LCS Program Cost and Opportunity Cost

Austal (USA) just launched the final LCS, the USS Pierre (LCS 38).  Now would seem an especially appropriate time to assess the financial and opportunity cost of the program.  Did we get value for our taxpayer money (the program cost)?  Was there something else we could have better spent our taxpayer funds on (the opportunity cost)?  Let’s see.
 
A cursory review reveals that we acquired
 

16x Freedom class ships (5 retired)

 

19x Independence class ships (2 retired)

 

Total LCS Ships  = 35 (7 retired)

Total Active LCS Ships = 28

 
Note:  Depending on which plan you look at, the Navy intends to retire several more Freedom class vessels over the next few years.  Essentially, the entire Freedom class is being terminated as quickly as the Navy can.
 
What did this acquisition program cost? 
 
Ship
GAO reports R&D and acquisition costs = $20.5B [2]
Unit cost = $650M [2]
 
Module
GAO reports module R&D and acquisition costs = $7B[1]
Total modules = 40 [1]
Unit cost = $175M per module.[1]
 
Total Program Cost
Total cost module and ship = $27.5B
 
 
Discussion
 
Value – The LCS has almost no combat capability.  Hence, the value for the money is near zero.
 
Opportunity Cost – The opportunity cost = $27.5B.  What could we have done with $27.5B if we had not spent it on the LCS program?  Well, the alternative opportunities are nearly endless:  munitions, mines, a dedicated minesweeper, ASW destroyer/corvette, air wings, dry docks, etc.  At this point, it’s not even debatable that almost any alternative choice would have been a better use of the funds.  In other words, the opportunity cost-value far exceeded the actual cost-value.
 
Bear in mind that this is not a case of hindsight.  Almost everyone except the Navy pointed out massive problems with the program from day one:  concurrency, lack of CONOPS, a multitude of design issues, insufficient weight and stability margins, a badly flawed manning model, a badly flawed maintenance model, lack of armament, complete absence of modules, etc.  There was no hindsight involved or required.  The problems were painfully obvious and predictable.  In fact, the term ‘predictable’ implies a small degree of uncertainty.  Regarding the LCS problems, there was no uncertainty.  The problems were 100% certain to occur, as was pointed out by … well … everyone.
 
The LCS is the poster child for a program that should never have left the back-of-the-napkin stage.  It produced no value and a staggering $27.5B wasted opportunity cost.
 
  
 
_______________________________ 
[1]Government Accountability Office, “Weapon Systems Annual Assessment”, Jun 2023, GAO-23-106059, p.149
 
[2]Government Accountability Office, “Weapon Systems Annual Assessment”, Apr 2018, GAO-18-360SP, p.92

Train Like You Fight

The Captain set the message down after reading it to the officers assembled in the wardroom.  Setting aside all the navalese language, it directed him and his Burke class destroyer to divert from their current assignment, take aboard some observers, which they had already done, and transit to the Navy’s new live fire training area located well off the west coast of the United States and engage with live weapons – he had read that part to his officers with an incredulous voice - any valid target detected.  The Captain and his ship were about to be subjected to the Navy’s newest training exercise.  His would be only the second ship to undergo the training and he knew nothing about it;  scuttlebutt was non-existent.  Still, one Navy training exercise was like the next, he was sure.  He assumed he would be given detailed instructions – Navy training exercises were nothing if not highly scripted.  Oddly, though, he had been directed to choose his own course, time and speed to enter the training area and been told only to enter the area by a certain date/time and remain in the area until specifically notified that training was over.  He had no idea how long the training would last.  He assumed that it would be a few hours based on previous exercises.
 
“All right, gentlemen, here’s what we’re going to do.  We’ll be entering the training area in about one hour.  I want to complete this exercise in a timely fashion and set the standard for the ships that follow.  We’ll go to General Quarters when we enter the area.  I expect we’ll receive detailed instructions at that point.  Let’s make sure all our systems are ready and let’s have our best people in place. Questions?”
 
