This Is Why You Don't Train With Allies

You’re undoubtedly aware that the US is in the process of surging carriers, bombers, and other assets to the Middle East in response to intelligence that indicates Iran might be planning to attack US troops. 

Before we go any further, note that I have no access to the intel and cannot assess whether the US actions are appropriate or not.  Neither the government nor the Pentagon has provided any details about the nature of the threat but the fact is that we have taken those actions and our military and civilian leadership believe the actions are appropriate. 

Aside from the actual threat and US actions, the most noteworthy aspect has been the fact that an ally has abandoned us.  It was reported today that a Spanish frigate deployed with the USS Lincoln has pulled out of the group and headed back to Spain over a disagreement about US actions.

Fox News reported that the Spanish Defense Minister indicated the departure was due to “a disagreement over the White House’s Iran policy”. (1)

The U.S. government has taken a decision outside of the framework of what had been agreed with the Spanish Navy. (1)

Let’s review our position on cooperation and training with Spain, back in January 2019.

… Navy leaders stressed U.S. allies role in the service’s emerging Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) plan for high-end warfare.

“We will never fight alone,” Adm. Christopher Grady, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command, said 2019 Surface Navy Association Symposium.  “The strength of DMO is our ability to bring our allies and partners along.”

Currently, Menedez Nunez is in Norfolk training with the Abraham Lincoln CSG. The training exercises are expected to start next week and run into February.

“We bring our partners with us,” Grady said. “We’d be stupid not to because we learn a lot from them and we hope they learn something from us.”

“We will never fight alone.”  Adm. Grady could not have been more wrong, could he?  When this crisis, whatever it is, arose, it turns out that we do fight alone, as history has demonstrated repeatedly.  Adm. Grady has bought in to the Navy line and is ignoring the evidence of history.  He’s either a mindless drone, repeating the company line, or an idiot. 

So, the US enthusiastically trained with the Spanish frigate and deployed the Lincoln carrier strike group with the frigate.  Despite that, what happened when it came time to act?  Spain opted not to support the US. 

So, why did we waste time, money, effort, and resources training with Spain? 

I’ve stated repeatedly that training with other militaries is a waste and this is a perfect example of why.  Our “allies” have their own agendas that frequently do not coincide with that of the US.  History has proven, repeatedly, that with the exception of the UK (and even they occasionally part ways with us), we cannot count on our supposed allies when crises arise.  I’m not going to bother citing a litany of the times “allies” have abandoned us or even acted against us (I’m looking at you, France).  You know the examples as well as I do and you can readily find and research them on the Internet, if you wish.

Spanish Frigate F-104 Mendez Nunez 

Bye - Thanks for Nothing

Now, here’s the point you need to clearly understand:  I do NOT blame our allies for having their own agendas and acting in their own interests.  Indeed, they could not and should not behave otherwise.  We act in our own interests so why would think other countries wouldn’t act in their own interests?  The stupidity, our stupidity, lies in not recognizing and admitting that simple truth.  We need to accept that reality and act accordingly.  One of those actions should be to recognize the futility of training with allies who are unlikely to support us when the time comes.

Our time spent training with the Spanish frigate was a waste.  Worse, depending on the degree of integration, if the frigate was an actual integral part of the carrier strike group, as opposed to a public relations ‘tag along’, then we put ourselves into a position of degrading our carrier group’s combat capability by counting on an unreliable Spanish frigate and then losing it when the need came.  If that was the case, that’s worse than merely wasting time and resources, that’s crippling.  Of course, it’s completely our fault.  Knowingly planning for a scenario in which we are likely to be crippled is beyond stupid on our part.

Training with allies is a waste and needs to stop.

Warning to commenters:  I’m going to delete any comment that provides an example of an ally supporting us.  I have not stated that allies will never support us.  I’ve stated that we can’t count on their support.  A fifty/fifty record of support, or whatever the record is, is not a basis for planning for combat.  If you can’t absolutely count on an ally then you shouldn’t waste time training with them on the off chance that they might see fit to support you – or not.

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(1)Fox News cable broadcast, Margarita Robles (acting Defense Minister),14-May-2019, ~1100 hr

Rail Guns In Combat

One of the topic suggestions from the recent open post was for a discussion of the future of rail guns and lasers so, here it is.  As a follow up to the post on lasers, we’ll look at rail guns In this post.

There are many articles and papers about the technology of rail guns and you can read those on your own.  There are also numerous articles about rail gun improvements and the latest thickness of steel that some new rail gun penetrated.  You can also read all the Navy’s glowing, raving PR announcements about rail guns.  What you can’t readily find is any analysis of the real world combat applicability of rail guns and that’s what we’ll focus on. 

Practical rail guns already exist – practical in the sense that the rail gun and its associated power supply can be fitted on a ship and will fire a projectile that can produce a destructive effect.  However, rail guns have considerations and limitations that, at the moment, preclude any real world usefulness.  We’ll take a look at those conditions and limitations and see what they are and how they impact the future of rail guns as shipboard weapons.

Fire Control

Many people have an image of a rail gun as an almost laser-like weapon that instantaneously hits its target with unerring accuracy.  The reality is that a rail gun, like any conventional gun, is only as accurate as its fire control system.  The high velocity of a rail gun projectile imparts no magical accuracy.  What it does is reduce the target’s time to evade but the inherent accuracy is no better or worse than any other gun.  For a kinetic (hit to kill) projectile, accuracy is an all or nothing proposition.  A miss by one millimeter may as well be a miss by a mile.  For the case of a proximity fuzed projectile, close counts and this is where the higher velocity and reduced evasion time may improve the odds of a successful hit but, still, the inherent accuracy is unchanged over conventional guns.

