Category: Military

China’s Chengdu J-10 Modified

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It appears that there have been some upgrades and/or fixes to China’s Chengdu J-10 canard-delta fighter.

If you look at the top (newer) image it appears that an Infra-Red Search and Track (IRST) unit has been added just forward of the cockpit, and that the inlet has been modified from the original aircraft (bottom).

Douglas Barrie thinks that there may have been vibration or air flow instability issues with the original inlet, but it looks to me more like an attempt to reduce RCS in the forward aspect.

Or maybe it’s a buff with photoshop.

Sarkozy Fromally Announces France’s Return to NATO Command

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While France has been a part of the mutual defense guarantees for something like 60 years, it left the command structure in 1966 because Charles de Gaulle wanted more independence from the US.

Sarkosy has now Sarkozy announced that France’s military will once again be formally integrated into NATO’s command structure.

I’m not sure if this will last, given that the opposition, and no small number of his own party, are rather hostile to the idea.

What is Shinseki Thinking?

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It appears that Eric Shinseki is considering billing veterans’ private insurance companies for the treatment of service related injuries.

I don’t think that this is an attempt to bill veterans, just extract more money from their insurers, but it’s a very bad idea:

  • It means that they will fight their insurance companies over billing.
  • It raises the costs of employers of hiring disabled vets.
  • It is the first step on a slippery slope to privatizing VA care.

Put a stake through its heart now.

Naked Aggression

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The USNS Impeccable was conducting an “ocean mapping mission” in the South China Sea when she was confronted by Chinese ships, who maneuvered close to her and attempted to snag her towed sonar array:

The exposure came as the American vessel USNS Impeccable was attempting to defend itself against what the Pentagon claimed was co-ordinated harassment and aggression from five Chinese ships. Being unarmed, the Impeccable turned its fire water hoses against two of the Chinese vessels that had come within 50 feet in a threatening posture.

Then, the Pentagon records in the admirably restrained language of international diplomacy, “the Chinese crew members disrobed to their underwear and continued closing to within 25 feet.”

(emphasis mine)

OK, it’s not naked aggression, it’s semi-naked aggression, but still…..

It should be noted that the ship was actually on an intelligence gathering mission:

The U.S. Navy’s description of the incident states that “a civilian crew mans the ship, which operates under the auspices of the Military Sealift Command.” Yet as one of five ocean surveillance ships, the USNS Impeccable (T-AGOS 23) has the important military mission of using its array of both passive and active low frequency sonar arrays to detect and track submarines. The USNS Impeccable works directly with the Navy’s fleets, and in 2007 operated with the three-carrier strike battle group in Valiant Shield 07 exercise in the Western Pacific.

USNS Impeccable is equipped with the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS), a passive linear underwater surveillance array attached to a tow cable. SURTASS was developed as a floating submarine detection system for deep waters, and the Navy wants to add an active Low Frequency Array (LFA) to improve long-range detection of submarines in shallow waters.

Note that the ship was only about 75 miles from the Yulin naval base, where the Chinese have based their most advanced SSN, the Shang-class (Type-093), and that the Impeccable does carry the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS).

I’m not sure if they recording acoustic signatures, or recording operations, or both, but this was not just an ocean mapping expedition.

The US government is claiming illegal harassment in international waters, and the Chinese government is claiming a violation of their sovereignty.

It’s probably a bit of both.

The Case for the Abolition of the US Air Force

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Robert Dilger and Pierre Sprey, the latter being largely responsible for the A-10 and F-16, are arguing that the current procurement strategy of the US Air Force does not serve the military needs of the rest of the military.

The thing is that they provide a historical perspective or an organization that has always continued to follow the failed philosophy of Giulio Douhet, and it’s clear that the Air Force is not, and has never been, capable of providing for the needs of the warfighters, because they continue to pursue the elusive goal of total victory from an air campaign alone.

This goal has never worked except in a nuclear scenario, and their observation is spot on:

In summary, over the last 60 years of combat, our Air Force has, at higher and higher cost, demonstrated less and less effect on the outcome of each succeeding war. The root causes are equally clear: first, the blind insistence on procuring and planning for little besides the failed strategic bombardment mission; and second, the ingrained development incentives that reward increasing unit cost and complexity without regard to the effect on actual combat effectiveness and force size. If the new Administration follows the “business as usual” pattern, the sequence of events and outcomes is easy to project.

While these problems have existed since the creation of an air force, even in the USAAC days, it has become progressively worse as the Air Force has continued as an independent branch.

