All het up about the PLAAF’s J-20 5th generation fighter, are you?
Stuff and nonsense says David Axe, writing in the pages of the Diplomat – it’s all about the UAVs:
China is some distance behind the United States and other countries in bringing unmanned aircraft into military service. Why? ‘One possible obstacle is probably the engine enabling UAVs to stay in the air for long enough,’ Ding suggests. Propulsion has long vexed the PLAAF. To date, the Chinese aerospace industry hasn’t been able to produce its own high-performance engines. Most Chinese fighters, likely including the J-20, are powered by imported Russian AL-31F motors. For drone propulsion, Beijing is potentially using imported technology. If its UAV engines are indigenous, they probably come with serious limitations in performance and reliability.
‘Another obstacle probably is real-time, on-time delivery of precision photo imagery,’ Ding adds. There’s something in this, too. Beaming data from an airborne robot to other aircraft or stations on the ground requires a secure, reliable, high-bandwidth data-link, the design and maintenance of which challenges even the US military.
The command-and-control signals for UAVs operate on similar principles. If China is having problems receiving imagery from its drones, it’s probably having trouble controlling them, as well. The problem is compounded over long distances, as over-the-horizon UAV operations typically rely on space-based signal relays requiring extensive satellite infrastructure.
For this and other military uses, the Pentagon maintains hundreds of satellites. The PLA, by contrast, possesses just a dozen or so strictly-military spacecraft and several dozen others with mixed civilian and military applications. And while China has recently matched the United States in terms of the sheer number of space launches, its satellites are shorter-lived, so it would need to greatly exceed the US launch rate in order to cut the gap between Chinese and US space infrastructure. The space gap translates into an enduring UAV gap.
Far be it from me to diminish the contributory value of the unmanned aerial vehicle into the multi-dimensional battlespace. Persistent ISR and survivable precision strike in fiercely defended airspace are joyous things to have a monopoly on. And yet there is a tendency among military analysts and enthusiasts to focus on a Next New Thing, an innovation that renders all things that went before it obsolete.
The best example of this phenomenon was the strategic debate that followed the end of World War II, with the Air Force arguing that nuclear weapons would be the sole decisive element to winning any new war. In a statement that helped to ignite the so-called “Revolt of the Admirals,” then SecDef Louis Johnson said:
“There’s no reason for having a Navy and Marine Corps. General Bradley tells me that amphibious operations are a thing of the past. We’ll never have any more amphibious operations. That does away with the Marine Corps. And the Air Force can do anything the Navy can do nowadays, so that does away with the Navy.”
Sixty years of post-war history renders Secretary Johnson’s judgment a little ill-conceived, but it’s important to point out that in the context of annihilative total war such as the country had just experienced, it represented a studied opinion at the time.
This is not an exact analogue, of course: Part of the Navy’s objection to the Air Force’s strategic doctrine was that up-front nuking of enemy populations during a brushfire campaign was, well: Immoral. Still, in every generation are to be found those who have finally – at last! – discovered the way to defend the nation on the cheap, rendering infantry divisions and carrier strike groups a thing of the past. See also, Billy Mitchell. And yet every military generation continues to rediscover the advantages of boots on the ground and open sea lines of communication.
But it’s also axiomatic that for every capability a wise adversary devises a counter-capability, and the very advantage that Axe cites in his UAV triumphalism – the dominance of US satellites – can be turned into a disadvantage by an enemy with a determined ASAT capability.
So, with apologies to Mr. Axe, I’d like to see us continue to develop capabilities across the spectrum of battle rather than place all of our eggs in the UAV basket.
Agreed on this issue…UAVs are good but we can’t use a “one size fits all” approach. In AFGHN, they work but over the Pacific, we would really need one that has long range capability….
The issues we face require innovative responses that are responsive to the need….” SEMPER GUMBY ” (Alwys Flexible)
Tech side of the coin changes about every 18 months so we shouldn’t weld ourselves to any one platform that will not be scalable as future needs become apparent…
“In AFGHN, they work but over the Pacific, we would really need one that has long range capability….”
