Category: Defense Procurement

Saab Wins Brazil’s Fighter for Gripen NG by Turning Over Recipe to Special Sauce

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It’s been a long time coming, and through a number of odd twists and turns.

Earlier in the process, then Brazilian President Lula da Silva said that there was a deal with the French for the Dassault Rafale, largely for foreign policy reasons, but the defense establishment was fairly vehemently opposed to this, because of the much higher purchase and life cycle costs of the twin engine Rafale as compared to the single engine Gripen NG.

Still most of the stories seem to bury the lede:

Brazil has selected the Saab Gripen E/F for the 36 aircraft F-X2 requirement to replace its air force’s older combat types.

With an acquisition cost in the region of $4.5 billion, the Gripens will replace the Dassault Mirage 2000C fighters operated by the 1st Air Defence Group and a number of the modernised Northrop F-5EMs in four other Air Force squadrons.

The long-awaited announcement was made on 18 December by Brazilian defence minister Celso Amorim and Brazilian air force Chief Gen Juniti Saito.

The decision was driven by aircraft performance, transfer of technology and low through-life costs, according to the officials.

Contract negotiation is expected to last between 10 and 12 months.

Saab has guaranteed the total transfer of technology of “all systems” including the weapons command software, which will allow future integration of Brazilian-developed missiles and weapons.

(Emphasis Mine)

Both the F/A-18 E/F and the Rafale software suites are far more tightly integrated,  and the software of the F-35 is even more tightly integrated, which makes it more difficult to modify to incorporate new systems.

Saab deliberately chose to put a firewall between flight critical and tactical software, meaning that crashing the latter won’t crash the whole aircraft, which creates an easier upgrade and testing path.

This is Amazingly Not Stupid

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Note new fuselage with rear ramp

A couple of weeks ago, I commented on the absurdity of using the V-22 to replace the C-2 for carrier-onboard-delivery (COD).

Basically, the V-22 is too expensive, lacks sufficient internal volume, is a maintenance hog, and lacks sufficient range.

One of the proposals is to update the C-2, which is based on the E-2, with the propulsion and aerodynamics updates that have been applied to the latest version of the Hawkeye.

LM is proposing a Refurbished S-3 Viking with a new fuselage:

Competition is the mother of invention, and with a handful of prime contractors chasing fewer new programs, none are willing to pass on a chance to compete, even if it means dusting off an old product.

 An example is the U.S. Navy’s emerging requirement to renew its carrier-onboard-delivery (COD) fleet. Northrop Grumman is proposing to remanufacture the existing C-2 Greyhounds, while the Bell Boeing team is offering new V-22 Osprey tiltrotors.

 Now Lockheed Martin has entered the fray with a proposal to take U.S. Navy S-3 Vikings out of desert storage, refurbish them and fit them with a new, larger fuselage suited to the cargo role. Retired from carrier decks in 2009, the twin-turbofan S-3 was designed for anti-submarine warfare but was also used for cargo delivery, electronic intelligence and aerial refueling.

It’s most famous use was delivering a Commander Codpiece (George W. Bush) to a carrier deck to announce “Mission Accomplished”.

Lockheed Martin’s KC-3 proposal for the Navy COD mission would reuse the S-3’s cockpit, wing, tail, engines and landing gear, but mate them to a new wider and longer fuselage with a rear loading ramp. “We’ve done the high-level engineering on whether it can take the cat and trap loads, and we believe it will,” Fearnow says. “We’ve run the concept past the Navy and responded to the RFI [request for information].”

 The KC-3, with its new aluminum fuselage, would actually be lighter than the S-3, once all of its mission avionics are removed, says Fearnow, but more work needs to be done on engineering the modification and assessing the condition of airframes and engines in storage. “We’re not completely there yet. We believe it can be cost-competitive, but we have off-ramps in case we do not go forward,” he notes.

Note that the unrefuelled range of the C-2 Grayhound is 2,400 km (before upgrades) and its top speed is 635 km/h, the V-22 has a 1,627 km range and a 509 km/h top speed, and the S-3 has a range of 5,121 km and a top speed of 795 km/h.

If I were running the Pentagon, I would probably go with upgraded/new C-2s, they will almost certainly be the cheapest to acquire, would probably have the lowest operational cost, and they the fewest changes to existing operations.

The Triumph of Wicked Stupid Ideas

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It appears that the US Marines are to replace the C-2 carrier onboard delivery (COD) aircraft with the V-22, because increased orders should lower the unit price of the V-22 and allow the Marines more of the expensive, crash prone, and maintenance intensive dog.

The Marines have been very good at lobbying for really bad ideas lately, the EFV,* adding STOVL to the JSF, and now, this:

“The C-2 makes us so much more flexible that we could support three separated groups, if necessary,” boasted Rear Adm. Marshall White, commanding air forces in the Western Pacific.

