Category: Defense Procurement

The USAF’s Broken Procurement Program, and Remedies for This

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The USAF is looking to cut more than 250 fighters from its fleet, in order to make budget space for the increasingly expensive F-35.

The problem is that, once again, the aircraft are too damn expensive. More is the enemy of “good enough”.

In the meantime,
David Axe points to a book which proposes a solution, which suggests smaller and lighter aircraft, America’s Defense Meltdown.

They propose two aircraft:

  • A 9 ton class air-to-air fighter with a 16 ton class engine with a, “cutting edge, all-passive with 360-degree infrared and radar warning gear” that is supposed to be cheaper than an F-16.

I do not find this one particularly realistic. Whenever you insert the phrase “cutting edge” in a phrase, you never get low cost.

The other one is more interesting:

  • A higher performance aircraft to replace the A-10.

Given that the rate of fire of the A-10 of the GAU-8 cannon has been reduced by about 1/2, because the accuracy requires further rounds, simply by reducing the size and weight of the cannon, and the ammunition loadout, along with using a more modern engine with a higher thrust to weight ratio, you easily get to a thrust to weight ratio at combat weights that approaches unity. With advances in things like Aluminum alloys and ceramic armor, performance could be further improved.

The problem is that while the Army would love such an aircraft, the USAF hates it, and has been trying to kill the A-10 since sometime around 1981, and so is completely uninterested in developing a successor.

$6 Billion on Mercs…so Far

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Nathan Hodge uncovers this little bit of chocalatey goodness from the most recent report of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

And that’s just the stuff that the SIGIR found.

What’s more the report says that the numbers should go up as the troops pull out, because, “requirements for private security services for DoS [Department of State] and USAID would likely increase to compensate for support previously provided by the military.”

Lovely. The US needs to sign onto the anti-mercenary treaty, and shut down this entire industry.

How to Know When a Burocracy is Out of Control

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When its budget is growing so fast that auditors cannot keep up..

Case in point, the Pentagon:

Government reports are not known for plain language, much less candor. But in a report issued in March, Pentagon Inspector General Claude M. Kicklighter summed up what had been growing increasingly evident for years: Defense spending has been growing so rapidly that auditors can no longer keep track.

“We currently are not able to provide sufficient audit coverage of [Department of Defense] acquisition programs given the dollars expended by the department,” Mr. Kicklighter wrote. “The rapid growth of the DOD budget since FY 2000 leaves the Department increasingly more vulnerable to the fraud, waste and abuse that undermines the department’s mission.”

And they want to browbeat the next president into increasing their budget even more.

OK, Time to Call an Obama Adviser Stupid

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Specifically Paul Kaminiski, who is talking up a dual buy strategy for the USAF tanker competition.

There are a number of problems, not the least of which is the fact that this is the worst of all possible solutions, doubling inventory and supply issues.

You also pay the cost of the tooling and engineering twice

A bad deal for the tax payer and the military.

There is also the problem that the 767s being made for Italy do not work. (Paid subscription required)

Boeing has assigned a “tiger team” to deal with the wing flutter issues caused by the refuelling pods.

“Baby Seal” Report May Have Cost RAND Analyst Their Job

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It appears that John Stillion has abruptly left his job as an analyst at the RAND corporation, He’s best known for writing a report which described the JSF as being clubbed like a baby seal in air to air combat by aircraft already flying.

Dennis Jensen, an Australian MP and a fierce critic of the JSF, who used this report to argue against Australia purchaasing the aircraft, is alleging that he was fired for this report.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Dragon Skin and Its Successors

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I haven’t followed the entire body armor controversy particularly closely.

My interest there has primarily been the allegations of corruption and war profiteering, but I know that this is a subject that tends to get people screaming at each other, with the word “conspiracy” being thrown around.

So the army’s decision to postpone tests on flexible armor will doubtless raise some hackles.

It may be that the army saw some new technology coming down the pipe, as we also have a press release from Allan Bain, one of the creators of scale armor,* regarding a new technology to forge the plates that will result in improved performance

Evolution Armor Systems calls it “Skaalar Exoskin Gen 4+”.

*Truth be told, the technology is thousands of years old, so we are talking about the recreators of scale armor.

An Interesting Take on MRAP’s in Afghanistan

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One of the things in big demand in Iraq were Mine Resistant Ambushed Protected vehicles (MRAP) to deal with road side bombs.

Well it appears that the experience with these vehicles in Afghanistan has been far less positive than in Iraq:

During my recent embed with Marines in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, the number one gear complaint was the MRAP: it was too wide for most roads, and the top-heavy vehicles were prone to rollover.

Iraq is, after all, a fairly flat country with an excellent road system, and Afghanistan is probably the opposite of this.

Given the high wheel loads and the top heavy nature of these vehicles this is to be expected.

MRAPs are not just a counterinsurgency specific system, they are a “counterinsurgency with good roads specific” system.

RAND Gets Paid to Support Bloated Defense Budgets

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In looking at the Rand study, I neglected part of the bigger picture, that they are to a large degree paid by the Department of Defense to provide data supporting larger defense budgets.

