Some additional reading here (H/T- Blacktail).
-The F-35B Blowtorch
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This from last night (H/T- Peter)
Dennis Jensen (Tangney, Liberal Party) | Hansard source
This is a tough budget and one we would have preferred not to have had to deliver. The reality is that we have one of the highest rates of increase of spending and debt increase in the developed world. This projected trajectory cannot be maintained, and measures have to be put in place to reverse the trend and get the budget back under control. It is all very well for Labor to bleat about tough measures in the budget, but in most cases they are measures that have been forced on us as a result of the dire position regarding the projected trajectory of Commonwealth spending.
Having said that, there are aspects of the budget that I find troubling. First, I do not believe that we should have increased taxes—and, no, the GP co-payment is not a tax. The GP co-payment is something that I agree with as it will ensure that Medicare remains sustainable. One of the decisions I have real concerns about is buying joint strike fighters, or JSFs, for over $190 million a copy—over $100 million more than Defence is advising the minister and the Commonwealth. I was with the Defence Science and Technology Organisation when the decision was originally made, and the Air Operations Division had just worked up a methodology for comparing contenders. The analysis was never undertaken. The decision was made contrary to advice provided to the defence leadership group by experts in Defence as well is industry and academia. The agendum to the Defence Capability and Investment Committee of March 2002 clearly shows this.
The recommendation was not to proceed with the JSF for cost, capability and schedule reasons, in that there was significant risk of changes or lack of information on all counts. The advice of the DCIC was that the JSF would not be the most expensive option. That is ironic in the context of it being the most expensive fighter on the planet now. Despite expert advice given to the DCIC, Defence, in gung-ho fashion, recommended proceeding with the SDD phase of the JSF project.
I have to admit concern that senior officers who provide critical advice on capabilities that cost billions of dollars have no requirement to have a register of pecuniary interests, as politicians do. Indeed, I am aware of influence peddling by defence contractors with both Defence personnel and some journalists in the media, with all sorts of benefits provided. I believe we should implement a register of what largesse has been provided to senior Defence personnel by defence contractors. We also need to ensure that these personnel do not get jobs in the defence industry immediately they leave the services, gaining very cushy jobs following their retirement from the services. There are too many who get jobs with contractors where they have provided advice favouring that contractor's product. For transparency's sake, this must end.
All contenders that should have been part of a detailed analysis comparing contenders in the new air combat capability were 'switched off', to use Defence parlance, and all that has occurred since is that a watching brief has been maintained. The JSF has remained the solution despite huge blow-outs in cost, significant schedule slips and capability being redefined down. In fact, a Vietnam-era F4E Phantom out-accelerates, out-turns and has a higher speed than the JSF. Yet the current answer remains the JSF, despite the fact that we have seen the shape of threats in the J20 and the T50 from China and Russia-India respectively. These are stealth fighters in the F22 Raptor class, which will significantly overmatch the JSF.
In fact, despite the Lockheed Martin and Defence salesmanship of the JSF, it is not a true fifth-generation fighter. For fifth generation, the critical elements as defined by Lockheed Martin—before they changed the definition to force the JSF to fit the definition—were stealth, supercruise or the ability to cruise at supersonic speed without using thirsty afterburners, super manoeuvrability and sensor fusion. Some of the current European fighters better meet the definition than the JSF, which lacks two of those measures: supercruise and super manoeuvrability. These missing capabilities cannot be put into the design by modifications or upgrades. They are absent forever.
The term 'strike fighter' is also little understood. In globally accepted terminology, it would be a light bomber with some self-defence capability, and indeed that is what its design brief was, hence its initially only carrying two air-to-air missiles internally.
At a time of budget constraint, the JSF cheer squad, who are more interested in toys than anything else, are now pushing for a STOVL variant of the JSF for amphibious assault ships. There is no defined strategic requirement for this, no identified capability gap, just a wish by aficionados. This is no way to ensure that Australia's defence requirements are met and offer the best value for taxpayers' money.
