If Air/Sea Battle was a serious concept and actually sought to procure equipment to match the concept then what would the Pentagon be buying? This is my take....
Frigates instead of LCS...
The USN says that its gearing up to "take back" the Pacific. My words, but you get the idea. The LCS is the wrong ship, for a time thats past, that never was a good idea in the first place. Think about this. The LCS was originally conceived as the answer to Iranian small boat swarms...but those swarms were really never that big a threat anyway. One Cobra or armed SeaHawk could make mince meat of a swarm in minutes. Once that became widely known the next thing was to fight pirates...but any ship could handle that task so the idea that we had to build an entire class to deal with that problem became apparent. The latest excuse for the travesty that is the LCS? Partnership missions. Only know we find that our "partners" have better ships than the LCS will ever be. So why does this pitiful ship continue? Because leadership can't admit that they made a mistake. We need "new" Oliver Perry's but instead get glorified speedboats. If the Navy was serious about ASB then this would be fixed ricky tick quick.
F-23 instead of F-35...
If the USAF was actually serious about ASB they would be putting the F-23 into service with F-35 avionics like yesterday. Distance. The tyranny of distance. I don't know but its always been said that the F-23 had better range and a much lower radar cross section than the F-22. This should be simple because we'd be buying the shell and filling its guts with what should be off the shelf materials. The USAF will never admit it but the F-22 is too short legged to be the difference maker we need in the Pacific theater.
FB-22 now instead of Next Gen Bomber later...
Under my plan we'd be taking in F-23's to fill the F-22 role and the F-22's would be modded to become FB-22's. Everyone talks about high density/tech air defenses but they don't have a medium bomber on the agenda that can fight the battle at the edge of the battle space and then deeper. That's the territory of the Strike Eagle, well its time to get a replacement for that particular role going now. If they were serious they would be designing the bits to go inside the FB-22 now.
Marine Personnel Carrier now instead of Upgraded AAV...
If you're going to chop the Marine Corps down to a rumored 150,000 men then you better do your best to keep them alive. I like the AAV, I think the AAV has served us well but its time for a replacement. We have the BAE SuperAV ready to go now. Buy it if you want to save some Marine lives.
X-47 becomes the joint attack airplane program...
If Congress had a brain they would stay in their lane. Pushing for a joint fighter/attack airplane program was a step too far. Manned aircraft operating in different mission profiles is just too hard. But for a single mission profile? Recon and attack? Unmanned? Yeah. This is the one that Congress should have pushed for in a joint program. The X-47 should be shoved down the throat of the Navy, Air Force, Marines AND Army. Weaponize it to the gills, or set it up as a pure surveillance platform is up to the individual services but they will fly it. A turn to the Pacific demands responsive support at the division level. If the fleet air defense or deep strike mission is going on then the ground forces will have an unmanned air support platform that isn't perfect but still able to fly in a high threat area and drop ordnance where needed.
Next gen anti-ship missile development...
The Navy is working on this but they need to put it into overdrive. Its beyond time to get this done. The USN is almost unique in not having a credible, deadly antiship missile in its arsenal. Time to reverse that.
Next Generation Ro/Ro Ship...
The USN has a great secret that hasn't been utilized...well its time to put all the cards on the table. We need to start using the entire Army, not just the Stryker Brigades. We don't need to be fancy in highlighting quick reaction if quick reaction doesn't have teeth. Land a Stryker Brigade without proper support and you'll see them fight hard, hold ground but then get run over when attrition takes its toll. Instead lets get the Marines, Airborne, Stryker and then a Heavy Brigade to the scene and win the battle and then the war. We need to put our Heavy Brigades back into play by developing the next gen Ro/Ro ships. And we need to do exercises NOW, utilizing current gen ships, where we deploy Heavy Brigades to the Pacific to fall in with their gear.
This is my take on things if we were actually serious about Air Sea Battle. Whats yours?
UPDATE: One addition--Reforger for the Pacific (an idea by Paralus)
Paralus suggested a REFORGER for the Pacific and I heartily agree. A yearly exercise that would have the US surge forces into the Pacific to test our rapid reaction capability would be welcomed by our allies and would put China on notice. Click here to read a wiki article on the past exercises to Germany.
Frigates instead of LCS...