Global Hawk
Performance
* Maximum speed: 497.1 mph (800.0 km/h; 432.0 kn)
* Cruise speed: 404 mph (351 kn; 650 km/h)
* Range: 15,525 mi (13,491 nmi; 24,985 km)
* Endurance: 36 hours
From the linked article, “Although RIMPAC operations were in the vicinity of Hawaii, the aircraft was operated from Edwards, requiring flights of approximately 2,500 miles (4,000 km) each way to the operations area.”
and
“On April 24, 2001 a Global Hawk flew non-stop from Edwards in the US to RAAF Base Edinburgh in Australia, making history by being the first pilotless aircraft to cross the Pacific Ocean. The flight took 22 hours, and set a world record for absolute distance flown by a UAV, 13,219.86 kilometers (8,214.44 mi).”
More to the point, the Air Force is getting set up to operate from Guam. If they aren’t there already.
And BAMS will be deploying in the Pacific fairly early.
I stand corrected….I’m a Seabee, not a aviation expert ….glad to see that we have greater capability.
First the F-111 was going to be the “do it all” “jack of all trades” latest new “hi tech” thingee, recently we’ve put all our eggs in the F-35 basket–whoops–we’re now getting ready to jerk them out and dump them in the UAV one. Talk about a learning curve!
Alas, the slope of that learning is zero. There is very little critical thinking in view there.
The problem with achieving a unbeatable advantage in any one type of warfare, it that from that point forward no one chooses to fight that kind of war.
Case in point is Lex’s example of “annihilative total war;” once it was clear that such a contest was either immediately fatal to the underdog aggressor, or mutually fatal to the only two combatants that could actually mutually engage in it, the potential for it became a deterrent, but only to a point.
First, aggressors don’t do it because they would obviously lose. Then, defenders refuse to go there because they find the collateral cost intolerable. Thus rendering the capacity an almost totally static niche deterrent.
So there have been no cases of outright annihilative total war on the planet since WWII. Least not among world-scale powers.
Sure has been a lot of warfare, though.
And I still see a lot of infantry doing what infantry has done since day 1.
My biggest issue with what’s quoted above is how frequently the word “probably” pops up.
I hope we have a better idea than what the Chinese are probably doing with UAVs. Because while they may not be the end-all and be-all of the future, they most certainly will be key.
My guess is, the Chinese will invest seriously in UAVs – once they have the performance capabilities of manned fighters. In the meantime, it’s not exactly as if manpower is expensive over there.
Manpower is cheap, but trained manpower anywhere is not. Time is the choke point, even for the Red Chinese.
UAVs as they currently exist are mostly observation platforms to increase the effectiveness of ground forces. China has very substantial reserves of trained ground forces with which to make up the difference. Like Ray says until UAVs are air combat capable they aren’t worth nearly as much to the Chinese.
UAVs can extend the reach of of any force, even if it’s just for observation. The Chinks, as a result, have been developing the things. They aren’t nearly as far along as we are. We’ve got the things down to platoon level in some cases.
Actually, Lex, what I compare the current UAV fad to is the missile mania of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Fighters armed only with missiles, missiles replacing bombers, missiles replacing tank guns…until people found out the limitations. Embarassing for the United States – and it killed the UK’s aircraft industry.
I’ve worked with unmanned aircraft for over a decade, and the overselling of what is a valuable but niche technology is depressing. I’d far rather undersell, then deliver more than I promised.
I meant to pick up on your point but never got back, MikeM. But for the record it wasn’t only air ops. Remember the “Pentomic Army?” It was CONGRESS that went Ga-Ga over atomic wpns. The Army couldn’t get appropriations for beans, bullets, beds, belts, blankets, housing, tanks, arty–you name it unless it had the word “atomic” and/or “missile” attached to it. Hence we got things like the shoulder-fired “Davy Crockett” atomic bazooka that put the decision to initiate nuclear war in the hands of corporals & sgts, and the jeep-mounted Lacrosse missile which put the decision in the hands of Lts. Once the mania starts and seeps into the collective mentality, inevitably budgets and weapons procurement–which drives organization and tactics–are warped all out of recognition, resulting in not only an unbalanced force structure but very possibly one totally inadequate to the task.
***Should have substituted “barracks” for “housing” just to keep the alliteration going..
Having read the article, I can say with some small degree of confidence that David Axe either incompetent, or an over-enthusiastic fan-boy for high-tech.
