House and Senate armed services committees have added hundreds of millions of dollars to sustain the production line of the USAF’s high tech F-22 Raptor, money that the Pentagon bureaucracy did not seek and against which SecDef Gates promises to fight since the air supremacy fighter adds little to the low tech struggle for hearts and minds in the Helmand province of Afghanistan.
While commonly acknowledge as a world-beater in terms of performance, not everyone is a fan of the aircraft. Most of those lining up in opposition to the “iron triangle” of defense interests, Pentagon air power advocates and congressional district holders oppose the F-22 on cost grounds, citing a unit cost of $350 million per airframe.
That number is derived by the overall $62 billion program cost divided by 187 production assets, a method which quite intentionally ignores sunken programmatic costs such as RDT&E, start-up and many elements of life cycle sustainment. Now that the production line is moving and the learning curve is in effect, additional increments could purchased for as little as $140 million per airframe, advocates say – even lower, depending upon quantities ordered. But once the line stops moving, the specialized jigs and tools used to create the aircraft are destroyed or re-purposed and the workers laid off or redeployed.
$140 million is not cheap by any standards, but neither is battlespace dominance in wartime: While we wrestle with ground-based adversaries in distances measured in hundreds or thousands of meters, our control of the skies above the battlefield and across the oceans leading to it – distances measuring many hundreds of even thousands of cubic miles – has not been seriously contested since Korea and World War II, respectively. (I do not count North Vietnam in this category, since no US ground forces fought for the ground around Hanoi: In a classic example of a symbiotic, self-licking ice cream cone, NVAF point defense fighters essentially defended airfields which US air forces attacked because they contained NVAF point-defense fighters.)
In the WaPo today, mission capability rates and cost per flight hour are trotted out as the newest line of defense against the increased combat capability represented by the Raptor:
Sensitive information about troubles with the nation’s foremost air-defense fighter is emerging in the midst of a fight between the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress over whether the program should be halted next year at 187 planes, far short of what the Air Force and the F-22′s contractors around the country had anticipated.
“It is a disgrace that you can fly a plane [an average of] only 1.7 hours before it gets a critical failure” that jeopardizes success of the aircraft’s mission, said a Defense Department critic of the plane who is not authorized to speak on the record. Other skeptics inside the Pentagon note that the planes, designed 30 years ago to combat a Cold War adversary, have cost an average of $350 million apiece and say they are not a priority in the age of small wars and terrorist threats.
But other defense officials — reflecting sharp divisions inside the Pentagon about the wisdom of ending one of the largest arms programs in U.S. history — emphasize the plane’s unsurpassed flying abilities, express renewed optimism that the troubles will abate and say the plane is worth the unexpected costs.
The use of “Cold War” to describe a weapons system is a term of art meant to convey “anachronistic” among those who style themselves experts in military affairs, the better to fight against the acquisition of military weapons systems. No fighter pilot much cares when the machine he was flying was designed, what he cares about is the capabilities it brings to the fight: See first, shoot first, dominate the battlespace. Give me a stealthy, solar-powered, supersonic P-47 with fast, long range missiles, guns and the sensors to employ them first and I’ll be quite the happy camper.
Of course, that’s a mighty tall order.
Long lead times for complex systems means that virtually any weapons system now in production was designed during the Cold War – this does not in itself speak authoritatively to operational relevancy in a post-Cold War environment. And while we may no longer be at daggers drawn with the Soviet Union, Mikhoyan-Gurevich, Sukhoi and Dassault continue to grind out modern fighter designs for export to countries whose interests do not precisely align with our own, while other large, industrial states have humming production lines for indigenous designs based on FSU “Cold War” fighters.
The reported FMC rates and production deficiencies are troubling, but all high tech aviation programs experience birthing pains; witness the ongoing drama attending to the roll out of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner (unit cost : $150-200 million for 858 firm orders) . But whenever media mavens – people who did not bat an eye when $787 billion dollars of “stimulus” went missing from your childrens’ paychecks and carved in stone on the national debit sheet – need a trusty source to provide informed criticism of expensive, high tech fighters, Pierre Sprey can be relied upon.
