RAAF Stopgap air plan is 'dumb'

[Supe]

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Too late, HUG is 3/4 done and the first jet is off to Canuckdia next week for the first centre-barrel. The remainder of the fleet will be done in-country, and we've pretty much set the Hornet up now to the point that we can support it alone if we need to. Once JASSM and JDAM are aboard, it is unlikely anymore weapons will need to be integrated, so it'll just be a matter of supporting the upgraded systems which more or less match those of late build USN/USMC C/D models which will be around for another decade at least.
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Sell them off. Scrap the Pigs. Start Fresh. It's that simple. You waste more money in yearly ops accounts and currency training than you get back for useful warfighter capabilities, XX (decades) down the road.

...and an interim solution you propose? You've just said scrap most of strike component of the airforce (bar the Orions). It's not prudent to have in effect a policy of A) skipping B to get to C). C representing the gap in which ADF is essentially neutered as it gears up to acquire UCAV's. Then there's always regional political considerations to take into context - where airpower factors as a 'pawn' of significance. Perception - Foreign politicians grasp 'aircraft' not 'big RC's'.

Other concerns:

• Maturity of UCAV platforms - 'are they there yet'?
• Does a UCAV exist now that will fulfill all roles required of them and will they be made available to Australia?
• Requirement of Australian Govt to significantly invest in new infastructure including buying/operating satellites and other platforms to support feasibility of UCAV's. (at the moment, Defence shares Optus C1 for comms and recently bought FedSat - a basic research sat) Obviously, a large investment in defence communications and quality personnel will be required.
• Will Australia be an orphan operator and if so, would that not impose all sorts of costs?
• UCAV Countermeasures - what if countermeasures render UCAV unusable? Where's the fallback?
  

UCAV's are on their way, for sure. But right now is not the time for a medium power to be 'experimenting' with an unknown. As it is, ADF is incorporating UAV's into doctrine and lessons learned will serve in the years ahead when ADF employs UCAV's fulfill roles you envision. The time is not yet 'now'.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

