Posted on 09/11/2008 6:24:33 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Joint Strike Fighter: The Latest Hotspot in the U.S. Defense Meltdown
While its illusion as an "affordable" multi-role fighter-bomber is alive and well in Washington D.C., the F-35 "Joint Strike Fighter" is already a disaster, and the bad news has barely begun to roll in. Internationally recognized combat aircraft designer Pierre Sprey and Straus Military Reform Project Director Winslow Wheeler summarize the many failures in a new opinion piece that appears in the Sept. 10, 2008 issue of Janes Defence Weekly and is reproduced below.
"Joint Strike Fighter: The Latest Hotspot in the U.S. Defense Meltdown"
by Pierre M. Sprey and Winslow T. Wheeler
Politicians in the US are papering over serious problems in the country?s armed forces. Equating exposure of flaws with failure to 'support the troops', Congress, the presidential candidates and think-tank pundits repeatedly dub the US armed forces “the best in the world”. Behind this vapid rhetoric, a meltdown – decades in the making –is occurring.
The collapse is occurring in all the armed forces, but it is most obvious in the US Air Force (USAF). There, despite a much needed change in leadership, nothing is being done to reverse he deplorable situation the air force has put itself into.
The USAF's annual budget is now in excess of USD150 billion: well above what it averaged during the Cold War. Despite the plentiful dollars, the USAF?s inventory of tactical aircraft is smaller today than it has ever been since the end of the Second World War. At the same time, the shrunken inventory is older, on average, than it has been ever before.
Since George W Bush came to office in 2001, the air force has received a major budget 'plus up', supposedly to address its problems. In January 2001 a projection of its budgets showed USD850 billion for 2001 to 2009. It actually received USD1,059 billion – not counting the additional billions (more than USD80 billion) it also received to fund its operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. With the ?plus up? of more than USD200 billion, the air force actually made its inventory troubles worse: from 2001 to today, tactical aircraft numbers shrank by about 100 aircraft and their average age increased from 15 years to 20, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Not to worry, the air force and its politicians assert, the solution is in hand; it is called the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. It will do all three tactical missions: air-to-ground bombing, air-to-air combat and specialised close air support for ground troops – and there will be tailored variants for the air force, navy and marines. Most importantly, it will be ?affordable? and, thus, the US can buy it in such large numbers that it will resolve all those shrinking and ageing problems.
Baloney. When the first official cost and quantity estimate for the F-35 showed up on Capitol Hill in 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) predicted 2,866 units for USD226 billion. That is a not inconsiderable USD79 million for each aircraft. The latest official estimate is for a smaller number of aircraft (2,456) to cost more (USD299 billion). That represents a 54 per cent increase in the per-unit cost to USD122 million, and the deliveries will be two years late. The Government Accountability Office reported in March that the US can expect the costs to increase some more – perhaps by as much as USD38 billion – with deliveries likely to be delayed again, perhaps by another year. That is just the start of the rest of the bad news. The price increases and schedule delays cited above are for currently known problems.
Unfortunately, the F-35 has barely begun its flight-test programme, which means more problems are likely to be discovered – perhaps even more serious than the serious engine, flight control, electrical and avionics glitches found thus far.
Take the F-22 experience; it was in a similarly early stage of flight testing in 1998. Its programme unit cost was then USD184 million per aircraft but it climbed to a breathtaking USD355 million by 2008. Considering that the F-35 is even more complex (19 million lines of computer code compared to 4 million, and three separate service versions compared to one), the horrifying prospect of the F-35?s unit cost doubling is not outlandish.
The last tri-service, tri-mission ?fighter? the US built, the F-111, tripled in cost before being cut back to barely half the number originally contemplated. The DoD currently plans to spend more than USD10 billion to produce fewer than 100 F-35s per year at peak production. USAF leaders would like to increase the production rate and add in a few more F-22s. That plan is irresponsibly unaffordable (which contributed to the recent departure of the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff). The unaffordability will become even more obvious when the unavoidable F-35 cost increases emerge.
The inevitable reaction, just as in past programmes, will be a slashing of annual production, the opposite of the increase the air force needs to address its inventory problems. The DoD fix is simple: test the F-35 less and buy more copies before the testing is completed. Two test aircraft and hundreds of flight-test hours have been eliminated from the programme, and there is now a plan to produce more than 500 copies before the emasculated testing is finished. This approach will not fix the programme but it will help paper over the problems and make the F-35 more cancellationproof in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill.
It gets even worse. Even without new problems, the F-35 is a ?dog?. If one accepts every performance promise the DoD currently makes for the aircraft, the F-35 will be: ? Overweight and underpowered: at 49,500 lb (22,450kg) air-to-air take-off weight with an engine rated at 42,000 lb of thrust, it will be a significant step backward in thrust-to-weight ratio for a new fighter. ? At that weight and with just 460 sq ft (43 m2) of wing area for the air force and Marine Corps variants, it will have a ?wing-loading? of 108 lb per square foot. Fighters need large wings relative to their weight to enable them to manoeuvre and survive. The F-35 is actually less manoeuvrable than the appallingly vulnerable F-105 ?Lead Sled? that got wiped out over North Vietnam in the Indochina War.