If you haven’t yet, take a look at any of the numerous live fire gunnery exercise videos available on YouTube.  What stands out about all those videos is the extraordinarily high percentage of misses.  A very broad visual estimate ‘average’, based on splashes versus flashes (impacts), suggests an accuracy of 10%.  Note, that these gunnery exercises are, invariably, conducted under ideal conditions where the target is generally stationary or moving fairly slowly in a steady, predictable path and the firing ship is also stationary or moving in a slow, steady line.  Weather conditions are always perfect and seas are almost always calm.  This is about as far away as one can get from real world combat conditions where both the target and firing platform will be twisting, turning, rolling, pitching, disappearing in waves, vibrating due to speed, etc.  Even so, under these near perfect conditions, the accuracy is around 10%.  What does that suggest for real world accuracy?  For example, the Vincennes airliner shootdown incident involved around 100 5” rounds fired at Boghammers with no verified hits.

What does this mean?  Again, for kinetic projectiles, a direct hit is the only beneficial outcome.  A near miss is a miss.  Fire control will be key to the success of a rail gun.  This suggests that proximity fuzed, explosive projectiles may be desirable, however, such projectiles also negate one of the major claimed benefits of rail guns which is the cheapness of inert projectiles.  Once we begin incorporating sensors, circuitry, explosives, fuzing, shrapnel or scoring to produce shrapnel, etc. the costs quickly escalate. 

Explosive projectiles also negate another claimed major benefit which is the inertness of the projectiles and resultant safety of the non-explosive magazine storage.  This suggests that while proximity projectiles might be useful, the advantages of rail guns are maximized only with inert, kinetic projectiles – almost a contradiction in terms.

The solution to rail gun fire control shortcomings is the same as for conventional guns: guided projectiles.  Of course, adding guidance control sensors, circuitry, and mechanical fins negates the major claimed benefit of rail guns which is the cheapness of inert projectiles.

Lethality

Let’s now turn our attention to lethality.  For a conventional explosive shell, lethality is high.  Why?  This isn’t a trick question.  It’s because the shell explodes!  The explosion produces an area of damage many times larger than the shell, itself.

An explosion taking place in or near the target is very likely to damage or destroy something critical to the target and produce the effect of destroying it.  For a rail gun, however, it is quite possible that the projectile may cause little or no damage despite its great kinetic energy. 

For example, a rail gun projectile hitting a thin skinned aircraft would likely pass straight through without converting its kinetic energy (relax – I’m taking liberties with the strict definitions provided by physics) to heat.  This is the bullet through a piece of paper scenario.  If the target has insufficient resistance, the projectile will not ‘shed’ its kinetic energy into the target.  Of course, in the case of the aircraft, the projectile might well hit something critical to the operation of the aircraft during its momentary passage through the aircraft.  On the other hand, there are many non-lethal ‘paths’ through an aircraft.

A rail gun projectile used against a small boat would be mostly useless.  The projectile would pass straight through the boat, causing only a small hole unless it happened to hit the engine or a control cable.  It’s easy to see that a rail gun would be largely ineffective against a small boat swarm.

Another case is a rail gun kinetic projectile used in land attack.  If the projectile hits a target with sufficient resistance it will do significant damage.  A building, bunker, or thick skinned, heavily armored vehicle like a tank would likely suffer great damage.  However, if the projectile hits the ground just inches away from the target, the projectile will penetrate deeply and continue moving until it runs out of kinetic energy.  The result will be a puff of dirt and … nothing else.  Thus, a kinetic energy projectile is useless for area bombardment unless it just happens to hit something substantial.  Unlike an explosive projectile which can do damage with a near miss, a kinetic projectile has zero near miss damage potential.

The case of a kinetic projectile used against a ship is another case of a thin skinned target.  The projectile would likely pass straight through without ‘shedding’ much energy.  The ship would be left with a few inch diameter hole clean through and not much damage.  There is relatively little in a ship that would result in significant damage from a narrow hole being drilled through it.  Of course, one could always get lucky.

It’s obvious that a kinetic projectile has the potential to inflict great damage but only against targets with sufficient resistance.  Have you ever wondered why every rail gun test video used giant plates or blocks of thick steel as the target?  It’s because if they used, say, 3/8” sheet metal that is typical of a ship’s hull, the projectile would likely pass straight through with no visible effect – it wouldn’t make for a very impressive video!  This observation also makes it obvious that an explosive rail gun projectile (again, negating the benefit of an inert magazine!) is needed if we wish to effectively cover the full range of targets. 

Size, Rate of Fire, and AAW

Rail guns are fairly large machines – on the order of a 5”-8” naval gun.  This is not a major problem, merely a characteristic as ships are sized to be able to accommodate weapons of that size.  However, hand in hand with size goes rate of fire.  The larger the projectiles, the more energy that is needed to fire them.  The energy causes heat buildup on the ‘barrel’ of a rail gun and limits the rate of fire (along with cyclic power requirements and limitations). 

One future developmental avenue for rail guns is to significantly decrease the size and increase the rate of fire.  One can imagine this being used to create smaller anti-aircraft rail guns with very long ranges and very high rates of fire – think CIWS on steroids.  The high velocities would minimize the target’s time of evasion and enhance the chances for a hit although, like conventional guns, explosive shells with proximity fuzing would be required to be effective.

