Category: Defense Procurement

Potential Rafale Sale to Libya

No Comments

It makes sense.

Khaddafi has signed a deal for 6 months exclusive negotiations for the Rafale.

This purchase actually makes sense for Libya, because they have a reasonable chance of being able to continue to operate the aircraft even in the face of an embargo by the US, such as the sort that grounded the Venezuelan F-16s, and the competitors, the Eurofighter Typhoon, and SAAB Gripen, both have significantly more US content.

This would be the first foreign sale of the Rafale, and I’m sure that the French foreign ministry and Dassault are both drooling at the prospect.

The Navy is Doing This Because the USAF Can’t Be Bothered

No Comments

After years of ground troops begging for something lower, slower, and with more short field capability, it is the US Navy that is considering a solution, the Super Tucano turboprop trainer configured for the light attack mission.

You could probably buy 50 of these aircraft for the price of one JSF, and it can loiter over the battle area for a much longer period of time, and spot things that the fast movers would miss.

Shades of the A-1 Skyraider, which wasn’t a USAF idea either.

Naval aviation is fighting it, because, well, has a propeller and all, but it looks like this will actually be used, because it’s what the guy on the ground needs.

Gripen NG AESA Radar in Flux

No Comments

Originally, SAAB had contracted with Thales for its AESA antenna to be integrated with the Gripen NG, and while this will happen, Thales is refusing to make this available for production variants, because they are heavily tied into the Dassault Rafale, so far winless in export competitions, and the Gripen is competing against it for the Indian MMRCA and the Brazilian fighter competition.

This is further complicated by the fact that while the Thales system is compatible with the existing signal processor from the Saab PS-05 MSA radar already flying on the JAS-39 C, some of the successors would likely require that that this be changed, increasing integration costs.

So SAAB is casting about for another radar, hopefully one that is US content free, so as to avoid US export restrictions.

STOVL JSF Range Same as AV8B Harrier

No Comments

Bill Sweetman looks up the current numbers for the JSF and the Harrier, and finds the following:

But the bottom line is this: with 2,500 pounds of weapons, plus the gun pod, the AV-8B has a hi-lo-hi operational radius of 508 nm. The F-35B’s design radius, with no gun, two 1,000-pound bombs and two AMRAAMs, is 450 nm: the most recent numbers (from 2007) show it exceeding that and just about equalling the AV-8B’s range.

Huh. Obviously, there are differences, a supersonic dash speed, some level of stealth, and a superior avionics suite, but it’s a less than impressive performance for an aircraft that will enter service about 30 years after the Harrier II.

We Finally Have a Price for the JSF

No Comments

The catch? Engines are not included.

So, it’s a $70 million (A-model) or $80 million (B-model) paperweight.

That’s clear.

As Bill Sweetman notes:

  • The Norwegians think it’s $52M.
  • The Israelis think it’s +$100M.
  • The Dutch think it’s €56M.
  • The Danes think it’s $82M with spares and training.
  • Davis thinks it’s $70M for an F-35A in 2014.
  • Davis thinks it’s $70M for a F-35C without engine in 2014.
  • Davis thinks it’s $80M for a F-35A in 2014.
  • The USAF budget says it’s $91M flyaway in 2013.
  • The GAO thinks it’s $104M

I’m inclined to believe the GAO at this point.

US Air Force Sacrificing ECM Capabilities to Push F-22 & F-35

No Comments

The Air Force has yet canceled the stand-off jammer EB-52.

If you look at electronic warfare assets for the USAF, they have been starved for some time, and the USAF’s argument is that AESA radars can fill the gap on their stealth platforms.

To my mind, what is going on here is that the Air Force is systematically defunding projects that might constitute a threat to the F-22, F-35, B-2, and NGB.

If you possess sufficient EW capabilities to negate the newer integrated air defense systems, then you don’t need stealth, so those EW capabilities have to be killed, even if they, as in the case of the EB-52, make stealth more effective and more survivable.

GAO Report Savages Future Combat System

No Comments

Seriously, the report is brutal:

Advocates of restructuring or cutting back on FCS will find ammunition in the draft report. In it, GAO asserts that FCS is “unlikely to be executed” for the $159 billion the Army says it will cost, a source said, citing the draft.