Faster-flying, longer-ranged and more capacious than the predecessor C-1 cargo plane, the ungainly C-2s and their crews were the unheralded heroes of the naval crises of 1968 and countless incidents since. Produced in a second batch in the 1980s and since upgraded, today a force of 35 C-2s based in key locations allows America’s 10 carriers to range the globe, waging aerial war and responding to diplomatic crises without planners having to worry about stranding the vessels beyond range of aerial resupply.

Rarely have so few airplanes of a single—and relatively unsophisticated—type been so vitally important to the conduct of a superpower’s global affairs. “The C-2A allows carriers and the fleet to maintain a ready position by supporting the vital supply line,” says Brian Scolpino, who oversees the C-2 force for the Navy.

But the Navy could end up retiring the C-2s and replacing them with a far inferior plane—one that’s not really a plane at all, but a controversial hybrid craft. The Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey can take off vertically and cruise like an airplane thanks to its rotating wingtip engines, but lacks the C-2’s far-flying efficiency and its ease of use rooted in nearly 50 years of institutional experience.

………

The Pentagon is no stranger to pricey, ill-advised weapons development scheme, but even in this wasteful institution the plan to scrap the C-2 stands out as especially self-defeating. America’s world-spanning carrier fleet is one of its key advantages over its enemies. Constraining the flattops’ resupply could force them to stay closer to their home ports, reducing Washington’s options in the event of war and diminishing U.S. influence during peacetime.

………

The Navy is well aware of the Cod’s enduring qualities. “The C-2A has not experienced any limitations as the Cod aircraft,” Scolpino writes. But concerted lobbying by the Marines and Boeing have practically forced the sailing branch to at least consider buying the V-22. If politics triumph and the tiltrotor takes the C-2’s place, the fleet could find itself moving backwards in time, to a state of constrained fighting ability not unlike that that preceded the Cod’s arrival in 1966.

………

But the V-22 has less range and less payload than the C-2: Northrop’s prop plane can haul five tons of stuff 1,500 miles, but the V-22’s range with the same load could be as little as 50 miles, according to Navy statistics and Bell and Boeing’s own literature. That’s in part because the V-22 has just over a third the internal space of a C-2 and in the case of bulkier supplies would likely need to haul them slung by a rope suspended from the fuselage—a huge source of drag.

………

Extending the tiltrotor’s flying distance would require the constant attention of Air Force aerial tankers, which can cost up to $10,000 per hour to operate. The V-22 is also slightly slower than the C-2, can’t fly as high because it’s unpressurized and costs more: $68 million for a new V-22 compared to an estimated $50 million for a new C-2.

Note that the Marines succeeded in delaying the CH-53K, which had been under budget and ahead of schedule, in order to secure more orders for the V-22 as well.

This is a complete clusterf%$#.

*Full disclosure, I worked for General Dynamics, the prime contractor, on this vehicle when it was called the AAAV.

Hey, I Used to Work There!

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BAE’s vehicle manufacturing plant in Sealy, Texas is sbeing closed next year:

The U.S. subsidiary of BAE Systems Plc plans to close a military vehicle plant in Texas next year and lay off about 325 employees, the company announced.

 The facility, located about 50 miles outside Houston in Sealy, since 1990 has produced tactical wheeled vehicles for the U.S. military, including blast-resistant trucks known as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Humvee replacement Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, or JLTV.

 The London-based company said industry contraction drove the decision to shutter the site by June 2014.

When I worked there in the early 1900s, it was owned by Stewart & Stevenson, and was the center of the $1.4 billion contract for the 2½ and 5 ton military trucks.

The writing for this plant was on the wall when Oshkosh Corp. managed to decode a Sealy’s sub-par drawing package and win the latest FMTV Contract.

Burying the Lede

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In an article on Korean fighter purchase plans, there is a lot of discussion about their next fighter purchase:

Boeing’s F-15SE Silent Eagle has been selected as the only qualified bidder in South Korea’s F-X Phase 3 competition for 60 fighters—but the country’s air force is lobbying to overturn the decision in favor of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

 A win in South Korea would extend the F-15 production line into the next decade and launch an improved version that could compete for future fighter requirements in the 2020s. That outcome seems likely following the decision of the South Korean purchasing authority, the Defense Acquisition Program Agency (DAPA), to eliminate first the F-35 as too costly and then the Eurofighter Typhoon for a bidding irregularity—although EADS, representing the consortium in the South Korean deal, disputes DAPA’s decision.

(emphasis mine)

OK, let’s look at this.