? With a payload of only two 2,000 lb bombs in its bomb bay – far less than US Vietnam-era fighters – the F-35 is hardly a first-class bomber either. With more bombs carried under its wings, the F-35 instantly becomes ?non-stealthy? and the DoD does not plan to seriously test it in this configuration for years.
? As a ?close air support? attack aircraft to help US troops engaged in combat, the F-35 is a nonstarter. It is too fast to see the tactical targets it is shooting at; too delicate and flammable to withstand ground fire; and it lacks the payload and especially the endurance to loiter usefully over US forces for sustained periods as they manoeuvre on the ground. Specialised for this role, the air force?s existing A-10s are far superior.
However, what, the advocates will protest, of the F-35?s two most prized features: its ?stealth? and its advanced avionics? What the USAF will not tell you is that ?stealthy? aircraft are quite detectable by radar; it is simply a question of the type of radar and its angle relative to the aircraft. Ask the pilots of the two ?stealthy? F-117s that the Serbs successfully attacked with radar missiles in the 1999 Kosovo air war.
As for the highly complex electronics to attack targets in the air, the F-35, like the F-22 before it, has mortgaged its success on a hypothetical vision of ultra-long range, radar-based air-to-air combat that has fallen on its face many times in real air war. The F-35?s air-to-ground electronics promise little more than slicker command and control for the use of existing munitions.
The immediate questions for the F-35 are: how much more will it cost and how many additional problems will compromise its already mediocre performance? We will only know when a complete and rigorous test schedule – not currently planned – is finished. The F-35 is a bad deal that shows every sign of turning into a disaster as big as the F-111 fiasco of the 1960s.
In January the US will inaugurate a new president. If he is serious about US defences – and courageous enough to ignore the corporate lobbies and their minions in Congress and the think-tanks – he will ask some very tough questions. These will start with why an increased budget buys a shrinking, ageing force. After that the new president will have to take steps – unavoidably painful ones – to reverse the course the country is now on.
The man who best deserves to be inaugurated next January will actually start asking those questions now.
# # #
It is big fat idiots like you who think that calling folks communists or communist sympathizers is a valid way of dealing with folks taht disagree with your idiotic positions, which you can only defend by calling folks communists.
This not just about acquisition problems but your heroes, CDI, usually taking strong anti-American positions on every issue.
Another trait of you namecalling knee jerk idiots is that you put words in the mouths of others to beat them over the head with.
That is to avoid dealing with the fact that the JSF problems are huge acqusition system problems caused by an out of control Air Force that cannot even keep track of where its nukes are and that thinks that supported its bloated contractor base is more important than supporting the wars that we are actually fighting on the ground today.
I have spent almost none of my life paying any attention to CDI. Chuck Spinney on the other hand can hardly be tarred with the communist brush, and trying to do so, you just prove that you are a mindless namecalling idiot.
LaRoque was a screwball. On the other hand, our brilliant strategic thinkers in the Pentagon did not exactly cover themselves in glory in Vietnam, and it is the lessons of our military planning and execution failures that have lead to any succcess since then. In fact, we tried our hardest to forget those lessons in Iraq and almost managed to snare a big defeat as a consequence. We are back on track, but that is not the fault of your heroes in Versailles sur Potomac.
I respect the technology, but I put my faith in tech/pilot combintion. It’s called close air support for a reason; shooting up an armored column or supporting infantry on a modern, quickly-changing battlefield requires more than pickling in precision-guided munitions from 30,000 feet. Moreover, the amount of AGM munitions than the A-10 can carry, coupled with the 30mm and the plane’s ability to loiter and fight for extended periods of time, make it a perfect match for the role it was designed for.
Likewise, getting in close requires that your aircraft be able to withstand a tremendous amount of punishment, from small arms to ZSU carriers to SAMs. There is no modern fighter that can take anything close to that kind of punishment and still bring the plane and aircrew home safely. We just don’t have anything that can replace the A-10, and although every budget cycle the military talks about turning over the CAS role to fighter aircraft, it still hasn’t been done because the record of success of the ‘Hog speaks for itself.
>>>> Another idiot [IQ 153] on this forum who loves namecalling {I haven't called anyone any names] rather than debating a postion [I have debated many positions, (but never a postion) including yours.]
>>>> It is big fat [No, not fat] idiots [IQ 153] like you who think that calling folks communists [I called no one a communist] or communist sympathizers [I called no one a communist sympathizer] is a valid way of dealing with folks taht [that] disagree with your idiotic [you really like that word root, don't you?] positions, which you can only defend by calling folks communists [please remember, I called no one a communist.]
Captain (?) You have an excellent talent for taking what people say,,,, and turning it 180 degrees to fit your own thought process..... such as it is. I know remembering things for more than a few moments may seem to be a problem, but please try.
Come to think of it.... is reality really that much of a problem for you?