“Captain, that’s not a lot of time to run system checks,” the XO pointed out.
 
“I know it, XO.  Make it happen anyway!”
 
Acknowledging the Captain, the XO grimaced inwardly.  No amount of desire or enthusiasm was going to get some of those Aegis computer system spare parts installed that the ship didn’t have on board and had been on order for almost six months.  Similarly, the CIWS which had been spontaneously resetting on occasion during checks wasn’t going to be miraculously fixed in the next hour.  Still, he’d do everything he could.
 
Unnoticed, or rather ignored, the observer in the back of the room made a quick note on his clipboard of documents.  The Captain thought the training exercise wouldn’t begin for another hour but it had actually begun the moment he had received the notification message and, so far, the Captain wasn’t doing well.
 
An hour later, the ship entered the training area.  The ship was at GQ and the best sailors were in place at each critical post.  The Captain waited impatiently in CIC for his instructions.  The observer simply stood quietly in the background, making an occasional note.  As time passed with no additional instructions forthcoming, the Captain’s impatience grew.  After an hour, the Captain radioed for instructions.  The reply was short and succinct – “continue training”.  What training, the Captain wondered sarcastically?
 
All right, the Captain thought, someone is trying to screw with the normal training procedures.  Well, he wasn’t about to be caught flatfooted.
 
“Listen up, people.  We’re going to stay at GQ until whoever’s running this exercise gets their act together.  We’re not going to relax and get caught by surprise.  Let’s stay on top of things.”
 
Nine hours later, the Captain and crew were exhausted and frustrated by the complete lack of activity.  Nothing had happened.  True, sonar had generated their usual litany of non-specific contacts that had been aggressively pursued only to vanish – biologics, probably.  The ship’s helo was now down for maintenance after spending the last several hours chasing spurious contact reports.  Utterly disgusted at the wasted time, the Captain finally decided to call it quits for the day.  Whoever was running this exercise had obviously screwed up badly and he’d attempt to sort things out tomorrow.  With that, the ship secured from General Quarters. 
 
“XO”, the Captain called out, “get that CIWS torn down tonight and figure out what’s wrong before we try this exercise again tomorrow.”
 
Again, unseen, the observer’s mouth twitched in what might have been a small grin.
 
Three hours later, with most of the crew having just settled in for some much needed rest and with the ‘third string’ manning the watch stations, the ship was ripped awake by the sound of the General Quarters call.  Staggering to his feet, the Captain ran to CIC.
 
“Report,” he yelled as he entered.
 
“We’ve got an unidentified contact inbound bearing 265 relative, 20 miles out, speed Mach 1.3.  It’s right down on the waves.  Collision course.  Impact in just over 1 minute.”
 
“ESM indicates it’s a Russian SS-N-22 Sunburn.”
 
A target drone, the Captain assumed.  “Put the CIWS on it,” he shouted.
 
“CIWS is down for repairs per your orders, sir.”
 
“Well, get it back up”, the Captain yelled, frantically!
 
Unfortunately, there was no time.  The missile was approaching at over 16 miles per minute and impact was now less than 30 seconds.
 
“What’s going on?”, the Captain yelled to no one in particular.  “This is supposed to be training but that thing is going to hit us!”
 
At that moment, 1 mile out, the drone missile pulled up, angled just over the top of the destroyer, and passed overhead with a shattering boom.  The CIC watchstanders were shaken while cups, papers, tools, and other items were knocked onto the deck.
 
“What the hell was that?”, the Captain again asked of no one.  “That wasn’t training.  That was a reckless safety violation!  Someone’s going to pay for that.”
 
The Captain immediately sent out an urgent message demanding to know who had screwed up a simple training exercise.  The instant reply was, “Continue training.”
 
The Captain had no time to wonder before his thoughts were again rudely interrupted.
 