The F-15SE has:

  • A larger weapons load.
  • Greater range.
  • Higher speed.
  • a 2nd crew member giving greater flexibility in deploying weapons.
  • A 2nd engine.
  • The ability to develop weapons and systems for the platform in Korea.
  • The ability to perform depot level maintenance in country.

The F-35 has:

  • Some degree of all aspect stealth.

And for giving up all of that, you have to pay more, a lot more for the F-35.

The F-35 simply costs too much.

    A Very Good Essay on the Problems with the F-35

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    While there are a number of problems, a protracted development process, unrealistic (and constantly changing) requirements, “cost as an independent variable”, and the need for jointness, but this article makes the point that when we look at the performance issues of the airframe, they are almost entirely a function of the STOVL requirements foisted on the airframe by the US Marine Corps:

    ………

    But the chorus of praise is wrong. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — a do-it-all strike jet being designed by Lockheed Martin to evade enemy radars, bomb ground targets and shoot down rival fighters — is as troubled as ever. Any recent tidbits of apparent good news can’t alter a fundamental flaw in the plane’s design with roots going back decades.

    Owing to heavy design compromises foisted on the plane mostly by the Marine Corps, the F-35 is an inferior combatant, seriously outclassed by even older Russian and Chinese jets that can fly faster and farther and maneuver better. In a fast-moving aerial battle, the JSF “is a dog … overweight and underpowered,” according to Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, D.C.

    And future enemy planes, designed strictly with air combat in mind, could prove even deadlier to the compromised JSF.

    It doesn’t really matter how smoothly Lockheed and the government’s work on the new warplane proceeds. Even the best-manufactured JSF is a second-rate fighter where it actually matters — in the air, in life-or-death combat against a determined foe. And that could mean a death sentence for American pilots required to fly the vulnerable F-35.

    ‘Can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run’

    The F-35’s inferiority became glaringly obvious five years ago in a computer simulation run by John Stillion and Harold Scott Perdue, two analysts at RAND, a think tank in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1948, RAND maintains close ties to the Air Force. The air arm provides classified data, and in return RAND games out possible war scenarios for government planners.

    In Stillion and Perdue’s August 2008 war simulation, a massive Chinese air and naval force bore down on Beijing’s longtime rival Taiwan amid rising tensions in the western Pacific. A sudden Chinese missile barrage wiped out the tiny, outdated Taiwanese air force, leaving American jet fighters based in Japan and Guam to do battle with Beijing’s own planes and, hopefully, forestall a bloody invasion.

    ………

    To add insult to strategic injury, one of the most modern Chinese prototype warplanes might actually be an illicit near-copy of the F-35 — albeit a more intelligent copy that wisely omits the most compromising aspects of the U.S. plane. It’s possible that in some future war, America’s JSFs could be shot down by faster, deadlier, Chinese-made JSF clones.
    The Chinese J-31 appears to be based on the F-35. Via Chinese Internet
    The F-35 that could have been

    At least twice since 2007 Chinese hackers have stolen data on the F-35 from the developers’ poorly-guarded computer servers, potentially including detailed design specifications. Some of the Internet thieves “appear to be tied to the Chinese government and military,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel claimed.

    The September 2012 debut of China’s latest jet fighter prototype, the J-31, seemed to confirm Hagel’s accusation. The new Chinese plane, built by the Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, bears an uncanny external resemblance to the F-35: same twin tail fins, same chiseled nose, same wing shape. “It certainly looks like the Chinese got their hands on some [F-35] airframe data,” said Richard Aboulafia, a vice president at the Teal Group, an arms industry consultancy in Virginia.

    But the J-31 lacks many of the features that were included in the F-35 “mainly or entirely because of STOVL,” according to Aviation Week writer and fighter expert Bill Sweetman.

    Namely, the J-31 does not have a lift fan or even a space for a lift fan. The omission apparently allowed Chinese engineers to optimize the new plane for speed, acceleration, maneuverability and flying range — and to add good pilot visibility and a second rearward engine — instead of having to build the plane around a pretty much useless vertical-takeoff capability that slows it down, limits it to one motor and blocks the pilot’s view.

    ………

    Jet design like any engineering practice requires disciplined choices. The JSF is the embodiment of ambivalence — a reflection of the government and Lockheed’s inability to say that some things could not or should not be done. “It’s not clear with the F-35 that we had a strong sense of what the top priority was — trying to satisfy the Marines, the Navy or the Air Force,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Dan Ward, an expert in weapons acquisition who has been critical of complex, expensive development efforts.

    By contrast, the Chinese J-31 does not appear compromised at all. Surrounded by rivals with powerful air forces — namely India, Russia, Japan and U.S. Pacific Command — and with no grudge-holding Marine Corps to hijack fighter design, it would make sense that China prioritized the air-combat prowess of its new jet over any historical score-settling.

