DOTE Report - JSF

The 2012 DOT&E report (1) has been made public and, as always, contains lots of goodies to look at.  This is the group that oversees the testing and evaluation of the Dept of Defense (DoD) projects and equipment.  These guys determine whether the latest magic toy really does what the DoD claims it does.  Often (usually?) DOT&E findings are somewhat at odds with the DoD’s public claims and there is a healthy tension between the two.  For instance, the Navy does not want to perform shock testing on the LCS (due to the anticipated negative results, I’m sure) whereas DOT&E wants it done and soon and has taken the Navy to task.

Tonight’s goodie concerns the JSF.  DOT&E notes,

“Approximately 34 percent of the total planned flight testing, based on test points completed through November 2012, has now been accomplished …”

 

Despite the fact that only a third of flight testing has been completed, DoD has begun production.  We’ve discussed in previous posts how this type of concurrency (simultaneous design/testing/development and production) inevitably leads to expensive redesigns and reworks of the airframes already built and yet DoD continues this idiotic practice.  Hey, DoD, those are my tax dollars you’re throwing away!

DOT&E goes on to state,

“Certain test conditions were unachievable due to unresolved problems and new discoveries.  The need for regression testing of fixes (repeat testing of previously accomplished points with newer versions of software) displaced opportunities to meet flight test objectives.”

 

This is telling us that not only is concurrency costing more money, but the need to test the new “fixes” is impacting the normal course of testing, further slowing an already way behind schedule.  And still DoD persists.

DOT&E comments on the impact of flight test delays,

“The lag in accomplishing the intended 2012 flight testing content defers testing to following years, and in the meantime, will contribute to the program delivering less capability in production aircraft in the near term.”

 

The Air Force attempted to begin pilot training on the F-35A but DOT&E noted,

“Because of the immaturity of the system, which is still largely under development, little can be learned about operating and sustaining the F-35 in combat operations … “

 

It keeps getting better.

“The program’s most recent vulnerability assessment showed that the removal of fueldraulic fuses, the PAO shutoff valve, and the dry bay fire suppression, also removed in 2008 [editorial note:  removed for cost reduction reasons], results in the F-35 not meeting the Operational Requirements Document (ORD) requirement to have a vulnerability posture better than analogous legacy aircraft.”

 

The report notes that the F-35A version is now within 273 lbs of its maximum specified weight limit.  There is no growth left on this airframe and it hasn’t even been deployed, yet!

The JSF program has announced decreases in performance specs due to observed limitations during testing.  Turn performance has been reduced from 5.3 to 4.6 sustained g’s.  Acceleration from 0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach has been increased by 8 seconds, meaning that the plane has failed to meet acceleration specs and is being downgraded in recognition of that.

Here is a fun one.

“Horizontal tail surfaces are experiencing higher than expected temperatures during sustained high-speed / high-altitude flight, resulting in delamination and scorching of the surface coatings and structure.”

 

The report goes on to describe pages of individual problems.  If you’re interested, follow this link and read the report.

The main points to take away from this are,

• This is a seriously flawed program with no end in sight.
• Concurrency is killing the program both in monetary and scheduling terms.
• There has been a steady degradation of specifications as a means to deal with a variety of problems.  In other words, if the plane won’t perform as expected, change the specs rather than the actual performance.  By the time the JSF is ready for deployment, it will be merely a slightly stealthier version of an F-16 or F-18 at a ridiculously expensive price.

(1) Director – Operational Test and Evaluation, FY2012, Annual Report

LCS Camouflage Fun

You've probably all heard by now that LCS-1, USS Freedom, will be sporting a new camouflage paint job for its Singapore deployment.  The Navy proudly trumpets that the camouflage was designed by the LCS' crew. 

Now, think about that for a moment.  Experts have studied visual camouflage for years and yet a group of undermanned and overworked crewmembers come up with a scheme on their own.  Either many experts have wasted a great deal of time over the decades or this scheme confers no real camouflage capability.  I tend to believe it's the latter.  This smacks of a desire for a paint job to cover up the hideously dirty condition of the LCS after more than a few days at sea and someone got the bright idea of letting the crew come up with their own version of camo.  Since the camo wouldn't actually be effective anyway, why not let the crew have some fun and maybe generate a bit of pride?  Nothing wrong with that.  However, for the Navy to try to sell it as a legitimate camo scheme is absurd.

