Category: Defense Procurement

Report: Russia Enters Test With PAK-FA

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Nose Radar Installation


Wing Leading Edge Arrays


Optical/IR Search and Track

We now have a report that they have run up the engines in the prototype and taxied:

The first prototype of the aircraft rolled out on the runway of KNAAPO aircraft plant in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the country’s far east. The test pilot switched on its engines and made two runs on the airstrip, during which breaks were applied several times.

The report says that they expect to field the aircraft in 2015, but my guess is that this is either a deliberate deception, or self delusion.

We are still getting conflicting reports on just what the aircraft is like, though this story reports a 3,500 km range, which I assume refers to ferry range, and is roughly equivalent to that of the F-22, for which the Wiki quotes a 2,000 mi (3,219 km) range.

Assuming that this is the case, I would assume that the PAK-FA is a bit smaller than the F-22, since the Russians tend to have internal fuel tanks which are not rated at the aircraft’s full performance (the equivalent of a internal “external tank”), as they are doctrinally less inclined to use either external tanks or aerial refueling.

One thing that is almost certain though: That its missiles will have superior kinematics to the AMRAAM/AIM-9Z used by the Raptor. The current Russian missiles are larger and heavier than the American loadout, and larger missiles=larger motors=longer range and better terminal performance.

Also, my guess is that the Russians are going “stealth lite”, with a greater reliance on sensors and missile kinematics, as opposed to all aspect stealth.

The photos from the Wiki, show a larger AESA radar array (top pic), wing leading edge mounted arrays for better off-axis performance (middle pic), and an Optical/IR Search and Track (bottom pic) for passive, or 3rd party designated, engagement of targets.

My guess is that the missiles will be mounted conformally, as opposed to internally, because the associated weight of internal carriage of larger missiles would very likely prove prohibitive.

But those are just my not-particularly-educated guesses, and we have to wait for the first blurry photos to be leaked to Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Another Nail in the Lead System Integrator Concept Coffin

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As I have said before, with the LSI model, you have the contractor supervising their own performance, which is almost literally a fox in the henhouse:

Defense contractors developing the Army’s largest modernization program — the Future Combat System — also were paid $91 million in 2007 to report back to the Pentagon on how well the program was performing, according to a new inspector general report, adding fuel to demands for tougher conflict-of-interest rules.

The Nov. 24 Defense Department inspector general report, reviewed by POLITICO, was sparked by an anonymous tip. The probe found that the $100 billion FCS program contained numerous conflicts that went unreported and that, between 1987 and 2007, the Pentagon increased its reliance on contractors for quality assurance and other tests by 375 percent.

……………

For instance, SAIC, a prime contractor doing systems engineering along with Boeing, received $2.2 billion for development of the FCS program, but in 2007 it also received $25.8 million for testing the program. Computer Sciences Corp., General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman also received money to create elements of the FCS at the same time they were helping to test it, according to the report.

(emphasis mine)

I worked with folks from the SAIC when I was at FCS, and got very little “L” from the LSIs: they simply did not provide direction to the contractors.

It’s no surprise that the inspector’s report was marked “For Official Use Only”, because the powers that be in the Pentagon want this buried, but someone, probably someone who actually thinks about the soldiers who use the product, leaked it.

Note that this is an artifact of a number of administrations:

In addition to pursuing specific allegations of conflicts of interest, the inspector’s report looked more broadly at the trend toward using services contracts for testing. The review found that before the 1990s — when the Pentagon embraced the trend of cutting government employees and instead contracting for services — the Pentagon spent about $8.9 million a year on contractors for testing. In 2007, it spent $42.6 million.

The Pentagon started doing this under Bush I SecDef Richard Bruce Cheney, though it is fair to say that it was expanded under Clinton, and went, as did defense procurement generally, completely haywire under Bush II.

The problem is that when you have contractors testing for you, they lie, they self-deal, and they cheat.

That’s capitalism, baby: Cheating is a profit opportunity.

Unfortunately, the capabilities that the government has shed over the past few years will take much longer, but if the development of new systems is curtailed until the internal governmental testing capabilities, it will result in a exodus of people in private testing, because their jobs will be gone, and return to government.

And the Tanker Saga Continues………

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[On Edit] Here is some Airbus Tanker Pr0n

OK, we are in a period of some uncertainty in terms of the much delayed US Air Force tanker contract.