    That apparently apolitical approach to (admittedly illicit) warplane design appears to have paid dividends for the Shenyang-made jet. “With no lift fan bay to worry about, the designers have been able to install long weapon bays on the centerline,” Sweetman wrote. The centerline bay helps keep the J-31 skinny and therefore likely fast and maneuverable — in any event, faster and more maneuverable than the F-35, which in a decade’s time could be pretty much the only new U.S. jet the Chinese air force might face in battle.

    If Stillion and Perdue’s simulation ever comes true and the U.S. goes to war with China in the air, F-35s dragged down by their lift fans could be knocked out of the sky by Chinese-made F-35 clones that are faster and more maneuverable, because they never had lift fans.

    A couple of notes here.

    First, much of the baggage of the lift fan occurs even with the non-lift fan variants, the tubby fuselage, the poor aft vision, and an engine that has a thrust to weight ratio of engines from the 1970s.

    I would also note that the 20 year long development process did not help.

    Another Triumph of Defense Procurement

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    The Litoral Combat Ship may lack sufficient firepower to do its job:

    The U.S. Navy’s troubled Littoral Combat Ship, a vessel intended to be small and speedy for use in shallow waters close to shore, lacks the firepower it needs, a top U.S. navy commander said in a classified memo.

    Vice Admiral Tom Copeman, the commander of naval surface forces, called on the Navy to consider a ship with more offensive capability after the first 24 vessels are built, according to a Navy official who asked not to be identified discussing the confidential document.

    ………

    Producing a ship that can accommodate larger guns or Harpoon anti-ship missiles “would be a major redesign,” Polmar said in an interview. “It will be real work to put major weapons on the ship.”

    Replacing the 57mm popgun with something larger might not even possible for the Independence class trimaran, because of the extremely narrow forward central hull.

    The ship is a failure.

    The modular nature of the ship does not work, because you have to return the ship to a US base, or you need to fly a  team out to a foreign port in order to swap out the modules, and the modular nature of the ship results in a hull that is much larger for a set of capabilities.

    The savings in crewing has proved to be illusory, the current crew levels result in an overworked and ineffective crew, so they are adding berths.

    The primary offensive system, the NLOS-LS, was canceled, and replaced with a system which has about 80% less range and a smaller warhead.

    And that’s ignoring the (probably fixable) facts that there are issues with hull cracks, corrosion, and leaking.

    It’s dead, Jim.

    The entire concept was flawed.

    I Worked There for 2 Years

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    It looks like the Pentagon will shutter down BAE’s plant in York Pennsylvania for 2 years:

    A contentious political battle erupted last year when the Army opted to end production of the Abrams tank. Now the Army faces a repeat, this time, over the Bradley.

    The manufacturer of the Army’s Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, BAE Systems, is seeking to persuade the service to reverse a decision to stop work at the company’s assembly line in York, Penn., for three years beginning in 2014.

    BAE executives are pleading the case that is often made in these situations: It would be more costly to the government to shut down and reopen the line three years later than it would be to keep it open, even with a reduced workload. Army officials defend their decision as a necessary move to cut costs in the face of declining budgets. They also contend that closing down the BAE plant temporarily should not cause any risk to the force, as the Army owns a large fleet of more than 3,000 Bradleys, most of which have low mileage and have been updated with new weapons and electronics.

    What is particularly notable is this map that they included with the story.  It’s a list of where their subcontractors are located:

    Seriously, the overpriced stuff that we buy for our military would not be so f%$#ing  overpriced if defense contractors did not play “paint by numbers” with states and Congressional districts to game our politica system.

    I’m not sure how to fix this, but this sh%$ needs to end.

    Just When You Thought that the JSF Could Not Get Any More f%$#ed………

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    We now find out that they bought into Lithium Ion batteries for the fighter, the technology that has grounded the 787:

    The Pentagon said it plans to continue using lithium-ion batteries on the new F-35 fighter jet despite problems with similar batteries that have grounded Boeing Co’s new 787 airliner and are causing Airbus to rethink their use on its A350 jet.

    Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon’s $396 billion F-35 program office, said on Tuesday that the lithium-ion batteries used on the new radar-evading fighter were made by different manufacturers than those used on the 787, and the jet’s battery systems had been rigorously tested.

    “The bottom line is the lithium-ion batteries used on the F-35s have been through extensive tests and have redundant systems to protect the aircraft and battery compartments; they are considered safe,” DellaVedova said.

    DellaVedova said there had been some irregularities with the lithium-ion batteries not starting properly in cold temperatures that were being addressed, but no issues affecting flight safety had come up during years of testing.

    All 50 Boeing Dreamliners in commercial service were grounded worldwide on January 16 after a series of battery-related incidents, including a fire on board a parked 787 at Boston’s Logan International Airport and an in-flight problem on another airplane in Japan.

