Weapons No One Can Afford ( DD(X)cancelled // F-35 facing dire straits)

StrategyPage ^ | May 14, 2006

[spetznaz]

May 14, 2006: News that the US Navy's new destroyer/cruiser replacement – DD(X) – has been axed comes as a major blow to the Navy and to the US military in general. DD(X) has been described as the Navy's "must have ship," to replace both the Burke-class guided missile destroyers and the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers that have been the Navy's mainstays for the past 25 years.

DD(X) is not the only weapons program in trouble. Recently, the United States Government Accountability Office released a report that slammed the DOD's plan to build and field the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) entitled, "DOD Plans to Enter JSF Production before Testing Demonstrates Acceptable Performance. " This March, 2006 report notes that the F-35 is planned to account for nearly 90 percent of all spending on US tactical aircraft in the foreseeable future and that since the Joint Strike Fighter program began in 1996, Congress has appropriated nearly $25 billion for its development and will spend $257 billion to develop and procure about 2,443 aircraft and related support equipment by 2027. An additional $347 billion is to be spent to operate and support these aircraft once they have been fielded. However, according to the GAO, the F-35 technology has not yet been proven to work.

Costs for DD(X) have reached low earth orbit with price estimates climbing past $7 billion per ship, versus the original $700 million per ship estimate from the late 1990s. Thus, on April 27, 2006, Congress abruptly voted unanimously to change the DD(X) program to that of a two ship "technology demonstrator " Thirty ships had been planned, later dropped to twelve. Now this. The proposed 2007 total defense budget submitted by the president is $439.3 billion. In another sign that Congress is becoming increasingly concerned about the cost of new systems in a time of non-traditional warfare, at the same time it cut DD(X) it added $3.2B for two additional Littoral Combat Ships and one more Virginia-class nuclear attack sub. It also mandated a minimum submarine force of 48 boats, up from the estimate of just 40 made by the Navy if funding cuts continued through 2028. The Navy currently has 54 combat subs.

DD(X) has been problematic from inception. Having gone through numerous iterations and name changes, it has apparently proven simply too hairy a new design at a time when blue water naval gunfire has suddenly found itself with little at which to shoot. DD(X)'s main selling point was the promise of precision gunfire support as much as 110 miles inland and within yards of the target in support of ground forces. However, DD(X) would have required a lot of technology not yet developed, including a new 5-inch naval rifle that could deliver such performance, a revolutionary main turbine-electric power plant, and a modular tactical systems configuration. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now expected to have cost as much as $200 billion by the end of the fiscal year, a new deep water surface combatant at $7 billion a copy and a new tactical fighter airplane like the F-35 with remaining major performance problems have become insupportable. That the Air Force has managed to get the F-22 into production in significant numbers is probably more a testament to its political expertise than to its ability to show how it would be used to defeat the Taliban Air Force.

The sudden demise of DD(X) suggests that other new programs may be in jeopardy. The Navy's plan to replace its remaining 200 or so P-3Cs with the 108 P-8As beginning in 2012-2013 is dependent upon affordability. The P-8A is to be a highly-modified Boeing 737-700ER, an aircraft significantly larger and heavier than the P-3 and the subject of mixed reviews by the squadron-level personnel that will have to fly it. While the P-3C has been discovered to be a great high-endurance, on-scene ISR aircraft over Iraq, providing commanders with real-time imagery, its former primary duty of anti-submarine warfare has been allowed to atrophy under current tasking requirements. Like mine-hunting, ASW has long been a poor stepchild to the Navy's main emphasis on carrier aviation, ships, and submarines – all of which have been almost completely overshadowed by ground combat since 2001. The Navy maintains that the P-8A is budgeted for $44B through its domestic production run, which is to provide 108 aircraft to replace its 200 or so P-3Cs (the P-8 is now budgeted for $6.28 billion through 2011, by which time several developmental aircraft will have been built and tested). The big drop in maritime patrol aircraft numbers is to be augmented by 50 unmanned aircraft under the Broad Area Maritime Support (BAMS) program. The initial development portion of the P-8 cost the Navy $3.9 billion. Eighteen months ago the fly-away cost of each MMA was estimated at $126 million per aircraft and $190 million per aircraft if all expenses were amortized over the fleet. Today, a more accurate estimate is likely to be $163 million per aircraft, or $247 million each including amortization. Based on the 2007 P-8 budget, this means a drop in aircraft from 108 to 89, or a decrease of about 18%. A more accurate forecast may be a total of 50 P-8s, divided between four active squadrons at NAS Whidbey Island and NAS Jacksonville, plus the Fleet Replacement Squadron at JAX. There may be additional P-8s built to replace the EP-3E since the Navy has recently dropped out of the joint Navy-Army ACS SIGINT replacement aircraft program that was to have used a modified Embraer 145. The BAMS concept is in constant flux. Last year the Navy stated that it would be a to-be-defined dedicated UAV. Recently, it suggested that Global Hawk – a UAV used extensively by the Air Force – may be chosen instead. Whether BAMS will, as originally conceived, be controlled from aboard an in-flight P-8 remains undetermined.