AD,
Sigh, and so the cybernetic/cognitive paradigm sets itself into motion based on asserting a premise and deflecting accurate comparison of it's logic based on assumptive comparison with other (unrelated) precedents and scenarios whose fixed interpretive nature does not yield an accurate picture of what airpower is or where it is going.
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As you pointed out earlier, Kurt, the RAAF does not have an unlimited budget, nor does it seem like a wise idea (IMHO),
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And wasting money on dated hardware does what to conserve or expend wisely that limited spending power, hmm?
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to reduce your air defence capacity to virtually nil until UCAV can (maybe) fill the gaps in your operational capability.
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Which would make sense if the UCAV was a fighter, the F-111 (to which the both the UCAV and F-35 are more closely akin) had deployed to the Gulf or the F/A-18 could not be drawn down slowly enough to provide /oodles/ of preptime in transition to SAM or followon (cheapo TLCC) fighter options. Indeed, I myself stated that keeping 20 of them would be _more than sufficient_ to maintain local urban ICAO intercept options which is the ONLY 'local' threat you face. In the monster under the bed casepoint, there are no big bad Chinese or Russians or Indonesians hell bent on invading Oz within 500nm of your shores _right now_. And with the exception of Darwin, your most important urban centers are further protected by what, 2,000 miles of GAFA?
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Any competent UCAV capability, that can easily fill the role currently conducted by manned fighters, seems to this layman, to be at least 20 years off.
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HOW? I _ask_ that you explain this to me? If you are going to invest in a false postulate, at least show the mental scratchpaper formula by which you make such a presumptive conclusion. Specifically, the number of ways 'fighters' perform as such relative to your participation in prior wars of similar technologic level to that available today. As opposed to the ways those self same 'fighters' can undertake local protection of such things as fisheries in _peacetime_, local-to-Oz conditions today.
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What are we meant to do then for any "limited" scenarios that might occur in the meantime?
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Limited how? How many sorties did the RAAF Bugs fly in AfG? How many in Iraq? How many AMERICAN equivalents were there? Does your public support either of those campaigns? What does Australian support do to increase the threat level and if there is an increase, what does the possession of 'fighters' mean to being able to deter it? If you had NO AIR would you be utterly unable to send us SAS-R to do what you have already shown they are so capable of? Airpower as a concept or an American force exponent would not die if Oz didn't commit sorties to the effort. Australian Airpower in far-flung-dung locales would STILL depend on American tanking. Scout/ATGW work would _still_ be provided to local ADF diggers (probably far more quickly) without commitment to uncertain base-in via Tiger.
If you cannot sustain, independently, operations without U.S. support, it's really time to consider what exactly 'limited' means. And how you have _already_ gotten on so well with _no expeditionary airpower_ while operating under such 'limitations'.
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With no real DCA/OCA, maritime strike or CAS capability our forces literally would be "sitting" ducks.
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No, because OCA/DCA is a function of a standing conventional threat. Not an OOTW/SSC one. Again I ask, how many fighters have Ozzian F-18s shot down during OEF/OIF? During ET?
Indeed, where the extant threat is all of 4 aircraft some 800nm away over Indonesia, how much can a land based force asset with less than 450nm unrefueled radii provide OCA/DCA without tanking /anyway/?
Because the nature of warfare is such that the most effective warfighter is the unit on scene able to do SOMETHING and Aster class AAW from a destroyer supported by ADSAM Wedgetail is apt to be superior to your notional fixed wing asset '20 minutes a day' force anyway.
As will the threat of CM from a sub or DDG flying through the Prime Minister's window.
How much do THESE options cost in comparison with F-35?
CAS and Maritime strike however are readily performed by the UCAV and indeed are _more effective_ in supporting Australian troops in contact or maritime interests because they are THERE to do the job as the time critical target set shows itself. After hours of waiting on nothing.
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Limited our legacy F/A-18 fleet may be (though they performed superbly in GW2), they are far better than nothing, which seems to be what you are suggesting.
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No. I am suggesting that people WAKE UP and stop wasting our futures away on assets that do NOT perform the majority of the missions /flown in war/, well. But which soak up a _huge_ (8 billion per year over here) amount of resources in peacetime. Training for the selfsame missions which rarely eventuate.
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FYI, RAAF does NOT operate HARM or any other SEAD specific weapons (such as ALARM).
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If the RAAF wanted to have HARM on the Bug, the tape mod could be done tomorrow. It has already been test fired on the F-111.
http://www.ausairpower.net/API-AGM-88-HARM.html
In any case, my argument was that _without_ this weapon (or the LDP) you cannot perform effective MSI and the Hornet is not a decent enough performer or a LO enough sniper (especially at the radii we are talking about) to go acapella without the full orchestra (E-2/EA-6 plus LINK) -and- no MSI. If you make it do 'multirole' as well (LGB or IAM) things get even worse because you not only roll into combat with but 1 AMRAAM, but when you die horribly, you kill the mission as well.
Conversely, an A-50 or Gripen or F-16 with little or no imbedded capability would be easily able to destroy even an Su-27 threat _operating under similar strained tactical conditions_, with the full support of local ADGE and S2A. Over Australian dirt.