F-35 - More Problems

Navy Times website has a short article about new problems with the F-35 (click here for link to article).  The problems cited are fairly technical so I won't bother repeating the descriptions here.  Read the article for the full story.  Instead, I just want to highlight a couple of points.

This aircraft is still in the developmental stage (has been since the Civil War, I think!) so uncovering new problems shouldn't be surprising or particularly disappointing.  However, this aircraft is also in production as part of the military's concurrent design/build philosophy.  That's where you begin building production versions before you've completed testing of the prototypes.  While there may be some theoretical cost savings, the reality has proven to be a never-ending series of backfits to production aircraft to incorporate the new fixes.  Obviously, retrofits are far more expensive than the building it correctly the first time.  DoD has been taken to task by numerous agencies for this practice and yet continues to do it. 

Making a mistake the first time is called learning.  Making the same mistake over and over is called stupidity.  The Navy attempted the exact same concurrent design/build with the LCS and LPD-17 and both failed in an epic manner.

Moving on, the article points out that attempts to save 11 lbs of weight resulted in a 25% increase in aircraft vulnerability.  Talk about a poor trade-off!  Again, this is exactly the kind of unwise trade-off that resulted in the LCS losing it's cathodic protection as a cost savings measure.  Unfortunately, that deletion lead to the extensive corrosion problems which cost far more to repair and retrofit than any cost savings ever could have generated. 

As described in the article, the limitations on the aircraft's performance envelope are striking at this stage of development. 

The F-35 program is a money pit if ever there was one.  I know that there are a lot of sunk costs that have already been paid and supporters would argue that we're almost there and we can't abandon a nearly complete aircraft program but there simply has to come a point where you cut your losses and walk away.  There seems to be no end to the problems with this program and no realistic end in sight.  Take away the 360 degree targeting system which doesn't yet work, anyway, and this aircraft is simply a legacy Hornet or F-16 with a bit more stealth.  Whether the magic targeting system will ever work as advertised is a doubtful issue just as the LCS magic modules will never work as advertised.

It's time to cut our losses.  I can't believe that foreign countries haven't started to walk away, yet.

Naval Gunfire

Naval gunfire capability has been absent since the last WWII era cruisers and battleships were retired.  The fleet has had only 5" guns to support land operations despite the Marine Corp demands for effective support.  No one, not even the Navy, claims that 5" gunfire is an effective support weapon.  Sure, there may be small targets that a 5" gun can effectively service but naval gunfire lacks any serious punch and has for quite some time.

Supposedly, one of the reasons the Marines allowed the battleships to be retired without raising too much stink is that the Navy promised to develop new guns that were larger than the 5".  However, budgetary pressures and, frankly, ill-considered decisions led to the cancellation of all gun programs before any could reach production.

Only now, with the advent of the Zumwalt's 155 mm AGS has the Navy returned even a bit of gun support to the fleet.  Even so, the 155 mm (6") gun is not really adequate for larger or hardened targets.  In addition, we've discussed the extremely high cost of development and production of the AGS and the fact that it requires a ship to be designed around it much like the Air Force's A-10 Warthog was designed around its gun.  The AGS consumes enormous amounts of internal volume and ships services such as electricity.  The AGS cannot be mounted on other ships in the fleet.  Barring a new class of ship designed for the AGS, the gun will be limited to the three ships of the Zumwalt class which does not exactly constitute a readily available gunfire support capability.

We previously discussed the AGS in detail and concluded with the thought that perhaps the Navy should have looked at the Mk71 8” gun instead.  Let’s look closer at the Mk71.



Mk71 8" Gun - What AGS Should Have Been





 The Mk71 was the result of the Navy’s attempt to mount a major caliber gun on a small (destroyer size) hull.  The gun was developed in the early 1970’s and a full scale prototype was produced, mounted on the Forest Sherman class destroyer USS Hull (DD-945), and test fired at sea in June of 1976.  Both laser guided and unguided projectiles were test fired at ship and shore targets.  The range of the gun was given as around 18 miles.  Before anyone leaps for their keyboard to tell me that the Mk71 caused the Hull's hull to crack from the stresses, read this NavWeaps link carefully.

The gun eventually fell victim to budget cuts and misguided Navy priorities in the late 1970’s.