Sprey spent 20 years in DoD ending back in 1986, and was one of the lead advocates of such simple, lightweight designs as the F-16 and A-10 before pursuing his real passion: Music. His design preferences can be found here (links to a pdf document), and can be summarized as “more is better.” Sprey prefers flooding the battlespace with smaller, cheaper fighters, approvingly citing the success of US Air Force P-51s over Me-262s in the European Theater of Operations.
Quantity has a quality all its own, and there is an argument to be made for “more is better,” but most of those who cite Sprey’s expertise approvingly – noted military analyst Bill Moyers among them – do not typically tend to make those kinds of arguments. And at the high end of warfare, expeditionary forces can not be expected to deploy in the kind of numbers that allowed single-engine prop fighters to “bounce” twinjet Messerschmidt’s in the landing pattern. Missiles count too, much more now than in towards the late 80s, which is when Sprey’s lethality analysis trails off, and just as microprocessor technology really came into its own.
The F-16 and A-10 aircraft were and are wonderful weapons systems, but they have always operated under an umbrella of air supremacy provided by top end fighters like the F-15 Eagle. That airframe and its capabilities are now nearly 40 years old, bearing roughly the same relationship to fifth generation air combat as did the Brewster Buffalo to the F-15.
Tremendous maneuver advantages accrue to those that can sweep the air above a battlefield, and the F-22 does so better than any other design. One hundred and eighty seven is, however, too few to do so persistently in an away game.
Well, everybody that reads this blog regularly knows where my sentiments lie–and the fact that I believe that the debate on limiting the buy of the F-22–while needed in it’s own right in great numbers for all the reasons that I, and everyone of it’s supporters have always argued–is but a leading indicator of the larger problem: The Defense budget is way, way too small. We are currently spending barely more (in constant dollars) as a % of GDP than we did prior to Pearl Harbor. The problem is that we really need “both and” in almost every category of weapons systems while everyone is busily arguing over “either or.” At the rate we are going our capabilities and that of Canada will merge sometime sooner than people think–especially if we get 8 yrs of Obama. Laugh if you will and call such statements over-hyped hyperbole, but the trend-lines are clear. We are following the Europeans as they circle the bath-tub drain as their capabilities disappear before our very eyes. We’re right behind them hovering on the event-horizon just prior to starting the inevitable death-spiral that they are already deeply into.
But don’t worry, we’ve got lots of money for ACORN, so all will be well. We’ll just “organize” our way out of any future need for defending American vital interests.
vx, judging by testimony before the Senate, Vice CJCS, Gen. Cartright indicated that it came down to money.
The need for more F/A-18G electronic warfare aircraft played heavily in the decision to halt F-22 production at 187 jets, says U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.Cartwright told the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 9 that he was one of the “most vocal and ardent supporters” of ending the Raptor program at 187. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the decision, along with about 50 other program cuts, in early April.
Cartwright, appearing before the panel for a confirmation hearing as part of his nomination for a second stint as vice chairman, said the Joint Staff and Air Force had just concluded a study on sizing the F-22 fleet.
He said the study concluded it was more important to focus on fielding fighters for all three services “because of how we deploy.” It ultimately endorsed ending the F-22 program at 187 jets and fielding more F-35s and both models of the F-18 fighter
Cartwright said the latter jet’s Growler model, designed for electronic warfare tasks, became a key part of the decision to halt the F-22 program.
That’s because the military’s war fighting commanders, in conversations with Cartwright, all expressed a desire for more aerial EW capability. And right now, that means more Growlers.
Cartwright said Pentagon brass have three priorities for tactical aircraft: field fifth-generation fighters; “keep a hot production line”; and keep open the F-18 production line, largely to maintain the flow of new Growlers.