Range

While rail gun proponents make enthusiastic claims about the range of rail guns, the range must be recognized to be relative.  Yes, the range is significant compared to conventional guns but it is insignificant compared to the other readily available methods of delivering ordnance against typical inland strike targets.  Aircraft and missiles, for example, are numerous, readily available, and far outrange rail guns.

Applicability Summary

So, where does this analysis leave us?  It appears that, in order to produce destructive effects, rail guns will require targets with sufficient resistance to cause the projectile to ‘dump’ its energy into the target.  This suggests that the applicable target set will be thick concrete structures like buildings and bunkers, heavy vehicles like tanks, fortifications, and very large ships like carriers or large cargo vessels.  The challenge, even for this target set, is fire control.  A near miss with a kinetic projectile produces zero effect.  The obvious solution, a combination of guidance and proximity fuzing, would completely negate the major claimed benefit of rail guns which is the cheapness of the projectiles and would totally negate the claimed safety benefit of non-explosive magazines.  The overall conclusion seems obvious – rail guns have a very limited and specific target set.  They cannot be a general purpose weapon.

Naval Rail Gun Concept Image

Historically, the main target set for a naval gun is land area bombardment.  Even in WWII, ship against ship engagements were the rare exception, not the rule.  Shore bombardment was far more common.  Kinetic rail guns are next to useless for this application.  This, alone, has to lead one to wonder why we would install rail guns on ships.

The anticipated target set suggests that the most useful application for rail guns will be as land attack weapons against known, fixed targets.  Unfortunately, this is a fairly limited target set.  In a peer war, most battlefield targets will be hidden, think skinned, or mobile.  To mount a sizable weapon, like a rail gun, on a ship means using valuable hull and deck space for a weapon with limited usefulness.  That’s going to be a tough sell to naval ship designers.  I can see two likely ship mounting scenarios for rail guns:  very large ships (cruiser size and larger) that can afford the space for a limited use weapon and/or a much smaller, dedicated rail gun vessel akin to the old monitors.

We could build a rail gun armed ship that could deliver shells, whether kinetic or explosive, some 50, 100, or 200 miles (depending on what claim you want to believe about rail guns) inland from the sea – actually, given some reasonable stand off distance from shore, you’d have to subtract 5-50 miles from those range numbers – but we already have artillery of various sorts that can achieve those ranges and reach out to 300 miles (ATACMS, for example).  A rail gun, then, would be a duplication and an expensive one at that if we have to build an entire ship to mount it!

In short, rail guns are a technically viable weapon, albeit one with a very limited target set and, in its most useful configuration (explosive carrying and proximity fuzed), negates the major claimed benefits of cheapness of projectiles and inertness of storage.

Disclaimer:  This is, by its nature, a highly technical topic in its underlying foundation and I am not a rail gun expert, by any means.  Some of my assumptions about the technology may not be completely correct and I welcome any discussion that can correct and enhance our grasp of the topic.  What I will not welcome is ‘gotcha’ type comments, even if correct.  This is an attempt at a discussion, not a contest to see who can score the most points.

Lasers In Combat

One of the topic suggestions from the recent open post was for a discussion of the future of rail guns and lasers so, here it is.  We’ll look at lasers in this post and then rail guns in a second post.

There are many articles and papers about the technology of lasers and you can read those on your own.  There are also numerous articles about laser power improvements and the latest thickness of steel that some new laser burned through.  You can also read all the Navy’s glowing, raving PR announcements about lasers.  What you can’t readily find is any analysis of the real world combat applicability of lasers.  It’s pointless to develop a laser with a city block of dedicated power generating equipment that can burn through two feet of steel in only ten minutes because none of that is applicable in a real world combat situation.  We’ll focus on the real world considerations.

Practical lasers already exist – practical in the sense that the laser and its associated power supply can be fitted on a ship and will produce a coherent beam that can, under the right conditions, produce a destructive effect.  However, the ‘right conditions’ generally preclude any real world usefulness.  We’ll take a look at those ‘right conditions’ and see what they are and how they impact the future of lasers as shipboard weapons.

Dwell Time

Barring development of the far, far future (in a galaxy far, far away) Star Wars type lasers that instantaneously disintegrate whatever they touch, lasers in our lifetime will be limited to prolonged contact types.  That means just what it says – that in order to produce a destructive effect the laser will have to maintain contact with the target for an extended period (dwell time) and, what’s more, that contact will have to be on the same pinpoint spot to allow the laser enough time to ‘burn through’.  Even ‘burning through’ the initial material of the target may only be the first step in destruction of the target.  For example, a laser hitting a missile will have to burn through the outer shell of the missile, which will have no effect whatsoever on the missile, to reach the inner works of the missile that can, in turn, be burned to, hopefully, produce the desired destructive effect on the missile.

Of course, for a smaller, more fragile target, like a small quadcopter or UAV, the outer contact may be sufficient on its own to destroy the target by, for example, shearing off a fin/wing or destroying a propeller hub.

The developmental goal in laser development will be to produce effects with less and less contact time (more powerful lasers), ultimately moving towards the Star Wars instantaneous disintegration.