Interestingly, the Spruance class was designed to accommodate the Mk71 as was the USS Long Beach had she be upgraded as an Aegis cruiser.  Further, studies were conducted that showed that Burke class destroyers could accommodate the Mk71 with some modifications.

The attractiveness of the Mk71 as compared to the AGS is due to

• Cost – when the Navy committed to the AGS the Mk71 development costs were already long since paid for.  The gun was essentially free and a prototype had already been successfully tested.  Advanced rounds, if desired, would have entailed additional costs just as for the AGS.
• Explosive Power – the 8” round is so much more effective than a 6”.
• Shipboard Impact – the AGS, as we’ve discussed has a major impact on ship design and ship utilities.  The Mk71 is a simple gun and easily accommodated.
• Flexibility – the Mk71 is a general purpose gun capable of engaging both ship and shore targets unlike the AGS which has no anti-ship mode.

For reasons understood only by the Navy, gun support has been a virtually ignored capability for many decades.  This is all the more puzzling given the ready availability of a fully developed and proven technology that would meet the vast majority of gunfire support requirements.  Even now, the Mk71 seems a better choice for future applications than the AGS due to the enormous impact the AGS has on its ship.

Port Royal Grounding Lessons

The USS Port Royal, an Aegis Ticonderoga class cruiser, ran aground on a coral reef just offshore of Honolulu International Airport on Feb. 5, 2009. 

According to the Navy, the ship ran soft aground, bow first, while moving very slowly during small boat operations. After four days the ship was pulled off the reef on 9-Feb.

The ship was coming out of an extended repair period which had begun in Sep 2008.  Despite the five months or so undergoing repairs in the shipyard, the vessel left with significant equipment malfunctions still unfixed.

The Honolulu Advertiser obtained the Navy’s accident report and published the

following information related to damage and causes.

Causes contributing to the accident included the following.

• The Commanding Officer had had only 15 hours sleep in the previous three days and had not been at sea in the previous five years.
• The fathometer was broken and non-functional.
• Both radar repeaters on the bridge were broken.
• The Global Positioning System navigation gear was broken and the crew had switched to an inertial navigation system, leading crew members to think they were 1.5 miles from where they actually were.
• Watch-standers ignored alarms from the ship’s navigation gear concerning position discrepancies.
• The quartermaster of the watch didn’t know how to take navigational fixes near the shore.
• Ship lookouts weren’t on watch; they were working as food service attendants due to a manpower shortage.

Damage was listed as the bow sonar dome, propellers, shafts, various tanks, and superstructure cracks.  Repair costs were estimated at $40M.  Repair work was largely completed by late 2009. 



Port Royal - A Tough Warship?



Further, Navy Times reported that the “shock” of rocking gently on the reef while grounded caused damage to the vessel’s antennae and vertical launch cells and put the Aegis radar arrays out of alignment.

 

The Port Royal is the Navy’s newest Aegis cruiser and was the 27^th and final Aegis cruiser built.  It was commissioned in Jul 1994 and is scheduled to be retired in Mar 2013 at which point it will be only 19 years old.  The ship is Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) capable.

Based on many of my previous posts, you probably think I’m now going to rant about the deficient level of training, leadership (CO) failings, failed CO selection criteria, or systemic maintenance shortcomings as a result of short-sighted Navy policies.  Well, you’re wrong.  Those things are readily self-evident.

Instead, I want to discuss the battleworthiness, or combat toughness, of the ships the Navy is building today.  Consider this astounding fact – the Navy is going to prematurely retire the newest, most capable Aegis cruiser in the fleet because the damage sustained from this incident, despite repairs, is too severe to allow the ship to meet mission requirements.  This is a warship.  It’s built for combat.  It’s meant to fight, take damage, and keep on fighting – at least, that’s the tradition of the Navy.  And yet we see a ship that ran soft aground, barely moving, and the result is a mission kill.  What does that say about the combat toughness of the ships the Navy is building today?  We’re in trouble!  This wasn’t a mission kill due to multiple anti-ship cruise missiles and massive explosions with resulting fires – this was a mission kill due to gently nudging the ship aground.

Can you imagine a WWII destroyer or cruiser being scrapped due to gently nosing aground?