    The groundings have cost airlines tens of millions of dollars, with no solution yet in sight, and have sparked growing concerns among aerospace industry executives about whether the powerful but delicate backup energy systems are technically “mature”, or predictable.

    Why am I not surprised?

    When you cross reference “advance technology”, “unproven”, and “risky”, the Venn diagram of the intersection is the JSF.

    This is Called Circling the Drain

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    The Army has decided to delay its Ground Combat Vehicle (GCV) program:

    Army acquisition leaders moved Jan. 16 to delay its top modernization program, the Ground Combat Vehicle, in hopes of making it more viable in the face of expected defense budget cuts.

    The Army issued a memorandum Jan. 16 announcing the addition of a six-month extension of the Technology Development phase of the GCV Infantry Fighting Vehicle program. Defense companies will have more time to “refine vehicle designs,” according to an Army statement.

    They have been playing around with all sorts of whiz bang technology, the weight has ballooned to that of an M-1 tank, and there have been repeated delays and cancellations. (Background here)

    This is a clusterf%$#, and it will continue to be a clusterf%$#, and the best case will be an over priced, under performing, Byzantinely complex and hard to support system.

    When You Don’t Meet Performance Targets………

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    The Department of Defense lowers the target:

    The US Department of Defense is lowering the performance bar for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter according to a new report by the Pentagon’s director of operational test and evaluation (DOT&E).

    The specifications for all three variants pertaining to transonic acceleration and sustained turn rates have been reduced. Worst hit in terms of acceleration is the US Navy’s F-35C carrier-based model.

    “The program announced an intention to change performance specifications for the F-35C, reducing turn performance from 5.1 to 5.0 sustained g’s and increasing the time for acceleration from 0.8 Mach to 1.2 Mach by at least 43 seconds,” reads the report prepared by J Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s DOT&E. “These changes were due to the results of air vehicle performance and flying qualities evaluations.”

    The US Air Force F-35A’s time has slipped by eight seconds while the US Marine Corps short take-off vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B’s time has slipped by 16 seconds. However, turn rates for both the A and B models have been impacted more severely than the USN variant. Sustained turning performance for the F-35B is being reduced from 5G to 4.5G while the F-35A sinks from 5.3G to 4.6G according to the report.

    They also have issues with the horizontal tails getting too hot and delaminating, buffet/wing drop issues, and the they still do not have the helmet mounted display working properly.

    And let’s not get started on the software.

    This continues to be a clusterf%$#, but with hundreds of billions already invested already, no one is willing to bite the bullet and walk away.

    They will continue to throw good money after bad.

    Canada Drops F-35

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    The news that Canada has decided to cancel its purchase of 65 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters is a stunner.

    It’s the first cancellation, and Canada is more than a customer, it is also one of the original 9 nations that formed the JSF consortium:

    The F-35 jet fighter purchase, the most persistent thorn in the federal government’s side and the subject of a devastating auditor-general’s report last spring, is dead.

    Faced with the imminent release of an audit by accountants KPMG that will push the total projected life-cycle costs of the aircraft above $30 billion, the operations committee of the federal Cabinet decided to scrap the controversial sole-source program and go back to the drawing board, a source familiar with the decision said.

    This occurred after Chief of the Defence Staff Thomas Lawson, while en route overseas, was called back urgently to appear before the committee, the source said.

    The decision is sure to have ripple effects around the world, as any reduction in the number of aircraft on order causes the price to go up for all the other buyers. Canada is one of nine F-35 consortium members, including the United States.

    ………

    Last spring, Ferguson ignited a political firestorm when he reported that the top-line cost cited by the Conservatives in the 2011 election campaign — $9 billion for 65 planes, or $15 billion including maintenance and other life-cycle costs — was $10-billion below the Defence Department’s internal estimate.

    Even the internal figure of $25.1 billion was suspect, critics said, because it assumed a 20-year life cycle. The longevity of the Lockheed-Martin-built aircraft, according to the Pentagon, is 36 years.

    KPMG’s audit, due out next week, has confirmed the contention, long made by critics such as former assistant deputy minister (materiel) Alan Williams, that the F-35 program’s real cost would be much higher than any previously stated government estimate, sources say.

    H/t Christina Mackenzie at the Ares blog.

    Understand also that the KPMG analysis almost certainly ignored the elephant in the room, the fact that for any nation operating the F-35, they will be opening themselves up to potentially extortionate charges for support from from the prime contractor over the life of the program, because of the highly integrated, and completely closed, architecture of the aircraft:

    It is not often that governments are afforded the luxury of looking into the future before they irrevocably commit to a course of action that will have momentous long-term consequences.