“Multiple airborne contacts bearing 135 relative, 78 miles, speed 480 kts.  They’ll pass about 10 miles off our starboard side if they continue on course.  No emissions but they’re squawking civilian.”
 
“Let ‘em come”, the Captain replied.  “This is a test and I’m not going to Vincennes them.”
 
The Captain was all too aware of the Vincennes incident where an Aegis cruiser had badly misinterpreted its sensor data and shot down a civilian airliner in the belief that it was an attacking aircraft.  That incident had become part of Navy institutional memory and it was ingrained in every Captain never to repeat that event.
 
In the background, the observer frowned slightly and made more notes.
 
Minutes passed as the aircraft got closer and then came the half-expected announcement.
 
“Surface contact, bearing 334 relative, 21 miles, speed 24 kts.  Contact is coming straight at us.”
 
“There”, the Captain said, a note of triumph in his voice, “That’s the real target.  They were hoping we’d focus on the aircraft and miss the real threat coming from the surface.”
 
“Weapons, put a couple SM-6 missiles on that surface ship.”
 
Lacking Harpoons or the recently canceled LRASM, Standard missiles were the only anti-ship weapon available.
 
“Captain, we don’t have a positive ID on the target, yet.  There are no emissions and we don’t have a visual.”
 
“It’s the real threat”, the Captain answered. “They tried to fool us.  Designate and launch.”
 
Unprepared for the command, inexperienced, and inadequately trained, the ‘third string’ operators took over two minutes to designate the target, prep the launch cycle, and execute the launch.  Moments after the two missiles launched, the EO sensor operator announced that he had a visual on the target.
 
“Sir, it appears to be a civilian yacht of some sort!”
 
The Captain blanched.  Had he just executed a Vincennes on a civilian yacht that had wandered into the training area?
 
“Direct hit.  The target is gone.”
 
“Stand down”, the Captain frantically yelled.  “Secure all weapons.”
 
The observer shook his head minutely and made another note.
 
Suddenly, the Captain heard another announcement. 
 
“New targets inbound.  Bearing 110 degrees relative, speed Mach 0.8, altitude 20 meters.  They appear to be missiles launched from the civilian aircraft.”
 
The Captain was dumbfounded and froze.  He had been certain the aircraft were civilian, trying to fool him into doing a Vincennes.  Instead, it appeared that they were the real threat and had been from the start.  All the ship’s weapons were in standby and there was nothing available to defend.
 
Even more stunning, the incoming missiles (target drones, he assumed) did not turn away.  Instead, at the last moment, each elevated slightly, separated a small, inert, frangible ‘warhead’, and passed closely directly over the ship.  As they did, he felt several thuds as the inert ‘warheads’ impacted the ship. 
 
“What was that?”, he called frantically.  “Did we just get hit by a target drone?”
 
Before he could get an answer, another contact report came.
 
“Torpedoes inbound.  Range one mile.  Speed 55 kts.”
 
“What?!  How did torpedoes get so close without being detected?”, he yelled.
 
The third string sonar operator, who was still trying to get qualified, was unable to answer before more reports started flooding in.
 
“Damage Control reports several fires.  Smoke spreading throughout the ship.”
 
The various observers scattered throughout the ship had designated areas as hit and on fire and, in addition, had ignited multiple smoke bombs.  They couldn’t start actual fires but they could replicate the smoke that would be filling the ship if this had been real.
 
“Aircraft are turning and re-engaging.”
 
“Turn to unmask the CIWS”, the Captain yelled, forgetting that the CIWS was down and coughing as smoke from an adjoining compartment began filling the space.
 
The ship began to turn to bring the single CIWS to bear on the aircraft’s threat vector but part way through the turn the Captain corrected himself.
 
“No, wait.  We need to run from the torpedoes.  They’re the bigger threat!  Put us on the same course as the torpedoes.”
 