Basically, it all comes down to how the USAF will evaluate the bids.

If it simply says that that the cheapest plane that meets the specs wins, the the Boeing 767 wins, but if it includes total capability, basically dollars per pound of fuel offloaded at a giving distance from the airbase, then the Airbus A330 wins, because it is significantly larger and more capable, as well as being able to simultaneously carry cargo and fuel planes.

It appears that the request for proposals (RFP) is leaning in the former direction, because EADS/Northrop Grumman is threatening a no-bid, which would have Boeing doing the Air Force like a drunk Republican at a gay bar. (see also here)

EADS/Northrop Grumman has reportedly told the Pentagon that it does not intend to bid if the RFP remains the same as it did in the draft, though this seen as a ploy to pressure the USAF to change the requirements (paid subscription required), and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley has called their bluff, saying that there will be no major changes.

I think that there is a bit of a game of chicken going on, and Representative John Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, is saying that the tanker bid “must” have a competition, implying that he may use the appropriations process to require multiple bidders which adds yet more drama to the entire process.

Call Me a Traditionalist…..

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But when the helicopter carrying ships in the Japanese grow large enough that they could easily launch fixed wing aircraft, as is the case with the JASDF’s plans for a new “helicopter destroyer,” which, at 248 M (813 ft) and a displacement of 19½ thousand tons, it’s an aircraft carrier.

By comparison, the Invincible Class CVLs that the UK deployed Harriers, normal detachment was 9, from during he Falklands campaign displaces about 17 thousand tons, and was 210m (689 ft) long.

The juxtaposition of the Japanese and aircraft carriers makes me vaguely uneasy.

Sometimes I Write Good

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Images Wiki, click for full size


FRMV (Recovery & Maintenance Vehicle)


NLOS=C (Cannon)


NLOS-M (Mortar)


ICV (Infantry Carrier/Combat Vehicle)


MCS (Mounted Combat System, AKA “Light Tank”)


RSV (Reconnaissance and Surveillance Vehicle)


MV-E /T(Medical Vehicle, Evacuation/Treatment)

OK, so I was on the by invitation only Stellar Parthenon BBS, and there was a discussion of the first flight of the Airbus A400M, the subject of its merits vs. the C-130 came up, and I noted that it has twice the size and carrying capacity of the C-130, so it can do things that the C-130 can’t like transporting medium combat vehicles in a relatively straightforward manner.

Someone asked if it might not just be easier to design a vehicle to the C-130, and I unleashed a stream of consciousness torrent on transporting an armored fighting vehicle on a C-130 born of my 3 years working on the (now canceled) Future Combat Systems manned ground vehicle program (FCS-MGV).

I got some attaboys, so I figured that it needed to be shared and I thought that it needed to be shared, with some minor cleanup and added footnotes ……… lots ……… and lots ……… and lots of footnotes:

I spent 3 years trying to get the now-canceled “20-ton class” (about 30T when I left)* Future Combat Systems Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle (FRMV) into a f%$#ing C-130.

It rolled off the aircraft with the combat utility of a Hummvee with about 5 gallons of fuel in it.†

On a brand new vehicle, specifically designed to fit on the C-130, you had to pull off all the armor, the antennas and communications boxes‡, the guns§, squat the suspension, and even then you had to use 3 sortees to transport 2 vehicles…Only the real number for vehicles was likely closer to 5 when you count consumables like fuel and a load of ammunition, AND you get a range (assuming no fuel on the far end) of about 200 miles.¥

The Stryker barely fits in a C-130, and has to be reassembled on the other end (though to a slightly lesser degree), and it really cannot carry the advertised amount of troops, unless you are fielding the midget anorexic brigade.Ø

For a medium (17T<x<35T empty weight without ammunition or fuel) vehicle, you can’t get it on a C-130 without taking the motherf%$#er apart.

The C-130 can do a lot of things, but it was never designed to transport anything much larger than a 2-1/2 ton military truck.

Jeebus….I had forgotten how much the bulls%$# specifications for that pissed me off, even 3 years later.

I worked with some really top notch people, and no one beneath the senior management types thought that it could be made to work. The joke was ……… OK, my joke was ……… that if you could convert cynicism into fuel, we could power the state of Pennsylvania.

The program was doomed from the start, even without the clusterf%$# that was the lead system integrator (LSI) model of development and procurement.