    Yet, this is just what the debate about the future of Britain’s fleet of Apache attack helicopters provides, not just to its own government, but also to other European governments as they prepare to order, at great cost, the US-made F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

    Britain’s problem is that it operates the AH-64D Longbow version of Apache, while the US Army is upgrading to the AH-64E Block III version. This means that “essential technical support for the British Apache fleet will be withdrawn from 2017,” as the Daily Telegraph reported Dec. 5, leaving Britain with the choice of either upgrading all or part of its Apaches to the new version, or retiring them after 2017 as they drift into early obsolescence.

    ………

    Whether they realize it or not when they buy a US-made weapon, that is how the system works: US forces only support the weapons they operate, so it’s either keep up or drop out, and in this case either scrap your weapons or see them fade away into technical and operational irrelevance.

    The other side of the coin, obviously, is that buyers of US weapons are always assured of having access to the very latest versions, improvements and upgrades decided by the US military.

    ………

    Each time the US military decides a modification or upgrade to its F-35s, foreign customers will have to follow suit, at whatever cost Lockheed and the Pentagon decide, or else see their aircraft become obsolete as US technical support shifts to the newer version.

    In fact, the situation will be infinitely more serious in the case of the F-35, as export customers will not have access to the aircraft’s source codes, nor to its more advanced maintenance methods and equipment, because all but the most basic maintenance will be carried out by Lockheed Martin in its own facilities in the United States.

    Foreign operators of the F-35 will have to pay to play. But it is probable that European governments do not fully understand this consequence of buying into a major US program.

    European buyers of the F-16 in the 1970s – which now all intend to buy the F-35 – were not faced with a similar situation because they had assembled their F-16s in Europe; because software source codes were not an issue at the time; and because the United States had a vested interest in keeping allies’ fighters as effective as possible during the Cold War, when profits took a back seat. None of these circumstances exist today.

    Unlike the case of the UK’s AH-64Ds, the architecture of the JSF is such that if you opt out of the upgrade, and Lockheed will stops supporting that model of the aircraft, you won’t simply have an aircraft that is obsolete or obsolescent, you will have an aircraft which cannot fly, because the customer will not be allowed to have tools to maintain it.

    Your $100 million dollar aircraft has become a door stop.

    As an aside, one wonders whether there is will be an “off switch” on export models of the F-35.

    Certainly, if I were directing foreign military sales at the Pentagon, I would demand such a feature, at least for those aircraft shipped to non NATO allies.

    OK, This is F%$#ing Nuts………

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    The US Army’s next infantry combat vehicle, the successor to the Bradley is set to weigh more than an M-1 tank:

    What may weigh more than an M1 Abrams tank and carry 12 soldiers? The Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle. New weight estimates for GCV, released this week by the Congressional Budget Office, will likely go over like a lead ballon with the program’s critics in Congress and in the Army itself.

    Depending on the model and add-on armor package, an M1 weighs 60 to 75.5 tons. According to the CBO report, the General Dynamics design for the GCV weighs 64 to 70 tons. BAE s proposal is still heavier, at 70 to 84.

    There’s a tactical reason for all this weight: It’s armor. The Ground Combat Vehicle is supposed to replace the Army’s current frontline infantry carrier, the M2 Bradley, carrying more foot troops in back — nine instead of six — and protecting them better against everything from rocket-propelled grenades to roadside bombs. Even the most heavily uparmored models of the M2, at almost 40 tons, proved too vulnerable for the worst streets in Baghdad during the “surge,” so commanders often sent 70-plus-ton M1s to clear the way. Even some of those M1s blew up, in part because the insurgents could build huge improvised explosive devices, in part because the M1’s armor is mostly on the front to protect against enemy tanks, not on the underside.

    Let’s start with the first thing: The Bradley could carry 9 troops if they went with an unmanned remotely operated turret, (see also here) which eliminates the gunner, and his station, which rotates along with the turret.

    Even the Israeli Namer, the highest weight IFV in the world, does not top 60 tons, and unlike the US army, they do not have to deploy half way around the world.

    It should also be noted that the Nammer does not carry an autocannon in the turret, it carries either a .50 cal machine gun or 40mm grenade launcher, because the Israelis realized that they would have to reduce the armor levels to keep the weight to a manageable level.

    The US army should separate what it wants from what it needs, as the Israelis did.

    If they do that, and avail themselves of new developments in armor that are in the pipeline, they could keep the weight below 60 tons.

    First, No Real Democracy, Then They are Allied with Iran, and Now………

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    Iraq is planning significant purchases of Russian weapons, including the possible purchase of a large number of MiG-29s:

    Iraq has signed contracts to buy Russian arms worth $4.2bn (£2.6bn; 3.2bn euros) this year, Russian news agencies report.