Part way through the turn, the Captain again corrected himself.  “Wait, it’s too late.  We can’t outrun the torpedoes.  They’re already too close.  Unmask the CIWS!”, he yelled, his voice rising in pitch.  It was too much.  He was being overwhelmed with information and threats.
 
Moments later he felt the impact as four inert torpedoes slammed into the hull.
 
“Radar is down.”  An observer had directed the operator to shut down the radar to simulate damage.
 
“Damage Control reports at least four underwater impacts and one leak from a cracked hull plate.”
 
The leak was substantial and real.  The torpedo warheads were inert but the lightly built Burkes could not absorb even an inert warhead impacting at 55 kts.  The damage control reports were confused, panicked, inaccurate, and real.
 
With that, the power flickered and cut out.  One emergency light came on and two others did not.  An observer had disabled them prior to the exercise to see if anyone could repair them.  As it turned out, no one even tried.
 
And so the exercise continued with the ship’s condition and the crew’s performance rapidly deteriorating.  The scheduled debrief was going to be brutal.  The Admiral in charge of this training program had directed the observers to be unfailingly objective and to spare no feelings.  No one had expected the exercise to go well but this was poor even by that standard.  Still, considering that the Navy had not conducted realistic training for decades, it wasn’t surprising. 
 
The ship now had several dents from the various inert ‘warhead’ impacts and a handful of minor damage to repair but that was an acceptable part of achieving combat readiness and the forced drydocking would be used to accomplish various equipment undates and long deferred maintenance.
 
Painful as it might be, this was the first step in returning the Navy to an actual warfighting organization.
 
Forty eight hours later, after a continuing series of very realistic events and with an exhausted crew staggering through actual damage control efforts, the exercise concluded and the lead observer completed his final on-board paperwork;  a full report would come later.  The last two questions on his checklist were the most important.  The first concerned the ship’s combat readiness, which the observer unhesitatingly checked as ‘Not Ready’.  The second asked for his recommendation on the Captain’s fitness for continued command.  The observer sadly shook his head slightly and checked ‘Unfit’.  The current Captain would take the ship into drydock but someone else would be taking it back out.  As much as this exercise had been a training and readiness test, it had also been a combat mentality assessment of the Captain and he had failed, badly.
 
 
 
Discussion Points
 
-We need to allow a mild degree of risk and physical damage In our training through the use of inert or frangible warheads.  Military service does not come with a guarantee of safety.  As a point of historical interest, pre-WWII training saw the use of bags of flour dropped on ships as surrogates for bombs.  Once upon a time, Infantry training used live machine gun fire as an incentive to keep one’s head down.
 
-Training needs to be unscripted.
 
-Training needs to be continuous and prolonged.
 
-Training needs to be realistic.
 
-There needs to be negative consequences for poor performance in training while recognizing that training is the time to make mistakes and must be consequence free.  In other words, we need to distinguish between correctable mistakes and uncorrectable poor performance (lack of combat mentality).

Inspiring Words

We’ve all grown up reading about the exploits of those who came before us.  Recall these famous quotes:
 
“Don’t give up the ship”
Capt. James Lawrence, USS Chesapeake, War of 1812
 
“I have not yet begun to fight”
Capt. John Paul Jones, Bonhomme Richard, Revolutionary War
 
“Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”
Rear Admiral David Farragut, Battle of Mobile Bay, Civil War
 
“Before we’re through with ’em, the Japanese language will be spoken only in hell”
Vice Admiral William Halsey, WWII
 
“I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not Sail fast for I intend to go in harm's way”
John Paul Jones, Revolutionary War
 
“It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious”
George Washington
 
“We have met the enemy and they are ours…”
Oliver Hazard Perry, Battle of Lake Erie, War of 1812
 
“You may fire when you are ready Gridley”
Commodore George Dewey, Battle of Manila Bay, Spanish-American War
 
“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!”
Lieutenant Howell Maurice Forgy, USS New Orleans, Pearl Harbor, WWII
 
“Sighted Sub, Sank Same.”
AMM 1/c Donald Francis Mason, WWII
 
“Take her down!”
Dying command of Commander Howard Walter Gilmore, USS Growler (SS-215), WWII
 
“Scratch one flattop”
Lieutenant Commander Robert E. Dixon, Battle of the Coral Sea, WWII
 
 
Inspiring words, indeed, but they are more than just words.  They reflect the culture and ethos of our fighting Navy throughout the years.   They represent the soul of the Navy.  They give us a foundation that we can learn and grow from and offer us an example that we can aspire to and build upon.  In a sense, those words are the Navy.
 