The latter is key, he told the panel, because a hot F-18 line means “we can also produce front-line fighters” – the F/A-18 E and F models – for traditional fighter aircraft missions. Defense News http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4179247&c=AME&s=AIR
Not that this has anything to do with the topic at hand, but I was blessed with the opportunity to linger amongst the bits and pieces of the F22 assembly line. To the right, P3 Orion wing revamping going on, to the left, C130Js coming
together. One of the most impressive spectacles I’ve ever witnessed. Towels were provided. CLEAN UP! AISLE 3!
They said it happened all the time.
Lex,
I have one problem with both the F-22 and the F-35, how do you maintain them in the event of a protracted war. I read a book a few years ago about the Flying Tigers, in it there was a story that I think applies here.
A few of the pilots had a Chineese boy who took care of the pilot’s rooms. One day they noticed that the boy was smiling. When they asked him why, he replied that it was a good day. The pilots asked what made it a good day? He said that the Chinese Army killed 10 Japanese soldiers. One of the pilots asked him how many Chinese were killed? He said 100.
A few days later the Chinese boy was smiling again. When asked why, he said that the Chinese Army had killed 100 Japanese. When asked how many Chinese were killed he said 1000.
A few more days go by and the Chinese boy is smiling again. When asked why, he replied that there were 1000 Japanese soldiers killed and that they lost 10,000 Chinese. Finally one of the pilots said “How can you keep smiling with all of the losses that the Chinese Army was taking?” The boy replied “Easy. Pretty soon there will be no more Japanese.
It will be the same with these aircraft. They are too expensive to build in the quantities that are needed. Each aircraft may be able to defeat 8 to 10 enemy aircraft, but it is inevitable that losses are bound to happen. If the losses don’t come from enemy aircraft there is still anti-aircraft, weather, mechanical failure and pilot error. This doesn’t even mention the number of aircraft in overhaul or major maintaince at any given time. Without the necessary airframes to provide for replacements, it is going to be One little, Two little, Three little Raptors…..
Jim Collins/
From a historical perspective you are certainly correct. Until Gulf I we had never fought a war that we didn’t win by sheer force of logistics–whether it be WWII or Grant’s “Anaconda” strategy in the Civil War. Supposedly the now official policy OODA Loop strategy and maneuver warfare upon which all our tng and organization is currently based is a way out of that box–but it’s yet to be proven on a large scale against an enemy with great resources of it’s own.
Your story reminds me of a similar one that took place in N. Africa and is related by one of LBJs security advisors Harry McPhereson who was a young 1st Lt at the battle of the Kasserine Pass. A dug-in German 88 was holding the entire tank column at bay as it was located under a cliff and couldn’t be attacked by air or arty. It had knocked out 47 tanks, but then suddenly in the late afternoon, the Germans waived the white flag and surrendered. When he asked the hard-bitten Captain battery commander why he had given up as they had them (the US) stopped cold, the Capt., who spoke English, replied: “Oh, it’s very simple, really; we ran out of anti-tank rounds before you ran out of tanks.” Pretty much a metaphor for the entire war, really…
VX, Jim Collin’s remark reminds me of a comment in one of Jim Webb’s books about the Vietnam war, I don’t recall the title, wherein he proffered the notion that “A well armed platoon of Marines cannot withstand a thousand screaming warriors with spears.”
Notwithstanding the great capabilities of the F-22/F-35 generations of Fighters, it seems to me that we still need to keep a substantial inventory of lower cost ‘spear-chucking warriors’. I see DoD making an either/or decision, rather than striving for a mixed inventory for a protracted/broader spectrum fight. I’ve said it before, after day one comes days two and three. Attrition in the fight wihout quantitative, versus qualitative, reserves is not a good place to be.
I’m somewhat puzzled by Gen. Cartrights’s statement that ending the -22 line will provide more money for -35′s & -18 variants, when the -35 is clearly a far more costly platform. Someone will have to clear up that one for me; muddy waters there.
Mongo, I would suggest the careful study of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift. Those Marines you mention might just suprise you.
Otherwise, of course, I agree with you totally.
– Max
On a somewhat related note….