The USN says that its gearing up to "take back" the Pacific. My words, but you get the idea. The LCS is the wrong ship, for a time thats past, that never was a good idea in the first place. Think about this. The LCS was originally conceived as the answer to Iranian small boat swarms...but those swarms were really never that big a threat anyway. One Cobra or armed SeaHawk could make mince meat of a swarm in minutes. Once that became widely known the next thing was to fight pirates...but any ship could handle that task so the idea that we had to build an entire class to deal with that problem became apparent. The latest excuse for the travesty that is the LCS? Partnership missions. Only know we find that our "partners" have better ships than the LCS will ever be. So why does this pitiful ship continue? Because leadership can't admit that they made a mistake. We need "new" Oliver Perry's but instead get glorified speedboats. If the Navy was serious about ASB then this would be fixed ricky tick quick.
F-23 instead of F-35...
If the USAF was actually serious about ASB they would be putting the F-23 into service with F-35 avionics like yesterday. Distance. The tyranny of distance. I don't know but its always been said that the F-23 had better range and a much lower radar cross section than the F-22. This should be simple because we'd be buying the shell and filling its guts with what should be off the shelf materials. The USAF will never admit it but the F-22 is too short legged to be the difference maker we need in the Pacific theater.
FB-22 now instead of Next Gen Bomber later...
Under my plan we'd be taking in F-23's to fill the F-22 role and the F-22's would be modded to become FB-22's. Everyone talks about high density/tech air defenses but they don't have a medium bomber on the agenda that can fight the battle at the edge of the battle space and then deeper. That's the territory of the Strike Eagle, well its time to get a replacement for that particular role going now. If they were serious they would be designing the bits to go inside the FB-22 now.
Marine Personnel Carrier now instead of Upgraded AAV...
If you're going to chop the Marine Corps down to a rumored 150,000 men then you better do your best to keep them alive. I like the AAV, I think the AAV has served us well but its time for a replacement. We have the BAE SuperAV ready to go now. Buy it if you want to save some Marine lives.
X-47 becomes the joint attack airplane program...
If Congress had a brain they would stay in their lane. Pushing for a joint fighter/attack airplane program was a step too far. Manned aircraft operating in different mission profiles is just too hard. But for a single mission profile? Recon and attack? Unmanned? Yeah. This is the one that Congress should have pushed for in a joint program. The X-47 should be shoved down the throat of the Navy, Air Force, Marines AND Army. Weaponize it to the gills, or set it up as a pure surveillance platform is up to the individual services but they will fly it. A turn to the Pacific demands responsive support at the division level. If the fleet air defense or deep strike mission is going on then the ground forces will have an unmanned air support platform that isn't perfect but still able to fly in a high threat area and drop ordnance where needed.
Next gen anti-ship missile development...
The Navy is working on this but they need to put it into overdrive. Its beyond time to get this done. The USN is almost unique in not having a credible, deadly antiship missile in its arsenal. Time to reverse that.
Next Generation Ro/Ro Ship...
The USN has a great secret that hasn't been utilized...well its time to put all the cards on the table. We need to start using the entire Army, not just the Stryker Brigades. We don't need to be fancy in highlighting quick reaction if quick reaction doesn't have teeth. Land a Stryker Brigade without proper support and you'll see them fight hard, hold ground but then get run over when attrition takes its toll. Instead lets get the Marines, Airborne, Stryker and then a Heavy Brigade to the scene and win the battle and then the war. We need to put our Heavy Brigades back into play by developing the next gen Ro/Ro ships. And we need to do exercises NOW, utilizing current gen ships, where we deploy Heavy Brigades to the Pacific to fall in with their gear.
This is my take on things if we were actually serious about Air Sea Battle. Whats yours?
UPDATE: One addition--Reforger for the Pacific (an idea by Paralus)
Paralus suggested a REFORGER for the Pacific and I heartily agree. A yearly exercise that would have the US surge forces into the Pacific to test our rapid reaction capability would be welcomed by our allies and would put China on notice. Click here to read a wiki article on the past exercises to Germany.
makes more sense than what we're doing now.
ReplyDeleteA REFORGER exercise in the Pacific might be a nice touch.
RO/RO and catamaran ferries, deploy to S. Korea, Phillipines, Australia, etc. with full complement of escorts. How fast can you move 4-5 BCTs from Hawaii and the West Coast? That might be the more persuasive to potential rivals than the occasional deployment to Australia.
If there is one thing I am sure of, it is that no other nation in the world can duplicate our force projection capabilities and that will be the case for another decade or so.
Agree,but i do belive that land based strategic bombers are essential for this.There even more important than aircraft carriers for this to work.I think the USAF should build more F-22s and FB-22s,but the LRS-B is essential.The F-23 is a no go.Everybody that worked in the program is retired.But if they could pull it off ,then you would be right Solomon.I allways tought that the F-23 was the best design in the ATF competition.
