problems and yet it’s been abandoned and nothing has yet taken its place.
 
And so on.
 
The problem is that the people inputting the information are all too often incompetent idiots who can’t even rattle off their multiplication tables without consulting a calculator.  Have you ever tried to get change from a cashier who hasn’t got access to the register’s computer output?  They can’t calculate simple change in their head.  Why would we expect such people to be able to recognize garbage input and avoid it?  They can’t.  We’ve crippled ourselves, as a society, by allowing calculators in schools.  But, I digress …
 
We now have military leaders who are inputting idiotic data into wargames, computer models, and simulations and are unable to even recognize the idiotic results.
 
This isn’t just about arithmetic errors.  In the military, the idiotic inputs are things such as
 

• Assuming the enemy won’t respond in any harmful way to us.
• Assuming everything we do will work and nothing the enemy does will work.
• Assuming that we have capabilities the enemy doesn’t.
• Assuming our systems will work flawlessly.  Does any wargame factor in, oh, say, Ford EMALS breakdowns?  We have hard data but we’re hand waving away the reality.
• Assuming our surveillance assets will be allowed to conduct their missions without hindrance.
• Assuming we’ll have no problem working around the enemy’s electronic warfare even though any attempt at introducing even a modicum of EW into a real exercise has ended in the complete collapse of the exercise.
• Assuming our networks will work flawlessly even though we’re being successfully attacked and penetrated by enemy cyber forces on a daily basis.

 
This is the kind of idiotic, garbage inputs that are producing garbage outputs.  Unfortunately, we’re too stupid to recognize the garbage nature of either our inputs or outputs and so we blindly follow our technology down ever more incorrect paths.
 
 
Garbage In, Garbage Out
 
 
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[1]The Drive website, “T-7A Delays Compound Pilot Shortage, Expose Digital Engineering Pitfalls”, Jan Tegler, 12-May-2023,
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/t-7a-delays-compound-pilot-shortage-expose-digital-engineering-pitfalls
 

War Games Built The LCS

Commandant Berger is completely remaking the Marine Corps.  Why?  Because of the results of a series of war games.

 

The Navy is going to be replacing Burkes with medium and large unmanned surface vessels (MUSV, LUSV).  Why?  Because of the results of a series of war games.

 

The US military is investing heavily in UAVs.  Why?  Because of the results of a series of war games.

 

The Navy established the Ford class aircraft carrier specifications because of the results of a series of war games.

 

ComNavOps has expressed doubt about all of the above but they were all established by war games so they should be solid, logical requirements, right?  None of us are privy to the details of the games so we should just relax and accept the results and conclusions of war games run by our professional warriors, right?  Right?

 

Well, before we buy in on blind faith, let’s consider what we do know about previous war game results and conclusions.

 

Millenium Challenge 2002 – This is the classic example of a staged, utterly unrealistic game that had a pre-determined outcome and, as a result, absolutely no value, whatsoever, as a combat simulation.  From the Wiki article about the event,

 

After the reset, both sides were ordered to follow predetermined plans of action.  After the war game was restarted, its participants were forced to follow a script drafted to ensure a Blue Force victory. (1)

 

 

Ford – USS Ford was designed based on the results of a war game modeled after Desert Storm rather than a peer war. (2)

 

LCS – The LCS program was initiated and executed based on the results of a series of war games. (3)

 

Zumwalt – The Zumwalt design was derived from war games that determined that a long range naval fire support capability was needed.  It was also derived from simulations that determined that a family of future warships was necessary.  Of course, the Zumwalt went from the mandatory future of naval combat to unwanted by the Navy in a matter of weeks based on classified naval studies and simulations that, apparently, completely contradicted those that came shortly before.

 

Dogfights – After the Korean war, the US Air Force determined from combat simulations and studies that dogfighting was a thing of the past and began building aircraft without guns.  The folly of this was demonstrated in Vietnam.

  

 

The US military has a long history of conducting war games, combat simulations, and studies and then basing future platforms and force structure off the results.  Unfortunately, the US military also has a long history of drawing exactly the wrong conclusions from the war games, combat simulations, and studies.  So, what does this suggest about the likelihood of the Marine’s restructuring being correct?  It suggests, with near 100% certainty, that the Marines and Commandant Berger are acting upon incorrect conclusions drawn from faulty war games.

 

More generally, the military has wholeheartedly embraced unmanned assets in combination with extensive networks and data flow as the key to future success in war.  Given the preceding discussion and examples, why would we trust the war games that are telling the military to drop firepower in favor of networks and data?  The military has gotten nearly every war game conclusion wrong so should we now believe that their emphasis on networks and data instead of firepower is correct?