*The recovery vehicle had to be at least as heavy as the heaviest variant, because otherwise it could not reliably winch that vehicle out of a ditch.

†One of the central ideas between operating the FCS-MGV was that the FRMV would be the first in, because it had a crane, which you needed to put the f%$#ing vehicles back together again, so you would be the first into a potentially hot LZ, without gun, a little 25mm grenade launcher, or armor.

‡Remember, the core idea of the Future Combat Systems is that the network is so capable that you can use information awareness to defeat the enemy with lighter vehicles, only you roll off the C-130 blind, deaf, and dumb.

§In our case, the little pop up 25mm grenade launcher, for the howitzer version, and the anti-tank gun version, the guns stayed on.

¥It might have been 300 miles, I’m working from memory, and the army used the numbers that Lockheed Martin gave out for the aircraft, but he USAF maintained that you could not operate the aircraft at those weights, so it was a clusterf%$# from the start anyway. That being said, even using the Army’s/Lockheed’s numbers, it was faster to drive a unit of actionß that distance than it was to dissemble the vehicles, ship them there, and reassemble them after the requisite few hundred sorties were completed.

ßYeah, as part of this, they felt it was necessary to rename the “brigade” and call it a “unit of action”, I guess because it sounded snazzy, and it would impress the budget weenies.

ØIt should be noted that tracked vehicles are actually slightly more space efficient than an equivalent wheeled vehicle though, since you need more clearance around the wheels in order to accommodate their range of motion when steering, something that you don’t need with a tracked vehicle, which steers by differential speeds between the treads, the troop variant, the Infantry Carrier Vehicle (ICV), actually carried a crew of 2 and 9 troops, which compared favorably to the 3+6 carried by the Bradley IFV.€

€Of course, if you put a completely remote controlled turret on a Bradley, and there are at least a half dozen of them on the market, and eliminated the gunner, you could get a full 9 man squad, just the the ICV.

Oopsie!

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Fail!

So we see a front page editorial in the Mobile Press-Register calling for Northrop-Grumman/EADS to be given a fair shake in the tanker competition, which is far from surprising, since that is where the tanker would be assembled if the A330 wins, but they also have an editorial cartoon showing the “customers” of the tanker.

Notice anything?

Like the model of the aircraft?

It’s an F-15 Eagle made by Boeing whose 767 is competing against the A330 for the contract.

Considering the fact that there are 3 fighters currently in front line service with the USAF, and two of them are not made by Boeing, the choice here seems a big….Inopportune.

Reality Is a Bitch

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So, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the modular, whiz bank, high tech wonder that manages to cram all the weaponry of a corvette into a hull the size of a frigate*, is heading out to sea on its 1st deployment, and they had to add an additional 20 crew to the nominal compliment of 75, an increase of 27%, in order not to overwork the crew to the point of uselessness. (see also here and here):

Good said Freedom’s 20 extra sailors would sleep in two 12-rack berthing modules, about the size of shipping containers, which will ride in the ship’s multiuse mission spaces. While the 75 core crew members will stay in the ship’s integral berthing spaces — which include double-tall racks, rooms of no more than eight sailors, and a head and shower to each berthing area — the VBSS sailors’ lodging will be more like those of sailors on a destroyer, he said.

Note that these spaces will not have heads or showers, and that the multiuse mission spaces are intended for the addition of capabilities to the platform for modular upgrades.

It seems to me that we are seeing the US Navy’s fetish on getting the number of crew on ships down coming back to bite them in the ass, much as it did with the now-canceled Zumwalt class (an overview here).

In any case, this yet another example where, to paraphrase Commander Salamander, truth trumps PowerPoint slide thinking.

Not only does this show an increase in crew costs, it also reduces the “flexibility and modularity” which was supposed to be the primary justification for the program, because some of those “plug and play” spaces must now be occupied by additional crew.

These problems are in addition to the cost overruns and schedule slippage that the program is seeing, of course.

*A corvette is a lot smaller than a frigate.

This is the Argument Room

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It looks like they are looking at replacing/upgrading the M4 carbine again.