While weapon systems capabilities were no doubt important during WW-II, it was the incredible numbers of aircraft, tanks, etc. and their rapid production and replacement that really turned the tide.
US Aircraft production: 1942, 48,000 aircraft; 1943, 86,000 aircraft; 1944, 114,000 aircraft produced!
United Kingdom: 1942, 23,000 aircraft; 1943, 35,000; 1944, 47,000 aircraft produced.
Soviet Union: 1940, 21,000; 1943, 37,000.
Germany: 1940, 10,000; 1941, 11,000; 1942, 15,000.
While Germany was producing around 5,000 to 6,000 tanks a year, the Brits were producing 6 – 8,000 tanks a year. And the Soviets, 19,000 tanks a year! US tank production jumped from17, 000 in 1942 to 29,000 tanks produced in 1944!
Allied machine gun production in 1943 was 1,110,000, compared to Germany’s 165,527.
Let there be no mistake, large numbers and rapid production do make a difference.
And it kind of makes a few hundred fighters with long lead times that are slow and expensive to produce – despite their extraordinary capabilities – seem a little paltry, doesn’t it?
(source: The Third Reich At War; Evans.)
With regard to US fighter aircraft production:
US production of the P-40 continued until the very end of 1944, despite a pretty solid consensus that it was not an adequate machine, while the P-51 and P-47 were brought into service and improved, and contracts for P-59s and P-80s were awarded.
As said above(#1), it isn’t whether quantity is better than quality, it is that to win without tremendous loss of life (see USSR) both are needed.
Hey, Jim! To answer you, there’s a vast difference between WW2 and the modern battlefield: speed. Look at Desert Storm: less than two months to prep the battlefield, less than 48 hours to gain air superiority. We NEED those Raptors, because if it ever drops in the pot, we’ll need them bad. Needing them later and not having them is just stupid.
when i was a kid, my mom used to shake a broom at this old grey tomcat that lingered in the neighborhood….no matter what she did, that ‘ole tomcat kept coming back, hissing and raising his back and stealing food from old Brutus’ dog food bowl on the back patio until we eventually took him in. i think its time someone gave (former)SecDef Chaaayyeeyneee a well deserved inside-the-beltway bitch slap for calling off the tomcat and ending its’ great era and bring that turkey back into the fold….can anyone imagine sensor fusion with variable-sweep wings…..just in time for thanksgiving, too. just my 2cents
I would agree. However, if Grumman had smartened up a bit and made air-to-ground capabilities a bit more native to the Tomcat, along with some other changes, we might still have the great beast among us. I hate saying this and will get excoriated for it, but Cheney was right to cancel the -14D. My two cents.
That said, I really miss the Tomcat.
One hundred and eighty seven is, however, too few to do so persistently in an away game.
What away games?
Current criticism of the Obama administrations defense plans misunderstand the intended relation of defense capability to strategic objectives. A nation would ordinarily determine objectives and then build capability to match or perhaps would build what capability it could afford and curtail objectives to what could be achieved.
A revolutionary administration would curtail capabilities so that whatever objectives may force themselves on later administrations, the capability not being at hand, the nation would endure a teaching moment (like Mr Carter gave us in Iran) or would be forced to accept the ‘natural’ limitations of post-colonial powers in the modern world.
In other words, the F22 must be killed by the current administration because if it were to succeed future administrations would not have to face a world where US adversaries could interrupt the US air and sea-lines of communication and contest the air space over US theatre logistics centers or battle lines.
