Operation: Lightning Strike MIA #military

So much for Operation: Lightning Strike.

None of the eight countries that committed $4.5 billion to F-35 development has placed an order for production jets, although Australia and Canada have said they plan to.

The U.S. and Lockheed would like to secure orders to help lower the production costs of new airplanes. Israel will buy 20, but those will be paid for with U.S. military aid.

Operation: Lightning Strike was a marketing plan from 2007.

Talks on a coalition buy modeled on the original European-US commitment for almost 700 F-16s has begun with the JSF partners. Lightning Strike would combine US and international purchases planned for the seven years from 2012 to 2018 into a fixed-price coalition buy potentially totaling more than 1,300 aircraft.

The economies of a coalition buy would avoid the disincentive to purchase aircraft early, he says, but would require the US government to commit to multi-year procurement in 2012. This is two years earlier than planned and before the F-35 has completed operational testing. “The F-16 found a way, and it worked,” he says.

2007 was an amazing time. So, so long ago.

“Flight testing is the last and most expensive way to find and retire risk.”

F-35 “affordability” put at risk by partner nation delays? #military

With the USAF F-35 initial operating capability (IOC ) declared in 2016 (if there are no more slips), this means that you can expect tribal knowledge of how to operate and maintain the aircraft to be mature around the year 2020 (if we go by F-22 IOC assumptions).

With that, anyone—be they F-35 JSF partner nations or foreign military sales (FMS) for the deal—would be dumb to order the aircraft until they knew what they were actually buying.

It seems that Norway will delay their purchase of the F-35. That and some of the other wobbly behaviour of the F-35 JSF partner nations, puts the whole mantra of the aircraft’s supposed “affordability” at risk.

This is probably not what JSF program leaders have been looking for, given Lockheed Martin executive vice-president Tom Burbage’s warnings at Farnborough that backsliding partners would incur higher prices: Norway appears to have concluded that the opposite is the case.

Of other early JSF customers, Denmark has deferred its decision and the Netherlands has officially confirmed that cost increases are likely to have a “considerable” effect on its program. In the FY2011-2015 order years – LRIP batches 4 through 8 – well over one-third of JSFs are destined for non-US customers, and program managers have repeatedly said that disruptions to the ramp-up will cause unit cost targets to move out of reach.

A current snapshot of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter memorandum of understanding (MOU)–updated in April of this year–gives an idea of when orders were supposed to happen.

Gates claims victory in F-35 LRIP 4 contract but can’t name details #military

Gates–currently the most dangerous man to the future of U.S. air power–is trying to claim victory on the recent low-rate initial production batch 4 (LRIP 4) contract yet he can’t state detailed numbers.

An example of the savings of this new approach — this new approach is delivering is the contract for the fourth lot of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. After extensive negotiations, the department has reached an agreement to use a fixed-price incentive fee contract for the purchase of 30 F-35s for the U.S. military.

This type of contract shares the cost of overruns between the government and industry up to a fixed ceiling. It also shares the rewards when the programs come in under cost. The per-unit price we’ve negotiated for this new contract is 15 to 20 percent below the independent cost estimate for the F-35 prepared earlier this year.

The contract as structured will enhance the productivity of the Joint Strike Fighter program to reduce overall costs. The department will continue to closely monitor and aggressively manage this important program.

As part of the guidance issued to our industry partners and defense contracting professionals last week, I made it clear that we need to see more of these types of contracts in order to provide more value and better programs for the American taxpayer and provide good business opportunities for our industrial partners.

“15 to 20 percent” is a pretty general statement. For this kind of money one should expect more details as this is not a small amount of money.

The myth of the great usefulness of Gates in this job continues. I’ll wait for the actual approved budgets to come out to see where we are at with the Joint Strike Failure.

U.K. to have fewer F-35s? #military

Britain had initially ordered 138 JSF aircraft, built by U.S. manufacturer Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), and media reports have speculated that figure could be halved.

Guess again. Britain has not “ordered 138 JSF aircraft”. As an F-35 JSF partner nation, it has predicted how many of these flying question marks it would need. That prediction may now be lower due to any number of wild cards in the current dysfunctional defence planning process. That and we will see how the STOVL program gets re-adjusted after its next published slip due in November.

Sloppy reporting.

Blogging

I will be working on a project over the next two weeks so I don’t know the quantity of blogging that will be done. Should be back to normal by mid-October.

How many Nunn-McCurdy events has the F-35 program had? #military

How many Nunn-McCurdy events has the F-35 program had? I am not sure but I know of at least two.

There is the most recent one that the DOD’s procurement guy Ashton Carter performed a white-wash on by recertifying it, and then there is this one back in 2004.

There are many differing opinions on the estimate for a per unit cost of the JSF, but it would be hard to argue that the JSF has achieved its goal of affordability.