ReplyDeleteOf interest on the ATF competition-http://youtu.be/xGco66RoJtc -you will see where that the people working in the F-23 were surprised that it lost , because its features were more advanced that the F-22...still to this day they cant speak on actual numbers,but they say that the Northrop product was superior in every way...
P.S-Didnt Northrop proposed in 2007 an FB-23?
The F-23 should have been the F-35 of NOW
ReplyDeleteFrigates instead of LCS. Absolutely.
ReplyDeleteKeep the F-35, but drastically reduce its numbers. Concentrate on making it strictly an attack platform like the A-7, AV-8, F-117, etc. A weaponized X-47 is likely a way off, but could render the F-35 obsolete.
Give the Super Bug the Block 3 upgrades; CFTs, IRST, and uprated GE414-EPE engines.
Use the upcoming T-X program (to replace the T-38) to develop what the JSF should have been, a simple replacement for the F-16 and F-18. Maybe the folks at Saab and Boeing can produce a 5th gen, stealthy Gripen.
FB-22? Absolutely. The tooling for the Raptor still exists. The Strike Eagle turned out to be damn good, a "Strike Raptor" should be just as good.
Hypersonic anti-ship missiles? Why doesn't the US have these already?
F-23? Great idea but it'll never happen. Not unless the shit really goes down, anyway.
Doug,
DeleteWhat about Canada and those Dumpster fires aka the Victoria class SSK. Why not replace them with type 212,214,216 SSK or Scorpene class SSK
You'd have to prove Canada has a need for subs first.
DeleteWe've gone years now without a proper submarine fleet.
The Arctic for one
DeleteI will preface by saying I am not anti military or whatever some of you might think but we just can't do business like we used to, so some of my ideas might seem out there but I'm not some tree hugger pacifist, I was in the US Army and love my country,just saying.
ReplyDeleteCouple of things we have to be clear here, between incompetence from both parties and the last 2 administrations, 2 wars, corruption of said politicians and generals and just knowing how corporations work, we can't just do business as usual. Just this week, military getting rid of 4000 Captains and Majors. Who do you guys think are going to get the ax? The guys with combat experience and rock the boat or the guys that were in the rear with gear and brown nosed, kissed the generals ass while you were getting blown up by an IED? Yeah, exactly. We can't count on the DoD to do the right thing anymore...
I would start by getting rid of LCS. Build out more Burkes and probably would add a few more Zumwalts, at least you are buying some ships that have a chance, LCS is a sitting duck with no combat load out . Huge waste of money. Since we are fighting China, we need more SSNs. I would cut back to 8 carriers, 5 on the West coast, 3 for the East coast. Whatever we have above 8, put them into some sort of storage. There's no point in spending so much money on carriers if you can't operate them at full aircraft complement.
New class of SSBNs, only 8. Build them with a torpedo room for crying out aloud. See if we can salvage a few Ohio's and turn them into SSGNs. It is relatively cheap and big force multiplier. Some of you aren't enamored with the SSGN concept but a hundred cruise missile coming down range will mess up anyone's day at the office...even China's office.
Do we still need a bomber force? I am less and less convinced. Can a B2 or NGB survive in a real tough environment like Chinese airspace? If not, then we just need some kind of UAV bomb truck to replace the B52 or just buy a bigger more capable X-47B that we wouldn't be afraid to lose to replace the B2.
Forget about new F22s, FB22 or F23. It will cost a fortune and you would be lucky to see something fly before 2030. I am not a fan of F35 but at this point, we are stuck with this turd. Sad truth is, most of the fleet will have to go because USAF is just too incompetent to manage itself out of a brown bag and we are going to have to pay the price for all the past mistakes. Get rid of A10, most of the F16s except Block 52s, most of the F15s except a few C/Ds and keep the Es. I would keep the KC10 or at least get some more DC10/MD11s from the desert, I am sure we could convert a couple for pretty cheap, get rid of KC135s and hopefully KC46 will be an OK program without too many overruns. We need to reduce the force, save some money so you can start a 6th Gen air superiority fighter NOW!!! Reuse F35 engines,AESA,etc to save some time and money. Hope to get around it 2025-28....Not impossible but you have to get it right from the start.
Agree that USN needs a supersonic ASM/SLAM, can also take care of some dirt bag terrorist that needs to be taken out ASAP. Put it on all surface ships, subs and SH and F35C, X47,etc...
Buy off the shelf, foreign military gear if we have too. I have no problem with that. Stop wasting money reinventing the wheel.