What words do we have today?  What words have been uttered since WWII that inspire us?  It might be the following.
 
“We Surrender”
Lt. in charge of riverine boats captured by Iran
 
“Whatever you do, don’t escalate”
Pretty much every operational order issued in the last few decades
 
“Don’t give up the funding”
Pretty much every admiral
 
“I have not yet begun to obfuscate”
Every CNO faced with a Congressional order he didn’t agree with
 
“I’m telling you, we did get shot at.  I don’t know why the Aegis data logs don’t show enemy missiles.”
Captain of the USS Mason off Yemen
 
 
Yeah … we haven’t uttered any inspiring words in our lifetimes.  Why is that?  Well, in order to utter inspiring words, you first have to have performed an inspiring deed.  You have to have done something noteworthy.  We’ve done nothing.  That’s what pursuing a policy of steadfast appeasement gets you.
 
 
Let’s do something noteworthy and then, perhaps, someone will say something inspiring for future naval generations.

How the F-35 Software Should Have Been Done

As we’ve seen and discussed, software has become the major obstacle to successful programs and the F-35 is probably the poster child for this.  The F-35 logistics and maintenance program, ALIS, was supposed to have been a miraculous piece of software that would do … well … everything plus several things we haven’t even thought of yet.  As it turned out, it couldn’t run a toaster correctly and may be the biggest military software flop in history.  In addition, the vaunted Block 4 software that enables full combat capability from the aircraft is years overdue with no implementation date in sight and many of the features have been permanently deferred to a non-existent ‘future’ date or deferred to the next aircraft program.  Those features will never be part of the F-35.  Even worse, because of the hugely delayed software and the resulting concurrency, we’ve produced hundreds of orphan F-35s that are so out of date that they will never be upgraded.  They’re essentially garbage throwaways at $100M each. 
 
Could all this have been avoided?  I don’t see how.  After all, this is how aircraft development and acquisition programs go, right?  I mean, everyone knows that, right? 
 
Well, let’s now take a look at how the software should have been handled and how all of this could have been avoided.  Wait … is that really possible?  Could all of this have been avoided?  Yes, it could, quite simply, as a matter of fact, and now we’ll see how.
 
 
Requirements – To begin, the software was insanely over spec’ed.  Only a lunatic – or the US military – would have attempted to cram so many features into the software.  We’ve talked about this at length.  The software had far too many requirements that had nothing to do with combat (looking at you ALIS) and nothing to do with realistic combat (looking at remote guidance handoffs and similar technology for the sake of technology features).  The military is obsessed with technology for its own sake.  Our guiding principle should be K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid).  One could also refer to this as K.I.S.A. (Keep It Simple, Admiral) since ‘admiral’ is a synonym for ‘stupid’.  The two words are interchangeable. 
 
By reducing the software requirements to just direct and realistic combat features we could have cut the scope, cost, and time to produce the software in half, or whatever actual large proportion.  So, half our job is done before we even begin!
 
Think of this as the Boyd approach to software:  not a single line of code that doesn’t directly enable realistic combat.  Programmer Boyd would be proud of us!
 
Of course, even with drastically pared down requirements, some significant amount of software is still required and here’s how it should have been handled.
 