The real problem as i see it (and that myopic viewpoint is from one who has never flown anything designed to shoot down another in aerial combat nor been elected to anything higher than student council) is that the current admin doesn’t really think that we will engage an enemy wherein we require state of the art to get/maintain air-air superiority, or at least for the next 4-8 years. China isn’t a threat because they need us worse than we need them, and hopefully we’re smarter than thinking we can operate close enough where we are genuinely worried about an air threat. Russia isn’t a threat – yet – but I’m sure their designs on the Arctic seabed make for some interesting wargames, Somali pirates? Taliban? Iran? Nope, nope, nope. Even over Iran air superiority can be gained with what’s in the stable now. So who is this Raptor really for? 1000 subcontractors in 47 states and who knows how many Congressional districts? The B-2 over Bosnia debacle showed that silver bullets don’t really have a place in some of these pop-out conflicts. Do we really want an F-22 patrolling over AkPak? what happens when the inevitable happens, that being “Master Caution, oh shi_, I’d better get out of this thing” and the technology goes down where others can dissect and exploit? Surely not the best reason NOT to use your technology, but why hand it to them? So I’m sure the intelligensia believe that we really do not need those hideously expensive “toys”. As I tell my technicians “being good enough is the enemy of being great”.
1.7 hrs, eh? Mean Time Between Critical Failure.
Highly likely reason- What we in the business call “infantile mortality” for a newly fielded system. The numbers will go nowheres but up. Ever buy a new model of car in the first model year. Same principle.
I’d suggest the WaPo ask about the Osprey. Real yuuuugly numbers.
Being a “Cold War-ish dino” myself I feel compelled to defend the Raptor. BTW, all you aviation geniuses should know that we have been defended since 9-11, quite abley I might add, by Cold War aviation machinery in every platform we use today with the exception of the drones…. Lex’s point that total Air Supremacy (not superiority) we have taken for granted for years doesn’t come cheap is the immutable truth…
You are never gonna find an infantry officer/Shoe grown up into a General/Admiral defend aviation budgets. Despite having seen the effect, they seem oblivious to the challenges of fielding such capability. Just how important is airpower besides the obvious effect of unimpeded movement by interdiction on the ground in the battlepace? Ask yourselves this- over the past 7 years of war how many firefight that we have read about on these pages here at Lex’s house and all other places always end dramatically when the full force of airpower is brought to the fight. It seems to me that airpower is simply taken for granted up & down the chain. They almost think we are too efficient..
Well, I’ll tell ya, you can never be too efficient when it comes to airpower.
b2
Except: New Rules for Airstrikes: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/07/marines-wrestle-with-afghanistans-new-airstrike-rules/
It seems your statement “always end dramatically when the full force of airpower is brought to the fight” may not be in vogue any longer. Thank You very much BHO!!
Me thinks having the most expensive Fighter Aircraft known to mankind NOT deployed to the AF to gain some actual Combat Experience (better to blunt naysayers) may not be important after all, seeings how you can’t simply call them in anymore. I am guessing you have to get “The Ones” approval and then only after you have filed the Environmental Impact Statement. Like the Marines in the trenches have enough to do with dodging bullets they have to count the animal species which may be displaced by their actions, oh and read them their Miranda Rights too!!
BT: Jimmy T sends.
Jimmy T./
Appropos of it all I was just watching some recent night Apache gun film on You Tube and the time it took to get clearance to shoot obvious bad-guys carrying wpns and rapidly on the move when there wasn’t a living soul within 200 meters was painful to watch/listen to. And they *almost* (almost being the key operative term, heh) got away, too. How ANYBODY can watch that stuff on You Tube and still say we’re trigger happy or operate with anything less than total professionalism is beyond belief. Me? I’m sittin’ here watching them mince around waiting to get triple clearances while shouting in my mind “hose the f****rs!” I’m so frustrated by what I see….
(And, having put in some time as a FAC, I understand the need for clearances–I’m no trigger happy high schooler–but some of what I’ve been seeing over there borders on near insanity–and this stuff was shot pre the latest restrictions.)
VX, I have a Son who is a Corporal in the 1/5 Marines in the Narwa section of Helmand Province right now, and seeing that video and knowing that every second counts, every second is another bad guy that gets away is to me unconscionable that the senior leadership has allowed the ROE to creep so much that the Marines can’t shoot first to save their own lives. Un-f***ing-believable!! My son says that they chased several bad guys into a house and the new rules are that they cannot fire into the place without knowing first determining if any civilians were inside!! They had to sit there for several hours and take fire and not return fire because no one knew who else was inside. They had to wait them out and then they slipped away. Fortunately, the only casualties were heat stroke from waiting!!
