Posted on 03/05/2007 9:58:23 PM PST by Paul Ross
WASHINGTON -- At a time the nation is at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Air Force is battling another enemy: age.
The average age of military aircraft during the Vietnam War in 1973 was nine years. Today, the average age is 24 years, and venerable planes such as the KC-135 Stratotanker and the B-52H Stratofortress are well into their 40s, nearly twice as old as some of their pilots.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Stop-gaps in the absence of the viable cure is a practical necessity. But the viable cure is here now. Just anemically funded.
What if the bean-counter determination of "good enough" doesn't line up with reality...i.e., against a dynamically increasing threat situation...improving Russian/Chinese technology...it simply isn't good enough. The F-18 is already losing big time in exercises to the Mig-29. As is the F-16. And the F-15 is losing to the Su-30.
Isn't the F-18 line now running, just turn up the wick, as one example.
As I have explained long ago elsewhere, the F-18 is no substitute for the now-retired F-14 ...which proved to be vital to do the operations in Afghanistan. Not the F-18. It lacked the range. And now the F-14s are retired. Yes, they required heavy maintenance. They were old. But they should have been being built right along to keep fresh ones in the pipeline. But they weren't. The tooling was ordered destroyed by Cheney back in 1992.
The only viable alternative is a navalized F-22. And in far larger numbers than we have budgeted. The factory that is producing two per month currently...was designed to produce 20 per month. Do the math as to what the Administration is REALLY doing.
They want to recapitalize the military only in name and with lip service. There are no bucks in this budget for Buck Rogers. And there should be. This imploding situation is precisely what Bush clearly implied he was going to fix when he first ran in 2000. He hasn't and isn't.
Thanks for the reasoned and very good response. Being a lay person I have additional questions... if you can take the time ...
How do you get around the F-22 cost? $100+ million is just too much to buy sufficient numbers. Same with the F-35, the price just keeps climbing.
Isn't dogfighting a lost art and need? It seems to me that with a missile defense system, like Patriot 3, airplanes are not a good place to be. Airplanes appear only useful in conflicts where the enemy does not have them or the ones they have are not very good. Aren't air to air missiles advancing enough to make long distance launch the norm?
And finally, why aren't stealthy cruise missiles sufficient for first strike?
Furthermore, does anyone think the Russians or Chinese are going to first strike a nuclear power like the U.S. MAD worked because they would not risk annihilation. With all those ballistic subs cruising around, I think not.
I still think putting the best of the current crop into volume production would be a better answer for core capability. Look what has happened with the Warhog, near dead now the best close in fighter we have.
Looking only at the narrow area of airlift .... a dark, dark future awaits.
I experience Gen. Billy Mitchell moments at least daily .... we are in for a world of hurt.
Only if there is money. Peacenicks' power is now on the rise. Bad deal ....
RE: IMHO, money would be better spent producing more C-130s,C-5s, C-17s (maybe not so much the C-5s, j/k), and A-10s.
You have a good point. Airlift is a weakness and will be for some time. A10, it either needs to be extended with new kickers or replaced with a new attack style workhorse - what a great bird :)
Not only that, he canned the A6's replacement the A12 Advenger.
It may have been an out of control program and overweight, but it would have been an equal replacement with Stealth. It is now many years later and we have Ogots.
And now the fools want to scrap the tooling for the C-17.
Beam me up Scotty.....
You had better hang on tightly to your joystick. With the escalating costs of social welfare programs, there will be no money in the budget to build any new aircraft in 15 years.
How do you figure? It is the prerequisite expense. You have to have air supremacy. And it is worth whatever it takes. And defense procurement has been underfunded for 16 straighy years now. It won't be fixed in a day.
Defense procurement should be significantly increased as a percentage of GDP. I wish it could be cheaper too, but it isn't. And there is no "magic" solution to avoid paying the price piper. Not at these low production numbers. And if you increased production, you could drastically lower unit costs. Lockheed has pointed out that if the original order of 700 + planes was being funded, the unit costs would have actually gone down, instead of up, in 1996 dollars when they slashed the proposed orders...starting a well-known cycle of POLITICALLY CAUSED "price inflation"... which really means the politicians are stealing from the needs of defense for their fictitious savings...and doiing it wastefully...by cutting the orders they are in fact eliminating all savings because the destroy the ECONOMIES OF SCALE...and drive the unit cost up.
Same with the F-35, the price just keeps climbing.
All the more reason not to arbitrarily terminate the F-22 because of the SUPPOSEDLY CHEAPER (and significantly less capable) F-35.
Isn't dogfighting a lost art and need?
See below.
It seems to me that with a missile defense system, like Patriot 3, airplanes are not a good place to be.
It's definitely a challenge...but it isn't all she wrote at all. The planes you "dissed", the F-22 and eventually the F-35 appear not to have a serious problem thereto. Evading detection and accurate tracking in many cases...and then when fired on...have an impressive array of counter-systems that can not just duck the missile...but if its guided smart enough, fake it into turning around on the enemy. Neat trick.