Dwell time is a function of the system’s fire control.  Whatever fire control aiming system we’re using has to be fine enough to maintain laser dwell for the required burn through time.  Consider what that means, today.  A laser fire control would have to be able to maintain contact on the exact same spot of, say, a missile while it moves at Mach speed and jinks in terminal approach while the laser firing platform (our ship, presumably) also moves, maneuvers, rolls, and pitches.  That is some exquisitely fine fire control and nothing like that is even remotely possible today. 

Yes, we have stabilized fire control but that’s exceedingly crude by comparison.  Motors are used to move the firing weapon (guns, currently) in train and elevation to stay on target.  Consider what that means, however.  It means staying close enough on the target to achieve, at best, a 10% hit rate somewhere on or near the target.  Do you grasp how far that is from maintaining a pinpoint lock on a target when both the firing platform and the target are moving fast and maneuvering violently?  You’ve seen videos of Navy tests where a laser slowly destroyed a small boat motor or a UAV but have you seen a video of a speeding, maneuvering shipboard laser destroying a fast, violently maneuvering target?  Of course you haven’t because it can’t be done!

The real world consequence of extended dwell time is extended engagement time.  If we have a battery of shipboard lasers defending against an incoming volley of anti-ship missiles and each individual missile engagement requires a dwell time of, say, 30 seconds, to make up a number, you can readily see that, given the Mach speeds of the incoming missiles and the resulting minute or so engagement window (we’ve run through the arithmetic on this in previous posts or you can run through it yourself), we’ll only be able to engage a few missiles before the remainder reach us.  In comparison, bullets (CIWS) or defensive missiles (SeaRAM or ESSM) can be fired at numerous targets simultaneously (well, nearly so for the purposes of this discussion) and a hit will produce an instantaneous kill.

In order to be effective in real combat in the AAW role, a laser system has to produce a kill in about 10 seconds or less.  Any more than that and you simply can’t engage enough targets to mount an effective defense. 

One way to compensate for longer dwell time is to increase the number of defensive lasers.  We’ve noted that the number of close range SeaRAM and CIWS systems on modern ships is far too few for an effective defense and the same situation would apply to lasers.

Lethality

Let’s now turn our attention to lethality.  We’ve already noted that laser lethality requires dwell time.  Assuming we’ve achieved that, we now need lethality.  For a conventional explosive shell, lethality is high.  An explosion taking place in or near the target is very likely to damage or destroy something critical to the target and produce the effect of destroying it.  For a laser, however, it is quite possible that the focused beam, being relatively quite narrow and having no explosive effect, may damage or destroy something that is not critical to the target or not critical in a relevant time frame.  For example, a laser may burn through the exposed motor shell on a small swarm boat only to hit and damage an exhaust port underneath which is not critical to the engine’s continued performance, at least for the time needed for the boat to complete its attack.  Or, a laser may burn through the shell of a missile only to hit an empty fuel tank or an ECM component, neither of which would stop the missile.  Consider the case of a laser used against a ship and imagine a narrow beam passing through the ship on a straight line.  With no explosive effect, the odds of the beam hitting a component that would destroy or mission kill the ship is near zero.

One conclusion from this analysis is that lasers will work best when the target is most densely packed with critical components.  Thus, quadcopters, UAVs, and missiles would be more susceptible to laser effects while large aircraft and tanks would be less susceptible and ships would be nearly invulnerable.  This suggests the target classes we should be developing lasers for.

Power

Lasers require a great deal of power although I would imagine that the power can, and is, supplied in pulses (a capacitor like function).  Thus, it’s not necessary to provide continuous power but only pulses of power.  I’m way out of my field here so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.  This is interesting and has implications for power management and power system architecture but is only marginally relevant to this discussion.  What is relevant is the need for power, however it is supplied.  If the power is disrupted the laser is rendered inoperative.  Power represents a single point of failure for a ship’s entire battery of lasers.  Lose power and you lose all the lasers.  Of course, this applies to conventional guns as well.  Ideally, what you’d like to see is a local power system that can continue to operate if the main power is disrupted.  To an extent, conventional gun systems of WWII had this capability with local fire control and, for smaller guns, local manual train and elevation.  For lasers, the analogous local capability would be a battery or capacitor backup that could supply power for at least enough shots to continue the immediate engagement before ultimately failing.

Countermeasures

As with all weapons throughout history, the implementation of laser weapons will be immediately followed by the implementation of countermeasures.  If the countermeasures turn out to be cheaper than the weapon, then the weapon is on the wrong side of the cost curve and will be at least an economic failure, if not a practical failure.  Early anti-ship missiles were expensive and the early countermeasures, such as chaff and flares, were very cheap.  Eventually, the curve flipped and now we see that anti-ship missiles are far cheaper than the defensive Aegis/Standard weapon.  So goes the perpetual back and forth of weapons and countermeasures development.

Lasers of the foreseeable future are susceptible to countermeasures.  Noting the requirement for significant dwell time, simple countermeasures could include ablative coatings, reflective coatings, ‘rolling’ to prevent extended contact (rolling airframe missile?), multi-shelled sacrificial layers, jinking, sea skimming to reduce the engagement window (lasers are, of course, line of sight and the engagement range against a sea skimming target is around 15 miles or so), stealth to deny fire control solutions, and many other possibilities that I’m sure I haven’t thought of.  The takeaway from that list is that most of the possible countermeasures would be very cheap to implement relative to the cost of the laser – in fact, some already exist.

Thus, for the foreseeable future, lasers appear to be on the wrong side of the cost curve.