This is the “Change” we get!!!
BT: Jimmy T sends.
Byron,
I’m not saying that we don’t need the F-22 and F-35. I’m saying that if we are not going to purchase the numbers of these planes needed to sustain our forces then the both programs are a total waste of funds that might have been spent elsewhere.
“…the current admin doesn’t really think that we will engage an enemy wherein we require state of the art to get/maintain air-air superiority, or at least for the next 4-8 years.” You are probably right that this is the thinking. The problem is that stopping the line means that we are counting on not needing state of the art for 15-20 years, and if you’re wrong lots of American’s die and/or National strategic objectives are not met.
I’m an enthusiastic supporter of the F22 and I believe that one cannot spend too much money on aircraft! With the right airplane one doesn’t need anything else to win the war! OK, you also need a tiny handful of trillion dollar submarines but then you’re Golden!
There! I’ve been bursting to say that for decades.
Curtis,
If all it takes is fancy high performance aircraft and a few subs to win a war, how come our Soldiers and Marines are still being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Any idea how much ground a jet fighter or a submarine can hold and secure?
Uncle Mike, Curtis is a
blackshoeprofessional surface warfare officer. He enjoys needling the aviation set. I believe that he was being ironical, and that you two are on the same side. Mostly.Moi, ironical?
Shall we let your readers guess what kind of aircraft was the last one to drop a 500 pound bomb on a USN cruiser while they were just cruising around enjoying all that air superiority thingy?
Lex,
Sincere thanks for the clarification.
Every so often I like to demonstrate my shortcomings as a strategic thinker, and this was perhaps one of those times. Ironical is a good hobby, and needling anyone who goes to work in the air or on/under the water is to be encouraged. Egos must be kept in check.
This is not to say I don’t appreciate what said types do.
Curtis — I presume that you and/or your predecessors were the ones who tossed shells the size of Volkswagens over our heads as my troops and I wandered up and down the Hai Van Pass. The first one was always a surprise and made us duck as it sailed over. Then we watched for the flash off the coast and counted the seconds until we heard the sound and the rush of the round going over our heads. We were always glad not to be on the receiving end and (sort of) felt sorry for the VC who were. So, thanks for aiming well.
VX (below) — I think the answer to the young man’s question is probably “never.” And, on a separate issue, you nailed it with your comments (7.1.1) on our distinct lack of ‘trigger-happiness’ and our genuine professionalism at the operational level.
Bottom line is that it comes down to all of us remembering that Jimmy T’s son (7.1.1.1, above) is at the pointy part of the spear where things get real up close and personal as he mops up after the Navy and Air Force have won the war.
Uncle Mike,
I have enjoyed our host’s network hospitality for ages now and thought I’d give his branch a plug. I suspect that he thinks that SWOs get special training on keeping aviators humble. We can’t do it. Nobody can do it but we owe it to ourselves to try.
I can’t help but notice that my little gravatar no longer shows up here. It’s the sign of the absence of adult leadership and deserves to be present when I make remarks!
I promise, I was not shooting at you at or around Hai Van. My father graduated USMA in ’57 and was in the Field Artillery for decades. His Battery mostly supported the 101st in the Central Highlands in ’68. Back when I was an officer candidate, before becoming a midshipman, my Staff Sgt and a couple of the Gunnys used to tell us (we were a captive audience at the time) about getting navy fire support and how much they preferred the little guns to the Volkswagon shooters. They claimed that the VWs were shot at such shallow trajectories that they sometimes ‘skipped’ after initial impact. I can see how that might bother those in close proximity to the aim point.
I didn’t join the navy until 1983 and didn’t get into Fire Control until 1986. I never heard of anybody who claimed that a 5″/54 round skipped but then I liked to shoot CVT rounds.