 

Do you know what would make me a believer in networks and data?  If the military would run realistic exercises where our own anti-network, anti-data, anti-sensor, anti-communications – meaning electronic and cyber warfare – were applied against our networks, sensors, and comms and prove that we could effectively operate our networks, collect our data, and communicate.  Do that and I might begin to buy into the concept.  Lacking that kind of actual proof of concept and remaining fully cognizant of our badly flawed history of incorrect war game conclusions, I’ll remain highly skeptical about our plans to emphasize networks instead of firepower.

War games built the LCS and now war games are building a new Marine Corps.  Not exactly confidence inspiring, is it?

 

 

 

 

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(1)Wikipedia, “Millenium Challenge 2002”, retrieved 7-Sep-2020,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002

 

(2)Navy Matters, “Ford Design Considerations”, 23-Mar-2020,

https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2020/03/ford-design-considerations.html

 

(3)Navy Matters, “LCS – Conceptual Origin”, 10-Sep-2012,

https://navy-matters.blogspot.com/2012/09/lcs-conceptual-origin.html

The Wrong Next War

There’s an old saying that Generals are always preparing to fight the last war.  Well, there’s a related and previously unknown phenomenon developing within the US military which is that the Generals are preparing to fight the wrong next war.

To give some credit where credit is due, the US military is devoting a fair amount of effort to preparing to fight the next war.  The problem is that the next war that our military envisions is one entirely of their own creation rather than one defined by consideration of the enemy’s capabilities and intent.  We’re not preparing to fight the war that China and Russia are going to deliver;  we’re preparing to fight the war that we want to see:  a war of high technology, with lots of cross-domain buzzwords, artificial intelligence assisted joint battle command, with dispersed, small, flexible, light units creating havoc deep within enemy territory, tiny unmanned vehicles roving the air, land, and sea and applying nearly magical capabilities, all supported by an exquisite, ephemeral network providing perfect situational awareness.

What kind of war are the Russians and Chinese preparing to deliver?  They’re building heavier and heavier armored units with more, bigger, and far more lethal conventional explosives delivered by massed artillery and ballistic missiles.  The Chinese are building for a war of attrition and are on a quick path to outnumbering us in every category of military capability.  The Russians are telling us exactly what kind of war they’ll deliver with their semi-proxy invasion of Ukraine.  It’s a war of unimaginable destruction delivered by artillery supported by electronic warfare and UAVs, all backed by heavy armored units.  Entire mechanized units are wiped out in seconds.  Our enemies are preparing to employ lethal battlefield unmanned vehicles without a care for unintended casualties.

In short, our enemies are preparing to deliver a war with massive firepower, heavy armored units, widespread and effective electronic warfare, and Terminator style unmanned killing machines.

Now look at the kind of war games we’re conducting.

We’re preparing to conduct the first multi-domain command and control exercise, Cross Domain One.

The Air Force will lead the first experiment of Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) capabilities in two weeks, tying fighter jets to Army ground systems and Navy ships in a real-world example of Multi-Domain Operations.

Preston Dunlap, Air Force chief architect for acquisition, told Breaking D that the exercise in Florida will “be powered by” the service’s nascent Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). (1)

We’re preparing to fight a war of neat columns of data, sophisticated user interfaces, systems of systems, and cross-domain synergistic spreadsheets all backed up by dispersed light infantry and distributed logistics ships with a few anti-ship missiles.  Our idea of heavy firepower is the 30 mm machine gun that we’ve so proudly stuck on the Strykers and dubbed ‘Dragoon’.  The Russians in their heavily armored, T-90 or T-14 Armata tanks with 125 mm guns must be quaking in their boots over the prospect of facing unarmored Strykers with machine guns for main weapons.

Stryker Dragoon - Wrong For The Next War

While Russia is developing improved cluster munitions and China is mass producing conventional ballistic missiles, we’ve established a Department of Defense, Non-Lethal Weapons Program (2).

Where’s our war game that examines the devastating effects of pure firepower?  Where’s our wargame that tries to figure out how to defeat an armored division?  Where’s our wargame that looks at how to deal with massive artillery barrages?  Where’s our exercise that forces units to operate with jammed communications, no GPS, jammed radar, and constant cyber attack?  Where’s our wargame that looks at trying to operate under enemy controlled skies?

Our [badly] misguided military leadership has created a fantasy vision of what a future war will look like – a war that doesn’t match the predictable reality - and are now contentedly ‘validating’ our weapons and systems against that unrealistic fantasy war.   Our Generals and Admirals are busy congratulating themselves for the rosy results of these fantasy wargames that are concocted from wishful thinking rather than the enemy’s demonstrated capabilities and plans. 