The question YOU have to ask is whether or not the AAW mission is flown vs. fought often enough to make it worthwhile, offensively, to invest in, solely for it's own sake. Vs. whether an essentially PNP weapons mod is more or less of a wise investment than the F-35A itself for DCA within the continental perimeter (where the nearest Su-27 is something like 3,000 miles from Sydney!) where securing one's air sovereignity is indeed a moral obligation in defense of The Citizenry.
My answer is you betcha for the limited mods. Because I don't believe the F-35A is going to come in cheap as promised. And I believe our continued pursuit of it in the absence of ANY cohesive J-UCAS program is what will drive the EU'ians to build the Neuron which will be exactly that kind of lightweight, no-training, BOMBER which is historically what is required. For half the cost.
The F-35A is 104 million dollars.
If we collapse our overseas debt holdings as a function of continued mucking about in the MESWA we will be lucky to get 500 such airframes TOTAL in our inventory.
Indeed, if half of some 8.8 trillion dollars in commercial and real estate debt and an additional 3.6 trillion in consumer equivalent (20% now offshore) were to be called due, the resultant /economic nightmare/ would be sure to make the JSF would become the F-104 of the new millenium. With no USAF anchor purchases at all.
And guess what your bargain basement prices will be like then, eh?
This is why Lockheed Martin is floating the idea of whoring the F-22 to anyone and everyone (they are double endemnitied on the ATF tech base and looked to the JSF to make their payments) rich enough rather desparately when it was the refusal to export that jet that lit the fire under JSF to begin with.
If the manufacturer doesn't think the JSF has a snowballs hope either and they are CYA backfilling as much as they can, on as broad a front as possible, to keep the flood of red ink from innundating them, it's time to start thinking about commitment and options. 'In Oz' Best Interests'.
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This is a significant capability gap, IMHO and may be addressed before the LOT of the F/A-18 fleet as it was an identified capability gap for the RAAF a few years back when they intended to acquire their "family of missiles".
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The question here, from the MSI-as-AAW perspective is whether what we do with underwing ordnance and the ALR-67V(3) is equalled by the Flubberian DASS and particularly French Spectra systems. And IMO, at least for the A2A context, the answer is easily yes, coupled to a 2010 initial availability on BVRAAM and EUROFIRST _plus_ a lower purchase cost (by as much as half), the question is whether you need to have stealth for the first shot in AAW or if that shot can come by pure-pole+BMC2 positioning decision. As well as whether, in _buying in_ to an EU techbase, you can gain access to a superior _penetrating LO_ factor in a bomber with better legs and less critical defensive options. And no baby onboard.
OTOH, for DEAD, the day of the ARM as a passive-RF only capability has long since passed. What you need is a Hellfire or JDAM which flies 200 miles at Mach 5 and then searches a target lane for an MMW signature that looks like a radar van. If you want to make an honest comparison of this with the _cost_ of JSF, it would be as a function of how many threats out there have an S-300 or better class system, _in multiple_, which you can both reach unaided. And whose existence would not be better fixed and attacked by a CM or standoff weapon like Popeye or S2 as much as JASSM. When cued by ELS or SAR modes on Wedgetail or RQ-4.
Again, from the why-burn-money POV, paying for VLO when it's proliferation renders it useless is foolish. Assuming that 'capability' should mean you can hack a regional problem like ET when it is _wiser_, fiscally, to let the U.S. come in (and pay for the op) is also unnecessary. Expeditionary forces tend to get deployed until broken. They are never paid for their endeavors. Is it a 'wise' element of Australian fiduciary expenditure to invest in such systems?
OTOH, why have a twin engine fighter if, lacking an expeditionary mode where U.S. presence is _guaranteed_ (if only for tanking) you don't need 'multirole' capabilities in a local ADIZ protection mission for your own shores? A JAS has superior networking to almost any other western combat system /because/ it is not STANAG.
Furthermore, I guarantee you that if there had been a Patriot Battery system sited in or around New York on 9/11 as there were 20 such NIKE sites 30 years before, Flights 175 and 11 would have been capped long before they rammed the Trade Towers. As was, the F-15's out of Otis were at least 10 minutes out having launched 15 minutes before only 100nm away. And WE PAY THESE PEOPLE COUNTLESS AMOUNTS OF MONEY AS 'HEROES IN UNIFORM'.
Don't go playing the worlds smallest violin until you acknowledge that Australia WILL NOT sink under the waves if there is NO defense. And then further admit that, for the missions involved, there are vastly superior, cheaper, alternatives to a no-new-offensive-airframe whose principal advantage, in export, will assure it's loss as a techint secret.
Your argument comes across as sounding like boy-wants-toy (no matter what).
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RAAF leadership is convinced the F-35 will be the panacea for most of our capability requirements, at this stage the AIR 6000 project is planned for 3 stages. The first 2 are due to acquire up to 75 aircraft and the final tranche is due to acquire another 25.
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RAAF is stuck in a rut tail chasing the USAF like every other panting LOMD military on the planet. If you aren't the lead dog YOUR view will never change, yet the overall outlook will. Because we ourselves cannot support the force structure we designed to exploit airpower as a synergistic system of systems which was hard to copy. And because greater threats from missiles are forcing U.S. to do the grunt work on DEWS and Hunting Weapons which will most assuredly spell the end of non sacrificial fixed wing assets anyway. Once the success of the _better bullets_ ensures that these systems proliferate just to spite U.S..
Don't be mushed into a lead as much as led paradigm whose principal strategic emphasis as a COEA 'mission statement' comes down to "Foreigners must buy in what the U.S. economy no longer can techbase support" for a dated warfighter construct.
In a world at peace, the warrior cannot sell his goods to ammortize his debt. And if conquerors' guilt also keeps him from leveraging his victories, he will go down. From Rome onwards this has historically been the doom of Empires as they create slave economies that eventually outpace their own and resource/manufacturing debts that they cannot pay.