Let’s look closer at the implications from this incident.  The physical damage was repaired relatively quickly and at little cost ($40M) – heck, that’s barely the cost of a new ice-cream machine for the gedunk stand.  Well, if there’s no lasting physical damage then what’s the problem? 

The problem is the electronics.  Modern electronics are so sensitive, so critically aligned, so delicate, that it takes next to nothing to render them inoperable.  Further, it appears that the ability to repair this type of problem is non-existent since the Navy is willing to write off the newest, BMD capable Aegis cruiser in the fleet rather than fix the issues.  That tells me that the damage can’t be repaired cost effectively – and that says a lot given the cost of new ships.  Hundreds of millions of dollars could be easily justified to keep the newest, most capable ship in service and yet the Navy doesn’t believe it can be done.

Note, also, that the VLS cells were damaged by the gentle rocking.  Again, that’s an alignment issue and doesn’t bode well for the combat toughness of the VLS system.  It’s frightening to think that a single hit anywhere on the ship could render all the VLS modules inoperable due to shock and vibration.

What is going to happen to a warship when it takes an actual hit with shock waves whiplashing the length of the ship?  We’re looking at one hit mission kills.  For that matter, a near miss may well produce a mission kill.  Sadly, the Navy has forgotten how to build tough warships.  This goes back to our KISS discussion.  A simpler, rugged design is better than a high tech design that is so fragile that it can’t fight.

Want to try a scary thought exercise?  Ask yourself who would win a one-on-one naval battle between a Burke DDG and a WWII Atlanta class cruiser (or even a Fletcher class destroyer).  Even allowing the Burke a few free shots from Harpoons, I think it’s quite likely that the WWII ships with the far superior armor and thicker, stronger steel construction could absorb the damage and continue to fight.  At gun range the Atlanta’s 16x5” guns would decimate the Burke in short order.  That the question would even be debatable speaks volumes about the Navy’s current warship design and construction practices.

The Navy desperately needs to get back in the business of building tough, combat ready warships.  If that means dumbing down the electronics so as to achieve a more robust combat system, that’s a trade-off that’s well worth it.

 

Deterrence and Bluff

One of the historical justifications for naval forces is their use as a deterrence to would be troublemakers.  A battleship or carrier group parked off one’s shore has had a calming effect on various hotspots over the years.  Why does this work?  It’s effective because of the visible power and the implied threat to use that power.  Thus, we see that deterrence is dependent on certain factors such as,

• Visibility
• Proximity
• Power
• Reputation

Visibility is vital and is the reason that submarines make poor deterrents.  The deterring force must be readily “seen” by the target.

Proximity is obvious.  The deterring force must be in range to apply the power, if needed.  Having forces stationed at some far away, remote location doesn’t constitute a threat.  Some have argued that all we need to do is keep our forces at home bases but able to surge if needed.  That may be fine once a conflict has started but only proximity provides the imminent threat that might calm a situation. 

Power is the ability to apply pain that causes miscreants to pause and reconsider.  This is why the LCS, for instance, will never be a deterrent.  No one is afraid of the LCS because it has no ability to apply pain.

Finally, reputation means that at some point in the past you have to have actually spanked someone so that everyone believes you may do so again.  If every hotspot is met with a strict policy of military inaction, eventually your reputation fades and no one believes that you’ll use whatever force you have. 

If the conditions for effective deterrence are not met, then the hoped for deterrence becomes a simple bluff and one that is easily seen for what it is.  Unfortunately, the Navy is steadily decreasing the number of carrier groups, decreasing the combat fleet size, and is committed to building 55 non-combat LCS’s to take the place of combat ships.  We have ever fewer ships available for missions of deterrence and the forces we have are growing steadily weaker.  Where are the future deterrent forces going to come from?  The Navy is slowly losing its ability to influence regional bad guys.

Consider the Navy’s plan to forward deploy LCS’s to Singapore.  Does anyone seriously believe that an LCS is going to influence any of the actors in the region?

The Most Important Factor In Naval Combat

In any discussion of fleet size, one of the common arguments used to defend the downward trend in ship numbers is that each successive class of ship is more powerful than its predecessor.  Sure, the argument goes, we may be replacing 20 cruisers with only 15 but those 15 have more VLS cells, better guns, farther ranging sensors, etc. so we’re actually coming out ahead in terms of net combat power.  That logic is intuitively appealing but does it stand up to analysis?  The only rigorous analysis I’ve ever seen says no.