In 2004, the JSF program was forced to report a Nunn-McCurdy unit cost breach; a requirement for any program that has an increase in unit cost growth of over 30%.The 2006 Defense Department’s quarterly Selected Acquisition report estimated that the JSF program would cost $299,824.1 billion (2006 dollars).

With a total of 2,458 aircraft being split between the USAF, Department of the Navy, and the United Kingdom, the per unit cost (including research and development) had risen to $121.9 million. If the R&D is removed from the equation the estimate is still staggering at $104.4 million per aircraft. These estimates are 37.9% and 37.7% higher than the original estimates made in 2001.

Geoffrey P. Bowman, LCDR, Scorecard, A Case study of the Joint Strike Fighter Program, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, April 2008

Paul L. Francis, “Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of Selected Major Weapon Programs: GAO-05-301,” GAO Reports (2005): 80

Murch, “F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program: Background, Status, and Issues,” CRS-7.

After the 2004 event, one of the ideas to help reduced future cost blow-outs was the start of a DOD campaign to make the alternate engine known as the F136 made by GE and Roll-Royce look bad. It will be interesting to see how far the U.K.–an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter partner nation–allows this fraud to go on.

3 years ago, sending a mortar team to Afghanistan was a DM level decision #military #auspol

The media is making all they can out of supposed problems with how the Australian Army makes decisions for Afghanistan.

Interesting to note though about all this talk of mortars. It is pretty amazing stuff when you consider that over 3 years and 3 defence ministers ago, it was a Defence Minister level decision to send mortar teams to Afghanistan.

Here is what the then Defence Minister Nelson said at the time.

“During my recent visit to Australian troops serving with the Reconstruction Task Force (RTF) in Oruzgan province I was advised by tactical commanders of an in-service capability that would significantly enhance force-protection and response options for the operation,”

“After consultation with defence chiefs, the government has authorised the deployment of a 12-man, 81mm mortar section to Afghanistan to support RTF operations.

“The mortars will provide accurate offensive support for RTF operations and will be employed within the existing rules of engagement applied by Australian troops in Afghanistan.”

Talk about micro-managing a war.

The weapon is still useful even in these times of using air strikes dropping a 500lb precision guided munition to take out one person. The simplicity of the mortar is that in many situations you can lay down fire right away. Also, it belongs to the unit needing help and there is no waiting to call in air strikes that may or may not be several minutes away if they are available at all. The mortar, if set up well can put the bad guys heads down and the obvious is: If the enemy shows up to the fight without fire support they are at a disadvantage already. The 81mm mortars Australia uses have a range of around 5600 meters or so, with a minimum range of about 100 meters. The ranges mentioned, depend on elevation of the shooter and the target and type of ammo that is used. Accuracy depends on the skill of the team to deal with things like the quality of tactical coordination and the environment: weather, wind, any steep obstructions near a target, battlefield smoke and if the mortar team is taking incoming fire. And for Nelson, a mortar isn’t just an “offensive weapon”. It is defensive too.

Odd has always been the way of the Super Hornet, look what Australia bought #military #auspol

Why does Australia’s brand-new two-seat Super Hornet make just a very nice close air support (CAS) aircraft for the Army and not much more?

Well, there are many reasons.

By following the U.S. Navy and Boeing via some PowerPoint slides, the snap-decision by then Defence Minister Nelson gave us a very limited capability.

Here we have what appears to be a normal two seat Super Hornet.

After approaching it and seeing the other side, I wasn’t surprised. I have seen this before.

The U.S. Navy ran into this problem years ago. You see, the aircraft is a prisoner of its classic father designed in a day when precision guide munitions for every aircraft were only a dream. The Hornet family design was meant to be a cheap Cold War fighter that could also drop dumb iron.

Years later, where do you put an electro-optical/laser pod? On the left waist.

Today with the Super Hornet, the field of view of the ATFLIR can be blocked or limited in use if you hang a drop tank on the left wing. So, when configured for precision strike, you see the aircraft with these weird asymmetric load-outs.

In the U.S. Navy, this is a common sight around the fleet.

Odd has always been the way of the Super Hornet.

Video-First hand look at a Taliban ambush #military

H/T- War News Updates

China – Japan spat – #military #politics

A read here from the Lowy Institute.

But Tokyo has miscalculated. As China becomes a more open society and the influence of Chinese netizens continues to grow, Chinese leaders now more often have to respond to domestic public opinion, especially regarding sensitive issues like the Diaoyu Islands. Even if Beijing wants to compromise this time, it will find itself restrained. Thus, although Chinese leaders don’t want to see rising tension with Japan, they will not easily back off.

That, and the fact that the Chinese leaders are Communists. Communism needs to be contained and minimised. Unfortunately the force that normally does this is grossly indebt to the Communists. A better discussion would be; Why did the American leadership–over the past 20 years–commit treason?