JSF Tidbit From The Past

Remember the good old days when the JSF was the low cost alternative to the expensive F-22?  Well, ComNavOps was reminiscing over a pile of old Proceedings magazines and had his attention drawn to this statement from a 1997 article (1).

"The Joint Strike Fighter, conceived from the ground up as a multirole stealth jet, is just down the road.  Most estimates peg it at half or less the per-copy cost of the F-22."

The reference citation associated with that statement puts the JSF cost at $67M which is $98M in FY14 dollars. 

I wonder if the article’s author would have written his piece differently if he had known that the JSF would cost twice what he cited? 

Just an amusing bit of historical perspective.

(1) US Naval Institute Proceedings, “Catch F-22”, Cmdr. Jeff Huber, USN, Sep 1997, p.38

Wither the Well Deck?

WWII saw the development of the attack transport (APA) with landing craft being carried, launched, and loaded over the side of the ship.   More recently, post-war development has seen the development of the well deck, a flooded space in the stern of the ship from which landing craft (the term being used generically to include any type of landing craft or connector) could load and launch. 

The well deck was, perhaps, mechanically simpler than the APA approach and allowed for easier loading but suffers from a significantly reduced number of landing craft.  The reduced number was supposedly compensated for by the individual landing craft being some combination of bigger and faster.  Setting aside the actual capacity and throughput, the weakness in this approach is that there is no allowance for attrition of the landing craft (see, "Amphibious Assault Attrition").  When a ship carries only two or three LCACs, for example, the loss of even one has a near catastrophic impact on the follow-on landings and, more importantly, sustainment phase.

So, given the above weakness, you’d guess that the trend is towards larger well decks that can carry and operate more landing craft, right?  Oddly, you’d be wrong.  Well decks are becoming fewer and smaller.

Here are the well deck dimensions for recent classes of amphibious ships.

From oldest to newest,

Tarawa LHA-1                       268’ x 78’

Wasp LHD-1                         267’ x 50’

America LHA-6                     none

Again, from oldest to newest,

Whidbey Island LSD-41        440’ x 50’

Harpers Ferry LSD-49          220’ x 50’

San Antonio LPD-17            170’ x 50’

What jumps out from a cursory examination is that the recent amphibious ships have fewer and smaller well decks.  Indeed, the first two members of the America class LHA have no well deck.  The LPD-17 has a significantly smaller well deck than its predecessors.  What’s particularly disturbing about the LPD-17 is that it is likely to be the basis for the next generation amphibious ship, the LX(R) which is intended as a replacement for the Whidbey Island and Harpers Ferry classes.  If that happens, that will be a LOT of lost well deck space.

There is only one way to get large quantities of supplies, tanks, and heavy equipment ashore and that is via ship/landing craft.  As the well decks disappear and get smaller, there are fewer and fewer LCACs available to the ARG/MEU.  How do the Marines/Navy think those supplies and heavy equipment will get ashore?  I’m baffled by their thinking.

There is, of course, one reasonable explanation that fits the facts.  The Marines are abandoning the amphibious assault mission in favor of vertical assault.  Consider recent evidence:

• The new LHA was built with no well deck.
• The LPD-17 has a significantly smaller well deck than its predecessors.
• AGR/MEU LCAC numbers are shrinking.
• The Marines are shedding tanks, artillery, and heavy equipment.
• The Marines have committed fully to the MV-22.
• The Marines have indefinitely deferred an AAV replacement.

The simplest explanation that fits the facts is invariably the correct one.

The simplest explanation is that the Marines are getting out of the amphibious assault business and becoming an expeditionary air force and aviation assault force.

What do we hear from the Marines?  Are they talking about becoming more powerful?  Are they talking about beefing up to be able to knock down the Chinese door?  No.  They are talking about becoming lighter and more mobile.  They are talking about being a crisis response force and humanitarian relief organization.

Back to the well deck, itself.  Is it needed?  If we’re going to do amphibious assaults then it, or something functionally equivalent, is needed.  It’s just not possible to conduct and sustain an assault using purely or mainly aviation assets.  We need the ability to transport heavy loads to the landing site and landing craft (in the generic sense) are the only viable option.  Now, we don’t necessarily have to use well decks.  We can use the old WWII APA and landing craft approach, modern LSTs, or something similar.  The point is, we need some means to place heavy loads on landing craft and a well deck is certainly a convenient means to do so. 

This discussion goes back to the need for a broad military strategy.  Do we, as a nation and a military, see the need to be able to conduct large amphibious assaults?  If so, we’re trending in the wrong direction when it comes to amphibious ship design.  If we don’t see a need, then we need to re-examine our entire amphibious force structure.