Capt. Hughes (1) performed mathematical modeling on naval engagements in which he included the effects of offensive weaponry, ship numbers, armor, passive defense, active defense, sensors, scouting, ship size, damage control, etc.  After analyzing various scenarios with various factors he concluded that,

“Numerical superiority is the force attribute that is consistently the most advantageous.”

Now, some of you are saying, duh, how obvious but, I suspect, for the wrong reasons, at least according to the model.  However, others are saying, wait a minute, my newly designed ship with 2000 VLS cells, super long range hypersonic missiles with 5000 lb warheads, stealth approaching invisibility, and worldwide networked sensing will blow any combination of enemy ships away without even needing to sound General Quarters because it has so much more aggregate combat power than any combination of the enemy forces.  Well, unless you assign truly magical properties to the factors in the model, Hughes’ conclusion is valid regardless of the power of the ship(s) you have in mind.  To many people, this seems counter-intuitive and just plain wrong.

The mathematical model produces the results it does and I’m not going to delve any further into it for this post.  If you want to dig deeper, read the book and his analysis.  I, myself, have some issues with aspects of the model but nothing that changes the basic conclusion.  For the rest of this post, I’d like to discuss some aspects of fleet size (ship numbers) that may not be readily apparent but are suggested by the model and must be considered.

One of the popular conceptual arguments among naval commentators is that while fleet size is trending downward the aggregate combat power is trending upward so, therefore, the decrease in numbers is compensated or, more commonly believed, the smaller fleet is actually superior.  The flaw in this logic is that the aggregate combat power is invariably compared to previous levels of combat power rather than to the combat power of potential enemies over the planned 30 lifespan of the new ship(s).  This leads to an overestimation of one’s own combat power and an underappreciation of the value of numbers.

No ship is unsinkable – ask the Titanic.  Further, modern naval combat (since at least WWII, if not earlier) tends to be short, vicious, and has a high rate of attrition.  Rarely (never) is the magazine capacity of the combatants an issue.  In fact, ships tend to be sunk with significant portions of their munitions unexpended.  It stands to reason, then, that concentrating more and more of the fleet’s combat power in fewer ships (making for more attractive targets) risks the loss of large amounts of power for little or no gain. 

Numbers dilute an enemy’s strike and complicate target identification and prioritization.  Fine, you say, but an intelligent enemy will simply focus on the few high value units and leave the remaining units for leisurely mop up operations.  Hence, what’s the point of additional numbers of ships (unless they’re all major combatants!)? 

Well, for the case of the US fighting China, the astute observer will note that China’s trend is towards heavily arming all their combatants relative to their size.  Remember, with today’s highly destructive anti-ship cruise missiles a small vessel can inflict damage all out of proportion to their physical size if given the chance.  Thus, the US can’t risk picking a few high value targets to concentrate on because the remaining ships are capable of inflicting significant damage.  Therefore, the US must dilute their strike which, by definition, automatically enhances the enemy’s defensive effectiveness.

Now, consider the reverse case wherein China is attacking US naval forces.  The US Navy’s combat power is concentrated in ever fewer ships which facilitates the enemy’s targeting decisions and has the effect of enhancing their strike since all of their missiles are concentrated on fewer targets which increases the likelihood of success.  Don’t believe me?  The Navy’s plan, if followed through, calls for nearly a third of the combat fleet to be LCS’s.  Thus, the Navy’s combat power will be concentrated in fewer and fewer ships.  This isn’t me voicing an opinion – this is the Navy’s publicly stated plan!

Hughes, backed by his simulations, advocates for more ships of smaller size so as to achieve a greater degree of distribution of firepower.  Indeed, we see that there are significant factors related to fleet size (ship numbers) that are rarely accounted for in the common discussions.  Perhaps it’s time for the Navy to re-examine the trend of concentrated combat power?  Now, don’t misunderstand – numbers alone are not significant unless they come with firepower, often disproportionately so.  At the risk of beating a dead horse, a thousand LCSs with no offensive power won’t gain us anything in combat.  We need to look at frigate through destroyer size ships that pack useful firepower, both anti-ship and land attack.

(1) Capt. Wayne Hughes Jr., USN (Ret), “Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat”, 2^nd Ed., Naval Institute Press, 2000, Chapter 11