For example, in his article’s second section (“Drone Debut”), second graf, he says
According to the Wiki article JR Peck linked, the Global Hawk is similar in capabilities to the venerable U-2, and can “can survey as much as 40,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) of terrain a day.” Now the total number of RQ-4s to be allocated to Guam is three, so we’re taking 120,000 square miles/day. Sounds good, except that 40k square miles is a 200×200-mile grid. So three of them gets you three 200×200-mile grids. In the middle of the Pacific. Which is nearly half the surface area of the planet. Further along Mr. Axe says
Um, yeah.
According to Wiki, the Pacific Ocean covers 63.8 million square miles. ‘Nuff said.
Not too far after that, Axe suggests that “electronic attack emitters” on drones will be able to “insert” computer virii into various networks. Someone’s been watching Independence Day too often, I think. I’ll also note here that Axe drools over the number of “missiles & bombs” the drone fleet can carry, while missing the fact that the RQ-4 doesn’t carry any ordnance. He also (apparently) doesn’t seem to grasp that drones are useful mainly for gathering intelligence, and that the Reaper is a specialized design customized for battlefield scout/attack operations. There are also a large number of small to very small models (some hand-launched) used at the battalion level; point being that most of them are unarmed scout aircraft.
I would suggest that if Mr. Axe were serious about Pacific surveillance & observation, he should develop more coverage about the aerostats & dirigibles developed by the Dod the last decade or so. He also seems to be ignoring the development of the X-37 space vehicle.
@Casey:
David Axe here. You have treated me very unfairly.
First, I have written extensively about the X-37B:
http://the-diplomat.com/2010/07/29/us-starting-asia-space-race/
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/11/secret-spaceplane-eludes-observers-spooks-governments/
http://www.warisboring.com/2011/01/31/is-china-building-a-space-plane-to-rival-americas/
As for being “incompetent” … no, I’m simply a specialist in defense issues writing for an international general audience, which requires a measure of accessibility — something you apparently mistake for stupidity. You might doubt that I’m a defense specialist, but I would argue that the (combined) 20 months I’ve spent since 2005 reporting from war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, East Timor, Lebanon, Chad, Somalia and Congo lend me some credibility and perspective on modern conflict.
“Over-enthusiastic fanboy for high tech.” Wrong again. See here: http://aviationweek.typepad.com/ares/2007/06/top_war_tech_1_.html
Please remember, when you comment on an Internet forum, that the object of your criticism is just a mouse-click away.
David, with regards to your last article you linked regarding high-tech, while it’s true that we do tend to focus on technology and material for our forces rather than training them in languages, customs, and the like to make them smarter than the people shooting at them, I’d submit that the time for that smarter war of ideas was before the shooting started. It’s the realm of the State Department and diplomats and such to disarm the bad guys of their ideas.
Once that fails and we insert soldiers, it’s pretty certain we’re not going to have an exchange of ideas over tea and they’ll walk away with a change of heart. You might as well place an Athiest, a Christian, and a Muslim at a table and ask them to decide who’s right — if avoiding war were that easy we’d never have them.
That isn’t to say that our forces shouldn’t have a knowledge of the local customs and some rudiments of the language prior to deploying, but to expect more is to take away from his primary mission of being a soldier and mastering his weapons and supporting abilities.
Regarding the size of the Pacific that Casey notes, he’s not at all wrong. As you know there are storms that hide observation, not to mention plenty of area to go unnoticed in. The Japanese task force that attacked Pearl Harbor was able to steam undetected to within a few hundred miles, and likewise prior to the Battle of Midway the Japanese attack force was known to be Out There and yet was still undetected until they were within a few hundred miles range. The aircraft of that era with eyes on board are not significantly different than the UAVs of today, and by that I mean though we’ve nifty electronic sensors and infrared capabilities we’re still limited by time and distance to covering a fairly small area of a vast ocean.
It may be possible to use satellite-based observation to pick out items of interest and then task the UAV’s to those areas, which may mitigate against the vast expanse that is the Pacific. I don’t think that will help much when the enemy wishes to remain unobserved and sails under cover of cloud or the ocean surface.
As recon birds they’re quite satisfactory, but they’re not overcoming the magnitude of time and distance that is securing the Pacific. And the physics of keeping them in the air long enough to be useful recon assets prevents them from carrying enough ordinance to be attack assets. As with all things, they have their uses but are not universal in their utility.
– Max