I personally believe that America is within inches of being there. And China is now on the verge of (10 years) being able to sustain a global market economy as replacement econopower, with the CS Americas and EU picking up the remainder as we wallow.
If the F-35 program goes down the toilet as I fully hope and expect it to, any investment in it will be money thrown away. Whether because there is no support for the platform. Or because technology has marched ahead.
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The first 2 are almost certain to acquire F-35 in the numbers mentioned. With significantly increased range, far more advanced sensors, a reasonable LO capability (certainly compared to existing non-LO aircraft) and a good weapons capability. They will be better A2A aircraft than our existing F/A-18's and certainly better strikers, plus have a better ISR capability. That unfortunately is going to have to be good enough for RAAF, with our present level of funding.
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Which is like saying an aircraft which has virtually NO capability, at an 800nm radius, either A2A or A2G, is worthwhile.
Before following up with the secondary logic that it's replacement is 'so much better'.
To which I can only respond: _Duuuh_.
Does this mean that a 50,000lb jet with 2 missiles and a military thrust to weight ratio around .5 is a superior A2A platform? No. Because it depends absolutely on that gas to get there and back and it doesn't have a tanker yet and it WILL cost so much that when you get it, you will be hard pressed to put it into a sortie numerics ATO sufficient to justify the micro force replacement that you /only think/ is worth 75 airframes, 'guaranteed'.
Does existence of the JSF mean it is a superior A2G platform _compared to the ideal solution_? No. Because the UCAV is coming and when it hits, on the heals of DEWS and truly netcentric combat ops doctrine, there will be no comparison between a jet that costs 1,200 dollars per hour and has a ten percent force training fraction. And one that costs 5-7 grande (F-16 equivalent) per hour and has almost a 100% _peacetime_ utilization rate effect on both ops accounts and fatigue life. Because the flying monkey is a witless git who can't hold onto any trained competencies he's gained for more than a few days.
Systems like ROVER and MIDS and SDB already provide the baseline capability by which a functioning UCAV system could be created /tomorrow/.
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The Tranche 3 of the AIR 6000 program may acquire a dedicated UCAV capability, however I wouldn't hold my breath, unless the USAF gets one in-service in the next 5-10 years or so. RAAF is a bit conservative that way, and without tremendous resources to "throw" around, that perhaps may be understandable.
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And he who bets the mortgage payment on a jet whose home-service numbers are already down to 70% of original for a nearly SIXTY BILLION DOLLAR increase over the initial 191 billion dollar program total had better not count on the favored-option likelihood of getting what he asks for. Not when the nation he is buying from is bogged down in a billion per week leeching experience. Certainly not at 2001 asking prices.
At the same time, the difference between conservatism in pursuit of a national defense 'in which there can be no mistakes' (cough, contract Coast Guard surveillance in a terrorist threat world). And stupidity in letting _someone else define what that national mission is_ as a function of assumptive participatory doctrine. Is inherent to the process of defining alternatives forms of R&M execution /in the interim/ to a perfect solution being available if not indigenously produced, just a few years away.
Certainly playing the woe-is-me-we-dare-not card everytime it seems that a better idea might challenge the status quo and overturn the apple cart looks retranchist in the face of there being a significant operational windows of next-to-zero-threat in which to SAVE that you might /spend later/.
If war comes to Oz, in the next decade, it will be terrorist/UCW. Not conventional, certainly not high intensity. Probably because you helped U.S.
In this, the F/A-18 has a limited role, at best, via city defense. Just as it had a limited role in helping U.S. because it was never expeditionarily available in the numbers that we could muster. And it will always depend on the AOD effect for munitions and probably tanking.
In 20 years, M-THEL/ATL level (semitractor-not-bulding, diode not COIL) lasers will start to proliferate at an /incredible/ rate. And the JSF, which, _if it meets todays scheduling goals_ will have been in squadron service abroad all of 5-7 years, will likely be dead on a flash of light as much as budgetary angst (16 billion dollars later) basis.
The latter factor is also inherent to the notion that afinancially crippled U.S., if it doesn't need a cheaper UCAV to fly the endurance-CAS missions of Iraq and AfG, sure as heck won't need a fast mover that costs four times as much as the F-16/A-10 and Tanker force now in place. A concept that Congress will grasp all too readily in the cutbacks certain to arise after 2009 in the political backlash to Bush' moronic prosecution of this war.
At that point, AIR-6K will look like the greatest fools fantasy ever indulged in because whether 'terrorism' is still with us or has faded into history, hormonally charged FE economies will begin to flex nationalist muscles in resolving a lot of age old issues of their own. And our airpower won't be able to do diddly dip to stop it as world wide S2A weapons thresholds transition to speed of light as baseline.
THINK NOW (retire now). For the paradigm on which you will spend spend money in 10 years time (UCAVs of all flavors, GAF built or otherwise). So that the concepts you endorse /operationally/ in 2020 are still viable rather than decrepit-when-new.
Particularly against the notional alliances you will need to maintain or establish in a totally shifted geo-politick power balance and technology leveraging (China owns SWA, India groans but faces overwhelming naval and air supremacy as well as a revised nuclear policy if not arsenal), I don't believe a U.S. JSF is going to carry half the weight that people expect it to.
CONCLUSION:
Only when you have applied an analytic paradigm that does not amplify wildly inaccurate extant scenarios compared to new definitions of R&M. And which seeks to understand the likely technologic and economic factors of strategic doctrine beyond 2010, will you be able to justify the JSF. And, IMO, all the indicators are pointing exactly the opposite direction.