Airplanes appear only useful in conflicts where the enemy does not have them or the ones they have are not very good.
Huh? They are also necessary when the planes they have are very good. And Sorry, but the Su-30 and the AA-10 missile combo really is very, very, very, very goood. Don't fall into the smugness trap. It gets us killed.
Aren't air to air missiles advancing enough to make long distance launch the norm?
Not on our side. We have lost the Phoenix with the F-14 retirement, and no, the current best U.S. don't really stack up to what it could do in OTH BVR intercepts. We have some hopes of eventually having some hyper-sonic long-range interceptors based on our DARPA/NASA collaboration with Australian scientists. But we find the Russians are actually AHEAD of us in hypersonics R&D which they have kept under wraps. More evidence of both smugness and neglect on our parts. And even in the interim technology improvements...we are behind the curve production-wise. But not on the Russian, Chinese side with the AA-10, they are indeed focussing on giving their planes some teeth.
And finally, why aren't stealthy cruise missiles sufficient for first strike?
We are not going to be doing the first strike in any realistic scenario. Note how well the communist internal and external collaboration has politically stymied us from being able to pre-empt the real threats, from North Korea, Iran, and their enablers...Russia and China.
Furthermore, does anyone think the Russians or Chinese are going to first strike a nuclear power like the U.S. MAD worked because they would not risk annihilation.
MAD was on the verge of failing until Reagan and Caspar Weinberger plunged the nation into a crash course of essential modernizations and critical "knee-cap" vulnerability solutions. Solutions now going or gone under the regime of smugness.
With all those ballistic subs cruising around, I think not.
First, I think the range of conflicts is far wider and more probable than you are acknowledging. Remember the Korean war? Remember Vietnam? They could easily resurface. To wit, South Korea. And we already have other known flash points. Taiwan. Thailand. Iran. Japan. Etc.
Second, we have drastically increased our vulnerability to an enemy first strike...here is a short list of things: slashed all the Poseidon subs. Slashed 4 Trident subs by converting them to conventional cruise-missile barges. Parked most of them in port at any one time making them sitting ducks. Taken the launch codes away from the Sub commanders, hence, if "home base" is preempted...the subs are impotent. Possibly forever. Eliminated completely the MX. Eliminated almost half the Minutemen. Slashed in half the B-1B after "denuclearizing" it. Eliminated Operation Looking Glass. An absolutely CRUCIAL leg to maintaining C4I. And now we are also terminating NORAD operations at Cheyenne Mountain.
Furthermore, both Russia and China have missile and air defenses...in depth protecting their territories and Cities. We have one puny narrow azimuth of coverage with 12 total interceptors. Not really a "national" missile defense at all.
Thus making it far more tempting to an enemy covertly sneaking up on us (known to our Intel...but denied and rejected by the political folks who are in charge over them who can't bear the implications for their wrong-headed world view and policies). Just as it was under Clinton, only worse, because now it is the supposed "Adults" who are engaging in the liberal wishful thinking.
I still think putting the best of the current crop into volume production would be a better answer for core capability.
Depends on the capabilities really needed. And air supremacy is a PREREQUISITE. But it is often overlooked because it has been taken for granted so long, that there is a real hazard that smugness in the budgeting cliques has destroyed that which they took way too much for granted. None of those "numbers" will do any good if we lose interceptor and dog-fight supremacy, variant missions typically swept under the general term "air" supremacy. Deemed "obsolete" only because we haven't gone up against a near-peer recently. But look at what those prospective superpowers of the future are deploying in serious numbers: Dogfighters. This turns it from being an "obsolete" mission into a very real near-term and crucial element of our force requirements. And yet we still have Clintonians running the Budget show. They are your typical anti-war liberals living in a past which really was a fleeting moment in time.
Look what has happened with the Warthog, near dead now the best close in fighter we have.
Actually, the A-10 Warthog was a good deal, and should be reproduced. I have no problem with saving money, and getting bang for the buck. But as the designation "A" indicates, it wasn't a "fighter" it was an Attack plane. Ground-support. But if there wasn't already air cover from our own real air supremacy fighters...then there would be no place a Hog could hide from the enemy's air superiority fighters.
Cheney-like, eh? The scrapping would be an intentional act to prevent the re-ordering as necessary. Just as he did with the F-14. Which left us precisely NOTHING to be able to replace it with, because the F-18 was never a long-range interceptor.
The C-17 has proved to be a pretty reliable, cost-effective work-horse. And getting more so as we have developed operational experience with it, ironing out any problems. And the logistical bins have the parts for it. So what do the geniusses want to do? Zero out the ability to replace it as needed. Sigh. Real budget-savings, eh?