Applicability Summary

So, where does this analysis leave us?  It appears that, in order to produce destructive effects, lasers will require small, slow targets so as to maximize the chance of achieving sufficient dwell time.  This suggests that the applicable target set will be drones, UAVs, and small boats.  The challenge, even for this target set, is fire control.  Laser development would do well to go on hiatus and instead focus (a laser joke there - sorry) on fire control.  To put it simply, the key to effective lasers is dwell time and the key to dwell time is fire control.  This also suggests that the most effective lasers will be land based which eliminates one half of the movement issue.

With sufficient fire control, there is no reason why lasers can’t be quite effective for the small, slow target set.  Interestingly, the anticipated target set suggests that the most useful application for lasers will be on land as anti-drone weapons.  That being the case, the development trend should be towards smaller lasers that can be vehicle mounted.  For ships, I would see lasers being mounted on smaller ships like Cyclones, LCS, and, possibly, the new frigate for use as anti-small boat and anti-drone weapons.  I don’t see the benefit of lasers with the noted target set on larger ships since they shouldn’t encounter those types of targets.

Disclaimer:  This is, by its nature, a highly technical topic in its underlying foundation and I am not a laser expert, by any means.  Some of my assumptions about the technology may not be completely correct and I welcome any discussion that can correct and enhance our grasp of the topic.  What I will not welcome is ‘gotcha’ type comments, even if correct.  This is an attempt at a discussion, not a contest to see who can score the most points.

Haven't Got A Clue

We’ve belabored the professional incompetence of Navy leadership in these pages on an on-going basis.  Each example seems more unbelievable than the last as the Navy absolutely, steadfastly, unwaveringly, refuses to learn any lessons, whatsoever, from each succeeding debacle.  Here’s a Breaking Defense article that kind of sums up the utter lack of professional military thinking that is now guiding Navy operational thinking and associated equipment purchases as the Navy struggles to find an ‘offset’ advantage to hang their hats on. (1)

The Navy is scrambling to write its new acquisition and operational playbook on the fly, a decision based as much on what US rivals are doing as it is on what the service hasn’t done in recent decades. (1)

Well, how can acquisitions and doctrine/operations developed “on the fly” not produce a good result?  Isn’t “on the fly” the key to a successful, solid, well founded program?  OF COURSE IT’S NOT!!!!  Only an idiot – or the Navy – would initiate major programs “on the fly”.

The construction and innovation booms being undertaken by the Chinese — and to a lesser extent Russian — navies, are forcing the admirals at the Pentagon to push new, still mostly theoretical,  unmanned technologies into the water as quickly as possible for urgent make-or-break tests. (1)

Why are we reacting to the Russians/Chinese instead of the other way around?  What have our esteemed, professional, military leaders been doing the last decade or two while the Russians and Chinese have been steadily catching up to us?  We know what they’ve been doing – they’ve been pursuing gender sensitivity, green energy, jobs creation, diversity, misanthropy, humanitarian response, and the like.  What should they have been doing?  They should have been studying the Russians and Chinese, anticipating future military challenges and needs, preparing for combat, and maximizing readiness.  But, they weren’t.

The biggest gamble — with potentially the highest payoff — is the $3.7 billion worth of unmanned programs the service included in its 2020 budget submission. The spending includes $447 million to buy two large unmanned surface vehicles [LUSV] that can provide a variety of missions from long-range surveillance to offensive operations. (1)

So, in a desperate attempt to find some military advantage, after having squandered our previous advantages, the Navy has latched on to ‘unmanned’.  Yes, unmanned platforms (doesn’t matter what kind!) will give us unrivaled military advantages and vanquish our foes.  True, none of these unmanned platforms are designed and based on solid warfighting principles, none have valid concepts of operation (CONOPS), and none have been tested in realistic combat exercises but that’s beside the point because …  they’re unmanned !!!!! 

Well, let’s be fair.  ComNavOps has repeatedly called for more extensive prototyping and the Navy is just buying two of the LUSVs so what’s wrong with that?  It’s only one more than a prototype, right?  Well, there’s also this,

After the 2020 budget, the Navy plans to buy two LUSVs a year until 2024, for a total of about $2.7 billion. The Navy is making plans to buy 232 unmanned platforms of different sizes and configurations over the next several years. (1)

I guess the Navy is already committed to more than two LUSVs.  It looks like, sight unseen and utterly untested, they’re committed to a $2.7B program to obtain around ten of the LUSVs !!!!  Did the Navy learn nothing from the LCS debacle where they committed to 55 ships before the first was even designed?  Apparently, not.  So, we’re going to repeat our mistake because we’re in panic mode and flailing around looking for something to give us an advantage since we wasted the advantages we had and appear incapable of reasoning out and developing legitimate advantages based on professional military acumen.

It appears, though, that some vital questions have not yet been addressed and answered despite our commitment to the acquisition program.

But most key questions over how these unmanned ships will be controlled, by who, and if they will deploy independently or as part of traditional strike groups, have yet to be answered. (1)

Correct me if I’m wrong – and I’m not – but these kinds of questions are exactly what a CONOPS would answer.  So, having failed to learn the lesson of building ships (LCS, AFSB, new frigate, etc.) without a CONOPS, we’re going to do it again.

Why are we doing this?

Announcing these huge investments without a corresponding operational plan is “an expression of the urgency the Navy is attaching to the situation” of trying to stay operationally unpredictable while keeping ahead of the Chinese and Russian, Ronald O’Rourke, the top naval analyst at the Congressional Research Service, told an audience Monday at the Heritage Foundation. (1)

No, this is not a sign of urgency, this is a sign of stupidity and, given the repetitive nature of the errors while hoping for a different outcome, a sign of insanity.