Thus their study on the F-22 and F-35 showing that China would do them like a drunk sorority sister was part of a policy of pumping up the Chinese threat in order to justify larger budgets:

A new RAND study suggests U.S. air power in the Pacific would be inadequate to thwart a Chinese attack on Taiwan in 2020. The study, entitled “Air Combat Past, Present and Future,” by John Stillion and Scott Perdue, says China’s anti-access arms and strategy could deny the U.S. the “ability to operate efficiently from nearby bases or seas.”

I think that some of the problems, particularly with a defense procurement system that is as dysfunctional as the Bush family, are real, but the intended audience of this is Congressional appropriations committee.

It’s not a call for military reform, it’s a call for more of the same.

Just How Dirty Was Tony Blair?

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Because we already know that Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saudr, known as “Bandar Bush” for his close ties to the Bush Crime Family, is unbelievably dirty. He took around £1 billion in commissions to “facilitate” the military sales in question.

Tony Blair shut down the investigations into bribes around the Al-Yamamah arms sales to the house of Saud in response to threats from that nation, and now the OECD has released a blistering critique of the behavior of the British government at that time for Blair’s shutting down that investigation.

Maybe Bush and Blair can share a cell.

It Looks Like the USAF and the JSF in Particular, Are In For Some Heat

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The Rand corporation, which a few weeks ago said that the 4th generation fighters would club the F-35 Lightning II like a baby seal, is now saying that the USAF’s reliance on extremely high tech cutting edge aircraft is unlikely to work in a real war, and are failing now:

The Rand and CSIS reports both deliver sharply critical outlooks for the future of US airpower. The first suggests that the superior technology of next-generation US fighters are no match for superior numbers and geographic advantage. The second, entitled America’s Self-Destroying Airpower, concludes failures of strategy and planning have made the US military-industrial complex its own worst enemy.

The reports go on to describe, “widespread breakdowns across the US military’s acquisition system for developing and fielding modern combat aircraft.”

Speaking from my personal experience working on the Army’s Future Combat System, it ain’t limited to aircraft.

At its core is the problem that systems are too damn expensive.

Neither aircraft offers a meaningful increase in performance in current deployments, just added costs.

US Army Aviation Looking for Helo Game Changer

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It looks like they are checking out both the, “Piasecki/Boeing X-49 SpeedHawk compound helicopter and the Sikorsky X2 coaxial helicopter,” as an interim measure toward higher performance helicopters, and they are looking at things like the Joint Heavy Lift (JHL) , such as the, “Bell Boeing QuadTiltrotor, a Sikorsky heavylift helicopter concept and the Karem/Lockheed optimum speed tiltrotor,” to carry A-400M sized, or at least larger than C-130 sized, loads.

What is really at the core of a lot of this is that since 1947, when the USAF became a separate branch of the service, and took over fixed wing aviation, they have not been well served, so they are looking toward bringing the capabilities back in house through new helicopter technologies.

Another Project that I Worked On* Has News

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The US Marines have just put in orders for 7 more Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles (EFV).

It’s a very ambitious ambitious amphibious vehicle, when I worked on it it was called the Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV), and it is a very ambitious program, a 35 ton vehicle capable of 40 kts in the water by planing like a speed boat.

In any case, it has hit the trifecta in military contracting, over budget, behind schedule, and having technical shortcomings, and the new protypes are supposed to address.

  • Wiring and corrosion, and water infiltration issues.
  • Insufficient rigidity in the auto-cannon turret leading to feed issues.
  • Instability in water, leading to problems staying on plane.

They are not looking at full rate production starting at 2025.

*Yes, I have worked everywhere. Maybe I can’t hold down a job, but more likely this has been my role as “technical hit man”, where you are parachuted in to take care of a specific need.

Little Bird Returns in the Autumn

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Sorry about the hed, I thought it sounded cool, like code words for two spies who meet for the first time.

It’s actually true too, as the AH-6 Little Bird scout light attack/reconnaissance helicopter is experiencing a renaissance as a result of the problems with the Bell ARH-70, which is behind schedule and over budget. Boeing is not explicitly looking to replace the ARH-70 through the cancellation of the contract, though the US Army is considering this.

Right now, they are pitching the AH-6 on the export market, which has viewed Bells problems with some alarm.

[Update]
The Pentagon has declined to certify the ARH-70A Arapaho following a Nunn-McDurdy (budget) breach, so the program is effectively canceled.

Seeing as how Boeing has largely fixed the manufacturing capability issues that dogged their first bid, I expect them to come back and win the bid, but we know what my predictions are worth.


ARH-70A Arapaho


AH-6 Little Bird

I will note that the AH-6 has seen combat service with the Israeli Defense Forces.

This Will Be at Least a Decade Late, and Underperform

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It looks like India is looking at developing a medium fighter aircraft in the 20 tonne range.

Considering the fact that its light fighter, the Tejas, is something like 15 years overdue, and that the indigenous engine, the Kaveri, has been abandoned, I do not see this as the start of a pleasant story, particularly given the fact that they are looking about integrating stealth features, which implies that the program will be particularly ambitious.

It’s already starting off on the wrong foot, as they have stated that it is their intent to use two Kaveri engines to power the aircraft.