The Navy’s top officer defended the service’s request to reduce this year’s planned buy of F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighters as a budgeting decision, and proclaimed his support for the plane’s successor.
“The Joint Strike Fighter is extremely important,” Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, said Tuesday in response to questioning at a Capitol Hill hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee. “We have to get to the JSF.”
The service’s decision to ask for nine fewer F/A-18s than called for last year was a result of multiple requirements. “We are stretched in our obligations to meet our demands,” Roughead said.
The “fighter gap” refers to a deficiency in total fighter end-strength as legacy FA-18 Hornets reach the end of their service lives, and before the F-35 Lightning II can be deployed in reasonable numbers. With 11 carriers and a shortfall of up to a hundred strike fighters (or more), Navy could end up with either much fewer than the current load-out of 44 strikers per carrier, or – and this must seem an intriguing option for the cash-strapped service – fewer carriers to employ a diminished pool of assets.
Which would, of course, place an increasing strain on the assets, both personnel and materiel, that remain, which will in turn raise operations and maintenance costs while hastening the demise of the aircraft being used (and the untimely exit of the pilots that fly them, if the economy turns around).
Boeing, out of the generosity of their heart, offered to sell Navy an additional 170 Super Hornets at the bargain basement price of $49 million per machine. Alternative efforts to increase the life cycle of FA-18Cs from their original 6,000 to 10,000 hours (they’ve already been stretched to 8,000) is expected to cost as much as $22 million per copy.
Now, I’m as much a fan of the FA-18C as any man breathing, but $22 million to sustain a 1990′s design into the 2017 time frame seems like false economy, especially when the Super Hornet brings so much more – there, I said it – to the table. And especially when the FA-18C stable is already breathing hard to maintain readiness rates. We’ve seen what happens when an air force flies their machines to failure - it ain’t pretty.
Of course, the OSD’s office of Program Analysis and Execution denies that there is any fighter gap at all in the out years:
A congressional source tells us that “apparently PA&E is convinced that there isn’t actually a strike fighter shortfall, while the Navy is convinced they’ll be 240-plus planes short of Naval strike fighters… We’re trying to figure out how PA&E can possibly come to this conclusion, but we’re not getting many answers.”
Several senior OSD sources told me that PA&E is making this argument, based on a range of capabilities offered by the Air Force.
“PA&E’s contention is that we have excess Air Force strike fighter capacity, so the Navy shortfall doesn’t affect us strategically… But I don’t think the Air Force can land their fighters on a carrier,” our congressional source said wryly.
No, but you’d be surprised, I think, how many civilians do think that.
Not Dr. Cambone, I’m sure.
To relieve the strain on the Navy, during and after the late 90s, Marine FA-18 squadrons deployed aboard Navy carriers under the so-called “Tacair Integration” initiative (pdf). Rotating Marine squadrons aboard the carriers saved DoN the procurement of some 500 airframes. But with Navy facing a fighter gap of some indisputable magnitude in the out years, it doesn’t help now that the Corps is committed to transitioning fully out of FA-18s and exclusively into the STOVL variant of the F-35 – aircraft that are incompatible with conventional carrier operations.
Rock, meet hard place.
Still, despite latest estimates that show the fighter gap doubling, CNO has made his call, and now we’ll “get to the JSF.” Because we just have to.
We’ll just push harder, make smart decisions, and execute smartly.
And so on.
One can stretch the rubber band just so far, and the damn thing’s going to snap.
Whoever got the notions across that ‘Do more with less’, ‘The Cold War’s over’, and ‘Smart Weapons mean fewer bombs on target, hence less jets to carry the load’, must’ve been a helluva salesperson. That or, as a nation, we’ve really bought into the notion that Social Services have far greater value than Defense. It’s sickening.
We have done nothing but overextend our people and resources, to the point that I wonder that we haven’t had more fatalities or catastrophic failures. I’ll venture that outstanding maintenance personnel are the reason, but even good maintenance goes only so far.