[Little Ray]

Don't think you can make 10,000 UAVs for half a billion, much less nuclear ones. And folks would get VERRRRRY curious when you tried to make 10,000 compact nuke warheads...

Besides, there has been an answer to massed aircraft attacks for decades - nuclear SAMs. And even if the nuke doesn't get all of 'em, the EMP will do wonders for their control systems.

[Doohickey]

TOOEX ping to the Steely-Eyed Killers of the Deep.

[DesScorp]

DDX killed....good. No surprise the F-35 may be headed for death too. Oh, and the P-8 will never see service. Look for new-build P-3s in the future. The Army's M-8 rifle bit the dust too.

The Navy got it right with Super Hornet and the aircraft carrier design tweaks....build on what you already have. It's more affordable. Now their surface ship program managers are going to have to learn the same lessons. The Air Force certainly hasn't learned them. They'll go from a high of 800 F-15s to 274 F-22s.

[WOSG]

"Don't think you can make 10,000 UAVs for half a billion, much less nuclear ones. "

DoD? No way. They have to overengineer it into an F-15 equivalent.

Private companies? Sure. $50,000 a pop sounds like a pretty fair price for a small unmanned plane with a bunch of electronics.

Nuke part? I agree. Putting nukes on an unmanned vehicle sounds ... whacked.

[spetznaz]

The Air Force certainly hasn't learned them. They'll go from a high of 800 F-15s to 274 F-22s.

Last I heard it was 183 Raptors.

[timer]

Yes, Gen Billy Mitchell was court-martialed for thinking "outside the box" and proving the pig-headed navy brass wrong. The demise of the DDX is much the same story : NASA has to do it faster, better and CHEAPER, why not the navy as well? It is nature's way of evolution : the same task with less resources = greater efficiency or be removed from the gene pool. Ike warned of the military-industrial complex and here it is in the DDX, and congress rightly shut it down, as they did other boondoggles like the SSC.

[Southack]

"DDX (apparently) cancelled ping! Weird, and abrupt, development, considering just some months ago the navy had decided to give the project a go-ahead. Some recent FR threads on the DD(X):"

The DDX was a technical solution (long range **inert** projectile delivery) looking for a problem that doesn't exist (delivering ordnance on target anywhere in the world is **NOT** an issue for U.S. military forces today).

In other words, a cool ego project for the brass/Senate...but hardly something that helps fight terrorists or defend Taiwan/Israel from a blitz.

Likewise, the F35 is freaking **MANNED**!

We've got the F22. We've got the B-2. We've got the B-1 and B-52. We've got F-15's and F-18's and F-16's.

What can the above not do that the F35 could?!

So there again, the F35 is a technical solution looking for a problem that we don't have. We already hvae global air superiority. The F35 gives us nothing that we don't already have.

...And the F35 looks positively antiquated going up against future swarms of thousands of enemy UCAVs.

So the F35 gives us nothing today and is obsolete tomorrow.

Ditto for the whole Eurofighter/JSF nonsense.

Kill those boondoggles; kill them all.

[Little Ray]

Depends on what you want your UAV to do...

And putting a nuke on a unmanned vehicle ain't whacked - its a cruise missile!

Mass attacks are whacked. Put enough stuff in one place and its worth a nuke.

