Monthly Archives: December 2010

The U.S. Navy’s plan to fail–LCS equals RICO

Posted on by Eric Palmer

The purpose of the U.S. Navy is to use seapower in all its definitions to defend the United States and its interests.

We the taxpayer give them money to draw up requirements of what they need so we can hand over more money to build what they say they need.

This is not being done. What we are getting are the fielding of large giga-dollar aircraft carriers that have obsolete-to-the-threat air wings. We get wasteful dreadnoughts that will end up like the Prince of Wales. We get poor leadership. And we get a fraudulent attempts at “warships” in the name of the Littoral Combat Ship.

“One thing you will hear discussed on a regular basis will be the cost per unit in this announcement. This is what gets me twitchy the most as that is a stripped down LCS with no mission modules. Just the baseline model. It is like buying a baseline car with no radio, no AC, etc. You cannot compare per unit or per ton cost of LCS with FFG and DD/DDG that already are configured for full multi-mission operation, vice the uni-mission LCS. Remember, the quote does not represent the per unit cost even close. Even if it did – the tactical utility of the whole class is still snake bit.

Inside DC, there is a love of programatics and number games where costs are fudged and victory is seen as getting a check in the block with money attached – that is their battlefield. That is not why you have shipbuilding programs though. The goal of shipbuilding is to produce the best tradeoff between cost and capability and to give to the Sailors at sea the best ability to operate, fight, win, and survive in war at sea and power projection ashore.

That is the measure. By that measure, LCS continues to be a rolling disgrace.”

Anywhere else, this would be the RICO statue.

The beginning of the end of U.S. dominance in the Pacific Rim

Posted on by Eric Palmer

What does China’s J-20 fighter aircraft mean this early in its visual discovery?

It might not have the right motors. It might not have the right kind of radar or other avionics. It might not have the right kind of integration of other systems. What it will have is growth room.

Someday the J-20 may have some strike ability but it doesn’t have to in its first “block” or “A” model to be of great use to the Chinese.

What China can do with this aircraft as a basic interceptor will have worth. It has the potential to add more depth to integrated air defence along border hot spots. Combined with China’s AWACS, surface sensors, command and control, surface-to-air missile systems, air refuelling tankers and other fighter aircraft, it will help deny airspace.

China has many air defense scenarios such as; India, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Russia and the U.S. It also has to back up it’s SCO partners.

What kind of threats will this aircraft–as part of the whole Chinese networked integrated air defense system–have to face? The B-2 bomber, legacy long range bombers, possible bat-wings like the UCAS-N. ISR platforms like the RQ-170, Global Hawk, and manned large-body aircraft. There will be the full range of fighter aircraft to game against; various Flanker variants, F-22, F-35 (if it shows up), PAK-FA (India/Russia), and other classic fighter designs. And, an aircraft like this would also be used for cruise-missile defense. From this snapshot, we can see that a basic J-20 as a defensive interceptor will be valuable.

What kind of stealth ability does the initial model need? Not much. Just enough to make the probability of kill (PK) of the AMRAAM or any other radar missile, useless with a nose-on attack profile. If this can be done, you have taken out a lot of the beyond-visual-range (BVR) combat ability of fighter aircraft. With this, you have just nullified an important tool in U.S. air combat ability. What would the F-22, F-15, F-16, F-18, F-35 (if it ever shows up) be without the AMRAAM?

What kind of systems will the first model of this aircraft have if China follows this path? Anything that is off the shelf today. China has AMRAAM-like BVR weapons. It also has a good high-off-bore-sight dogfight missile. Sensors would be an infra-red search and track, and most likely a mechanical scan radar. The initial jet engine for this aircraft might not be what China wants, but if the aircraft can super-cruise and zip along in the 50,000-65000 feet flight range (have a pilot explain to you the amazing amount of effective ground speed at this height) you will have a weapon that will make anything that is not an F-22 or PAK-FA, obsolete.

Why does any of this matter? I will give you one example. In the future, who cares if the U.S. moves a carrier battle group into what China considers its area of influence? America will only be putting thousands of sailors and billions of dollars of taxpayer hardware at unwarranted risk; all with an obsolete carrier air wing.

