via Reuters.
Dec 19 (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy on Friday said it was in talks with Boeing Co about slowing production of its EA-18G electronic attack jets to keep the St. Louis facility running through the end of 2017, after Congress approved funding for 15 more planes.We don't need to read tea leaves or speculate about the Navy's stance on the F-35.
The Navy is seeking to modify Boeing's existing contract for EA-18G jets, or Growlers, and F/A-18 Super Hornets to add the extra jets funded by Congress in the fiscal 2015 U.S. budget, said Rob Koon, spokesman for the Navy's Naval Air Systems Command.
President Obama on Tuesday signed the fiscal 2015 spending bill into law. It includes $1.46 billion for 15 more Growlers, and up to $100 million to cover the cost of slowing the current production rate from three to two aircraft a month.
By building two jets a month instead of three, Boeing will be able to stretch jet orders through the end of 2017, preserving the tooling and jobs associated with the line for as long as possible.
Koon gave no details on the cost of "stretching" the production line, or when the two sides are likely to reach agreement on a modified contract.
Boeing spokeswoman Caroline Hutcheson said the company should be able to keep building planes through the end of 2017 given the added funding and an expected agreement with the Navy about slowing deliveries of jets already on order.
She said Boeing was ready to discuss possible additional orders with the Navy and the U.S. Department of Defense as they finalized their fiscal 2016 budget request.
Few details have emerged about the Navy's fiscal 2016 budget plans, but Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jonathan Greenert last month told Reuters the Navy was looking at possible additional orders of Growlers for the period.
They're not sold. Not at all.
This type of news must be shaking the F-35 partners to the core. For the honest brokers like Australia, the Netherlands and maybe even the Brits and Canadians, this must be shocking.
I wonder what the classified briefings really are telling them? The Navy is going full bore into Electronic Attack. The funny thing? The USAF can't contest the move. They don't have electronic attack aircraft and gave the US Navy sole responsibility for the mission...which means that the Navy wanting to keep the EA-18G line open is a matter of national security...especially if they're right about the future of aerial warfare.
Admiral Greenert: “All the stealth in the world ain’t gonna penetrate everything,” he told the audience at the 50th annual conference of the Association of Old Crows, a group named after a slang term for electronic warfare operators. Greenert puts his stock in jammers. “But we have the means for—way out in the future—with the Next Generation Jammer and what it’ll bring, to be able to get in when we need to and get out.”
ReplyDeleteHere is the CNO's recent position report. Admiral Greenert mentions many systems, including the EA-18G Growler and the X-47B UCAS, and even coastal patrol ships, but there is no mention of F-35.
That's why the Navy only buys two JSF prototypes a year, and wouldn't buy any if they could get away with it. The price is exorbitant, and there are no "block buys" around the corner to change that. (The Congress piled on two more, unrequested, in the new budget, total four.)
ROTHR = 2,500nm tracking of individual aircraft targets from central Australia to Jakarta.
DeleteDF-21D = Five minute flights to 900nm.
WU-14 = MARVing reentry vehicle (shotgun warheads have also been trialed, in the Gobi 'carrier outline')
'The Carrier Myth' = The notion that you can sustain more than about 40-50 strike sorties per day from the airwing for more than about 3-4 days before a combination of depleted magazines and fuel bunkers + exhausted crews require retirement to the _FLEET TRAINS_ as another massive target locus.
All this from under 200nm offshore.
When something a little closer to what the threat would dictate in a Taiwan or Korean contingency (with Chinese intervention) is that of OEF. Where SINGLE missions, lasting 10-12, even 15 hours were the norm on a 1,200nm radius.
Greenert is wrong. We cannot afford the carrier group as is. The airwing overhead which enables the limited strike count by taking away from the DMPI list (either directly as airframes or indirectly as spotting factor and mission fuel) is unaffordable in recap and is already resulting in carriers being docksided for want of money to do training deployments.
The value of the asset and the fact that it is nuclear power mazcat waiting to happen means that we need to back the big decks off about 2-4,000nm and send our airpower in from there. That means hypersonics. No arguments. No 'technology not ready' BS.
You want a variable geometry wings that fold /under/ glove fairings. You want a decent but not spectacular F414 to get you up and down from 40,000ft to a Delta Path landing. And you want a pair of SRBs in the high end ASAS or THAAD class to get you THRU the SR-71 envelope (titanium) to the 'plastic airplane' level of the Spaceship 1 and 2.
At which point (Mach 5 and 100,000ft) you light the fire on a scramjet and fly for an hour and a half on the same jetfuel (heat soak) in an X-37 type enclosure to some point downrange like Shindand or Al Udeid or even 'somewhere south of the South China Sea'.
Because it is 3,500nm from Beijing to Guangzhou (Hong Kong) and even further, east to west. And if you are going to hostage the Chinese industry to their behavior in the littorals, you had better be able to go deep and hit industry. Rather than fighting 10 million dollar threat ballistics with 3 million dollar SM3 IIa/b in protecting 10-12 billion dollar hulls for the right to approach the littorals and get sunk by mines, subs, and CDCM.
The USN is refighting farking Midway in an age when subsonic, tactical, airpower is all but useless.
If you want to justify the investment in those monstrous hulls, start by halving the airwing count and pushing for 15-20, 200 million dollar, TAV skip bombers that can hit targets a quarter of the way around the globe in under an hour but are /just short ranged enough/ that Chinese copies cannot cross the Pacific and come back without having to fight us halfway.
This is strategic thought beyond the 'way we've always done it' confirmation bias of conventional airpower economics as doctrine.
you're talking about future weapons with the exception of the DF-21 and to that i say we're developing lasers to effectively nullify the threat to carriers and our bases. additionally i believe that Greenert is developing a plan to safeguard naval superiority and American supremacy for the next 10-30 years. any longer than that and its up to another decision maker but as it stands on what we can field now i believe its alot more solid than what i've seen from the Marine Corps and Air Force with regards to airpower
DeleteIt doesn't make sense for the Navy to purchase F-35C's at this point because they are the only customer of the C version.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't make sense to buy the Charlie because it has only marginally better range, similar performance, and only carries a subset of weps than the Super Hornet - at 2-3x the cost. It does bring some amount of stealth capability to the CVW in the short term, so the Navy is likely to only buy enough to equip one squadron per CVG - far fewer than the 260 + 80 currently programmed.
DeleteThis is the best quote ever ''By building two jets a month instead of three, Boeing will be able to stretch jet orders through the end of 2017, preserving the tooling and jobs associated with the line for as long as possible'' since taxpayers pockets are endless lets just chill be only 2/3 as productive and continue to get paid in full ,in plain language EA18G just got more expensive as a way to make good times stretch for couple of years.
ReplyDeleteThe Growler will still be much less than F-35C, even when funding to keep the line open is factored in. Keeping the line open preserves options, and is important for national security purposes.
DeleteYeah, glad someone else noticed the ramifications of that move. The Growler just became nearly as expensive as an F-22, as a hedge against an even more expensive boondoggle.
DeleteWhat will be interesting is the 2016 PB - will it contain a request for more Growlers in the base budget? If it does, then you will know the Navy's intentions vis-a-vis F-35, and the replacement of Block 1 Supers.
ReplyDeleteWith the growler you transform a group of 4+ airplanes in full spectrum stealth fighter/attack airplanes.
ReplyDeleteBoeing's Growler: Staying off the Radar:
http://youtu.be/n-rL9MG79bA