We start by recognizing three absolutely critical and obvious conditions:
 
1. Software is platform agnostic. 
 
2. Software must be its own, stand-alone program, separate from the hardware program.
 
3.  Hardware development cannot proceed until the software is finalized.
 
 
Platform Agnostic Software - This is the key to software development. We didn’t need to have an actual F-35 aircraft in order to develop the software.  The software can be developed in laboratory simulations or on surrogate aircraft if an actual aircraft is needed for some reason that I can’t fathom.  We could have loaded the software on a Piper Cub, if necessary.  This would have allowed us to completely develop the software without every spending a penny on the physical aircraft.  The physical aircraft is the last thing we need.  It’s the final piece of the puzzle not the first.  The F-35 attempted to do the reverse.  They built the aircraft first and then remembered they had to add some software.  Utterly predictably, that approach failed miserably.
 
Stand-Alone Program Management – Software comes before hardware and must be its own, stand-alone project from a program management perspective.  Software cannot be an afterthought, add-on to the hardware as it was with the F-35.  The only way to effectively manage the software and avoid having it become an afterthought is to make it its own program with its own, clearly and rigidly defined requirements, schedule, and milestones.  If the software fails to meet its milestones, you don’t screw around or extend the program;  you kill it, learn lessons, fire and court-martial the managers, and move on.  Failure, then, becomes a positive in the sense that it serves as a warning – a severe warning – to the next project and manager to maintain tight control on the project and to be realistic regarding capabilities.  No more promising the moon and delivering nothing.  Fire and court-martial a few people and the next ones fall in line.
 
Start Point - Software is the hardware enabler.  Without the software, the hardware is just a very expensive paperweight.  In other words, there is no point even buying the first hardware rivet until the software is complete.  Thus, the completion of the software is what controls and triggers the start of hardware development.  This doesn’t mean partial completion with some nebulous phased delivery in the ephemeral future;  it means just what it says:  complete.  Finished.  Nothing left to do.  The contract is fully satisfied.  ‘I’s’ are dotted and ‘T’s’ are crossed.  Last line of code is written.  Had we followed this with the F-35, we would not yet have spent a single penny on the F-35 aircraft, itself.  What a savings!  We would not now have hundreds of orphans and wasted billions of dollars and have an entire fleet of only partially combat capable aircraft.  We might have even recognized, decades ago, that the software was not viable and halted the program while we could have still easily gotten out from under it.  We could have learned lessons and moved on to a second, wiser attempt (who am I kidding?  we don’t learn lessons  …  but, I digress).
 
 
Conclusion
 
Nothing that I’ve described is anything other than common sense and none of it requires any act of Congress.  It could be implemented tomorrow by nothing more than a command from the Chief of Naval Operations or Secretary of the Navy.  Some of you will protest some aspect or another but that’s just you being trapped in your paradigm and unable to see outside it.
 
Had we done this with the F-35, do you see the very early off-ramp that would have presented itself when it quickly became obvious that the software would not, and could not, be delivered in any useful time frame?  For just a hundred million dollars or so of initial programming, it would have become clear that we did not have a viable software and the program would have terminated with the hardware portion never having begun.  How many billions of dollars would we have saved? 

What’s Missing?

Here’s just a fun little thought exercise.  The fleet is decidedly unbalanced.  The only surface ship we have is the Burke class which is incapable of effective anti-surface or anti-submarine combat.  It’s a pure anti-air and Tomahawk land attack platform by capability and training.  The fleet is missing various types of ships with different capabilities and costs.
 
If you were the Chief of Naval Operations and had enough extra funding to build one additional ship type, what would it be, and why?
 
ComNavOps’ choice would be a small ASW corvette … or maybe a true destroyer like a modernized Fletcher … or maybe an 8” gunned cruiser … or maybe a Midway/Forrestal size carrier … or … 
 
Hmm, this may be harder than I thought to pick just one type.
 
Maybe, despite ComNavOps’ proof of uselessness, you’d pick a lightning carrier or a sea control carrier?  Maybe a class of SSGNs?  Or maybe you’re a believer in small missile boats?
 