Between the B-52 fleet & USS Enterprise, there’s some real magic being performed out there…
As far as domestic programs versus defence, there hasn’t been a “real war” for (as far as national memory goes) ever: and defence isn’t exactly a high-priority school subject. Out of this you’ll get unaware or uncaring politicians, and dumbass policy.
Vietnam had and has so many societal and political implications attached to it that the “war” aspect, in some ways, gets drowned out in all the “context.”
The general population just isn’t aware of the challenges and circumstances of armed conflict, at least not in the same way as in 1950-60, with the Greatest Generation up and about, in their battle-experienced millions.
This may change when the young men and women of the Afghanistan/Iraq-engaged armed forces begin to get out in significant numbers, and salt the general population with, once more, large numbers of people who have seen combat, and have at least an E-2′s appreciation of the realities.
“That or, as a nation, we’ve really bought into the notion that Social Services have far greater value than Defense. It’s sickening.”
As important as I believe defense is, you do understand that there’s an unprecedented recession going on, right? And that things like cancer and heart disease kill a whole heck of a lot of people?
There’s a reason civies do the oversight. The military gets so tunnel-visioned on what it needs it tends to forget what its job is, to protect those “Social Services” like schools and roads.
They’re just kicking the can down the road waiting for the JSF.
If we are going to keep this “doing more with less” thing going, pretty soon we’ll be doing everything with nothing.
Yeah, but think of how many cruise missiles they could buy for just one FA18 or FA18 upgrade. I mean, the cruise missile could do it all, not requiring expensive aviators and support, just a boat to send it on its way. Who need planes and pilots and carriers and support and spares when all they have to do is send a flight of cruise missiles out to do the job that a $50million dollar plane and a $1000 SDB could do. ( I guess I shouldn’t even facetiously mention such an idea….some idiot would take it seriously and it’d show up on next years budget. sheesh)
It does raise the question…when was an Aviator last CNO?
The SWOs don’t quite get things, it appears.
Jay Johnson — retired in 2000. Was head of Dominion Power, until this year when he joined GD as the Chairman’s heir apparent.
Probably has two nickels to rub together…
Sorry Scott. didn’t read your post before blundering in with mine. Boss.
Was it my “roomie” Jay Johnson? I can’t recall the last airdale CNO.
A couple of questions for you JoeC on your statement – “I mean, the cruise missile could do it all, not requiring expensive aviators and support, just a boat to send it on its way. ”
How does a cruise missile support troops in contact with 20MM strafing runs – or a low altitude show of force? Not to mention, when the cruise missile is 500 miles away and the troops need support 5 minutes ago?
Not to mention, the last Nave cruise missile shot was… well, not “effective”, so to speak.
I would give the shoes the opportunity to get some more Bronze Stars and Navy Comms with “V” for pushing a button, however…
And what happens when all your cruise missiles are gone? Not to mention, what does a cruise missile do when it meets an SU-30MKK?
Well….somebody got the “facetious” part….
In this day of “let the robots do it”, sending the remote control toys to bomb and strafe and gather intelligence, getting all those unreliables out of the way (you know…ahhh, pilots) is the noble goal. Just think how many cruise missiles one could build for the price of one ship, say, the Abraham Lincoln? The point being that some idjit’s gonna think that safely sending in a robot (ala-Clinton) will do the same thing as sending a live troop. And we see how much good THAT did, eh? So why build aircraft that require a real live person in the control loop. With all those satellites and radios and electronics and links and artificial intelligence who needs eyeballs onsite? And the minor fact that one EMP will trump your HAL-1000 is just a ‘minor’ issue.
Ah… sorry, missed it…
At least a SWO is leading the charge…
Not sure how the Army feels about getting the, “Once more into the breech dear friends, once more” speech from him yet again…
“Sir, have you ever been in the breech? Nice blue camies, though…”.
So why build aircraft that require a real live person in the control loop.
All the current UAVs have real live persons in the control loop, just not in the cockpit. They’re not robots, they’re remotely operated planes.
A CVN with a squadron of 8 carrierized MQ-9s (two 24/7 orbits) would be *the* most used and useful thing in Naval Air right now. I guarantee it. Scary but true.
