Tyler over at FoxTrot Alpha Blog has an article up where he covers what the USMC must do to make the F-35 pay dividends despite its huge cost. Its well worth the read.
He misses the mark however. Check this out...
Because of the fielding of the F-35B, the Expeditionary Strike Group can now transform into a "first day of war" force, capable of operating independently of the USAF and a nuclear powered aircraft carrier's deployed air wing, even against a formidable foe. An ESG will now be able to provide its own highly capable combat air patrols, its own destruction of enemy air defenses, its own penetrating airborne reconnaissance, and its own manned deep strike capabilities. Simply put, F-35B breaks the ESG's dependencies on multitude of external assets, many of which will be already taxed to the limit during a serious conflict against a credible peer state foe which may occur over a vast theater. No longer will close proximity land bases or massive aerial "tanker bridges" for USAF F-22s or F-16s be a mission breaking issue for an ESG in such a high-threat combat situation. And most importantly, traditional Carrier Strike Groups, and their massive air wings, can be decoupled from the expeditionary strike group during such operations, making them free to fight the enemy from another location.I don't know how this idea gained traction but the Marine Corps is not organized nor is it equipped....even with the F-35...to take on high tech threats by itself.
In effect, the F-35B not only gives the Expeditionary Strike Group a major capability boost, but by giving the ESG operational independence it also boosts America's "total force" far more than the sum of its parts. High value assets that would traditionally be needed to work in conjunction with an ESG against a hardened enemy will be free to go other places and do other things. One of these things may be simply staying home, thus saving precious airframe time and operating costs during lower intensity conflicts.
The thought that you would send a MEU against enemy air assets and worse conduct deep strike missions with the planes that can fit on the decks of a big amphib is craziness.
This idea that big deck amphibs are in essence mini-aircraft carriers that can pinch hit for full sized ones is ludicrous.
You can't fix this by designing the Marine Corps around this airplane. It isn't working with the MV-22 and it won't work here. The concept is flawed and there is no saving it from itself. In a very short time, current leadership will be criticized by historians for weakening America's defenses. The primary villain will be the F-35 and its supporters.
Saw that piece. Showed a lack of awareness of the status of the program.
ReplyDeleteGeneral Robert Schmidle, then deputy Marine Corps commandant for aviation, last summer had a mission: Cut F-35 operating cost estimates.
ReplyDeleteSTOVL use: Schmidle said the Marines would fly the planes in short takeoff, vertical landing, or STOVL mode just 10 percent of the time, far less often than the 80 percent rate factored into the initial estimates. The F-35 B will operate in STOVL mode “a small percentage of the time,” as aircraft will be rotated for use on land bases, Schmidle says.
Later last summer, Schmidle discussed basing of the first operational squadron.
VMFA 121, Yuma: The squadron now has eight of 16 F-35Bs. It will permanently move to Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan in late summer 2017. Of VMFA 121's 16 aircraft, six are slated for deployment on the USS Makin Island amphibious assault ship in the Pacific, with the remaining 10 at Iwakuni.
Can anyone reconcile these two positions?
Also, Schmidle talked about reducing maintenance cost. One of the keys to bringing those F-35B costs down, Schmidle said, may be doing intermediate level repairs at sea. “That will drive costs down and readiness up.” But Lockheed wants the work. The F-35, company officials say, was designed to be taken off the flight line when it comes time for repairs.
Speaking of maintenance, the ALIS (Autonomic Logistics Information System) doesn't work, according to the recent test report.
ReplyDelete"To date, diagnostic system performance has failed to meet basic functional requirements, including fault detection, fault isolation, and false alarm rates."
Logistics support for the F-35B in Japan, ashore and afloat, will be the duty of the Squadron Operating Unit (SOU) . But -- you guessed it -- The current SOU being used by ALIS failed to meet the deployability requirement in the ORD due to the size, bulk, and weight of the current SOU design so the program is developing a deployable version of the SOU, deemed SOU V2.
On Mar 27, 2014 Lockheed Martin was awarded a $52,141,562 modification to a previously awarded cost-plus-incentive-fee contract (N00019-02-C-3002) to execute phase 3 of the Joint Strike Fighter Autonomics Logistics Information System (ALIS) Standard Operating Unit Version 2 (SOUv2) capability development effort.
The previous estimate to do this work caused by Lockheed's failure was $35 million, and now it's $52 million -- cost-plus. LM will milk it for more, is a fair guess.
So good luck on supporting the B in Japan, and especially on the USS Makin Island far out at sea.
I think everybody is missing the general gist of this article. Basically, it's going to take a metric shit-tonne more money to make the F-35B useful. In the meantime, the A and C models are severely compromised in favor of commonality with the near-useless B.
ReplyDeleteOn a related note, Spain has opted to refurb its AV-8Bs instead of purchasing new F-35Bs. The zombie shuffle continues.
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/154245/spain-drops-plan-to-buy-f_35b,-will-upgrade-av_8bs-instead.html