“Operationally unpredictable”?  Yeah, I guess stupidity, by its very definition is unpredictable but that doesn’t make it combat-useful.  Hey, Navy, why don’t you build a fleet of attack rowboats?  It would be a lot cheaper and still meet the goal of being “operationally unpredictable”!

This is bad but at least it’s not like this kind of scatterbrained, haphazard, clueless acquisition is normal … or is it?

The big spending on unmanned systems before many core questions are answered “is emblematic of where some acquisition may be heading in the coming years … (1)

After how many failed acquisition programs, we’re now going to codify this type of idiotic acquisition process and make it our new standard?  Are you kidding me?

Navy observers, at least, can see that this approach will lead to failures.  Noted observer Eric Labs stated,

The Navy “needs to socialize for various audience that we’re going to have failures,” as these programs move forward quickly, and continue to change, said Eric Labs, appearing alongside O’Rourke at Heritage. (1)

Of course you’re going to have failures.  It’s baked into the idiotic process.  It would be surprising if it produced anything but failures.

Labs continued,

“If they don’t do that socialization as part of the acquisition process many people might draw parallels to the LCS program,” which has suffered years of criticism — much of it earned — as it slogged through different operational concepts and technology failures. (1)

Parallels to the LCS????  It’s an exact duplicate!  It’s already an assured failure.

Honestly, I grow weary of the institutional incompetence of the Navy.  The failures-in-the-making could not be more obvious and yet the Navy refuses to heed the warnings and learn any lessons.  The entire Navy flag rank needs to be fired.

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(1)Breaking Defense website, “232 Unmanned Ships May Be Key To Countering China, Russia ”, Paul McLeary, 15-Apr-2019,

https://breakingdefense.com/2019/04/232-unmanned-ships-may-be-key-to-countering-china-russia/

B-21 Hawkeye

A recent comment about using a B-1 bomber as a sensor/guidance asset, working with missile truck aircraft, triggered some thoughts about the Navy’s E-2 Hawkeye. 

The E-2 Hawkeye is the Navy’s long time aerial battle management and situational awareness asset for carrier groups.  The Hawkeye typically operates offset from the carrier and many miles away so as not to give away the carrier’s location.  The problem with the Hawkeye is that it is no longer survivable.  Chinese and Russian Very Long Range Air to Air Missiles (VLRAAM) are now in service that can reach a large, slow, non-stealthy target like a Hawkeye from two hundred or more miles away (see, “Goodbye Poseidon and Hawkeye”).  The Hawkeye’s lack of speed, stealth, and maneuverability all but guarantee that, if targeted, the Hawkeye will be destroyed.  Even the mere threat of VLRAAMs means that the Hawkeyes will have to operate much farther back than previously.  Situational awareness will be greatly reduced and aerial battle management will be rendered much less effective due to simply being unable to see the battle from so much further back.

E-2 Hawkeye

We’ve kicked around the idea of a stealthier, faster version of the Hawkeye but there’s been no getting around the obstacle of the giant radar system perched on the back of the aircraft.  This totally negates any stealth and hugely impacts speed and maneuverability.  Even the more advanced ‘fin’ type radars are still extremely large and negatively impact stealth, speed, and maneuverability.

Even if we could, somehow, defy physics and create a stealthy, fast, maneuverable Hawkeye with a giant radar on its back, the radar itself precludes stealth and survivability.  The powerful radar broadcasts continuously and loudly announces its location to the world and, specifically, to VLRAAM-carrying aircraft.

Chinese VLRAAM

So, what’s a battle management/situational awareness aircraft designer to do?

Enter the B-1/2/21 …

The B-1/2/21 bombers were designed as stealthy, fast, penetrating aircraft.  The B-2, in particular, was, apparently, originally designed as a high altitude, penetrating bomber, with a ceiling of 60,000 ft.  Operational requirement changes for a low level penetrating capability implemented late in the design process are claimed to have reduced the B-2’s ceiling to under 50,000 ft. (1)  The Drive website’s Tyler Rogoway speculates that the B-21 will return to a high altitude bomber. (1)

If we’re willing to consider a radical change in operational methodology regarding how we perform aerial battle management and situational awareness, we can immediately see the possibility of a new approach using large, fast, high flying, stealthy ‘bombers’. 

For the moment, let’s focus on the B-21 since it’s the only one that could currently be built although existing aircraft could be modified.  However, given the limited numbers of existing bombers, that would seem unlikely.

We’ve noted that the requirement for a giant radar on the back of the aircraft precludes stealth, speed, and maneuverability.  Why do we need such a large radar?  We need it to provide the power, sensitivity, and performance necessary to operate hundreds of miles from the actual aerial battlefield which is a necessary requirement to ensure the survivability of the Hawkeye, given its non-survivable characteristics.  However, think about it … what if we didn’t have to stand a hundred-plus miles off from the battlefield?  What if we could stand essentially in, or on top of, the battlefield?  If we could, we wouldn’t need such a large radar.  We could get by with a much smaller one.  Well, that’s exactly what a B-21 would give us:  a high flying, stealthy, fast, survivable aircraft that could bring a much smaller radar much closer to the battlefield – essentially, on or in the battlefield.

