RICO flight lands at Yuma

While there is no hard proof that Lenin said it, the term "useful idiots" applies to some of the F-35 fan-base.

For the rest, I suspect fraud is the justification to harness taxpayers to fund a faulty and obsolete weapon system that a country over $16T in the red can ill afford.

Much of the pro-F-35 publicity efforts are stitched up with faith-based arguements, hearsay and meme-theory all rolled up into a thana-marketing package which will hurt DOD combat readiness.

For years.

Consider the lastest effort by the cheerleaders at Second Line of Defense (SLD). Their "Gold Sponsor", Lockheed Martin, also the maker of the troubled F-35, want you to believe that delivering F-35B (short take-off and landing variant) Joint Strike Fighters to Yuma, Arizona is a good thing for the United States Marketing Corps.

The USMC leadership is using the same kind of plan that they used to field the MV-22 Osprey: market, hype, market, and get a woefully undertested aircraft to an operational test squadron as soon as possible.

The F-35B is not ready.

The mission software for the aircraft is not ready. The helmet and its visual cueing, (the aircraft has no heads-up-display) is not ready. The logistics system for maintenance people is not ready. The flight envelop is not fully expanded. There are no working weapons. This would entail a wide range of clearance scenarios and hitting actual air and surface targets.

SLD's big problem with being a zombie marketer of the Joint Strike Failure is that the U.S. DOD just handed an operational test squadron a non-ready aircraft. Operational test squadrons are supposed to figure out how to use a weapon for war and write up the procedure for operational training so other training squadrons have a solid (and safe) training program.

All that is pretty hard to do when the development testers are far from finished. Hard to work on tactics when you are just trying to make the aircraft work.

What we have is another piece of the puzzle of the F-35 fraud:

Produce the appearance of capability; meet "milestones" to get big pay-days and for the military leadership, advance your career.

At any cost.

I am curious when Congress--who have run out of other-peoples money to spend--will realise that their shift to the Pacific is depending on what the U.S. Justice Department and FBI in their world would call: "a criminal enterprise"?

Pinning the RICO Statute on all of this is not hard to do.

As America's combat readiness gets worse because its' "Department of Defense" buys a long line of dud combat systems (LCS, F-35, DDX, obsolete carrier air wings, amphibs with no well-deck, etc) the best strategy for the U.S. is to avoid war because we are not capable of winning.

And, propaganda from the likes of SLD won't improve that situation.

Try again, but thanks for playing...

Nope:

Defence procurement failures have often been explained away on the basis that they are complex, risky, and difficult to achieve without time and cost slippage. For some projects this is certainly true, the Navy’s Future Submarines and the JSF represent cases where for various political and technical reasons options are limited and risks unavoidable. However it would be wrong to assume that this was the case with all defence procurement; simple rules, common sense, and adequate planning can overcome many of these obstacles.

Many risks were avoidable with the Just So Failed. Just consider the history of the project and Australia's severe mistake in getting involved.

For defence procurement, it’s time to go back to basics.

Welcome to the party pal.

Weekend deception

The weekend print edition of The Australian has their annual and grossly misleading feature section on the state of the state of Defence as it were.

As usual it is paid for by big industry rent-seekers from Boeing, LM, ASC and other usual suspects. The big advert dollars are the only reason this feature gets breathing space in the paper.

The cover page of this piece says, "Defence Special Report" and not: Defence marketing advertisement.

From that, one would expect actual reporting.

Every year this sham is always worth reading because it is written by alleged people knowledgeable for Defence which instead of being reporters on the topic are in effect, advert copy flacks for industry.

The average reader would not know this; which makes it a problem.

The "analysis" is really just that poor.

There is the usual rent-seeking inspired article about how Australia will someday have its' home grown white-elephant subs at the cost of tens of billions. It is supported by a big ASC advert. The SA government defence industry advert is on another page. And, this is probably the best "article" in the litter.

Not mentioned is the toxic relationship between the dysfunctional DMO, ASC and RAN.

There are advert-copy pieces on RAAF fast-jet air power.

