The U.S. Navy's troubled jointness with JASSM

Today, based on the historical low performance record of most defense weapons procurement, a current, U.S. Air Force and foreign military sales cruise missile--originally labeled as "affordable--is "successful" even if it hasn't met all of its' goals.

Back in the mid-1990's when the JASSM cruise missile was conceived, then secret (beginning of the PDF from this SAR compilation) documents showed the following summary of what was required for program success:

"The Commander, Air Combat Command (ACC), and the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Resources, Warfare Requirements and Assessments) signed the Operational Requirements Document (ORD), CAF 303-95-I (S), on March 29, 1996. The JASSM program has only three key performance parameters: Missile Mission Effectiveness (MME), range, and carrier operability. All other requirements are tradable to meet cost objectives".

For the Navy, the ability to drop the JASSM from a Super Hornet was identified as a "threshold" requirement. Note by this time, the A-12 had died already leaving USAF and USN joint participation in weapons systems poisonous.

So why not try again with JASSM and JSF?

A few years after the program started, the 1997 JASSM SAR had this to say:

"The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) has been an extremely well executed program and continues to reap benefits as a result of acquisition reform, Cost as an Independent Variable (CAIV) initiatives, and competition between two prime contractors. JASSM returned $152.8M in its Fiscal Year (FY) 1999-2005 budget to the Department of Defense as a result of CAIV initiatives, and made the Average Unit Procurement Price (AUPP) of less than $400K (Operational Requirements Document (ORD) objective) a reality."

But, troubles in the relationship (arguing over money) started to show.

"Of the $5.5M FY98 Navy appropriation for JASSM,$3.0M has been identified by the Navy as the amount required for FY98 carrier operability efforts (one of the three Key Performance Parameters (KPPs) of the program), but only $1.4M has been released to the JPO. Currently, insufficient funds exist to meet the Milestone II carrier operability exit criteria. A potential breach of the Acquisition Program Baseline (APB) requirements may occur."

Navy already had SLAM-ER as a developing program. Of interest, JASSM SARs state that it is not intended to replace "existing" weapons systems. SLAM-ER had not reached that phase yet as an "existing weapon because it was also still in development.

The DOD stepped in as a relationship counseller and this language was also in the 1997 (note SARs are delivered in the next year so in this case there is also 1998 language) JASSM SAR:

The Authorizations Conference Report language directed the Secretary of Defense to review the JASSM and SLAM-ER programs and potential acquisition alternatives and report to the Congressional Defense Committees. The Under Secretary of Defense(Acquisition and Technology) (USD(A&T)) signed out a response on January 16, 1998 deferring substantive comment until the AoA is complete. Upon completion, the Secretary of Defense is to comment on the following options:

1) Develop JASSM to meet the operational needs of the Navy and the Air Force, with SLAM-ER not procured beyond an interim capability.
2) Continue the JASSM program as a joint program for both the Navy and the Air Force, while the Navy continues a separate development of SLAM-ER as
currently planned.
3) Develop separate programs: SLAM-ER for the Navy and JASSM for the Air Force.
4) Develop SLAM-ER as the single program for both the Air Force and the Navy.

USAF had problems with the B-1 SLAM-ER idea:

The Air Force has serious concerns regarding a new SLAM-ER+(Air Force (AF)) on the B-1. It appears eight SLAM-ER+(AF)s could fit in a B-1 bomb bay, but only after significant modifications to the weapon and resolution of aircraft power limitations. Three modifications have been known for some time: shorten missile length to 168 inches, modify fins for folded carriage, and modify the fuel system for inverted carriage. A fourth modification involves the necessity of an adapter plate between each rotary launcher station and SLAM-ER+(AF) to provide appropriate clearance of the bay. Limited information on the aircraft electrical power requirements for SLAM-ER+(AF) has recently been provided and is currently being analyzed. However, if SLAM-ER+(AF) has the same power requirement as SLAM-ER+(Navy), only one weapon can be powered up in each of the three bays. A fifteen minute power-up between launches would severely limit operations. In contrast, the B-1 can power all 24 JASSMs simultaneously and could launch them all in just
over one minute if desired.

I assume the B-52 had no problem given it was cleared for the Harpoon years before? No mention of the B-2 and SLAM-ER. Interesting because this early in the B-2 history, it had already joined on the conventional weapons bandwagon with GAMs (DOD JDAM, as a concept, had not selected a final vendor).