We’ve left firepower far behind in the rear view mirror in our pursuit of perfect data awareness.  We’ve forgotten that even perfect awareness is useless without the means to destroy what we see.  We’ve forgotten that firepower trumps awareness – you don’t need to know exactly where that enemy unit is if you’ve got the firepower and are willing to wipe out a grid square (and all the collateral damage that might go with it) to destroy it.  An unstoppable barrage of artillery fire doesn’t require precision guidance – close counts in horseshoes and artillery.

The decades of low intensity, low threat conflict have led our military leaders who have grown up in that environment to believe that war with Russia/China/Iran/NKorea will be more of the same and that the war can be won with data and networks.  These ignorant leaders have now concocted fantasy wargames because they simply can’t grasp the horror, devastation, and barbarity that will be a modern peer war.

________________________________

(1)Breaking Defense website, “First Multi Domain C2 Exercise Planned: Cross Domain One ”, Theresa Hitchens, 6-Dec-2019,

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/12/first-multi-domain-c2-exercise-planned-cross-domain-one/?_ga=2.158096826.1014876450.1575726476-1757035925.1542652267

(2)https://jnlwp.defense.gov/

Millennium Challenge 2002

Everyone has probably heard of the Millennium Challenge 2002 wargame.  Heck, it’s almost become a legend.  The exercise offered some outstanding lessons all around though not necessarily those that are routinely claimed.  Let’s take a closer look.  For those who may not be familiar with it, here is a brief summary. 

Among various other aspects, both physical and simulated, the US conducted a simulated wargame involving the overthrow of a Middle East dictator of a country on the Persian Gulf.  The enemy, or Red force, was commanded by Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, USMC(Ret.).  The exercise was two years in the making and reportedly cost $250M.

The game was, apparently, intended as a free play exercise in which both sides would try their best to win and, at least in the beginning, was conducted as such.  The short version is that Van Riper, leading the Red force, used a combination of civilian aircraft and small boats for surveillance to pinpoint the US forces and then proceeded to launch swarm attacks, suicide attacks, and cruise missiles to annihilate the US fleet in short order.

Faced with an additional couple of weeks of scheduled exercise time, game officials opted to restore all the “killed” units and continue on.  At this point, the game ran off the tracks with the imposition of highly scripted actions designed to validate US concepts and ensure a US “victory”.  Van Riper eventually resigned from active participation in disgust.

The game concluded with pronouncements of a US “victory”.

ComNavOps has no problem with reconstituting the US forces in the context of a wargame.  After all, if you have the personnel assembled for a couple week long game and it ends in the first day or two, why not start over and gain some more benefit?  The problem is that the subsequent restart and scripted operations appear to have been a blatant attempt to force a pre-determined outcome.

If you want to ensure a desired outcome by using unrealistic scenarios and conditions, why go to the trouble of conducting a wargame, at all?  It would be cheaper and easier to just skip the exercise, announce that your concepts are unbeatable, and save some money.

ComNavOps also has no problem with scripted exercises intended to test a narrow, specific capability.  For example, suppose you want to look at the use of a particular decoy in the context of an aerial strike against a land target.  You could play an open-ended, free form game but the opportunity to conduct the strike might never arise.  If that were the case, you would have wasted your time.  Better to initiate a specific scenario with scripted actions and conditions as long as the actions and conditions don’t predetermine the outcome of the decoy’s performance.

There are two types of wargames: 

1. Games in which the enemy is allowed freedom of action and concepts are put to a realistic (though simulated) test.
2. Games in which pet weapons and concepts are exercised in scenarios with pre-determined outcomes in order to “validate” their procurement or adoption.

The Guardian offers a write up and comments from Gen. Van Riper (1).

Gen. Van Riper

Contrary to what many believe, the game did not demonstrate that swarms and suicides and whatnot are unstoppable and that ships stand no chance.  Instead, it demonstrated that conventional Navy commanders are totally unprepared to deal with the unconventional and unexpected.  It also demonstrated that unless the US is prepared to accept significant collateral damage, we’ll be fighting with our hands tied (our ROEs are ill-suited to major combat operations).

I also note that such a free play wargame has not been conducted since, to the best of my knowledge.  You can draw your own conclusion as to why not.

On an ominous and related note, Navy and DoD leadership is committing the US to an “offset strategy” of networks and unmanned vehicles intended to ensure US military supremacy.  All well and good except that ComNavOps has expressed severe doubts about the wisdom and effectiveness of such an approach.  Perhaps a free form wargame is needed to validate the concept before we gut the military and wander off in an unproven direction?

(1)The Guardian, “Wake-up Call”, Julian Borger, 5 September 2002,

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/06/usa.iraq