    Moscow, the main supplier of arms to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, thus becomes the country’s second-biggest arms supplier after the US.

    The new contracts were announced after talks between the two countries’ prime ministers near Moscow on Tuesday.

    Reports suggest attack helicopters and missiles are included in them.

    Iraq has been rebuilding its armed forces since the end of US-led combat operations against insurgents.

    Thirty Mi-28 attack helicopters and 42 Pantsir-S1 surface-to-air missile systems are said to be among items being sold.

    Further discussions are said to be under way for Iraq eventually to buy MiG-29 jets, heavy armoured vehicles and other weaponry.

    George W. Bush’s little adventure just keeps on yielding dividends for us, doesn’t it?

    What a Surprise

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    David Axe talks to a former USAF general who says that his career was destroyed, and his retirement delayed in an attempt to cover up his report that was critical of the V-22 Osprey:

    Don Harvel thought he was cruising to a well-deserved retirement after 35 years flying cargo planes for the U.S. Air Force. Then in the spring of 2010 he was tapped to investigate the fatal crash of a high-tech Air Force tiltrotor aircraft – and everything changed.

    What Harvel discovered about the controversial hybrid aircraft drew him into a battle of wills with his superiors at Air Force Special Operations Command. Harvel, then a brigadier general, uncovered evidence of mechanical problems — and resulting safety woes — in the V-22 Osprey, which takes off like a helicopter and flies like an airplane. These are issues the Pentagon has been eager to downplay. So when Harvel refused to alter his findings to match the Defense Department’s expectations, he knew that was the final chapter of his decades-long military service. Harvel’s long-planned retirement was held up for more than two years, effectively silencing him during a troubling chapter in the Osprey’s often-troubled history.

    “I turned [my report] in and I knew that my career was done,” Harvel says.

    ………

    But the stats reflect altered and miscategorized data. Engine fires clearly costing millions of dollars to fix were downgraded in the paperwork. One malfunction that resulted in a V-22 accidentally taking off uncommanded before crashing to the ground was labeled a ground incident and left off the record. Even leaving out the 1991-2000 crashes, the Osprey’s crash rate before this year’s accidents was roughly double the officially stated figure, making the V-22 no safer than the Marines’ conventional helicopters and far, far more dangerous than its fixed-wing cargo planes.

    And that’s mostly due to inadequate testing, Harvel claims. “In their hurry to get this thing painted in a positive light for Congress, some things are coming back to haunt them,” he says of the V-22′s supporters.

    We need to understand that the military establishment of the United States is completely captured by the defense industry, and this does not serve either our military needs or the interest of the taxpayers.

    They are Still Flying Camberras?

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    And it appears that they are crucial to the efforts in Afghanistan:

    They’re 49 years old, ugly and owned by NASA, not the Pentagon. But two modified WB-57F Canberras are now among America’s most important warplanes. With anonymous-looking white paint jobs, the Canberras have been taking turns deploying to Afghanistan carrying a high-tech new radio translator designed to connect pretty much any fighter, bomber, spy plane and ground radio to, well, pretty much any other fighter, bomber, spy plane and ground radio. That makes the former Air Force reconnaissance planes, originally transferred to the space agency for science missions, essential hubs of the American-led war effort.

     With the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node system, or BACN, the WB-57s act as Star Trek-style universal translators, passing data between planes and troops and finally bringing to life the Pentagon’s decades-old dream of speedy, information-propelled, networked warfare. “It orbits high up and basically receives various platforms’ datalink data, then translates all that data and redistributes it in a fused manner back to different platforms in the operating area,” Aviationintel’s Tyler Rogoway told ace aerospace blogger David Cenciotti.

     “BACN bridges the gaps,” manufacturer Northrop Grumman boasted.

    This is an artifact of how the Pentagon buys stuff.

    You see, instead of trying to deal with a serious problem, lack of proper interoperability between systems, they come up with a ridiculously over ambitious system, the now canceled JTRS, that never had a realistic possibility of meeting its overambitious requirements.

    So now we are resorting to cobbled together electronics on an airframe that first flew almost 70 years ago.

    Russia to Order AN-70 Transports

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    The Russian Air Force is planning to order 60 of the transports:

    Ukrainian company Antonov together with Russian United Aircraft Corporation will participate in manufacturing Antonov An-70 transport airplanes. Russian defense ministry already placed an order for 60 such machines, USD 67 million apiece. Developed since 1978, An-70 can carry heavier cargo than existing transport planes and land on ill-equipped runways.

    An-70 can carry 300 troopers, or 200 injured persons, or 47 tons of freight. Comparably, the closest alternative to An-70 – the Airbus A400M Atlas – can carry 37 tons of cargo. Market price of the Spanish A400M is EUR 145 million, whereas the Ukrainian An-70 costs less than USD 70 million.