Alright, I'm going to pick the small ASW corvette to deal with the multitude of diesel subs, provide convoy escort, patrol chokepoints, protect homeland harbors, provide ASW protection for Guam, and pick up the crap peacetime duties like anti-piracy.

What one class would you pick to get the most bang for the buck?

Defeat in Detail

‘Defeat in detail’ is a military tactic of destroying an enemy force by engaging its small, isolated units one by one with a larger force.
 
This is a great military theory – and proven successful – but it requires that the enemy present his forces in small, dispersed packets ready to be defeated.  This generally only happens if one is fighting an utterly inept foe or if the enemy’s units are forced to disperse due to unrecoverable circumstances such as the rout of a main force or the end of a conflict when the enemy lacks the forces to mass and fight.
 
In other words, no sane military is going to willingly present its forces to the enemy in small, isolated units.  Unfortunately, this is exactly what the Navy and Marines seem determined to do.  They seem committed to a war doctrine of small, isolated, individually weak units that will, in some unexplained and unfathomable manner, not only survive and avoid defeat in detail but will go on to exert an effect greater than the woefully weak sum of its parts.
 
Let’s briefly remind ourselves of the small, isolated units the Marines and Navy are planning to field.
 
Missile Shooters - The Marines have converted from a middle weight, combined arms force to a penny packet force of platoon size units that will engage in missing sniping deep inside enemy controlled territory. 
 
Distributed Lethality – The Navy wants to disperse all manner of isolated ships (the LCS is frequently mentioned) deep inside enemy territory where they will not only survive but, in some mythical way, find enemy ships and sink them while remaining undetected.  The Navy has even talked about arming amphibious and logistic ships for use in the distributed lethality scheme.  How these non-stealthy, slow, defenseless ships would remain undetected and survive remains unexplained.
 
LAW – The Marine’s Light Amphibious Warship (a laughable term right up there with Littoral Combat Ship) is intended to operate alone or in very small groups while supplying hidden Marine units and relocating them from island to island.  How these small, non-stealthy, slow, defenseless ships would remain undetected and survive remains unexplained.
 
Unmanned Surface Vessels – The Navy plans to use dispersed, remote, and/or isolated small, unmanned vessels in some yet to be fully explained manner which they believe will ‘confuse’ the enemy and rain destruction down on an unaware foe.
 
Unmanned Underwater Vessels – Similar to the USV plan, the Navy envisions small UUVs operating alone inside enemy waters in some unexplained manner.
 
Retirements – The Navy is downsizing the fleet’s firepower by retiring Ticonderoga cruisers and SSGNs with no direct replacement, contributing to a significant decrease in VLS cells in the fleet.  Thus, the individual ships and task forces are becoming steadily weaker.
 
LCS – The Navy has described the LCS as the modern day PT boat and envisions them operating in enemy territory, hiding amongst islands.
 
Task Forces – The Navy is training only with single carrier task forces and escorts numbering around three per carrier.  While one would desperately hope this is not the actual wartime plan (so why aren’t we training like we’ll fight?), the reality is that’s the only configuration being practiced.  If this is what actually happens, this will be less than a ¼ carrier task force.
 
And the list goes on.
 
The common characteristic of these small, isolated units is that they are defenseless in any practical way.  When found – and it’s a question of ‘when’ not ‘if’ – they will be destroyed as a matter of course.  In other words, they’ll be defeated in detail.  The Navy and Marines seem utterly ignorant of the lessons of history as they apply to combat.  All of our much-hyped plans will be quickly put to ruin when the individual units encounter larger forces. 
 
Defeat in detail.

F-35 Software Problems Continue

We’ve previously noted that software has become the leading cause of schedule delays and cost overruns and we cited the F-35 program’s attempt to implement the Technology Refresh (TR-3) leading to Block 4 upgrades (see, “F-35 Software Case Study” and “The Heartbreak of Software”) without which the F-35 cannot achieve full combat capability.
 