The correct way to come up with the best defence force structure is, first, to define the strategic requirements, or what you expect the defence force to be able to achieve against known capabilities of strategic competitors or potential adversaries. The Howard government's 2000 defence white paper did this well, only to be ignored by the Defence leadership group at the time and replaced with their own agenda. From that, the next level down is to define the capabilities that will be required in order to achieve those requirements. In some cases, the difference may not be immediately obvious. Take World War II, where aircraft carriers more ably filled the capability requirement traditionally achieved by battleships. Thus the focus must be on capability, not platforms.
Once the capability requirements have been drafted, there should be consultation with industry. More particularly, there should be detailed analysis conducted to compare the various options for filling the capability gap—to compare the various capabilities and contenders. In this context, DSTO is critical. At a time when our Defence Force is undergoing a comprehensive restructure, we are at the same time significantly cutting funding to DSTO—at precisely the time this capability should be increased in order to save the taxpayer money.
In this context, the need for a dedicated science minister in order to achieve a coherent policy is critical. On one hand, we are setting up a huge medical research fund to massively increase medical research. How is this coherent policy when we have significant cuts to CSIRO, DSTO, ANSTO, the Australian Research Council and the Australian Institute of Marine Science. One of the advisers even suggested that a physicist working at CSIRO who lost their job could get one in medical research! I know that some people think that 'physicist' and 'physician' sound similar, but this is too much.
There are a lot of questions with this policy. Is the funding to medical research going to be general or specifically targeted at cancer, Alzheimer's and the like? How are we going to source those researchers? They do not grow on trees and the training required is long and arduous. Very long lead times are required. What is this saying to those might want to become mathematicians, physicists or chemists—hard sciences that are already in crisis?
As an aside, the PM asked me to draw up recommendations on science to improve the area, saying that, of those in parliament, I was the most interested in science. I consulted widely and I worked hard on my recommendations, which I presented a few months ago. They are now up on my website for anyone who wishes to see them—and please feel free to comment to me. Unfortunately, I see no evidence to suggest an improvement in science policy. In fact the reverse would appear to be the case. Not only are we not putting in place policy to improve science but we are putting disincentives in place for people who might consider careers in the hard sciences and maths.
I am not saying that the likes of CSIRO, ANSTO and so on should not be subject to review and restructure. Far from it, I believe there are issues that need to be addressed. Once again I refer to people to my website for some suggestions in that regard. However, it is foolish to have such a policy disincentive while at the same time massively incentivising medical research. This is not just about people's careers, important as that is, or about taxpayers, who have a huge interest in the money they have spent to train this cohort of scientists; this is about our national interest and how to maximise economic and other benefits to our nation.
There appears to be a lack of understanding of how science works. Many advances, including in the medical field, are not the result of directed research but arise out of more fundamental research that was not directed. Think of some of these advances. X-rays, CT scans and radiotherapy for cancer came from fundamental physics—looking at atomic structure. Similarly, magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, which was previously called nuclear magnetics resonance imaging, also came from fundamental physics. PET scans resulted from fundamental work on antimatter. These were not the result of some effort coordinated by government to achieve a specific breakthrough. They were the result of work driven by a quest for knowledge and understanding that had fortuitous benefits.
Consider that one-third of the world's economy is based on the work of what some would consider obscure physicists, mainly German, in the first quarter of the 20th century—nearly a century ago. Here I am talking about quantum physics and solid-state electronics, which resulted from fundamental insights. Consider 19th century physicist Michael Faraday. When asked by then Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone what value electricity had, he replied, 'Why, sir, there is every possibility that you will soon be able to tax it.' Consider Albert Einstein in 1916, who rushed back to his wife, also a physicist, saying, 'I have seen a beautiful light' . He was talking about what is known as population inversion in electron energy levels—very esoteric!
That resulted in the first laser in 1960, which, at the time, critics referred to as 'a solution looking for a problem'. Now of course lasers are ubiquitous in Blu Rays, DVDs, CDs and even in communications where lasers are used in fibre optics for communications.
Consider general and special relativity without which an accurate GPS system would be impossible. How could Einstein have known these applications at the time? How could a government have directed research to that end? Indeed, you need look no further than Australia, where wi-fi came about as a result of radio astronomy research. It came about as a result of a failed experiment into finding atomic sized mini black holes. Herein lies the problem with the way that scientific research is being viewed and funded. Where is the coherent coordinated approach to science policy? Herein lies the problem with not having a dedicated science minister.