As a result of stoppages and other problems under very heavy use, they are looking at some mods:

Army weapons officials presented the proposed changes to Congress on Oct. 30. They are:

  • Adding a heavier barrel for better performance during high rates of fire.
  • Replacing the direct-impingement gas system with a piston gas system.
  • Improving the trigger pull.
  • Adding an improved rail system for increased strength.
  • Adding ambidextrous controls.
  • Adding a round counter to track the total number of bullets fired over the weapon’s lifetime.

I think that the gas tube operation has always been a problem, so going with a piston makes sense, and an improved trigger pull, making the weapon a bit more robust, and adding ambidextrous controls are all pretty common sense. The heavier barrel is a trade off, more weight vs better performance under heavy use, and I don’t have the data for that.

As to the round counter, it has to be designed such that if it fails, everything else works, because it add a lot of complexity.

To my mind, the real solution is to go with a Bullpup design, which would be shorter, but have a longer barrel, and you can incorporate improvements in a new weapon.

That being said, arguments over the M16 family, and 5.56mm rounds tend to be contentious.

An Austin Powers Moment

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Sharks with Frikken Laser Beams!*

So, the latest selling point for the F-35 JSF is the fact that you might, at some ill defined point in the distant future, be able to put a laser on it:

The Lightning II may eventually be fitted with lasers able to shoot down attacking missiles. The head of Lockheed Martin’s Lightning program and former test pilot, Tom Burbage, said in Canberra the company was looking at special applications including an anti-missile laser system.

”They are lethal countermeasures in that with a laser you could actually destroy something that’s coming at the aircraft,” Mr Burbage said.

The classic rejoinder is the Yiddish, “Az der bubbe vot gehat baytzim vot zie geven mein zayde.” (If my grandmother had balls she’d be my grandfather.)

Certainly, with the transmission for the STOVL lift fan being able to handle something on the order of 25,000 KW, but it’s clear than any aircraft purchased today will never have that capability.

The JSF remains obscenely over priced as it has been sold, over budget compared to that price, and well behind schedule, and no amount of Ronco™ style, “But wait there’s more,” revelations will change this.

I am not one of the people who thinks that building a gazillion F-22s at a cost per Troy ounce approaching that of gold before its recent run-up† is a good idea, but the F-35 JSF is an exorbitantly expensive pig, even before you have “Frikken laser beams attached to their heads.”

H/t ELP Defens(c)e Blog

*Actually Mike Meyers missed a joke here. Dr. Evil, having been frozen in the 1960s, would never have heard of the “Sea Bass”, it’s a marketing term. If he had known about them at all, he would have know them as a “Patagonian toothfish”, which lends itself to confusion, and all sorts of puns, and a number of humorous asides….I’m just saying.
†Empty weight, 43,430 lb, 12 Troy ounces to a pound, and $200 million price tag, gives a cost per Troy ounce of $383.76, which is very close to where gold was 5 years ago. (click graph for full size)‡
‡Yeah, I know the whine, “But if we buy more, the unit cost would go down!” Listen, 187 were bought, for a cost of $62 billion, which gives a cost of $331½ million each, and even the USAF’s (bogus numbers put the marginal costs well over a hundred million, and that’s not including the modifications that any new production would need because the parts are not made any more….And let’s not go into thee fact that it’s as expensive expensive as hell to just plain fly too.

New F-35 Maneuver : The Death Spiral

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Compare and Contrast

Well, we have yet another report that the F-35 well over budget and behind schedule:

Reports prepared by the Defense Contract Management Agency for Defense Department officials show that Lockheed and other contractors are months late on deliveries of test airplanes and components for future production aircraft.

The program is even farther behind on testing, and the reports say Lockheed could exhaust its development budget within a year.

Problems cited in the documents, obtained by the Star-Telegram under the Freedom of Information Act, support a recent Pentagon assessment that F-35 development will require two more years and billions of additional dollars.

That’s not the death spiral part. The death spiral part is that many of the partners are looking at deferring or canceling purchases on the basis of the schedule slips and price increases:

In a long-awaited decision, cabinet’s national security committee was due to sign off on the $16 billion purchase before Christmas.

But defence budget pressures and Defence Department concerns about Australia becoming the lead foreign customer for the initial production models of the F-35 fighter are expected to force a postponement until the new year of a government green light for the acquisition.

As the budget numbers come out, you will see reductions or orders, which will drive unit price up, which will lead to reductions of orders, rinse, lather, repeat.