I’m in, just text me at home and I’ll put down the beer when it gets to the target area! No need to have UAV operators on the boat, just more mouths to feed!
The question is, is this really CNO’s opinion, or the party line he’s required to spout?
That’s the ugly part of Goldwater-Nichols. It’s a great way to conceal the real requirements of each service in the formation of the Official DOD Budget.
Which, since it comes from the Commander in Chief and his lieutenant for DOD, the service chiefs have to publicly back.
It’s an ugly situation.
The really ugly part is that I get the horrible feeling that we’re watching a replay of A-12 with F-35. Naval Air sacrificed EVERYTHING to feed A-12. A-6F, Naval ATF, Common Support Aircraft, P-7…everything got cancelled to feed A-12. And then A-12 got cancelled, leaving the Fleet scrambling to crib something together to fill the decks.
Now, we’re watching F-22 being killed, F/A-18E/F numbers being cut back. The alternatives are being killed…all while F-35 is increasing in weight and cost. Ripe for cancellation around 2011.
I once considered writing a humor article for the USNI Proceedings, proposing the acquisition of a new, multi-service, combat-proven multi-role aircraft.
A reprocured Sopwith Camel.
It’s starting to sound less and less like a joke.
I don’t think they’ll cancel the F-35. What they’ll do is the same thing that happened with the F-22. The original offer was to buy 780. Now we’re stopping at 180(ish). We’ll probably end up with 150 JSFs to share between the forces.
And if what I heard only a few months ago doesn’t change, they’ll also have to repave the runways and aircraft carriers the planes fly out of, because they burn so hot. At gianormous expense…..
What a mess
Don’t forget all the “goodies” in the JSF are still “in development”… Yeah, we’ve heard that one before too…
The check is in the mail… what, you didn’t get it? Keep waiting…
I’m not so sure. The way I see this playing out, they’ll cancel the F-35 due to performance drops and cost escalation. Just after making certain that there are no other viable options.
After all, we need the money for the second (or maybe third, by that point) Government Motors bailout.
From my understanding the “there is no fighter gap” idea comes from short-sighted bean-counting of how many DMPIs current aircraft can accurately service.
With smart bombs, we’ve gone from multiple aircraft per DMPI to multiple DMPIs per aircraft.
This is effectively basing the strength requirements of our main expeditionary arm of high end conventional warfare on decades old requirements.
They also don’t take into account the other missions the strike fighters must now be tasked to perform in the post-Tomcat/KA-6/Viking world with no consideration of the decreased tactical range of the legacy Hornets.
We’re going to wind up letting a fighter gap drive us to an 8 carrier/8 air wing Navy and we’re going to wind up reverse justifying that in the QDR or in a someday-to-be-released strategy document. Because we lack a true strategy.
Meanwhile, we should probably be asking ourselves if it’s worth expending thousands of flight hours on the strike fighters we do have to fight in Afghanistan or if we should let/force the USAF do it.
“Blasphemy!” many will say. But we need to ask ourselves if pushing our noses into a mature land-locked joint fight for the sake of being “joint” is worth the future of the striking power of Naval Aviation, especially if the “crack”–the supplemental funding that’s been paying the gas bill on those long overland flights–dries up for good.
No one will say ‘Enough is Enough’. We’ll do more with less. Herbal hit the nail on the head. What would be the best use of USN assets? Land-based for OIF or OEF. Transit time, gone. Bring back, non-issue. Could the CVN remain? Sure, we can maintain maratime security and anti-piracy without a full deck of strike fighters. Will we? No. We need to prove the viability of the CVN.
Leadership needs to recognize the cracks developing. I could b!%th and moan about how tough we’ve had it as recent Fleet pilots, but realistically, we’ve had nothing near as harsh as the deployment schedules as the guys from the Vietnam era. Not close. The difference is: In that era, someone was willing to stand up and say “I need more to accomplish the mission you’re asking me to do.” What kills now are the flight time cuts while not deployed, the IA after a two or three cruise JO tour, the leadership stretching those Lot 1X airframes for just a few thousand more hours. It starts at the squadron level. It goes up. Eventually, its us, not the emperor, that’s wearing no clothes.