China’s ability in this area will grow. With an in-debt U.S. and closing down of important production of the F-22, U.S. and allied air power in the Pacific Rim will shrink. The U.S. will stop becoming a credible deterrent. Pacific Rim allies will see the U.S. as unable to maintain regional security. When push comes to shove, they will listen to China and not the U.S.

As Hillary Clinton said, “How do you act tough with your banker?”

A look at some of the enablers of F-35 misinformation in Australia #auspol

Posted on by Eric Palmer

The debate over the flaws in the F-35 decision for Australia are bad enough when one looks at the usual entrenched Defence bureaucracy in the government or industry.

It becomes worse when other organisations cheerlead for the troubled F-35 program. As you will see with a majority of these organisations, the motivation is advert space dollars for their publications. The rest who claim to be “independent”, take money from the maker of the F-35 in the form of contributions.

Unfortunately, the news media will quote some of these organisations as experts when in fact their opinions on the F-35 show an indifference to what is real. Some of these publications are on the news stand. All have websites. Anyone reading the views of these organisations who wants to be informed about the F-35 will not get impartial reporting. They will get F-35 advocacy. If these organisations aren’t F-35 advocates, they don’t get the the F-35 money. Most of these organisations are good when pointing out the basic structure of Defence programs and most should be read.

Australian Aviation. An outstanding publication for all things that fly. Of all the organisations, when it comes to reporting on F-35 problems it rates the highest, but being highly dependant on advert sales, has severe limits that cannot be crossed.

Australian Defence Magazine. Very good at covering the basics of a Defence program, but don’t be distracted by the pom-pom’s and short skirts. If it is beneficial to making Defence and defence industry look really good, you must have seen it in this publication. Like Australian Aviation, they get some really excellent quotes from F-35 Defence sources, as long as the source thinks they will craft a friendly F-35 story. Also, like AA above, any adverse news toward the Australian Defence establishment’s unrequited love for the F-35 that just cannot be avoided is reported with a mild distaste.

Strike Publication’s-Defence Today. Hard-hitting industry articles that are hard-hitting to maintain advert sales and access. But seriously, like ADM and AA, you should read this publication. The coverage on the F-35 is, well, awful. For example; an article from their October issue, “F-35 nears delivery to U.S. Air Force” was about as accurate as a Vietnam-era Sparrow. All that was missing from it were a few PowerPoint slides from Lockheed Martin.

Next we get to two sources that go from the above; “hey we are generally good but we need the cash”, to two “independent” organisations. On the topic of the F-35 they are at the bottom of the barrel: real sludge.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). This organisation does studies on all kinds of things for the government. One of those areas of interest just happens to be Defence. Their understanding of the F-35 is weak in the following areas: as a weapon system; understanding the needs of Australian air power; logistics; industry participation and well, I guess that is enough. Their “independent” view only goes so far as their corporate contributions from Lockheed Martin.

The Williams Foundation. If I was somebody famous like this, I would be pretty upset about someone hi-jacking my name for the purpose of poor air power theory. That is what you have with the Williams Foundation. They pretend to have airs of air power knowledge but large portions of what they stake their claim to–that the F-35 is critical to the future of Australia’s defence–are surprisingly worse than the kind of stuff you see in Lockheed Martin sales efforts. I guess I could applaud them; for their sense of humour. They have an F-35 as their main logo and like ASPI, their independent views are tied to the contributions they receive from Lockheed Martin.

I have only shown you a snap-shot of what is going on in this part of the world of how the F-35 is being sold to Australia by those carrying large bags of misinformation. There is little counter to F-35 advocacy. Something to think about considering it has the potential to cost tens of billions in taxpayer money; all for a country with a population a little over 22 million.

14 different classifications for an F-35 part

Posted on by Eric Palmer

How is an F-35 part classified in relation to its commonality to F-35 airframe variants? Like this.

One of the many selling points to congress was that the Joint Strike Fighter program would get you a common tactical aircraft for all 3 services at less total cost than if there were 3 separate aircraft programs for 3 services. This was at the claimed rate of 1.8 to 3. Sounds great.

Fast-forward to today. Who wants to buy an overly expensive and obsolete-to-the-threat aircraft?

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