I have been quiet on the lack of a science minister since I first criticised when the ministry was first announced. It is the first time we have had no science minister since 1931. I am bitterly disappointed that my fears have come to pass. This is a critical portfolio. As I stated at the time, the issue is not necessarily one of a lack of coverage by the ministers responsible for various parts of the portfolio but the fact that there was a lack of coordination, a lack of a single chain of command, a lack of a clear line of communication not only within government but among those working in science. Not a single G8 nation lacks a dedicated science minister and this bodes ill for our future.
Our Western Australian Premier, Colin Barnett, clearly sees the importance of science and recognises the need for an identified single minister responsible. Premier Colin Barnett has seen the portfolio as so critical that he has taken portfolio on himself. These issues of defence and science are critical to our future. We neglect them or downgrade their importance at our peril.
Why Can’t America’s Newest Stealth Jet Land Like It’s Supposed To?
And this from reader MS-
M&S
SR,
The problem with this representation of the EA-18G is that it is based on false premises.
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These included cooperative passive geo-locatio n of enemy emitters using the Rockwell Collins-developed Tactical Targeting Network Technology waveform and a technique called Emitter Time Distance of Arrival (TDOA) to feed data into the Common Operating Picture (COP). The COP in turn is a critical part of the Navy’s Naval Integrated Fire Control- Counter-Air (NIFC-CA) construct.
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This has been done since the 1980s when Prowler pilots commented on 'cooperative jamming' over Libya to AvLeak. TTNT is not, in and of itself, a targeting sensor but merely an LPI datalink which, like all such systems, is depend ent upon restricted bandwidth use and highly directional interchange of data amongst limited flight members to be successful.
Even so, the reality is that the EA-18 is _not_ itself a VLO platform and thus the ability of the jet to act as an EM vacuum for all forms of ELINT is as limited as it is itself undetected/molested.
I frankly also believe that much of the integrated network attack capabilities are overrated against missile systems which are passive and very small RCS signatures until they are directly in-lane with their intended target while themselves bei ng capable of rapid threshold targeting via sonar, airborne and overhead means as a kind of 'snapshot' of target positions which has to be updated only once compared to the continuing dissemination of the threat data to an all-air force looking to justify it's own existence.
The notion that you are going to use these IW platforms as hard power kinetics solutions speaks more to the fear of low survivability in a landward power projection role. Here, you must acknowledge the HUGE number of early F/A-18s with APG-73/AAS-46 baseline systems that have never been upgraded to the NFF condition. And contrast that against the mistaken perception that the baseline EA-18G (APG-79/ASQ-228) is a 'better solution' simply because it has AESA and longrange staring midwave sensors.
In truth, the EA-18 is going to be humping both gas and electronics it doesn't need and can ill afford the weight and station robbery of as lost AAM carriage and no gun which effectively makes it little more than an F-35 (more missiles, less LO) while the addition of heavy ALQ-99/NGJ pods doesn't notably improve it's Air Dominance ability to 'roll with the hitters' as it is dragged down by massive pods.
Counter Surface implies that the threat is going to give the jet something to shoot at and frankly, I just don't see that as even the provision of MMW Quickbolt on a Mac h 5 missile like HARM _only works_ if the target is coming off a platform which is itself visible to the jet's sensors. If the shooter is in fact a sub or an AShM cluster mine or a landbased TEL with a longer booster as midcourse lofting phase before descent to terminals, the Surface Warfare capability of the F/A-18 is limited as it is so very much easier to bury the launch platform in clutter than it is to hide the blue-sky jet.
NIFC-CA is itself further burdened by assumptions which are not being dealt with adequately:
Army Sensor Element = JLENS
http://www.navy.mil/submit/dis...
This goes back to the 1990s CMD efforts and particularly the Mountain Top approach to justifying a Standard midlevel capability wherein shots are lofted into an extended range position to kill targets which Army aerostats provide midcourse on in an OTH/NLOS condition. Unfortunately, the integration of JLENS capabilities in Army aerostats never went anywhere and the very idea that ground assets are somehow 'just ther e', already positioned, when the USN is the first respondent force in an A2/AD scenario is ludicrous.