Just another reminder, which may or may not apply in your case. If you are too tipsy to drive, you're too tipsy to post.
Have a GREAT day.
P.S. Were you in charge of FEMA’s response to Katrina, by chance?
You are the one who started calling me a communist for taking exception to you calling other noble Americans communists because of another screwed up pentagon acquistion.
Hello, Mr IQ 153 - whoah like I am so impressed - when did the cold war end?
And finally if the decade and a half ago reqired Adm LaRoque were a communist that has no bearing on whether or not the not JSF which is not yet in production is a dog or not, especially when the guys who developed modern air warfare doctrine are calling it a dog.
Or, of course, you could post that you are wrong.............
Or, of course, you could post that you are wrong.............
Sprey, with Boyd, invented the RMA.
you are the one with the 153 IQ. You go figure it out.
PS a negative of a negative is what, Mr IQ 153?
Secretary Gates when he fired a couple of guys recently for Air Force arrogance and incomptence? Remember?
Talk about something that got bad press with a lot of misinformation. The project was killed because of cost overruns, but what nobody ever mentions is that the specs on the fuselage and wing from the government changed 12 months into the project without any adjustment in the contract. The contractor had to start over and had to start over again 6 months later when the government changed the specs in the cockpit. That's called setting the contractor up to fail. Said contractor was sued by the AIR FORCE (not the Navy) and successfully defended the suit twice in claiming breach of contract by the AIR FORCE.
The AF is plain and simply top heavy, really political and all the way around plays favorites. It's been that way for decades and it's in the culture. There is no way in the real world that Lockheed would ever have won the F-22. There was an F-23 prototype ready to fly and Lockheed asked for more time - twice - and they get the contract? Huh?
I have a relative in a squadron where the birds are Vietnam-era and they are canabalizing half the birds to repair the other half because the parts aren't made anymore. Plain and simply, it's time for some major investment in equipment WITHOUT the politics and with no thought as to who's district said equipment is made.
I don't think so.
This article by William S. Lind describes Sprey and Boyd as reformers, not RMA guys, and says they are opposite camps. http://www.counterpunch.org/lind05292008.html
This article also calls them reformers, not RMA guys. http://www.afa.org/magazine/feb2008/0208reformers.asp. It is a good overview of the movement, and of the history of the debate between simplicity + numbers v. comlexity + capability, although it is written by one of the antagonists in that argument.
The reformers advocated cheaper simpler systems in large numbers, and made the arguments Sprey makes in the article against gold plated, expensive, low unit production systems.
Some of their prognostications did not pan out:
It was high tide for the Reformers. Also in 1983, Gary Hart sought to force the cancellation of a host of programs, including the F-15, improved versions of the F-16, the radar guided AMRAAM missile, the LANTIRN night targeting system, and an infrared version of the Maverick ground-attack missile. The effort failed, but Reformism was rippling through Washington.The thrust of the article is that in subsequent conflicts the reformers arguments have been decisively refuted. The Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq are pretty strong evidence of this refutation.The Reformers, though they focused on the Air Force’s tactical airpower, also targeted some Army and Navy systems. One of Sprey’s “expensive losers” was the M1 tank. The older M60 was cheaper and more effective, he said.
Boyd's OODA loop construct is true genius, and is a big driver for the RMA, so there is some irony in this quite interesting history.
Regards,
Gee, we were doing that in 1978 when I was at Mtn. Home AFB working on F-111As. We had a 25% mission capable rate due to a lack of spares. And at that time the aircraft were only 11-12 years old (manufactured in 66 and 67.)
It's pretty standard practice to take three parts off of one aircraft that already is down, in order to make three others fly, instead of having four aircraft down with four different parts on backorder.
Yeah, but when you're cannabalizing four birds just to get the other four to fly in an eight bird squadron with no plans to replace any of them in the near future and no manufacturer making the parts? THAT is not a good thing.
>>>>You go figure it out.
Knew you couldn’t do it! You love to make false allegations, then run away when asked to back them up. Just like kids who can “dish it out but can’t take it!”
Hey, all. This guy’s a big time phony. A retired Navy Captain (?) who can’t spell. Has no sense of logic or truth. Wonder if he wears any medals he is not entitled to.
Who is it here on FR who checks out the phony military vets?
I know, you are going to invoke the Obama defense. It wasn't me you were calling a pig while you were trying to put more lipstick on the DoD acquisition trough.
Now, since we are grading phonies, tell me, genius, what mathematical algorithm and what technical innovation revolutionized anti-submarine warfare and made possible us tactical dominance basically driving the Soviet Submarine force from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union?
The debate over who "owned" the revolution in military affairs is like arguing who is the most holy christian defender of the faith. At ths point the issue is an interesting historical one. The 5 rings strategy which is sort of the forerunner of "shock and awe" is Waerden's development with a lot of help drawing on Boyd. Netwar, using a large number of independent affordable systems rather than putting all one's eggs in one basket is the product of a lot of that thinking.
I am waiting genius.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.