The SLAM-ER idea (turning an anti-ship Harpoon into a precision land attack weapon) had strong support in the Navy. The first early SLAM shot was with an A-7 in Desert Storm a few years before.

The USAF had a variety of aircraft, and we know that the SLAM-ER wasn't the best fit for USAF B-1s. So, the idea of a "joint" cruise missile (along with money problems) was already in trouble.

So what do you do? Get the FMS interest going on a non-complete missile:

The JPO continues to hold semi-annual meetings with the United Kingdom (UK) to discuss potential commonality or other cooperative opportunities with the UK Conventional Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (CASOM) program. At this particular time, we are investigating common testing.

But back to acquisition price hope...

Though performance is important, the key to JASSM's viability as an acquisition reform flagship program is the commitment to unit price far below the $700K threshold requirement. Evidence of this program's achievements include commitment letters from both contractors promising unit prices less than $450K.

Hope. And, positive language for the PowerPoint crew.

The 1998 SAR showed some cat and trap tests for JASSM captive carry with the classic Hornet.

The 1999 SAR showed development trouble. The program officials stated historial program delay comparisons were still good. Also in this reporting period some JASSM drops were done from F-16s which influenced some of the redsign work. Shelf life for the JASSM is expected to be 20 years then into the trash.

The 2001 SAR reporting period showed the planning for low-rate initial production. Also, as what can happen to goof up programs, DOD customers added another KPP: "interoperability". In this case, making it from an affordable cruise missile with limited goals, into a net-centric missile. Not trivial.

The Navy showed less excitement but money was given for F-18E/F integration and testing:

The Joint Requirements Oversight Committee delayed completion of the Carrier Operability Key Performance Parameter (KPP) until FOT&E. The Navy is now funded for full aircraft integration/testing on the F/A-18 E/F with $105M for FY03 to FY07.

Another program assumption did not work out as expected:

JASSM received a Below Threshold Reprogramming (BTR) of $150K for long lead procurement of Precise Positioning System/Security Modules (PPS/SMs) required to build the Lot 1 JASSM Anti-Jam GPS Receiver (JAGR) for GPS navigation. The PPS/SM chips are no longer in production and the Tomahawk program, which requires the same chip, purchased all available chips within the United States. We identified available PPS/SM chips previously sold through FMS to Great Britain and bought the chips through an FMS buy back. The number of chips available support Lot 1 production only.

In the 2002 SAR period, the program ran into trouble with water. Several test articles sitting outside for a B-52 effort failed their system tests. The excuse given was that the JASSM was never designed to be a "sealed" missile. All this makes its' usefulness for carrier operations suspect.

(Years ago: JASSM captive carry tests
 with a then new, Super Hornet)

There were also some fusing problems in weapons testing.

The next period recorded various successes and failures. By this time the Navy showed even less interest, and to date, had been authorized several hundred million dollars for Super Hornet, JASSM carry but this was considered years off after the system was more proven.

By this time Operations: USELESS DIRT 1 and 2 were sucking budget money. The Navy had other priorities. Yet, "commitment" to the JASSM program was a given with low-rate-initial-production orders well underway.

Moving right along.

"Navy realigned their production by moving the schedule out by one year and reduced quantities from 514 to 453."

The 2004 reporting period showed more quality and failure issues and because of all the success so far, money was handed over for the follow-on JASSM-ER.

But it was at this time, the U.S. Navy gave up:

"The Department of the Navy eliminated all funding ($421M) for Navy participation in the JASSM program citing JASSM as a redundant capability to alternative in-service systems: Tactical Tomahawk, the Joint Standoff Weapon, and the Standoff Land Attack Missile - Expanded Response. Based upon this operational requirements change, 453 missiles were removed from the Navy JASSM FY06-11 budget. FY05 Navy RDT&E funding has been released by OSD to pay for modernization of Mission Planning Software, termination liability and other associated efforts relative to the Navy withdrawing from FY06-11."

Will the JASSM ever come back to Navy service? An interesting question because:

-The JSOW and SLAM-ER do not have the range.
-Lots of issues with the JASSM have allegedly been sorted.
-There are no Tomahawks cleared for Navy aircraft; and this is unlikely to happen.
-JASSM has some low-observable quality and you can buy 150 of these (or more) for every F-35; where, the F-35 will have significant trouble in anti-access work.
-JASSM-ER (extended range) offers a possible consideration.

Downside? Is it salty capable without failing? And it is no longer "affordable".

Thus ended another USAF-USN joint adventure.

As a side-bar, recently JASSM is also being marketed as LRASM.  Sealed in a container that is.