KPl.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

Supe,
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And an interim solution you propose?
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As you and AD have stated, the HUG program is a done deal. If you harvest 10-15 airframes for canbirds or fatigue rotators and another 20 for ops as section detachments in the major cities with the remainder acting as a schoolhouse/CTF/PDM reserve; you have NOT 'lost' your strike capabilities. Because the F/A-18 is still present.
You HAVE gained an opportunity to sell-on the remainder, draw down your training and spares pipe and _prepare_ to buy the next.
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You've just said scrap most of strike component of the airforce (bar the Orions).
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THINK. How many F/A-18s have acted against the 8,000 odd fisheries incursions? How many Mariners could you buy on the savings of each Bug retired or sold on while they still have /some/ life and systems advantage left to them?
How many F-111s went to Afghanistan. To Iraq? Indeed _how often_ has the F-111 flown in the past 5 years? If longrange strike is important, don't argue the F/A-18 to me. If the Pig doesn't fly or fight anywhere that it's 30,000lb fuel load would most certainly be 'useful', don't pretend that 'strike is being abandoned' because it never was that important to begin with.
RAAF Hornets flying in support of U.S. interests is dangerous. It is also not needed /from our perspective/. OTOH, Bugs need tanking and Oz cannot provide that, which is critical, particularly for landbased ops where P&D is not the majority method of _USAF_ refueling standard.
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It's not prudent to have in effect a policy of A) skipping B to get to C).
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It's not prudent to invest in a manned aircraft you cannot afford to lose when you:
A. Don't have much control over the stability of the program.
B. Don't have a defined threat set that requires it's presence in the current force posture.
C. Are seeing M-THEL prototypes shooting down artillery rounds in midflight.
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representing the gap in which ADF is essentially neutered as it gears up to acquire UCAV's.
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Politically, a 'gap in capabilities' is almost always a positive motivator. There was a time not to far back when the combination of absent parts, inadequate numbers of trained aircrew and poor ops account management of fuel and training hours had more virtually GROUNDED the F-111 community. Don't be a hypocrite in stating that:
A. Airpower would die if the RAAF didn't help out for five years.
B. That the Hornet does what the F-111 cannot (in hostaging Jakarta's good will)
C. That the lack of support for an out of production airframe which has not deployed to war in what, TWENTY YEARS?, is an indication of commitment to the long range strike effort.
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Then there's always regional political considerations to take into context - where airpower factors as a 'pawn' of significance. Perception - Foreign politicians grasp 'aircraft' not 'big RC's'.
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The fact of the matter is that, as a 'medium power', Australia is lashing her budgetary sails to the mast of a foreign acquisition program which is sinking in a blood red pool of ink. Everyone is operating on a 45-55 million dollar price tag when the REAL COSTS BEFORE CONGRESS (see my other posts) are 104 million dollars. And as the rats flee the Titanic, those prices will go up as economic scalars continue to go down.
THAT is where you are making your first and worst mistake of 'real vs. perceived' political will.
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Maturity of UCAV platforms - 'are they there yet'?
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As a CAS platform, I could weaponize an X-45A and probably exceed the time over friendly forces and allocateable fires _by airframe cost_, within a year. Similarly, EOTS is nothing but internal Sniper. And XTRA is a MP-RTIP (AESA replacement) for APY-8 Lynx. ROVER is the 'FAC on a laptop or PDA' that I have _specifically stated_ (and been laughed at, repeatedly) was the one system enabler /most necessary/ to ground units. Lastly, SDB is within a year of being deployed on the F-15E and F-22.
So the short answer is: hell yes it's ready. It has /been ready/ at a technology base level, since the bloody cruise missile came online in the 1980s.
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Does a UCAV exist now that will fulfill all roles required of them and will they be made available to Australia?
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Roles Required Compared To What? A 'Fighter' that can't stay to win the GROUND combat that is most often determinative of it's performance? The 104 million dollar F-35A which is a shoe-in even though it hasn't flown and remains upwards of 1,500lbs overweight as SDD testing begins? The continued lack of industry teaming standards for production percentiles and technology access by which excuse team members are threatening to leave left, right and center? To Team Neuron which is /begging/ for U.S. to continue with Generation-5 as a systems progenitor to Generation-6 'the affordable JSF'? To the GAF which build almost all your Hornets and has subcontracts across the world of aerospace but seeming 'isn't ready' to partner up with alternative industrial teaming to make it happen as an indigenous (self profiting) system source?
Innovators are those who see an exploitable possibility in the gap of the existent and the possible.
To which I can only add that if Rutan or Global Atomics were told to build a UCAV that could compete with the JSF as a specific class of bomber in 'low intensity' conflicts. In a year they would have one up and running. If it was Boeing or NorGrumman, supplying the systems end, it would be more like six months.
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Requirement of Australian Govt to significantly invest in new infastructure including buying/operating satellites and other platforms to support feasibility of UCAV's. (at the moment, Defence shares Optus C1 for comms and recently bought FedSat - a basic research sat) Obviously, a large investment in defence communications and quality personnel will be required.
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Nonsense. The first Predator efforts over The Boz were supported by Scheizer RG-8 converted sailplanes. If you want working UCAV, issue ROVER or equivalent PNP blue tooth terminals to your SAS-R teams. And stick a MIDS/L16 on a Wedgetail or GHawk to provide basic positioning control and overall flight tasking assurity (i.e. a threat may hack the targeting, but not the drone and ultimate weapons release authority will _still be_ with a general sitting in the ACP).
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Will Australia be an orphan operator and if so, would that not impose all sorts of costs?
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Pfffft. Will the USAF be the 'orphan operator' of manned airpower when DEWS which WE are developing proliferate by theft or purchase? Will you lemming off the cliff behind U.S.?
The UCAV offers such HUGE advantages in _peacetime_ operations (no training, huge loiter, the ability to undertake CSAR and EEZ monitoring among others) that its _25 million vs. 104 million dollar price tag comparison_ 'hardly factors in'. But in the end it _will be_ that price tag which is attractive to nations that need airpower without the massive overhead of a piloted UPT and Currency training system.
UCAV is, in other words, a _freaking license to print money_. Even if it is not LO.
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UCAV Countermeasures - what if countermeasures render UCAV unusable? Where's the fallback?
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Name a CM and then see if it doesn't apply to a manned jet just as readily as too a drone.
Jamming? UCAV will drive secure pipe. Manned systems can no longer fight effectively without datalink. (digital encrypt, burst and wideband) Datalink is itself orders of magnitude more secure than voice. /At worst/ you can equip a drone to attack a (fixed on earth) jammer source as readily as you can a radar, by equipping it with appropriate ELS. Until which time, the UCAV can hit prefragged mission targets 'just like a manned jet'.
DEWS? If you can't afford to lose a 25 million dollar asset, you sure as heck cannot afford to lose a 104 million dollar one. At the same time, isoluminate protective 'active/adaptive' optical camouflage is MUCH more likely to be effective on a deltoid or flying wing configuration, simply because the shape is simpler with fewer contour changes and shadowzones as viewed from below (it should also be added that GBU-39 leverages standoff for ALL assets, not just the manned ones).
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UCAV's are on their way, for sure. But right now is not the time for a medium power to be 'experimenting' with an unknown.
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Baaah. The U.S. is a has-been power that has abandoned innovation in warfighting to support political self interests. We are led by incompetent morons who listen to advice from those no longer interested in defending our nation to the best of OUR ability. Because it is easier for them to skewer We The People in protecting their own Union Dole guarantees of manned strike aviation.
At the same time, DECISIONS NOW, in a relatively quiet period of peace, mean saving money to BUY what other nations develop. Particularly where you are likely to be asked to "Oh and please think about picking up a few Rafale too..."
It doesn't matter to me if you want to stay poor and indebted to others for the provisioning of your own defense. But the JSF is not a panacea. And it will be delayed and overbudget by a _considerable_ degree (upwards of twice the cost of the 'expensive' canard clones).
I would have thought that one dalliance with that kind of stupidity in defense procurement would have been sufficient for Oz to be more wary of similar circumstances in the 'current TFX' idiocy.
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As it is, ADF is incorporating UAV's into doctrine and lessons learned will serve in the years ahead when ADF employs UCAV's fulfill roles you envision. The time is not yet 'now'.
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And that attitude is how piloted aviation convince those who pay them protection money no different from the extortion of Mafia controlled shops in Little Italy. To bend over and like it.
CONCLUSION:
Two of Australia's 'greatest successes' in the arms market were the Jindivik target drone and the Ikara ASW torpedo bus.
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/jindivik.html
http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/ikara.htm
_EXACTLY_ the kinds of technology around which a UCAV could and should be throwaway built. Because now the systems inserts to make straight-and-level airliner navigation to smart MEP target acquisition and DMPI release (_without_ flying-monkey intervention for such wildhair maneuvers as lolo popup and divetoss in the heart of the threat envelope) have levelled the playing field to the point where aircraft can attack with precision, from altitude, and without threat exposure. Using the most basic of engine thrust and aerodynamic capabilities.
If this simple fact of life doesn't make you see that 'all the naysayers' are just desparately afraid of block-obsolescence 'at cost', nothing will.
Oscar Goldman said it best- "Gentlemen, we have the technology..." Better, Faster, Cheaper, More Endurant, More Omnipresent, More Replaceable/Reconfigurable. Less of a burden on the society that manned airpower is inept at protecting from terrorism.