IMO, the 'green zone' shown on page 19 of this document-
http://www.acq.osd.mil/se/webi...
is going to b e -incredibly- hard to get useful intercept performance in as the missile will be unpowered and operating in an increasing drag condition where it literally has to drop atop the needle in the wavestack with perfect alignment and such is just not likely to happen with the EA-18G (hunting radalts in the wave spray) or the E-2D with the ADS-18 array (wrong band for cyclical clutter lookin).
Beyond which, Baseline 9 is being -drastically- scaled back:
http://news.usni.org/2014/05/2...
So that, while new ABs continue to enter service, the Flight IIas get nothing, a handful (lead ship in each subclass essentially) of Flt Is gets B9 and the rest are left as either BMD vessels or as SARH-only shooters.
Which essentially means that even if you do what the USN professes to want to: "More the weapon, less the platform." the reality of the situation becomes one of pushing SM6 as a TVM SARH weapon in /alternation with/ SM3IIa (but no b) on other ships which act as ballistic kill platforms.
The dangers of which are extreme as the missile as the mode it's used in is NOT just a wooden round but has to be initiated by specialized electronics on each platform and thus loss of standardized capability is a loss of VLS utility overall because one ship is not only unable to program an SM6 into a Lofted OTH active mode while slapshotting DF-21Ds with BMD dedicated SPY-1 modes, but if in fact you lose the ONE ship whose waveforms indicate it is associated with the launch and MCG hardware for that capability, you also lose that capabiltiy from _all oth er_ platforms.
This is self-labeled target sorting which is utterly hypocritical as a 'shoot _me_, I'm the one holding the CEC together!' extension of capabilties through weaponeering. You cannot remove VLS slots through -15 early retirements, deweaponize ship fire control as mode-n-code compatibility -and- shift to a 'Near Peer' (in your face, in your ICD network) threat base and expect to survive.
Next, you have to look at this as F-35 = Navy Eyes And Ears...When?
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However, the F-35C will need some data-link modifications, which are expected for the jet’s Block IV configuration, to perform the role the Navy intends for it. While the current version of the Link-16 data-link does not have enough of a low probably of intercept capability that would allow it to be used inside highly contested airspace, the Navy is working on a solution.
"They’re working right now, because it is a follow-on development it em, Lockheed Martin is working with other contractors to make that capability happen," Manazir said. "We need to have that link capability that the enemy can’t find and then it can’t jam."
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http://news.usni.org/2013/12/3...
Not possible. The inverse square rule applies as does the bandwidth and operational node control laws. If you are operating a wide scale LINK capability, you can kiss your platform security goodbye, it will be exploited. China already has the baselines via cyberintel to know where to look. If you are acting as a SENSECAP oriented IMINT/MASINT gatherer and disseminator, you are already on the wrong side of Stealth because you are blinking on and off as you scurry about as a kind of SCAR. Even as waiting for offboard asset delivery of effects means you are not reactive to immediate threats that rise because you are closer to them than everyone else.
Stealth is a lone hunter for a reason. SEAD is not something that is best done in a marching band condition an d _once the threat is reduced_ wide area targeting is not something that is best done by expensive platforms with manned loiter issues.
Something which these two conditions highlight-
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The Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will be the eyes and ears of the fleet inside highly contested airspace when it enters the U.S. Navy’s arsenal in large numbers in the 2030s.
"Let’s say we’re in an anti-access environment and we’re going to go deep, we would launch all the airplanes off, get them all set, and we would push the F-35C way inside," Rear Adm. Mike Manazir, the Navy’s director of air warfare told USNI News on Dec. 20. "He would go in there using his X-band stealth technology, and go in there and he would get radar contacts and surface contacts and would ID them for us."
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In order to extend the F-35C’s range, the Navy hopes to refuel the stealthy new fighter from the service’s future Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft, Manazir said. While the UCLASS would not be as stealthy as the F-35C, it could accompany the JSF into some of the more modestly contested high threat environments.
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http://news.usni.org/2013/12/3...
The notion that you need stealth yet are doing 'deep' AAR is ridiculous on it's face. As is the notion that the most sortie generation limited asset on-deck is going to be doing persistent targeting with X-Band LO and a pilot onboard while the UCAV which has the superior _all band_ shaping is merely a mothership.