Moreover, and perhaps more relevant to the current decision-making within the Pentagon, GAO states that the Army has already spent 60 percent of its FCS development funds even though “the most expensive activities remain to be done before the production decision” in 2013.

GAO contends that the funding situation will deteriorate for FCS as the program’s costs will likely grow at the same time as competition for federal funds tightens, a source said.

The report also cites what it calls “actual immaturity” in the program, according to sources. Calling the network performance “largely unproven,” GAO says the Army has failed to convincingly demonstrate that FCS designs will meet their requirements, a source told ITA.

I am completely not shocked at this. I worked on the program, and it was over ambitious, and managed under the now discredited Lead System Integrator (LSI) concept, which been universally unsuccessful.

It’s no surprise that this whole program has turned into a clusterf^%$.

Stating the Blatantly Obvious: Defense Procurement Edition

No Comments

Finally, we are now seeing procurement experts suggesting that cost be made a formal requirement on major procurement programs, the technical term is Key Performance Parameter (KPP), to which I would add schedule.

Among other things, this would mean that going over budget at all would be grounds for termination for cause (no money) as opposed to a termination for convenience (cost plus).

I would in fact suggest that cost and schedule be made “super-requirements,” and that other requirements would be subordinate to them.

What this would mean is that we would not procure immature technologies, and that the costs would be known at the start of a program, which would prevent the 20+ year F-22/JSF type hideously expensive procurement debacles.

The Tanker Competion is Back

No Comments

Yes, the 767-A330 competion rebid advanced, as the Joint Requirement Oversight Council is reviewing the new requirements for the recompete.

This is going to be a long and expensive process, and the A330 is superior (more flexible, longer range, carries more fuel, and the tanker is flying now), and Murtha’s suggestion for a dual buy to forestall another challenge is ruinously expensive over the life of the program.

Won’t be pretty.

Yeah, Like This is Going to Work

No Comments

It appears that India’s response to its troubled contract to buy the refurbished Admiral Gorshkov has led them to start construction of their own carrier in their own shipyards.

Considering India’s history in weapons development, Arjun Tank, Tejas light fighter, Kaveri engine, the Nag anti-tank missile(!), each more than 20 years in development without operational deployment, this is not a course of action that I would take.

This has fiasco written all over it.

Levin and McCain Look to Give Nunn-McCurdy a Steroid Injection

No Comments

They are proposing the Weapon Systems Acquisition Reform Act, which is intended to add some teeth to the 1983 Nunn–McCurdy Amendment.

Nunn–McCurdy requires congressional notice when a program goes 15% over budget, and termination when it goes 25% over budget, unless the DoD certifies it as “essential to the national security,” but this has come to mean very little, as evidenced by the F-22, DDG-1000, FCS, JSF, EFV, LCS, etc.

According to Senator Carl Levin, the measure includes:

  • Address problems with unreasonable performance requirements by requiring DOD to reestablish systems engineering organizations and developmental testing capabilities; make trade-offs between cost, schedule and performance early in the program cycle; and conduct preliminary design reviews before giving approval to new acquisition programs;

  • Address problems with unreasonable cost and schedule estimates by establishing a new, independent director of cost assessment to ensure that unbiased data is available for senior DOD managers;

  • Address problems with the use of immature technologies by requiring the Director of Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E) to periodically review and assess the maturity of critical technologies and by directing the Department to make greater use of prototypes, including competitive prototypes, to prove that new technologies work before trying to produce them; and,

  • Address problems with costly changes in the middle of a program by tightening the so-called “Nunn–McCurdy” requirements for underperforming programs.

What is interesting here is that this is juxtaposed with the appointment of Ashton B. Carter as Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition.

Carter is a Harvard professor, and has no ties to the defense industry. His career has largely involved criticizing the defense industry while at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy under Clinton.

The Iron Triangle types do not like him, which means that I do, though I hope that he has the bureaucratic chops to make this work.

Defense Procurement at Its Finest

No Comments

So, it appears that the electromagnetic catapult on the Ford is behind schedule and over budget, and the contractor is asking for more money, because if they have to go back to steam, they have to tear up the ship, including its engineering plants.

So, they will get the money, and they will deliver late, and, unless I miss my guess, we will seeing a F/A-18s hitting when the catapults fail, as the bugs are worked out, at cost plus.