The B-21 ‘Hawkeye’ would be mixed into the battlefield and, using a low probability of intercept AESA radar combined with its inherent stealth, could monitor and control the battle up close.  With Mach+ sprint speed to escape and evade when threatened, the aircraft’s survivability is further enhanced.

Of course, the entire concept comes down to whether or not a sufficiently capable radar exists, or could be developed, that could fit internally on the B-21.  If it could, the concept is viable.  If not, ignore this post!

There is one other requirement for a B-21 ‘Hawkeye’ and that is a large crew.  With all due respect (none) to the people who suggest that the F-35 will perform battle management, that’s just nonsense.  True battle management, not just guiding a single missile that someone else launched, requires computers, displays, and manpower.  Fortunately, a suitably modified B-21 would have ample room for a battle management crew.  I note that the preceding sentence may not be accurate given the B-21’s flattened airframe.  If sufficient space for crew and work stations can’t be fit into the B-21 then it would be necessary to design a somewhat modified aircraft though still along the same lines we’ve been discussing.  That’s an engineering issue and without detailed B-21 blueprints none of us are qualified to assess it.  We’ll stick to the conceptual design and leave the physical design to the designers.

B-21 'Hawkeye' ?

If the concept appears viable, it would be easy for the Navy to tap into the upcoming production of the B-21 and purchase a number of aircraft for conversion to a ‘Hawkeye’ variant.  Taking the concept a step further, it would also be an opportune moment to design a ‘Hawkeye’ variant based on the B-21 but incorporating more extensive, specific modifications intended to enhance mission performance such as greater altitude, increased internal space (if needed), enhanced bottom aspect stealth, enhanced self-defense electronics, greater sprint speed, etc.  Of course, this would drastically drive up the cost of what will, undoubtedly, be an already expensive airframe but the capability offered would justify the cost.  Effective battle management and situational awareness is a force multiplier of priceless value.

One final aspect to consider is that a B-21 ‘Hawkeye’ doesn’t need to be a carrier based aircraft and, likely, wouldn’t be.  Given the 6,900 mile range of a current B-2, a B-21 ‘Hawkeye’ could easily be land based and cycle to carrier/naval operations, as needed.  Carriers could, in fact, maintain on-board E-2 Hawkeyes for routine operations and call on B-21 ‘Hawkeyes’ when necessary although this may be an overly costly redundancy.

In summary, if we’re willing to adopt a completely different approach to situational awareness and battle space management, a B-21 ‘Hawkeye’ may be the answer to the carrier’s current E-2 vulnerabilities while still accomplishing the function.  With upcoming B-21 production run, the Navy has an opportunity to acquire some very advanced capabilities without having to pay for the basic airframe development costs although the ‘Hawkeye’ modifications would still be significant.

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(1)The Drive website, “The B-21’s Three Decade Old Shape Hints At New High Altitude Capabilities”, Tyler Rogoway, 6-Oct-2017,

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14919/the-b-21s-three-decade-old-shape-hints-at-new-high-altitude-capabilities

Sensors and Shooters

One of the recent concepts for employing the F-35 is the idea that it will not engage in combat itself but will provide targeting for other heavily laden shooter platforms.  Various shooter platforms have been proposed including B-1 bombers, F-18s, and F-15s.

What a great concept, right?  F-35s loitering around the aerial battlefield, unseen, picking out hapless targets to be dispatched with ruthless efficiency by shooter aircraft dripping with missiles.  What’s not to like? 

You know, though, I feel a vague sense of uneasiness about this concept.  Think about the history of modern aerial combat. It's not an ordered, neat affair. It's a confused, incredibly rapid, constantly changing melee and that's completely at odds with the idea of a sensor aircraft leisurely spotting targets and passing off to a somehow unseen, unhindered, non-stealthy shooter while the enemy obligingly remains lined up and relatively static, just waiting to be shot. If all that happens, I guess it could work. However, the reality, especially as the enemy employs more and more of their own stealthy aircraft, is that the sensor aircraft will be frantically engaged in their own life or death struggle to survive and won't be leisurely passing on targets to shooters. The shooters, being non-stealthy, will likely be targeted by enemy stealth aircraft and long range missiles and will also be frantically maneuvering for survival rather than calmly and methodically launching missile after missile.

Let’s think about the concept in a bit more depth.  What are the requirements for the concept to work?

For the sensor platform,

• It must be close enough to see the targets with its sensor(s).  Depending on the target, that could be a hundred miles away for a larger bomber or AWACS type aircraft or it could be a dozen miles to spot an enemy stealth fighter.  Even spotting modern semi-stealthy fighter aircraft will require moderate proximity, say 30 miles or so.  Now, the flip side of this requirement is that if the sensor is close enough to see a target, it’s also close enough to be seen unless we think the enemy doesn’t have the same kinds of radar, IRST, and other sensors that we have.
  
  
• It must be unengaged.  In order to calmly and methodically pick out target after target, the sensor aircraft can’t be engaged in its own frantic, twisting, turning, battle for survival.  So, the sensor must be able to loiter around the battlefield, unseen and unengaged.  Referring back to the previous requirement about range and mutual detectability, does this seem likely? 

Similarly, for the shooter platform,

• It must be close enough for the missiles to be in range.  Our standard long range missile is the AIM-120C/D which has ranges of 50-100 miles although the effective range is likely closer to 30-70 miles.  As with sensing, if the shooter aircraft is in range to shoot, it’s also in range to be shot.  In fact, Russia and China reportedly have longer range missiles in service than we do!
  