KPl.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Joint Standing Committee on Aust Air Defence

This is the summary of the meeting on the 31st of March in Canberra. 67 pages long.

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/joint/commttee/J9128.pdf

One of the forum members attended, so where approp they might contribute comment if relevant.

 

[scraw]

This is the summary of the meeting on the 31st of March in Canberra. 67 pages long.

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/joint/commttee/J9128.pdf

One of the forum members attended, so where approp they might contribute comment if relevant.

Dr Kopp—To put this into context, I am one of the few people in Australia who has performed genuine academic research on network-centric warfare and also the technology from which these networks are built, to the extent that my doctoral thesis was actually on the adaptation of fighter radars for long-range networking. I am probably the best qualified person in Australia to comment on this.

Certainly has a high opinion of himself, especially for someone that only has access to what's public domain.... that said I did agree with a couple of points he and Goon raised, mainly about Air 6000 being truncated and the lack of transparency about why it was picked over other options (not just a SLEPed Pig).

Air Marshal Shepherd and Mr Pezzullo certainly stuck the knife in gently.

Good on the Air Marshal for mentioning the EH too, best old Holden there is.

Air Marshal Shepherd— I will pass to Mr Pezzullo in a second, to answer that policy and strategy statement, and I will pass to Lieutenant General Hurley, who will answer the specific question on government process and how the decision was made. I would just make the point that we never bought the F111 to attack China or Russia anyway. We bought the F111 in a regional context. We have never seen ourselves as being beyond that regional context with the F111.

One point I want to make about the F111 that has not come out is: whilst in the 1960s, when it was originally envisaged, it was going to be sent off alone to do its business. That is not the way we would operate with the F111, and we have not done for many years. So when you get to issues about the range of the JSF and the reach that we are able to project strike, were that unfortunately necessary, we are effectively constrained to the range of the F18 with the F111 now, because the F111 does not have situational awareness; it needs to be escorted by F18s. They need to be tanked, so we are in that situation and we have been for many years now. We do not send the F111s out there; it has not the survivability or the situational awareness to do that.

It is not as if we are withdrawing a capability that had the power to bomb Vladivostok, say, to replace it with something that is much shorter range.

I can think of a certain Bear that needs to be slapped over the head with that little snippet.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Certainly has a high opinion of himself, especially for someone that only has access to what's public domain.... that said I did agree with a couple of points he and Goon raised, mainly about Air 6000 being truncated and the lack of transparency about why it was picked over other options (not just a SLEPed Pig).

I'm always amazed at how opinionated people become when all they've got access to is unclassified and santized data. all the read and know about is what they see in the general media and they feel that this makes them qualified to pass technical comment. eg, the amount of times that I see someone quoting DACT as evidence of absolute capability drives me spare. :grab

the "my plane makes your plane suck" arguments are best ignored and left to kids to go feral over. point in case being the "4th gen fighter" thread that resides in here.

holdens and fords, fords and chevs, bmws and mercs....etc etc etc.....