Well decks are a symptom and a bottleneck when it comes to amphibious assaults and the Navy/Marines need to come to grips with the broader issue and choose a logical path based on an overall strategy.  Failure to do so will see amphibious assault slowly wither away as it falls prey to the short term budgetary consequences of the latest “shiny toy” acquisitions approach currently in vogue. 

An AAV replacement gets indefinitely deferred ... 

LSTs are retired with no replacement …

Well decks shrink or vanish ... 

Tanks and heavy equipment are cut …

Doctrine moves assault ships further and further offshore ... 

Before you know it, no more amphibious assault capability. 

Well decks are the canary in the amphibious coal mine and right now the well deck canaries are dying.  Well decks are telling us what’s happening but is this what we want to happen?

LCS MCM Update

One of the key components of the Navy’s MCM mission module for the LCS is the Remote Minehunting System (RMS).  It consists of an unmanned underwater vehicle, the Remote Multi-Mission Vehicle (RMMV), currently v4.2, that tows a minehunting sonar, the AQS-20.  This system has demonstrated severe reliability and performance problems.  As the most recent 2014 Annual Report from Director, Operational Testing and Evaluation summarizes it,

“… the combined results of shore-based and LCS-based testing conducted since the program was recertified following a Nunn-McCurdy in 2010 have not demonstrated that an LCS equipped with an MCM mission package that includes two RMMVs and three AN/AQS-20A sonars will be able to support the sustained area coverage rate that the Navy has established for the Increment 1 MCM mission package.”

The two specific concerns are reliability and performance.  The two must both be achieved to have a viable system.  It does no good to have a reliable system that can’t perform or, conversely, a system that performs but is unreliable.

Here is DOT&E’s assessment of the RMMV reliability.

“The reliability of the v4.2 RMMV during combined developmental and integrated testing completed in FY14 was 31.3 hours MTBOMF [ed., Mean Time Between Operational Mission Failure], which is well below the required reliability of 75 hours MTBOMF.”

Given the extended period of development that the RMMV has undergone, this level of reliability is extremely troubling.

While reliability is problematic, to say the least, DOT&E points out that what’s even worse is that the recovery of the RMS from failures is largely relegated to off-board maintenance.  The LCS crew has very limited on-board ability to recover from failures.  This is a consequence of the LCS operating model of limited on-board maintenance.

It’s not just the RMMV that has problems.  The AQS-20 sonar has consistently failed to meet performance specifications.

“Contact depth (vertical localization) errors and false classification density exceeded Navy limits in all AQS-20A operating modes.”

“The sensor also has trouble meeting the probability of detection and classification requirement in shallow waters and RMS has difficulty guiding the sensor over bottom contacts for identification in deep water.”

Communications are a problem, as well.

“RMS radios have had difficulty establishing reliable communications with the LCS during developmental testing, and once communications are established, the current communications systems do not support RMMV mine identification operations beyond the horizon. Although the RMMV can search autonomously while operating over the horizon from the LCS, it currently only can conduct operations to reacquire and identify bottom mines within the range of Ultra High Frequency communications. This limitation will complicate MCM operations in long shipping channels, and may make it necessary to clear a series of LCS operating areas to allow MCM operations to progress along the channel.  The cleared operating areas will be needed to keep the LCS and its crew out of mined waters. The additional effort required to clear these LCS operating areas would increase the demand for mine clearance and delay attainment of strategic objectives. This issue is not new to RMS; however, it did not become operationally significant until the Navy decertified the MH-60S helicopter for towing MCM devices, including the AN/AQS-20A/B sensor.”

Simply launching and recovering the RMMV is a challenge.

“The Independence class LCS has had difficulty launching and recovering the RMMV because of the vehicle’s erratic motion in the ship’s wake.”

Overall system reliability is poor.  DOT&E noted that in the most recent 3-week period of intensive testing, the system was only able to operate for 50 hours (16 hours per week).

The DOT&E report contains many, many more examples of specific failures and shortcomings in the RMS – too many to document in this limited space.  It’s clear that the Navy’s all-in bet on the LCS as the only MCM vessel in the fleet and the use of unproven (largely non-existent) technology has been an abysmal failure thus far.  Given that mines are, arguably, the biggest threat the Navy faces, this is extremely bad news.  Rather than pausing this problematic development effort long enough to beef up more conventional MCM capabilities throughout the fleet in order to buy time for continued development, the Navy has doubled down on their bet.  While a reduced capability version of the MCM module will, undoubtedly, eventually be fielded, it will surely prove woefully inadequate to the task when ultimately called on.