As to their specific recommendations:

  1. A new close support aircraft smaller, more survivable, and more lethal than the A-10, one that is affordable in vastly larger numbers. (The Air Force plans to use small numbers of the unmaneuverable, highly vulnerable and ineffective F-35, at $150 million each, for this mission.)

  2. A forward controller spotter plane dramatically more survivable, longer-loitering and far lower cost in than a helicopter, able to land next to the tents of the supported troops. (The Air Force suffers from the delusion that close support can be called in using drones, satellites, and other “high tech” sensors, contrary to the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan.)

  3. A small, affordable dirt strip airlifter to meet the real emergency needs of beleaguered battalions in the boonies. (The Air Force always short-changes this in-the-mud prop mission in favor of large jet transports.)

  4. A super-maneuverable new air-to-air dogfighter with all–passive electronics, far smaller with far higher maneuvering performance than the best of the F-16s and thus able to outfight the F-22 or any other advanced fighter in the world. (Emitting no radio/radar signals whatsoever, this new fighter will obsolete the F-22’s electronics, defeat any enemy fighter’s passive warning/identification-friend-or-foe system, and render useless the enemy’s radar-homing missiles which rely on seeking our fighter radars.)

I agree with items 1-3, but I am dubious of 4, where I do think that the provision of a radar, both for BVR air to air and poor weather strike missions would be desirable, though I think that advances in electronics could vastly reduce the weight of such a system.

I would also add another procedural change, and remove procurement authority from the service, and place it in the hands of the US Army, who, after all, is the consumer of the services that the USAF offers.

Is the US Navy Falling to Pieces?

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Because the service has just classified ship inspection reports, and the only reason that I can think of their doing so is to cover up either bad reports on newly constructed ships, or of maintenance shortcomings for the existing fleet:

InSurvs are circulated widely among commanders and technical authorities within the Navy, but seldom seen by civilians unless they’ve been specifically requested under freedom of information laws. Even then, Navy officials can redact the names of people; information about classified equipment; or trade secrets of shipbuilders or other venders.

Over the past year, InSurvs obtained by Navy Times have revealed severe problems aboard the cruiser Chosin, the destroyer Stout and the amphibious transport dock New Orleans.

(emphasis mine)

Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I think that there are a lot more “severe problems” out there.

My Thoughts on Obama’s Iraq “Withdrawal”

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I think that he got played by the military. There are likely to be over 100K troops until year’s end, because General Ray Odierno wants them there for elections, and over 50K for a stabilization force until the 2nd half of 2010.

I think that Obama did not want to deal with the “death by 1000 leaks,” that Clinton saw on gays in the military, and felt that some senior army officials, particularly Ordierno, who have already pretty much said that they would ignore the status of forces agreement.

This should have been fixed in 1993, by Bill Clinton firing Colin Powell for insubordination, and could be fixed now by firing Ordierno if he steps out of line.

Truman’s precedent with MacArthur stands, and should be enforced.

In the short run, Obama needs to start pulling out the extensive infrastructure at the “superbases,” such as maintenance and communications, so as to reduce the military utility of these facilities for use outside of Iraq, as quickly as possible.

An End to Pilots?

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The Airforce will graduate its first class of unrated pilots to operate the MQ-1 Predator drone this summer.: (paid subscription required)

The first group of nonrated U.S. Air Force pilots who are being trained to fly MQ-1 Predator missions is expected to graduate by the end of the summer.

The Air Force selected 10 active-duty nonpilot (unrated) captains to be the first of two groups to receive unmanned aircraft system (UAS) training. Once qualified, they will be a beta test group for Air Force leadership to see how nonrated pilots perform at the controls of UASs. The Army has proceeded with UAS flight operations using nonrated pilots, while the Air Force has come under fire for slow training of its UAS pilots, maintainers and sensor operators.

It makes sense.

Modern UAVs are sufficiently automated that the role of the operator is far closer to that of a gunner than it is a pilot.

It’s interesting how it’s going. My guess is that the USAF fought this every step of the way, just like they fought UAVs when they first came out.

The white scarf must cut off blood to the brain.

Kyrgyzstan Makes it Official

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The Kyrgyz ruling party voted to close the airbases.

It comes down to three things:

  • The Kyrgyz wanted a better deal.
  • The initial deal mostly gave money to family the now overthrown despot, and the Kyrgyz were honked off by that.
  • A Kyrgyz citizen was shot on base by a US soldier, and no meaning action was taken by US authorities against the soldier, inflaming local anger.