    Planes An-70 will be produced at JSC Gorbunov Kazan Aviation Production Association in Kazan, Russia. The plane can fly at a speed of 780 kilometers per hour at distances of up to 7,800 kilometers. An-70 is capable of landing on 600-800 meter runways with earth surfaces. Onboard navigation equipment allows the plane to land and takeoff at airports lacking special earth-based equipment.

    This is interesting, and not just because it represents a rapprochement between Russian and Ukrainian defense industry.

    By almost every metric (except for noise where, the contra rotating props create a racket), it equals the A400M, and if this order is sufficient to make the production line viable, it could be a major headache for EADS.

    India Looks to Go CATOBAR

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    It appears that will be going with catapult launchers🙁Paid Subscription Required)

    The Indian navy is likely to call an end to its tryst with ski-jump aircraft carriers, deciding that its next big vessel will be a flat-top with a catapult-launch system.

    While India’s first home-built carrier, known as the Vikrant, is to be a 44,000-ton short-takeoff-but-arrested-recovery (Stobar) carrier, the second ship—tentatively titled Vishal (“Immense”)—is seen as a 65,000-ton flat-top with a steam-catapult system . The Naval Design Bureau, which oversees design and implementation of all indigenous warship building efforts, is expected to freeze its requirements by year-end.

    A commodore with the Naval Design Bureau says, “A decision has been taken to move away from conventional Stobar and short-takeoff-or-vertical-landing (Stovl) operations.”

    The navy’s Sea Harrier fleet is closing out its service. The Indian carrier Vikramaditya—the former Russian carrier Admiral Gorshkov—and first indigenous carrier (Vikrant) will be transition vessels to Stobar operations. The next logical step is catapult-assisted takeoff-and-barrier-arrested recovery (Catobar), “which brings with it immense advantages in the mix of assets we can deploy on deck,” says the commodore.

    The navy has been known to want to deploy heavier fighters from a carrier. Still, the freeze on a flat-top catapult-launch design also dramatically changes the navy’s future fighter requirement. In 2009, the service invited information to support a purchase of aircraft for deck-based operations, which did not specify launch type but had been presumed to be Stobar. Several companies were asked for information: Russia’s MiG and Sukhoi for the MiG-29K and Su-33 , respectively; Dassault Aviation with the Rafale (noting that the Rafale could be modified for Stobar operations); Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter ; Boeing’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet ; and two aircraft concepts— Saab ‘s Sea Gripen and Eurofighter ‘s Naval Typhoon.

    The real issue here is not deploying fighters, which generally have the thrust to weight ratio to deploy from a ski jump, but the ability to deploy aerial early warning aircraft, carrier onboard delivery, and tankers, which have a lot less go.

    What, Senior Military Officials Are Willing to Put Sailors At Risk to Appease Defense Contractors?

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    I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here!

    The officers evaluating the Lottoral Combat Ship (LCS) suppressed negative testing data:

    U.S. Navy emails and other documents suggest that officials muzzled bad test results for the first Littoral Combat Ship (LCS-1) variant, the USS Freedom, at a crucial time in the program’s development, when the service was considering which seaframe to pick for the $30 billion-plus fleet.

    Top program officers for the ship and at Naval Sea Systems Command (Navsea) told subordinates to avoid certain language in the test-result reports because of concerns over the downselect decision, the documents show. One naval officer said in an email he would delete the offensive wording of the report.

    The Navy acknowledges it clamped down on “widespread” discussion of “preliminary” test results, but says it did so to prevent an “unfair comparison” between LCS-1 and the competing LCS-2, the USS Independence, because the second ship had yet to go through the same trials.

    Yeah, sure.

    They were just trying to be fair.

    I’m not taking personal checks from these wankers.

    Cancel the Littoral Combat Ship Now

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    The US Navy conducted studies of LCS capabilities, and it ain’t pretty:

    • It’s modular mission systems, which were supposed to allow the ship to be refitted in a couple of days in theater are “untenable”, because the logistics are more involved than previously forseen.
    • The ship is intended to take on 21 day missions, but only carries 14 days of food.
    • The crew is too small.
    • It was intended to replace frigates, mine hunters, and patrol boats, but it is, “The new assessments conclude the ships are not equal to today’s frigates or mine countermeasures ships, and they are too large to operate as patrol boats.”
    • It has no effective defense against cruise missiles.
    • It has no meaningful offensive capability now that the  Non-Line of Sight Launch System (NLOS-LS) missile system has been canceled.

    So, except for its high dash speed, it pretty much has failed every capability that was intended when it was conceived.

    Cancel it, and get some honest to got frigates and mine hunters.