China Sabotages US Navy

ComNavOps has highly placed sources within the Chinese military.  One such source has reported the existence of a Chinese plot to undermine the US Navy and has managed to relay a recording of a top level planning group discussing sabotage of the US fleet.  Here is the transcript of that meeting.

_____________

Esteemed Admiral:  Comrades, our decades long plan to infiltrate the American Navy leadership has finally succeeded.  We have placed an agent in a very high position of authority and are ready to begin the sabotage of the cursed US Navy dogs.  It is the job of this group to come up with ways to slowly break their navy from within.  We must come up ideas that will damage their navy but without being so obvious that it would give away the presence of our agent.  So, who has an idea?

Minions:  We could have them idle their Aegis cruiser fleet under the guise of modernizing them?

Adm.:  That’s excellent.  It’s very risky for our agent.  Any US commander would instantly see it as utter foolishness but it’s worth the risk.  Let’s do it.

Admiral’s Aide:  I shame myself to mention this, sir, but the US Navy has already announced plans to do exactly that.

Adm.:  You’re kidding?!  They’re retiring the most powerful warships in the world?  Well, that will save us some effort.  All right, what else can we do?

Minions:  We could have them change their doctrine to move their amphibious assault forces 50 miles off shore?

Adm.:  I like it!  Then they would have no way to get their troops ashore in fighting shape and their round trip times would be too long to sustain an assault.  Again, the risk to our agent is great because of the obvious stupidity of the idea but let’s do it!

Aide:  Many pardons and abject apologies, sir, but the US Navy and Marines have already done that.

Adm.:  Really?  How do think they can conduct an assault from that far away?  Oh well.  I need more ideas.

Minions:  The Americans are going to build a new ballistic missile submarine.  What if we have our agent reduce its effectiveness by cutting the number of missile tubes in each sub by one third, delete the ship’s torpedoes so it can’t defend itself, and we could have them build a couple less new subs instead of replacing them one-for-one!

Adm.:  Yes, although our agent would be at great risk suggesting something so obviously unwise.  Nevertheless, I approve it.

Aide:  Would that I could kill myself rather than speak, sir, but it is my duty to tell you that the Americans have already included all that in their SSBN design.

Adm.:  This is very difficult to believe.  I suppose we must come up with even more damaging and outlandish ideas.

Minions:  The Americans are building a new AMDR radar system.  We could have them build it too small to meet the requirements and have them place it on a ship that has insufficient power and utilities to run it and has no room for future growth?

Adm.:  That may be too far.  They would recognize the idea as the height of foolishness and see our agent for what he is.

Aide:  May I and all my descendents be cursed forever, sir, but the Americans are already planning to do exactly that.

Adm.:  That is not possible!  Not even the Americans would intentionally build their main radar of the future too small to meet its requirements.  Enough of this!  If the Americans are this foolish, we must come up with the most outlandish idea we can.  Give me an idea that is utterly idiotic.

Minions:  We could have them replace a third of their powerful combat fleet with the weakest ship they have?

Adm.:  Now that’s the kind of extreme idea I’m looking for.  There is no possibility that our agent could implement such an idiotic idea but the very thought might cause disruption.  Let it be done!

Aide:  When we are through here I will rocket myself into space, never to return to the shame of having to say this but I must report that the Americans have already started doing this using their LCS patrol boat.

Adm.:  Well, it appears we’re wasting our time.  Tell our agent that he may as well come home.  The US Navy is doing a better job of sabotaging themselves then we could!

LCS Update

ComNavOps was going to do a summary of the LCS status based on the DOT&E report but what’s the point?  Seriously, you all know the problems.  Sure, there’s some new ones like cracking of support beams after exposure to heavy weather but at this point, what’s a few more problems?

Given that the ship has been in development and under construction for nearly a decade, now, the status of the ship, itself, is horrible.  Worse, is the status of the mission modules.

The ASuW module is impotent with 30 mm guns that have on-going reliability problems and a 57 mm gun that is inoperable at speed (well, it operates – it just can’t hit anything due to excessive vibration).

The ASW module has been scaled back to existing technology (none of the promised revolutionary technology), has no ship-mounted ASW weapons, and because of the ship’s self-noise will be ineffective.

The MCM module simply doesn’t work.

If you really want to read all the gory details, check out the 2014 Annual Report from Director, Operational Testing & Evaluation.

Ford Update

The 2014 Annual Report from Director, Operational Testing and Evaluation (DOT&E) has been released.  As a reminder, this is the gold standard for what works and what doesn’t as opposed to manufacturer and Navy claims.  This is the straight story when it comes to weapon and system performance.  We’ll be taking a look at several systems in the near future.  Today, we’ll start with the new aircraft carrier, the Ford.