They are crap.

They mention the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and how great the Growler will be.

There is little mention of the serious pitfalls having to do with the Just So Failed or the fact that the Grower is pudgy and short-ranged, has legacy jamming solutions, and against emerging Pacific Rim threats, it will suffer a similar fate to the F-35: it will get run down and killed.

The entrenched defence bureaucracy is waging a significant disinformation campaign against the tax payer. They are helped by those kinds of people who have employment which depends on our money flowing to dud defence planning schemes. The special Defence feature in the weekend edition of The Australian is part of that effort.


-Australian Defence Reading List

The potential greatness of Senator Johnston

A speech the other day by a person that could be the next Defence Minister under a new leadership, Senator David Johnston, shows a man that has his heart in the right place for Defence.

The video here, is recommended viewing.

Unfortunately, he admits he is not very knowledgeable on Defence. Historically this isn't a new situation for Defence Ministers in Australia. It does seem that he has the potential to be more up-to-speed than other Defense Ministers before him even if Johnston admits he is a “slightly educated amateur” in relation to the portfolio.

In my opinion, he still has some views of Defence that are not realistic.

For example he said that Australia's air combat capability is “relatively straight forward” when in fact it has serious challenges ahead. He mentions that in spite of critics, the F-35 will be a “fantastic” capability. He then goes on to mention that DAS on the F-35 saw a rocket launch from 800 some miles away. Hint: it was one of the biggest boosters available on the market. Or as one critic said of this Lockheed Martin marketing effort (that is where it came from and has been pushed elsewhere when hyping the F-35): “With the naked eye, I can see 93 million miles in daylight; quite a bit further at night.”

Johnston goes on to mention the alleged net-centric-warfare capability of the F-35 when this technology exists today in other platforms. He mentions the wonders of the F-35 pilot's integrated sensor helmet but doesn't mention this system is in deep trouble. He mentions that the F-35 will give Australia a “fantastic, regionally dominant capability.” He doesn't mention that the Joint Operational Requirement Document (JORD) for the Joint Strike Fighter, drawn up in the 1990's and signed off on at the beginning of the last decade, insures that this aircraft, as delivered, will be obsolete against regional threats. And that assumes that there are no development troubles. It is doubtful that the claim by the maker of the F-35, that it is affordable, lethal, supportable and sustainable, has any credibility.

In short, he was easily taken in by all the glamour of a junket to Fort Worth to visit the F-35 factory and consume the blue-sky marketing, but has little-to-no critical thinking capability in this area of Defence.

Senator Johnston should not hitch his wagon to marketing hype.

Johnston refers back multiple times to the 2009 Defence White Paper (a wish list of $275B of spending short-falled by around $200B once realism hits), but he doesn't seem to grasp that the document is a horrific joke.

Which leads to something else where he stated that Parliament as a whole, does not understand the complexity of Defence. No surprise here. He praises ASPI for helping out (they do help) but mentions them as, “independent and non-partisan”.

I don't know about that:



If Senator Johnston becomes the next Defence Minister, here is what he must do:

-Make Defence officials accountable.

-Improve professional military education (PME) (art of war, leadership and management) which connects with:

-Improve the bad condition of the military justice system. Hint, this capability improves by leaps and bounds as PME quality improves. When this happens (regardless of the military procurement bungling by the entrenched defence bureaucracy) we will have a strong foundation that our soldiers, sailors and airmen deserve during peace and war.

Johnston may fail with the entrenched defence bureaucracy in relation to procurement stuff ups but if he can produce big victories with the human relations side of the fence for our war-fighters, he will have left a lasting legacy and, improved the defence posture of the nation.

Simply because ethics issues are what plague Defence. There is little difference between a soldier, sailor or airman receiving bad military justice and a $1.5B waste of the Sea Sprite, the many ship and submarine sustainment mistakes or other defence procurement disasters.

All of the bad behaviour comes from the same ills: poor senior leadership ethics and accountability.