Solutions?:
(1) Lose the transit hours, admit that we’re ‘rapid response’, not ‘indefinite on-station 900 miles away from the in-theater airfield’.
(2) Get the USA guys to pony up for all the Boat-Os in 10 or 15 years. We’ll call that even.
These solutions have been brought up to the “talking heads”, however what is an Airwing Commander / Battle Group Commander to do without airplanes – akin to “How can I be an Admiral without my cap?”
One squadron in country can do more work than an entire airwing off the coast with the current transit times.
My worry, from a perspective outside of the Navy is that a key task of the air wings must be defense in depth of the carrier itself. If they are weakened, either through reduced numbers or obsolesce — a capitol ship with 5000 souls is placed at risk.
Edward/
See my previous long post about the Avenger and about about the Air Defense role–or demunition thereof, and tell me what you think.
Virgil,
I think this administration will savage the carrier force.
Given the irrational hatred on the left, I wouldn’t be surprised if the first to be scuttled is our newest — because of the name.
The A-12, ah, I’ve got one of those patches (and even a couple of stickers) from that debacle. Nifty patch too. While we are all defenders of the true faith, we must only look next door at the boys in blue to see the end state: unmanned aerial systems. With the USAF retiring 250 airframes early, pilots like a former Thunderbird now flying from a Barco-lounger, and flight crew flight time diminishing to save $$ we ain’t far behind. Stupid is right,if we take an honest look at OIF and OEF, why should a CVN be parked 900 hunnert miles south? With the CVN out of harm’s way, you then don’t have to worry about protecting it. Goodness, a CVN and its associated BG would pay for at least a squadron of LCS – mebbe. I don’t think the Taliban or Al Qaeda care one whit about where th nearest CVN is cruising, they do care about the robo-killer in the sky. And the grunt on the ground doesn’t care where the LGB comes from, as long as it arrives on time and location. With plans of the board for drones without aloft times of 3-5 days, it is just a matter of time until the bean counters cut TACAIR to the bone. In 10 years times, the Blues will (may?) be flying and number 7 will be preaching that “these are all manuvers that each fleet Naval Aviator USED to perform”.
Just as an aside, wonner when was the last time ole Gary was even on a CVN?
The impossible dream to get legacy Hornets refurbed to 10k hours.
Get more Supers while we can. Not perfect, but capable for many missions and seriously safe as can be expected around the boat.
The dear Admiral Roughead is either seriously deluded or poorly advised on the F-35 arriving any time soon. Good luck with that.
Another part of the problem is that Goldwater-Nichols stifles the Navy presenting its case.
The force structure from the mid-80s was intended to fight a land war from the territory of conveniently placed allies. This required a large land army, a large land-based tactical air force, and a medium-sized navy. One of the unintended consequences of Goldwater-Nichols was to instutionalize this force breakdown. When the Soviet Union went away, Iraq was substituted – but the force breakdown remained the same.
This era is coming to an end. We are entering a multi-axis world, in which stragegic mobility will play a far more critical role. The QDR SHOULD reflect this – and almost certainly won’t.
Because if you are looking for strategic flexibility, you have to come to the sea services. Not the Army or Air Force.
My solutions – reduce the Navy CBG’s to 9. Bag the DDG-1000, upgrade more Burkes for BMD, and develop a new BMD platform. Purchase more smaller surface combatants like the LCS and a follow on to the Perry class to content with green water threats. Buy more F-18Fs, and forget SLEPing the F-18C/D’s. Continue to develop the UCAV as the primary naval strike aircraft, and cancel the F-35C. Design a new twin engined long range naval fighter with a secondary strike mission. Leave CAS to the Marines with their F-35B’s, and let the Army operate A-10C’s and AT-6B’s in the CAS / COIN roles.
Okay, off subject, sort of, and an irrelevant question, but when did the forward slash between F and A as in F/A-18 go away? And why?
Easier to type FA-18 than F/A-18.
Think of all the manhours saved and / keys that don’t need to be replaced!
There is some savings!