According to the report, the Navy has reneged on its plan to conduct shock testing.  Shock testing (Full Ship Shock Trial – FSST) was to have been performed on CVN-78, however, the Navy has postponed that testing until CVN-79, at the earliest.  As the report states it,

"The original Alternative Live Fire Strategy prepared by the Navy and approved by DOT&E on December 9, 2008, stated the FSST would be conducted on CVN-78. The Navy unilaterally reneged on the approved strategy on June 18, 2012."

You’ll recall that the Navy has opted not to perform shock testing on the LCS, at all.  This is a standard test that has been performed on every ship.  The suspicious among us might suggest that the Navy is trying to avoid shock testing because the construction and acquisition standards have slipped to the point where shock testing would be embarrassing and Navy ships are no longer capable of passing the tests.

The report discusses the new EMALS catapult and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) systems,

"Reliability for the catapult and arresting gear systems have not been reported on in over a year. Before the Navy stopped tracking/reporting on catapult and arresting gear performance, both systems were performing well below their projected target to achieve required reliability."

Now what do we make of that?  The Navy has stopped reporting reliability data??  I guess that’s one way to avoid looking bad.  This kind of action combined with the refusal to perform shock tests sure suggests an attempt to cover up bad news rather than report it and correct it.

Here’s some more EMALS news.

"The testing discovered excessive EMALS holdback release dynamics during F/A-18E/F and EA-18G catapult launches with wing-mounted 480-gallon EFTs. Aircraft dynamics are considered excessive if they exceed stress limits of the airframe, internal, or external stores. This discovery, if uncorrected, would preclude normal employment of the F/A-18E/F and EA-18G from CVN-78. There is no funding at this time to correct this deficiency."

No funding?!  It’s kind of a big deal to leave unfunded.

It’s not just advanced technology that is suffering.  The ship has been found to have insufficient berthing for the crew!

"The ship will not be delivered with sufficient empty berthing for the CVN-78’s Service Life Allowance (SLA)."

Come on, now!  Who messed up with a simple count of the crew and a corresponding count of the berths? 

One of the major selling points for the new carrier was that it would supposedly increase sortie rates significantly.  This was always a dubious claim and of highly questionable value given that carrier ops aren’t sortie rate limited and that shrinking air wings make sortie rates irrelevant.  The report had this to say,

"It is unlikely that CVN-78 will achieve its Sortie Generation Rate (SGR) (number of aircraft sorties per day) requirement.  The target threshold is based on unrealistic assumptions including fair weather and unlimited visibility, and that aircraft emergencies, failures of shipboard equipment, ship maneuvers, and manning shortfalls will not affect flight operations."

Reread that last sentence.  It’s clear that the sortie rate claim was never valid and was a fraudulent attempt to promote the program.  The Navy’s honesty and integrity are taking some serious hits over the last decade or two.

You’ll recall that we’ve repeatedly discussed the pitfalls of concurrent development and production.  Here’s an example regarding the ship’s Dual Band Radar (DBR).

"The Navy planned to begin testing in January 2013; however, the testing has slipped repeatedly, and to date, no live testing with the full production DBR has been completed."

So, we’re going to install a radar system that is untested. 

Here’s an interesting tidbit that is undoubtedly budget driven.  JPALS [the automated landing system] has been deferred until the F-35 or unmanned aircraft require it. 

"The Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) is no longer funded for CVN-78."

The Ford is a clear cut case study for how not to run a new construction program.  Of course, so was the LCS and the LPD-17 and he Navy failed to learn any lessons from those so I doubt they’ll learn anything from this one, either.

Major AirSea Battle Development Announced

Let me clearly state up front that this is not another of ComNavOps’ famous and much beloved humor pieces.  As I’ve said repeatedly, I can’t make up stuff as funny and ludicrous as what the Pentagon routinely comes up with in their “reality”.  That said, you’re going to love this one.

After years of debating what the AirSea Battle concept is and how it might be implemented, the Pentagon has finally made a major advance.  They’ve announced that they’re changing the name from,

AirSea Battle

to

Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons (JAM-GC).

As I said, this is real and is being widely reported across the Internet.  Check it for yourself.

Seriously, this is what passes for military thought today – changing the name.  I wonder how many man-hours went into this major development?  Based on the increase in the number of letters in the title, this new version is just over four times better than the previous one.  I guess I have to grudgingly acknowledge that a 4x improvement is pretty significant by anyone’s standard.  I, therefore, salute the Pentagon and say, “Well done!”.

No word, yet, on Chinese reaction to this development but they are undoubtedly already at work developing a new wave of ships, aircraft, and tanks to counter this major advance by the Pentagon.