About a year ago, the Pentagon put a freeze on deliveries of new F-35s pending fixes for the TR-3 implementation.  F-35s have been piling up in warehouses awaiting a resolution of the software issues.
 
Honestly, the freeze on deliveries has been more symbolic than effective since the Pentagon has continued payments for the new aircraft with just a $7M withholding per aircraft.[1]  That means that Lockheed has still been getting around 91% of the contract price for aircraft that don’t meet spec and can’t be delivered.  That’s not a bad deal if you can get it!
 
Financial aspects aside, I’m not sure any of us fully appreciate just how badly broken the software side of things are in the F-35 program.  The Pentagon has just caved to various pressures and announced that the delivery freeze has been lifted despite the software problem remaining unresolved.  Hmm …
 

Bowing to operational demands, the Pentagon has lifted a year-long freeze on accepting new F-35 stealth fighters — even though the problem that prompted the standstill has not been fully resolved.[1]
 
Persistent problems with TR-3 prompted officials to eventually capitulate to an interim software fix …[1]

 
Read this next quote slowly and carefully and fully grasp the meaning and implications.
 

… jets will be delivered with interim software that facilitates training, but a second software drop that enables combat capabilities likely won’t be available for at least another year.[1]

That’s right.  We’re delivering training jets but not fully combat capable jets.  We’re decades into this program, have built a thousand aircraft, and still don’t have a fully combat capable aircraft.  Someone should face a firing squad for this.
 
The purpose of this post is not to simply beat on the F-35 program.  Instead, I’d like to highlight a couple of points that this development hammers home for us.
 
Software – As we’ve noted, software has become the main obstacle to successful programs.  We’ve already stated that we need to change the way we treat software and make it its own program instead of just an afterthought for the hardware.  This latest incident just hammers that point home.  Our frontline combat aircraft, the F-35, is not yet fully combat capable due to continuing software problems because the software was treated as an afterthought. 
 
For acquisition programs, our focus has to be software, software, software.
 
SOFTWARE, SOFTWARE, SOFTWARE !
 
Phased Delivery – The incompetent, lazy method of running an acquisition program is to use some sort of incomplete, so-called ‘phased’ delivery where the product is delivered incomplete, to be finished over subsequent years of development.  Of course, this never works out.  The F-35, for example, has yet to achieve full combat capability and we’ve built some thousand aircraft, none of them fully combat capable.  That’s criminal and leads to endless upgrades which add to the cost of the aircraft.  That $80M aircraft becomes a $100M+ aircraft after all the upgrades are included. 
 
Further, by all accounts, we’ve produced hundreds of F-35 orphans which, due to concurrency, will never be brought up to standard and are, essentially, throwaways.  Again, that’s criminal.  This half-assed F-35 production program just hammers home the folly of any kind of phased delivery program.
 
We have to adopt a philosophy of the product, the whole product, and nothing but the whole product or don’t bother building it.
 
Contracts – The final point that this incident hammers home is the unmitigated stupidity of a contract that does not specify and demand delivery of a fully capable product in order to get paid a single penny.  You wouldn’t make a partial payment on an incomplete automobile, would you?  So why are we paying for incomplete aircraft (or ships or anything)?  Again, we need to bring back firing squads on a regular basis.
 
 
Inescapable Conclusion
 
Our acquisition program methodologies are badly broken and our military leadership is 100% complicit to the point of dereliction of duty and criminal fraud.  We have got to start learning lessons from our endless string of failures.  Congress needs to start firing admirals.  Accountability is the only way people as stupid as our military leaders will ever learn a lesson.
 
 
 
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[1]Breaking Defense, “F-35 deliveries to resume next week, despite incomplete upgrade”, Michael Marrow and Valerie Insinna, 11-Jul-2024,
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/07/f-35-deliveries-to-resume-next-week-despite-incomplete-upgrade/