Charley
Good thoughts, but I don’t think 9 wouldn’t allow today’s deployment tempo. Not sure the NCA would support gaps. And the 2nd of class LCS is pegged at $702 million!! How affordable is that for an expendable warfighter? The A-10 is 35 yr old technology, and is a tired airframe. More E/Fs? Right on.
There are so many issues on DoD’s plate right now, I don’t see any hope of a cohesive, well thought out strategic vision – or QDR – that best serves this country. Fractured, over budget, over-weight, under-performing procurement will continue. I couldn’t run my business like this and succeed. At NavSea years ago the Admiral used to have “case studies in excellence”. Right now those are few and far between, lamentably.
With all due respect-the “fighter gap” is the least of the service’s problems. Its got bigger issues with helocopters and other support aircraft. Don’t see a lot of fighter pilots banging that drum-but more than a few fighter pilot flags were involved in creating it. ( Thank you Mr. Nathman).
P-3′s have a gap. Helo’s are using up FLE a lot faster than they are supposed to-and “new” helo’s are getting cracks where they should not be. The Navy is not buying enough E-2D’s.
The fighter gap is a Navy created problem. When it should have been fixing support aircraft at the end of the 90′s, it kept kicking the can down the road so it could keep the Hornet buy up. ( How folks here heard flag officers give the “F-18E and F buy has to succeed” speech?).
Since we did not do what we should have-all the aircraft got older. So now there is still a support aircraft gap and a fighter gap-but only the F-18′s are getting talked about (Again!).
One could buy 240 Hornets tomorrow and it still won’t solve the real problem-Naval Aviation has no coherent procurement strategy that procures for the ENTIRE wing.
Every new aircraft the Navy is buying could have been set on a procurement path six years ago. Think where the service would be if it had.
Still have 300+ flag officers though.
This is quite true. The Navy has put off replacing the less sexy types. We’ve thrown capability after capability under the bus, …and now all the bills have come due.
Mike, I’m afraid that the bill has yet to come due. Our track record (actually one could pick most any leading country at any given point in time) is not so good on that score either, making the payment include a lot of interest.
Damn! I’m so glad to have lived in the stone age. Lots of flying, lots of forgiveness when you didn’t follow the rules. You were even allowed to fly VFR from Whidbey to NORIS. I remember when the air controllers threatened to strike, our greatest concern was that A/Cs didn’t know how to fly VFR. No worry about sexual comments in the RR either. Damn, sometimes I forget how lucky I was to be in the Navy during the period I happened to be in. We even have sailors who never get to Olongapo now. What a shame.
Would be interesting to see a reasoned breakdown of the effects of the loss of “rude, lewd, and crude” um, institutional-culture features: not the causes, so much as how the loss of that atmosphere has affected the Service and its effectiveness.
Regret that due to an accident I was unable to comply with orders to Thailand. 1971 it would have been.
Days have gone by for the Thailand of that time, and the person I was. Cannot step into the same river twice and all, but the SEA of that era is gone.
Thailand is still pretty hopping if you go to the right places. I was just there about 18 months ago-and there was still lots to do. Phuket is on the comeback trail, Bangkok is big and has plenty of “talent”.
Plus, from talking to folks who live there-you can still get a decent apartment for not so much money.
Sounds like some of that “talent” was Grasshopper’s undoing.
When I wondered if those Soi Cowboy honeys were worth dying for, I never knew it would be quite that immediate.
LOL.
Wisely, Skippy sees most of the iceburg directly ahead. However- “Too late sound the collision alarm. All hands brace for impact”. Gotta ask also- Is a Hornet in the hand worth 2 in the bush?
The irony in this is all the angst displayed above. Why haven’t y’all connected the dots years ago?
Slaps forehead, again, as I have since ’98. BTW, eYat, Jay Johnson, your old roomie F-8/14 pilot, set the “vision” based on 2000 pragmatism but even his risk-laden ideas were made ugly by the numerous follow-on actions of one man- “Pottie-John”, alias “Black”, Nathman. I’ve got the whole story. The subsequent Shoe CNOs were just “tools”.
Yep. I’m calling you out Black as the perp. What say you?
b2