Swiss Look to Postpone Fighter Selection

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It looks now like the final decision by the Swiss will likely be delayed until 2011, (paid subscription required) and the size of the order may be reduced from 30 to 22 aircraft.

It looks to me like budget considerations are an issue, which would mitigate against the $100-$140 million Eurofighter Typhoon. The Rafale is somewhat cheaper, at about $80 million, and the Gripen is “cheapest” at $40-60 million, which would tend to favor the Gripen.

Additionally, the Gripen is about ½ the size of the competitors, which means that operating costs would be much less, and the aircraft that it is replacing, the F-5 was never the high end of the Swiss AF fighter mix anyway.

Of course, Saab lacks the industrial connections for potential offset deals too, and if the Swiss wish to train at nearby bases, these bases will either have Rafales (France), or Typhoons (Germany, Italy, and Austria) already deployed there, which might simplify support there.

This makes the entire decision process hard to predict, to put it mildly.

Israel Drops V-22

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The IDF is looking at the CH-53K instead.

It makes sense, really. Israel is the size of New Jersey, and the CH-53 is much more flexible, and the difference in speed does not make much of a difference.

Let’s roll the numbers

V-22 Ch-53K
Speed 450 km/h 315 km/h
Payload 6,800 kg 15,900 kg
Range 1,627 km 841 km
Cabin Size (lxwxh) 7.3m x 1.8m x 1.8m 9.1m x 2.7m x 2.0m

Since going from one corner of Israel to the other is on the order of 400 km, the CH-53 K can cover the entire country, carrying more, and carrying more internally.

Additionally, the V-22 costs about $70 million as versus about $30 million for the CH-53K.

With a reduced payload and supplemental tanks, something like a special forces insertion is going to have similar range, and the larger internal payload allows the on an offloading of larger vehicles more quickly.

Finally, in a “hot” landing zone, the V-22, with its heavily loaded props/rotors, is more susceptible to vortex ring state (basically a stall in a rotary winged aircraft), and has to descend more slowly, increasing vulnerability to ground fire.

It’s a no brainer for Israel not to buy the V-22.

Come to think of it, it may be a no brainer for everyone not to buy the V-22.

And While We are On the Tanker…..

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Both Boeing and Northrop/Grumman-EADS are expressing serious concerns on the USAF’s draft tanker Request for Proposals (RFP). (paid subscription required)

We have Northrop’s complaint that Boeing got Northrop’s detailed pricing data when it made its challenge on the last contract, and Boeing is complaining that there requirements are all weighted identically:

The draft RFP places equal value on non-essential and essential qualities—such as sink and toilet water flow and fuel offload or past performance—respectively. “If everything is important, is anything important?” [Boeing business development vice president Mitchell] Waldman said. “In this competition, risk is essentially pass/fail.” In the last competition, key requirements were weighed as well as past performance and risk.

There are also complaints from Boeing that have not been released to the public.

The Secretary of the Airforce has stated that he is open to changing the RFP, but that would invite a repeat of the last clusterf$#@ on tanker procurement.

When Comparing the Tanker Proposals

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It would be a good thing to remember that Italy has still not received its 767 tankers, because there are problems with the centerline hose and drogue.

Boeing’s delivery of 767 tanker aircraft to the Italian Air Force has slipped again as the company fixes a problem with the hose-and-drogue refueling system, a senior Italian defense source said.

Italy ordered four tankers in 2002, with deliveries first expected in 2005, before a series of hitches, including vibrations in wing pylons, pushed the schedule back.

One of the reasons that Northrop won the last time around, was that the USAF doubted that Boeing could deliver the tankers on time and on budget.

Also note that drogue/boom thing is an area where Boeing is specifically claiming that its high level of expertise makes them uniquely suited for the contract.

Special Software Gives JSF 50% Lethality Boost for JSF

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Unfortunately, as Bill Sweetman laments, the software in question is:

While we’re going back and forth about the supposed sixfold advantage of the JSF over anything except the F-22, see this from a year ago:

“U.S. Air Force analyses show the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is at least 400 percent more effective in air-to-air combat capability than the best fighters currently available in the international market.”

And now it’s 600 per cent. This does of course prove convincingly that Lockheed Martin is right to suggest that the F-35’s capability will be able to be vastly improved through software alone.

That software being, in this case, PowerPoint.

…

(emphasis mine)

Mr. Sweetman owes me a screen wipe.