 

[scraw]

I'm always amazed at how opinionated people become when all they've got access to is unclassified and santized data. all the read and know about is what they see in the general media and they feel that this makes them qualified to pass technical comment. eg, the amount of times that I see someone quoting DACT as evidence of absolute capability drives me spare

:hmm:

Dr Kopp— The other issue here is that we will not have an asymmetric advantage in networking in this region. The Russians have been selling equipment like TKS-2—it is called Tipovyi Kompleks Svyazi—which is basically a network for networking fighters. In fact, the Indians used it to embarrass the Americans in the Cope India exercise just over a year ago.

I would love to see the 14 questions and answers, especially if one of them deals with the selection process.

 

[gf0012-aust]

I would love to see the 14 questions and answers, especially if one of them deals with the selection process.

You won't see the selection matrix.

I've been on a tender evaluation from cradle to grave. ie defined the requirements, evaluated the submissions and selected the final platform.

questions are often sent out to establish whether the vendor comprehends the requirements - as often they don't answer properly.

where there is any doubt as to competency then you are obliged to send it to all vendors.

however, the only ones who get to see how they faired on the questions (supernumerys/supplementals) is when the platform is selected - the the final run off "losers" are entitled to be debriefed in private - and the debriefings are still classified - so the chances of seeing those questions are zip.

when we judged a platform is was done against specific performance requirements, specific operational requirements, capability, cost, national interest issues, industry relevance, personnel capability, experience, financial status (the minimum is an auditable financial history for at least 7 years thus demonstrating operational and financial persistence)

There are other bits and pieces, but you get the general idea.

In one platform assessment we automatically disqualified 3 vendors who tried to bribe us. We were offered a trip to the Superbowl, a trip to the Taj Mahal and an all expenses trip to cruise the Mediterranean.

 

[scraw]

Pity, at the moment for those of us on the other side of the glass it almost looks like the usual selection process was reversed, platform chosen first.

I doubt that is actually the case but it certainly gives the anti crowd a wide open field.

One problem with all the super pig stuff is it pretty much dominated the day, I would have liked to have seen a little more on how much JSF will cost us, how many we'll be able to get our hands on and how likely we are to get them when we're hoping. That last one is not quite answered by saying if we have to the Bugs can stretch out to 2018 or whatever it was.

 

[gf0012-aust]

That last one is not quite answered by saying if we have to the Bugs can stretch out to 2018 or whatever it was.

Major capital acquisitions normally are slipped for 10-15% of the projected. That has been and still is a useful rule of thumb.

As for the JSF selection process - the more detail I am getting from people I know in the USAF involved with the project, the more comfortable I am with it. I was quite bluntly, not so much of an advocate in recent times.

I'm always reminded of the fact that when we made selections on specific bits of kit, that we had full access to all the classified material and thus were better informed (and had to be). The problem (which is inconsequential for me) is that the material used to make those judgements are still classified even 30 years after final termination of the platform. They have to be for national interest reasons.

So, when some of the contributors to the JSC whine about process I am incredibly cynical and irritated by their behaviour as they are well within the knowledge cycle of knowing how these things are geared to work - they are thus being pernicious in my view - and they also do themselves no favours by talking it up.

 

[Magoo]

Pity, at the moment for those of us on the other side of the glass it almost looks like the usual selection process was reversed, platform chosen first.

It didn't quite happen like that though. Although AIR 6000 was established to evaluate possible contenders (or concepts - much like the UK's FOAS) for the ADF's new air combat capability, it very quickly became apparent to the program's managers that the ONLY viable solution within the timeframe required which would give the RAAF a true "5th generation" capability (and conform to the guidelines laid out in the 01 White Paper) would be JSF. This evaluation included the F-22 which, even at that time (circa 2000/01), it was recognised it would enter service with 10-15 year old hardware and software codes and would require a number of upgrades to match many of the JSF's baseline capabilities, especially its ISR capabilities. JSF is always going to be 1-2 generations ahead of the F-22 in these capabilities. OK, so JSF doesn't supercruise, but it's multirole potential and therefore its potential applications, many of which haven't even been thought of yet, are far more exciting.

I've read numerous articles recently about this, and have been briefed at official and 'unofficial levels' by USAF, USN and RAAF end users, and the trends all show that, for the type of warfare we are going to be fighting over the next 20-30 years, the JSF should be the platform of choice for any air arm, including the USAF. The F-22 is a blue chip air supremacy fighter with the ability to toss a few SDBs or JDAMs at some of the more stubborn targets. However, can you honestly see a high-value asset like an F-22 being employed to 'escort' a high value convoy by feeding real-time video (which it can't do) or SAR/GMTI data (which it can but not as well as the JSF) from 18,000ft of what lies on the road ahead, to a laptop in the convoy's lead vehicle? THIS type of assymetric warfare is the future, and although there is still a mission for an F-22 type fighter on Day one of a full-blown shooting war against a half-capable IADS, or in case China or Russia get hot under the collar, that's pretty much it. Australia will not be involved at an F-22 type level in any conflict like that in the foreseeable (or I suspect, the unforeseeable) future.