For the record, my father’s father graduated USMA in 1932, fought with 12th Army Group and served in the Army for 30 years before retiring. His brother-in-law was a career Marine aviator who flew with the Black Sheep in WWII and I’m kinda wondering if I met VX at Utapao back in 1994/95.
Curtis,
When it comes to keeping aviators humble, simply making the effort earns a gold star for the day.
As for the VWs that were sent over our heads, they landed so far away that we had no idea what or where they hit and always presumed that it was bad guys.
By late ’68, the 101st Abn Div had moved up west of Hue to Camp Eagle near the combat base where we were. Being airborne, their fire power was generally limited to 81mm and 4.2″ mortars and towed 105mm howitzers. The big guns out in the A Shau on the firebases we built for the non-divisional artillery batteries to support the 101st were 8″ and 175mm, and it was an odd feeling to be at a firebase at night, see the flash of a round leaving several miles away, wait a short time, and then hear/see it detonate on your perimeter. The arty guys on our base were doing the same thing for them depending on activity outside our respective wires.
U-Tapao. Now there’s a name from the past that most Americans have never heard. Spent some time there in the late ’60s and early ’70s watching B-52s and KC-135s do their thing. Having felt B-52s carpet bombing (from a distance) earlier, I was always glad they were on our side and making life miserable for the VC and NVA.
Enough with the trip down memory lane.
By the way, with such a sterling Army background reaching back at least two generations, how did you go so wrong? Surely it wasn’t just to attempt to keep folks like Lex in line.
Uncle Mike/
Yeah, as Lex said, Curtis is one of the good guys–as are you, from what I can tell. Your last sentence does remind me, however, of something one of the sharpest enlisted troops I ever knew once said. He was the youngest CMSGT in the Air Force at that time@ age31 (sort of like making Flag rank at that age) A big, tall, lanky Texan from Denton, he had worked directly for the American Ambassador in Vientiane (who actually ran the air war in Laos out of the US Embassy.) and had married the daughter of the Australian Secretary of the Army–a neat couple they made. He and I had hit it off and I got to know him fairly well. At any rate one day when stationed in the UK in the 70s I was over at Intel and he said to me, appropos of the war in Vietnam which was still going on: “Capt., when is the Air Force ever gonna learn that you can’t ‘occupy’ a piece of ground with a bomb!” LOL., truer words were never spoken….
Uncle Mike, Curtis/
Re: Comments today re: 10 JUL “Stuck in the Past” topic, let me say: 1) Sorry, Curtis, I was out of the service by then, and was TAC anyway, so probably would have never made it there anyway. I’m well into my geezer-hood now–just made 65 this May. 2.) I well remember the comforting muffled steady “boom-boom-boom” sound of H & I fire from the Navy off-shore all-night when at DaNang that I went to sleep to. (now whether ya’ll killed anything but monkeys…
) I got to know the I-Corps NGLO pretty good via drinking bouts–big Boston Irishman Commander, old-school Navy all the way. He put in he last fire msn in US Naval history when all three of the Navy’s only surviving rocket LST’s were fired at once together for the last time off of Hue before they were sent home to be decommissioned.
BTW, if it wasn’t for all the aiming sticks you cheaten’ squids had stuck in the gnd up and down the coast for your naval gunfire youse guys couldn’t hit for sour apples and/or beans!
Ha! Sticks are good!
I was doing site surveys with a half dozen others for the first post Korea Freedom Banner in Thailand where it would have supported Cobra Gold. It turned into a naked theft of navy/marine allocated lift to support the exercise and there was something like a come to Jesus moment in Songhkla near the end of the month. During the course of it though we were warmly welcomed by the retired USAF guy supporting Thai forces at Utapao. He saw my name on my khamis and asked if I was any relation to the Army guy that was an instructor the Navy War College back in ’75. When I said yes, we talked a bit longer.
Col Hackworth had some nice things to say about my old man in one of his books as did S.L.A.M. Marshall in one of his. Naturally, my dad never talked about it until about 5 years ago when we started sharing sea stories.