The F135 sucks gas as .889 and for this alone the F-35 is a lousy ISR platform.
And by 2030, I fully expect fuzed multiband sensors to be using funky chicken waveforms to excite and reradiate signal from even LO assets and for these systems to be coupled with cheap, high detector density, electrooptical sensors (possibly acoustic cued) to further help integrate area tracking of LO assets in the target operational area.
Either through UGS feed as sensor towers similar to the ones on the Israeli border.
Or via buoys and low value USV pickets.
THE PLAN/PLAAF ARE NOT THE TALIBAN.
And this is something that, landlined or directionally active, neither an F-35 nor an EA-18G would be able to do much about.
Finally, you have this-
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Moreover, because all three F-35 variants have the same mission systems, the Navy is working very closely with the U.S. Marine Corps to develop tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) for the JSF. Manazir noted that the USMC would operate the F-35C from the Navy’s Nimitz and Ford-class supercarriers in addition to the F-35B, which will be operated from amphibious assault ships.
"We’ll be able to exploit the advantages of both kinds of aircraft," Manazir said.
Right now the Marines are ahead of the Navy in developing the concepts of operation for the F-35.
Manazir described a recent long-range air dominance simulation exercise in which there were Marine Corps weapons officers flying the F-35C.
"They’re kind of at the leading edge of tactics development," Manazir said. "They’re helping us into the future."
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http://news.usni.org/2013/12/3...
< p style='margin-bottom: 6px; color: #353a3d; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; word-wrap: break-word; line-height: 1.4; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", "Helvetica", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; margin-top: 0'>Which I interpret to mean that the USN is not serious about integrating the F-35C into fleet operations until after the rest of the tacair comunity have validated it, if at all. The Marines -have to have- the F-35B to remain a viable budgetary beggar without suffering Armyism as a ground combat force that isn't needed because nobody wants to fight landwars (hah.).
But the USN is actually better positioned than anyone to fight deep strike with missiles and survivable shooters of same which means that whether the F-35C comes to the fleet or not is of limited import as NIFC-CA is a principally DCA/TBMD defensive scheme and the counter-targeting of the launch platforms for these threats should not be schema'd to a system which is X-Band limited to 30` FQ cone defense with an engine that gulps fuel at roughly the same rate as a J79 from 60 years ago.
CONCLUSION:
Someone is playing mind games. None of the proposed (EA-18) or existing (F-35C) solutions means much as more than filler for companies like Boeing who -have to- be looking forward to an era in which they have a new fighter contract under their belt because all their exi sting McDonnell products are so far beyond obsolescent as to be no longer competitive.
Our sole hope is that we either have a run of a 'Good Emperors' who keep us out of fights with the increasingly technically competent Chinese (vastly outnumbering us in total engineering talent and thus easily able to do more, in more areas, even if not at quite the same quality level, to out pace our military development). Or we have a major introspective moment in which we self-examine the technology base that we are currently taking to war, realize how hopelessly plateau'd it is (see above: Chinese run more races argument) and begin to shift into new regimes where total dominance means less necessary vested overhead recap in 'total force' capabilities.
The biggest cost of the F-35 or the EA-18 is not the jets themselves. It's the Airwing to support them and the battlegroup to protect the carrier to launch them all.
Add to this _serious_ range:time deficiencies as numbers of missions not sorties generated per day, and you have a serious problem with the reality of strike warfare as either ASUW/Sea Control or OPP as Interdiction.
Pu sh for an HCM or HSP and all of this changes as the amount of assets needed to penetrate the effects deliverer to terminals drops to JUST THE ONE. And whether that is an Boomer firing CBMs.
Or a Carrier launching a profile optimized (Spacehship 2) hypersonic skip bomber 'from ocean to ocean', 3,000nm out into the Pacific, the reality remains that pushing tacair is a loser's gambit on a peaked out performance capability whose measure:counter variables are too well known to be trusted to hold a dominant edge for long and whose innate, front loaded, asset values increasingly are too great to risk on 'do they get the targeting or don't they?' salvo attrition theory.
My answer and I'm sticking to it.
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