This, along with Russia giving them a better offer, was more than enough for them to kick us out of their airbase.

What the Hell is Going On?

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* Seriously, first an Iridium and a Cosmos satellite collide in orbit spewing debris all around the immediate vicinity, and now French and British boomers (SSBNs) have collided.


This is just weird.The HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant, each carrying 16 missiles, and an indeterminate number of warhead struck each other in the middle of nowhere:

Not only did it occur in the open ocean, as opposed to a choke point like a port or the Straights of Gibralter, but it was two SSBNs.

If one had been an attack submarine, I could see it, because you would have a “friendly” tracking exercise, but this is not the task of the SSBN.

Yes, I know about the story of the Leningrad elephant, but it’s just weird.

*Tin foil hat image swiped from Attytood.

Deployments Scrubbed from AF Promotions

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In 2007, I suggested that perhaps we needed to abolish the USAF as an independent service, quoting the then Air Combat Command chief Ronald Keys:

The hardest wars we fight are not on the battlefield, but the wars we fight in the halls of Congress. They are fought in the Pentagon, they are fought in these programs, to make sure the money is paid and eventually the program is operating.

Well, it appears that the USAF continues to see its most important role as a K Street lobbyist, because they are now scrubbing combat deployments from the records used to determine if an officer or senior NCO gets a promotion, so there is no credit for combat duty, because it’s more important to lobby for bloated weapons systems.

Nothing but REMF’s here sir.

Tactical Analysis of the Gaza Strip Combat

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First a disclaimer, this is not an essay on the rightness or the wrongness of the Gaza operation. It is an analysis of the tactics used with an eye toward tactical lessons learned from the Lebanon war, and toward lessons that should be learned by the US military.

Think of it as the War Nerd, without the good writing.

Aviation Week & Space Technology has an analysis of the combat in the Gaza Strip (paid subscription required), and it’s basic conclusion is rather unsurprising, though it’s rather controversial in some military circles, that air force operations must be completely subordinate to the ground forces authority.

Considering the debacle in Lebanon in 2006, where the Chief of Staff was the first, and likely the last, Air Force general, and worked on the USAF model, basically the assumption that precision guided munitions delivered from altitudes in excess of 8000 feet could win the war, this is not an unanticipated change in tactics.

One need only look at Afghanistan to see that the Taliban’s best recruiting tool is the USAF.

Some of the things that they did that worked on a tactical level:

  • Using retired/reserve air force officers physically in the ground units as liaison officers.
  • Each brigade had a specific helicopter squadron specifically assigned to them, and under their command.
  • One pilot from the helicopter squadron was physically assigned to the brigade’s communication cell, and he conducted all communications with the helicopter squadron.
  • A tightly integrated network to allow handoff from target identification to strike in less than 1 minute.
  • The brigade teams had significant autonomy from the high command in Tel Aviv.
  • Each brigade had its own dedicated artillery support.
  • Extensive operations at night, to take advantage of the Israeli superiority in night vision systems.

This does not make Gaza operations a victory, but these are lessons that the US military, and particularly the bomb happy boys in blue in the USAF, desperately need to learn for Afghanistan.

A Challenge to NATO?

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Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have agreed to form a joint quick reaction force with a, “joint command and be based permanently on Russian territory.”

It does not appear to be a particularly large force, it looks like perhaps a brigade, but it does imply an upgrade to the Collective Security Treaty Organization, which appears to be an attempt at a counterweight to NATO.

Kyrgyzstan To Close US Airbase

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President Kurmanbek Bakiyev of Kyrgyzstan Kjust announced his intention to close the Manas air base at a press conference with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

He is claiming that the US is not paying enough, and my guess is that the Russian aid also announced influenced him:

Russia, meanwhile, was ready to pay. The Kyrgyz president collected pledges of a $2-billion discounted loan and a $150-million grant. The Russian government also agreed to cancel Kyrgyzstan’s $180-million debt and to build a hydroelectric power plant.

I think that Russia does not want Afghanistan to fall back into the Taliban’s hands, but I also think that they see the bases in former Warsaw Pact and FSU nations as being a deliberate attempt to create a “ring of steel” in order to contain Russia.

I think that there are elements in the US military, and elements in the past administration (Cheney, Rice, etc.) who have been rather strong supporters of the “ring of steel” concept, so it’s not like they are paranoid for nothing.

From a tactical perspective, the loss of Manas is crushing, as it will, leave Pakistan as the only supply route available.