The F-22 being as far separated from the Eagle, as the Eagle was from the Buffalo is surely food for thought. I had not thought of it quite that way, but it’s true, isn’t it?
Would the purchase of say, 1200 F-22s, and clouds of fully updated F-16s and F/A-18s work for a High/Low mix. Then have Grumman Divison of NorthrupGrumman get to work on a new USN air superiority fighter. Grumman knows NavAir, and Navy fighters, they should be able to produce a plane so well respected that it would be known not as the Tomcat II, but the Thomascat. But then, Grumman made the Jaguar, too, didn’t they?
We need those planes. However, if there are problems with the F-22, they need to remedied immediately to counter Communist China’s fighters. Additionally we should make the people who chose to select the F-22 as the next gen fighter apologize/pay to America for not selecting the YF-23 as the true winner due to their own selfish politics. Had the YF-23 won the competition we would have had all the planes already (maybe less when taking into account the Clinton administration’s policies with other programs, i.e. B-2 and others) by 1997/1998.
One problem I have with Gates is his foolish mindset to focus solely on the “here and now” at the expense of possible/likely future scenarios where planes like the F-22 and F-35 were/are designed to dominate. Again, i.e. war with Communist China and Korea involving Iran and Russia over the Republic of China: Taiwan, Republican Korea, Japan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. I see it coming, but I pray that I will be wrong.
Captain and fellow commentators, your critique/analysis (if possible)?
Yup. Gates has a serious case of this-war-itis. And we’ll be paying for it for a long time.
The ugly part is that the logical solution is to cancel the F-35. That program was always a cost-driven design…and now that the price has escalated, it is no longer the most cost-effective option. Then give the AF a mix of F-22s and late-model F-16s. The Navy gets some more F/A-18Fs, plus acceleration of F/A-XX.
As for Mr. Sprey, he neglects manpower and development costs. The capital expense of developing a new system is now a very high percentage of total program cost. And more planes means more pilots, more maintainers, etc.
A better question might be to ask about a network-centric approach to sensors. More than 50% of the price of an F-22 or F-35 is avionics. With modern links and weapons, there is a strong argument for putting the sensors on a dedicated sensor platform(s)…saving considerable funds.
Placing those sensors on a dedicated platform also gives the enemy a single target that renders the rest of the fleet impotent once destroyed. I believe we are more leaning towards the defense-in-depth model, as well as ensuring no capability is vested only in one ship of the task force.
Which, the fewer ships you have the more each one becomes irreplacable.
Which isn’t a good thing.
– Max
No, we’re moving more toward the concentrated model in airborne systems. E-2s, E-3s, E-8s, BAMS, etc.
And if you want to try to shoot down an E-2, all you will achieve is to make some Hornet drivers Very, Very Happy.
I’ve always been a little curious about our need to war against China or North Korea or even the USSR. How’d that whole Stalingrad thing work for Germany? How’d that whole Moscow trip work out for France?
Now that we’re a socialist republic what possible reason could we have to wage war on North Korea? It’s not like they could attack us, interfere with our overseas trade, interdict our SLOCs, attack our friends and neighbors, etc. Anybody who follows the news at all knows that most South Koreans think the US is the bad guy.
Seriously, you paid over $62 billion for an air superiority fighter to fight against what exactly? You’ve achieved air dominance over China; where are you hiding your 12 million man army? How are you going to finish the game?
It used to be so easy when one could just incinerate one’s enemies to popular acclaim. Nowadays we can’t drip water up their noses without universal condemnation. Over the last 27 years I’ve come to notice that most of the other countries on this planet aren’t worth much. With one or two exceptions, none of them are worth fighting for. Most of them are chuckling and rubbing their hands with glee as they watch the ONE gut our expeditionary capabilities. It’s the beginning of another cycle. We’ve done this before.
What about all those plastic winged Intruders in the desert. They could still work after a zero time overhaul. Thye have the range and capability to carry a substantial ordnance load and put it on the Bullseye.
American Power tracked-back with, “Unmanned Fighter Aircraft: A Reader Responds to Robert Farley”.