Consider the DMO, ASC, RAN relationship which has been in serious trouble for years and as Johnston states, is full of “malice”. Maybe a Defence Minister Johnston can let us know the alleged worse problems in that second and restricted DMO, ASC, RAN report. After all, for years, we have been paying billions for a Navy that has been short-changed by the entrenched defence bureaucracy leaving combat capability for the worse.

Senator Johnston has the potential to be a good Defence Minister. If we all help him out, maybe he can be a great Defence Minister.

Our poor senator

Defence presses forward with their bad idea

Defence presses forward with their bad idea.

Shallow audit held as valuable by some

The audits (here and here) of the RAAF fast jet running debacle are weak, shallow, and ignore some significant issues.

Noteworthy too is that the original purpose of the Super Hornet decision was to cover for F-35 delays. Nelson (who was PowerPointed into the con) stated as much. More on that here (including the weak justification for getting rid of the F-111).

The normalization of deviance approach to this issue is not useful.

More on the dangers of a normalization of deviance approach to risks--enhanced by group-think--can be seen here.

Following the F-35 path will cost Australia loss of regional air supremacy. What is interesting in the above mentioned audit is the meme of that will not die; the F-35 as a "fifth-generation fighter".

The audit goes into describing the specs of the F-35 and the Super Hornet but (and this is where the shallowness comes in full-bore) portrays no grasp of why the technical details are important beyond a few simplistic claims.

Here are a few things to consider; what the audit didn't tell the public:

History they don’t want you to know

Boeing official-Super Hornet-handles air-to-air with technology, not speed and acceleration

The Super Hornet Stores Story

More on the dud-jamming gear Defence wants to buy

The audit also labels the Super Hornet as "low observable" when such a claim shows a real weakness of understanding balanced defensive measures taken in the design of the aircraft. Those are some low-observable methods to lower signature but just as important: to establish a better known baseline of exposure risks of the aircraft to different threats so that the on-board defensive jamming system is much more efficient. Great, if one does not want to carry any significant weapons capability. Unlike real stealth aircraft, the Super Hornet carries its weapons (not counting the gun) externally. Not very "low observable".

In short, the audit doesn't do much to help the Australian public who are being taken for a ride of billions in wasteful spending for faulty aircraft that will not be competitive against growing Pacific Rim threats.

RAAF F-35 costs being ignored, spun, by leadership

Our old classic Hornets will have to go out to the years beyond 2020 because the Just So Failed is very late.

That is the best-case scenario reported by The Australian.

They report that our 71 old, classic F-18 Hornets cost $170M per year to sustain. That is about $2.39M per aircraft per year. Well, they are old, obsolete and should have been retired by now.

The following is what The Australian didn't report:

So what would each new F-35 cost per year to sustain according to estimates in the U.S.? Using American dollars, each F-35 is expected to cost $35,500 per flying hour. Throwing some numbers around, the cost (USD) to sustain one F-35 for one year could look like this depending on how much it was flown:

180 hours per year = $6.4M
200 hours per year = $7.1M
220 hours per year = $7.8M

An Australian government set of figures for cost per flying hour from last year showed our old classic Hornets as as: $11,770 per flying hour. That is based on a fleet of 71 totalling 13,000 flying hours for a year (183 hours per airframe per year) for $2.15M per airframe per year in sustainment.

The Australian Supers were shown as $23,000 per flying hour. One would hope that would come down as learning curve grows on a new type.

So, the F-35 is not only very expensive to acquire, but very expensive to own and operate. It has significant faults. There is still no finished go-to-war design to evaluate. It won't be able to stand up to emerging Pacific Rim threats.

Yet the government says, “buy”.

With budget troubles of all kinds, the RAAF is expected to live within its mean. I am sure the RAAF/DMO/Defence cabal will find a way to apply an interesting spin to all this.

They always do.

Aussie F*cking Pride

A dying news organisation ( $.42 and headed down) rehashes a poor story on risks to buying dud jamming gear.

While money is being wasted on that, the ADF has real operational needs today.

Pride. Aussie F*cking Pride.