Need more cooperation between Army and Marines. Neither service can do it alone and actually are a lot better off working together. Be prepared to see even more cuts in personnel, I wouldn't be surprised if Marine Corps goes below 150K and Army below 380K. Maybe not tomorrow but can anyone be sure of the numbers in 2020? 2025?
I have some more ideas but those are the big ones for now. We have to realize that we aren't facing the old Soviet Union, we aren't going to get the nation behind this and you aren't going to have ever increasing military budgets so you have to cut somewhere. We can't do anymore "nice to have", we can only do "we really need this!"
If we ever get that poor forget the buying fancy new planes, force projection, and aggressive foreign policy. Build a whole mess of Peacekeeper missiles with pen aids in discreet ISO shipping containers on trucks and lean on MAD. The nuclear arsenal rarely takes more than 3% of the defense budget unless they do a big cut and does more damage than the conventional forces. I support the aviation but I wouldn't bet the entire nation's defense on 1000 pilots single dimensional efforts.
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ReplyDeleteAlways was a strong supporter of the FB-22. It, along with X-47B would work very well. I know we might not agree on Stryker (and that is OK). I believe that if an AFV can't swim to cross a lake or river, it has no use. Also we have thousands of M-113s in storage that can be brought up to a variety of interesting standards. (more on this later) They are cheaper on operating and sustainment compared to a Stryker (mostly because of Stryker-specific design problems). Your review of other brands of new wheeled vehicles shows promise too (way better than Stryker). So, I want Stryker removed completely. I also want a new main battle tank. It doesn't have to have a 120mm. I want a 3 man crew and auto-loading gun to save weight. Diesel of course. Salty requirements so USMC gets what it wants, and Army follows. I know we disagree on this too (and that is OK too) but I want the M-1 out of the picture on logistics reasons alone.
ReplyDeleteStill can't believe the amount of people out there who believe the Abrams is a good tank. Let alone the best tank.
DeleteIt isn't the best, but it is superior to many and a peer to the best. The main weak point is the gas turbine and it's thirty appetite.
DeleteFor the second time in 15 years, the Army is talking about putting in a diesel power pack based on the fuel savings. The vulnerability of fuel trucks with their crews in Iraq and Afghanistan finally got Army off its ass to ask why they needed so much fuel. Less fuel=less trucks=less IEDs=less wounded soldiers.
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/abrams-dieselization-project-a-modest-proposal/
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/abrams-dieselization-project-doing-the-math/
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DeleteHi Solomon, I think the air sea battle concept exist already for the USNavy with their SH/Growlers and it will be even more powerfull with the introduction of the Triton, advanced Super Hornet and the Uclass like the X-47B. How needs the USAF?
ReplyDeleteWatch the video y created fee months ago
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQUdbw__g_Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player
1. type 26 frigate or De Zeven Provincien class frigate. I get the idea that you want something bigger than a frigate to take on another frigate, but nothing goes as planed and why not have something that can take a punch and not built to civilian shipping standards. Even as a non military person I never understood that about LCS.
ReplyDelete2. yes to the F-23, but it will never happen so f-15se. I see the combat radius is 720 to 800nm vs the f-22 410nm.
3. I think the next step is in a new tank. Something along the lines of the TK-X or the K2.
Those are very nice frigates, but this is the US. Our defense budget is three times larger than the 2nd largest defense spender in the world. And our entire procurement budget is only about 15% of that budget.
DeleteWe can afford the larger ship. Most of the navies that buy these really nice frigates only have 6-18 true surface combatants in the first place. We have 60+ destroyers. I would like to have 80-100 destroyers eventually, and I believe we will have 80+.
I wouldn't recommend telling people a frigate is nice enough lest the austere politics land us with 20 destroyers acting like ghetto cruisers and 60 frigates instead of 80 destroyers. That's a 50% reduction in available ammunition under the best circumstances. This is only about an extra 1.5% in the total budget staff and operations included and it converts into a lot of power.
There are a lot of places in the military that spend extra money and this is one of the best places to do that. If I had to gut the military budget in very reckless extreme ways I'd still build more Burkes and refurbish/upgrade them over and over and ride them for 100 years before I resorted building frigates. Not everyone understands it but the military's top brass does.
I agree about the F23. I heard the same; longer range and more stealthy. Since the airframe has already been flown and tested it should be an easy matter to add in avionics.
ReplyDeleteOverall, great plan. Solomon for President!
President? naw. Sec of Def? yeah....or even better Sec of the Navy. one year term, and i'd tear it down and build it back up right. 4 generals...one for each Marine Division and the Commandant. one of the division commanders would dual hat as assistant commandant and i'd dump all the joint billets and staff on the Army and Navy. we'd go back to being lean and mean.
Delete