  
• It must be unengaged.  In order to calmly and methodically conduct launch after launch, the shooter aircraft can’t be engaged in its own frantic, twisting, turning, battle for survival.  So, the shooter must be able to loiter around the battlefield, unseen and unengaged.  Refering back to the previous comments about sensor and missile ranges, does this seem likely?  Is a non-stealthy, heavily loaded (further increasing detectability) aircraft going to be able to loiter near an aerial battlefield without being detected and engaged?

Now, some of you may be saying, wait, we do this kind of sensor/shooter operation all the time on the ground.  For example, a spotter, hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan, calls in shooter aircraft to bomb the enemy into defeat.  Yes, we do.  However, note the key differences.  The sensor (spotter) is able to remain completely hidden (thanks to long range optics, the presence of significant cover, and the ‘stealthy’ nature of a single human) while still spotting targets and the shooters are completely unengaged and unhindered because the enemies that we’ve used this tactic on have no aerial capability of their own.  Our shooter aircraft are able to loiter over the battlefield with no interference, whatsoever, from the enemy.  None of this will happen in the aerial sensor/shooter scenario against a peer enemy.  Thus, the ground example has no relevance to the aerial scenario.

We’re left with a concept that sounds appealing but seems unworkable under realistic combat conditions.  This seems like yet another example of the military's tendency to believe that everything we do will work and that the enemy will cooperate in their own destruction.

The military seems committed to this concept with absolutely no basis to support it.  Where is the realistic testing that has proven this concept will work?  As is so often the case, the military has latched on to a concept without any foundational study and testing to justify it.

That's my view of how this concept plays out. Do you see it differently?

F-35 Readiness Failure Due To Parts Shortages - GAO

We know readiness rates for all US military aircraft are poor and the F-35 is certainly doing its part to keep readiness low.  A new GAO report cites a full mission capable rate for the F-35 of 27% for the period of May-2018 to Nov-2018.  The minimum rate, established via specification, is 60%. (1)  

Why does a brand new aircraft like the F-35 have such shockingly low availability?  According to GAO, the major reason is spare parts shortages.

During the report period, Department of Defense (DOD) had a repair backlog of about 4,300 F-35 parts. (1)  Let’s do some simple math, there are around 380 F-35s in existence as of 10-Apr-2019, according to Wiki.  That works out to an average backlog of 11 parts per aircraft.  No wonder nothing’s flying!

So, lack of parts is the major reason why only one out of four aircraft are fully mission capable.  That leads one to wonder why a brand new aircraft needs so many spare parts?  Wasn’t this aircraft sold, in part, as a low maintenance aircraft that would perform its own predictive maintenance analyses (ALIS) to further reduce already low maintenance time?  That seems to have not panned out along with nearly every other promise about the F-35.

Wait, though, it gets worse.  GAO also offers this absolute gem about to spare parts.

DOD purchases certain sets of F-35 parts years ahead of time to support aircraft on deployments, including on ships. But the parts do not fully match the military services’ needs because F-35 aircraft have been modified over time. For example, 44 percent of purchased parts were incompatible with aircraft the Marine Corps took on a recent deployment. (1) [emphasis added]

Seriously???!!  44% of the parts were incompatible with the aircraft in the field?!  This begs two questions:

• What idiot thought buying spare parts years ahead of time was a good idea when the aircraft is still undergoing development?  This is exactly why you don’t do concurrent development and production.  Because of concurrency, we’re still designing the aircraft even while we’re building it.  Of course the current aircraft parts requirements won’t match a parts purchase from years ago.


• Why would you take incompatible parts on deployment?

Side journey:  IOC (Initial Operating Capability) was supposed to be declared only when a fully equipped unit had all the aircraft, pilots, maintainers, parts, and support services required.  All three services have declared IOC for their respective F-35 variants and yet, apparently, none of them can keep the aircraft mission capable.  What did they do … assemble one set of spare parts for the twenty minutes it took to declare IOC and then pass the set on to the next service for the next IOC declaration?  ‘Cause, it’s clear that none of the services have enough parts to actually operate their aircraft fleets.

GAO also addresses parts costs.

In addressing these challenges, DOD must grapple with affordability. The Air Force and Marine Corps recently identified the need to reduce their sustainment costs per aircraft per year by 43 and 24 percent, respectively. (1)

Despite recognizing that sustainment costs would be critical, they knowingly purchased spare parts sets that contain 44% incompatible parts.  Let me say it again, this is why you don’t do concurrency.

Well, at least we know what parts we have and what ones we need, now, thanks to the magic of ALIS, the automated semi-intelligent, telepathic, clairvoyant, all-knowing, all-encompassing, predictive software that controls every aspect of the world wide F-35 sustainment network … at least, that’s how it was sold to us.  However, according to GAO,

DOD has spent billions of dollars on F-35 spare parts but does not have records for all the parts it has purchased, where they are, or how much they cost. For example, DOD is not maintaining a database with information on F-35 parts the U.S. owns, and it lacks the necessary data to be able to do so. (1)

Another failure for the Pentagon and the F-35 program.  Another lie told to us.

At some point, it’s no longer good enough to say, don’t worry, we’ll eventually fix the problems.  At some point, it’s time to punish people for incompetence on a scale that defies belief.  That time has long since arrived.

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(1)Government Accounting Office, “F-35 Aircraft Sustainment”, April 2019, GAO-19-321