Meanwhile, I remember two years ago what a fight that the Administration put up over trying to terminate the hot C-17 production line that Duncan Hunter and the pro-defense caucus of the Republicans were able to keep. Remember all the stories floated about the wasteful Congress funding defense programs...such as the C-17...which "the Pentagon didn't even want". Rooooooight.
We know exactly who didn't want them. And he wasn't located in the Pentagon...but his job title allowed him to overrule the guys who knew better in the Pentagon...
We saw the precise same games by the Clintons, and their use of the MSM to back up their undermining of Defense.
Frankly, I have been surprised at the extent of micro-management of this Pentagon from this White House. And in every single case I have observed it...it has been deleterious and adverse to our national interests...opposed to maintaining our improving our national defenses.
Lexington Institute on "The Dumbest Weapons Decision of the Decade"
Defense Industry Newsletter, Posted 19-Sep-2006 09:36With all of the recent C-17 related purchases by NATO, Canada, et. al., a reader drew our attention to a recent piece by military analyst Loren Thompson at the Lexington Institute think-tank in Washington, DC. Pulling no punches, it's titled "The Dumbest Weapons Decision of the Decade."
People from other countries often underestimate the role of think tanks in Washington, because there are no comparable players in their own countries. That's a big mistake. American academia's growing irrelevance means that the policy agendas and talking points of US political parties are often underpinned by think-tank research and proposals. Lexington isn't in the top tier with institutions like Brookings, Heritage, AEI et. al., but it's pitching into a combustible environment. The final decision on C-17 procurement will come from Congress, the C-17 already has a lobbying base, and the country is headed for the final stretch of the 2006 mid-term elections; it's also gearing up for a hotly-contested and security-focused Presidential election in 2008. An excerpt from Thompson's September 13, 2006 Issue Brief (which sounds like a political address), reads:
"The C-17 Globemaster III is by all accounts the best long-range military transport ever built. It can fly very big loads into very small places, it has a 90% mission-capable rate, it is cheap to operate, and it costs no more than a commercial airliner. The plane is so popular with military users that it is being used at a rate 40% higher than expected. Basically, every C-17 that's available is in use everyday, delivering supplies to troops in Afghanistan, providing humanitarian relief to refugees, evacuating wounded soldiers from Iraq (which is one reason why the time it takes to get wounded from the war zone to stateside hospitals has declined from ten days in the first Gulf War to three days today).
So of course, policymakers have decided to stop building the plane. They say they have enough C-17's to meet strategic airlift needs for the foreseeable future. Even though their stated requirement for how much airlift is needed hasn't changed since a "Mobility Requirements Study" was conducted in 2000. Perhaps you remember what it was like back then. No global war on terror. No shift to expeditionary warfare. No plans to return troops in Europe to the U.S. No big hurricane evacuations. The good old days....
Someday in the not-so-distant future, American soldiers are going to die because the joint force couldn't get essential supplies into some remote airstrip fast enough. When that day comes, critics will recall the optimistic assumptions that justified killing the nation's only modern jet airlifter and say, "How could anybody think that 180 C-17's would be enough to cover the world when the only other long-range airlifter in the fleet was designed in the 1960's, couldn't use small airstrips, and had chronic reliability problems?"
Its its defense, the US Air Force believes that re-engining (and often re-wiring) its giant C-5 Galaxy aircraft will significantly improve their readiness rates, while advancing the planned aerial tanker buy will help by ensuring that US transport aircraft can make long flights when needed. Likewise, his "every C-17 that's available is in use everyday" line reveals a misunderstanding of how the process actually works, and what the current mission rate actually means.
With that said, that current usage rate shows no signs of slowing and it will age the C-17s early, like the C-141 Starlifters before them. With the C-5s facing a finite but indeterminate life cycle of their own due to aging issues, the USAF is making a risky procurement call by shutting down C-17 production. Especially given the legislature's set-aside of funds for 42 additional aircraft.
Thompson's analysis makes a number of sharply-worded points, concerning a potential hot-button issue, that's tied to a lot of jobs around the country. If a number of candidates begin picking up on his talking points in the runup to 2008, the USAF may find that it has made a risky political call as well, receiving extra C-17s "for free" via Congress only as long as one doesn't count political credibility as a cost.
Not now.
And nothing is projected by 2020.
Sorry. Stop thinking Hollywood has the scoop.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2007/03/f22-raptor-procurement-events-updated/index.php
Interesting article. Does raise some of the issues I was talking about, specifically the cost and low number of aircraft purchased. I still have problems with the low numbers. A high tempo conflict is going to put plenty of strain on few aircraft. I would guess Democrat budget cuts are going to reduce the numbers to ineffective levels.
We need a new "F16 type", cheap and high volume. The F-35 is way too expensive to fill that role. It might make sense to put F-22s on aircraft carriers, same as with the old Tomcats.
I would bet something is going to give, I don't see the anti-military Democrats increasing funding for the military and forsaking their love of socialism. It's just got to be tearing at them, all that money going to war when they could spend it on socialism.
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