[Oztrich Boy]

For half a billion you could retrofit the USS Intrepid, install an supercomputer, and load it with ten thousand armed UCAVs. You'd have an unstoppable robot swarm with global reach.

Never mind the UCAV, even a Predator B runs at 7 megabucks.

But as it is as large as and weights about the same as a Grummna F6F Hellcat, you are not going to get many more than a hundred on the Intrepid anyway. That's $700 million.

Don't think you can get the ship retrofitted for negative $200 million.

[PAR35]

could you cite another post or reiterate?

You mean you don't want to sift through my 10,000 plus posts to look for it?

Without getting too deeply into supporting info, I'll summarize my points:

It is badly needed by the Marines to replace the aging and always dangerous to operate Harrier fleet.

Dropping it now will leave our allies in a bind, and show us to be an unreliable partner. The Royal Navy is counting on the plane to replace its carrier aircraft. A number of other countries have contributed to development and are customers for the air force variant of the plane.

While the Air Force need is not as great as that of the Marines, there is a need for a new multirole aircraft for that service to carry them to the time when the missions will be carried out by unmanned aircraft.

The Navy may have the least need (or desire) for the plane. They have never been keen on multi-service platforms, and I believe they are still planning to reduce the carrier fleet.

Finally, the plane is needed to maintain industrial capacity, unless folks want the next generation of planes to come with a 'Made in China' sticker.

[Rokke]

"(delivering ordnance on target anywhere in the world is **NOT** an issue for U.S. military forces today)."

Good point.

"What can the above not do that the F35 could?!"

Remain maintanable for another 30 years and integrate into current and future theaterwide data and battle management systems.

[strategofr]

"While the Air Force need is not as great as that of the Marines, there is a need for a new multirole aircraft for that service to carry them to the time when the missions will be carried out by unmanned aircraft."

Thanks for the explanation. Perhaps it is time to jump ahead to the unmanned aircraft and skip this plane.

[PAR35]

We've got the F22. We've got the B-2. We've got the B-1 and B-52. We've got F-15's and F-18's and F-16's.
What can the above not do that the F35 could?!

Short take off/vertical landing.

Do you have any more easy to answer questions?

[PAR35]

Reading your comments, I can't help but think of the Battle of Jutland.

I was thinking more of the HMS Hood, but the battle of Jutland does fit.

[razorback-bert]

Short take off/vertical landing.

The Osprey covers that.

[burzum]

Likewise, the F35 is freaking **MANNED**!

Isn't the F-22 already limited so that its turns don't knock out the pilots? I agree with you on the UAV idea. Enemy aircraft against a programmed UAV would be like playing against a chess computer on the hardest setting. Every slight mistake from an optimal battle plan against a much more maneuverable UAV would be death for enemy pilots.

A stealth UAV fighter is a very interesting idea. Without the need for life support systems and the willingness to easily perform *suicide* missions if necessary would make it an incredibly lethal aircraft.

The next 30 years of weapon systems are going to be very interesting. U(Aeronautical, Underwater, Nautical, etc.)V's are going to keep programmers busy trying to optimize them. Would you like to have a dogfight if you knew Deep Blue was in the other cockpit?

[DesScorp]

" Last I heard it was 183 Raptors."

See, that's even worse.

Back in the mid 80's, I read a lot of the military aviation magazines. One prominent writer (maybe Bill Sweetman) wrote:

We could build a fighter with the electronics of the Starship Enterprise, but what good will it do us if we can only afford two of them?

We've finally gotten to the point where we've priced ourselves out of warplanes in effective numbers.

[thinkthenpost]

I won't be pointing to the F/A- 18 E/F and something to hang my hat on, with the exception of the name the Super Hornet shares virtually nothing with the Hornet, and you get the benefit of losing at least one airframe from the mission profile on every sortie because it is tasked as the buddy tanker.

[doorgunner69]

Perhaps it is time to jump ahead to the unmanned aircraft and skip this plane.

I think close air support with no one in the cockpit will be a hard sell to Marine grunts.

[TruthNtegrity]

I have friends who are probably facing job loss over this cut.

I can't believe it. I've worked on the some of the design elements of equipment intended for the DD(X). WOW!