One problem with all the super pig stuff is it pretty much dominated the day, I would have liked to have seen a little more on how much JSF will cost us, how many we'll be able to get our hands on and how likely we are to get them when we're hoping. That last one is not quite answered by saying if we have to the Bugs can stretch out to 2018 or whatever it was.

If the JSF runs to the current schedule, which it probably will otherwise we'd be starting to see trends already, the RAAF's 2OCU should have its first Block 0 jets from late 2012 (in fact, the 47th LRIP jet off the line is currently pencilled infor the RAAF), and we'll see our first squadron of Block 2 jets (1SQN?) on the ground at Willamtown in 2015, the second (75SQN) in 2016, and the third (3SQN?) in 2017. The Hornets will start winding down from early 2014, and be all gone by the end of 2016.

As for the US$45m flyaway cost, that's in 2002 dollars and is an average unit flyaway cost across the life of the program. I suspect our Block 0 jets will probably cost at least half that much again each, whereas most of our second tranche will be around that figure. If we go with Tranche 3, they may even be a little cheaper than this, allowing for inflation from 2002 to 2018 of course. I predict A$12 billion should buy us about 85 Block 2/3 F-35As including simulators, the first couple of rounds of software upgrades (Block 0 to Block 1, Block 1 to Block 2 etc), and associated basing and support infrastructure.

Look, if we decide to get the 100 JSFs, I'm sure there'll be some creative accounting done to get us there. These programs almost always go over budget, but the payoff is that we'll be getting a far more capable aircraft than we could have envisaged when we embarked on the AIR 6000 journey. But also, look for some 'left field' solutions such as the manned element of AIR 7000 being cut back because the JSF will be able to fulfil many of the overland and littoral ISR requirements currently being performed by the AP-3C and which will be done by the P-8A MMA. Look also for some of this work to be done by an upgrade to the Wedgetail as well. This means some of the roughly A$3.5 billion which would be required to replace 10-12 AP-3Cs with a manned platform may be better spent on another squdron of JSFs?

Geez...I'm starting to rant like Kurt...

Magoo

 

[scraw]

Geez...I'm starting to rant like Kurt...

In any event it was rather informative, cheers for that.

 

[Aussie Digger]

It didn't quite happen like that though. Although AIR 6000 was established to evaluate possible contenders (or concepts - much like the UK's FOAS) for the ADF's new air combat capability, it very quickly became apparent to the program's managers that the ONLY viable solution within the timeframe required which would give the RAAF a true "5th generation" capability (and conform to the guidelines laid out in the 01 White Paper) would be JSF. This evaluation included the F-22 which, even at that time (circa 2000/01), it was recognised it would enter service with 10-15 year old hardware and software codes and would require a number of upgrades to match many of the JSF's baseline capabilities, especially its ISR capabilities. JSF is always going to be 1-2 generations ahead of the F-22 in these capabilities. OK, so JSF doesn't supercruise, but it's multirole potential and therefore its potential applications, many of which haven't even been thought of yet, are far more exciting.

I've read numerous articles recently about this, and have been briefed at official and 'unofficial levels' by USAF, USN and RAAF end users, and the trends all show that, for the type of warfare we are going to be fighting over the next 20-30 years, the JSF should be the platform of choice for any air arm, including the USAF. The F-22 is a blue chip air supremacy fighter with the ability to toss a few SDBs or JDAMs at some of the more stubborn targets. However, can you honestly see a high-value asset like an F-22 being employed to 'escort' a high value convoy by feeding real-time video (which it can't do) or SAR/GMTI data (which it can but not as well as the JSF) from 18,000ft of what lies on the road ahead, to a laptop in the convoy's lead vehicle? THIS type of assymetric warfare is the future, and although there is still a mission for an F-22 type fighter on Day one of a full-blown shooting war against a half-capable IADS, or in case China or Russia get hot under the collar, that's pretty much it. Australia will not be involved at an F-22 type level in any conflict like that in the foreseeable (or I suspect, the unforeseeable) future.



If the JSF runs to the current schedule, which it probably will otherwise we'd be starting to see trends already, the RAAF's 2OCU should have its first Block 0 jets from late 2012 (in fact, the 47th LRIP jet off the line is currently pencilled infor the RAAF), and we'll see our first squadron of Block 2 jets (1SQN?) on the ground at Willamtown in 2015, the second (75SQN) in 2016, and the third (3SQN?) in 2017. The Hornets will start winding down from early 2014, and be all gone by the end of 2016.

As for the US$45m flyaway cost, that's in 2002 dollars and is an average unit flyaway cost across the life of the program. I suspect our Block 0 jets will probably cost at least half that much again each, whereas most of our second tranche will be around that figure. If we go with Tranche 3, they may even be a little cheaper than this, allowing for inflation from 2002 to 2018 of course. I predict A$12 billion should buy us about 85 Block 2/3 F-35As including simulators, the first couple of rounds of software upgrades (Block 0 to Block 1, Block 1 to Block 2 etc), and associated basing and support infrastructure.

Look, if we decide to get the 100 JSFs, I'm sure there'll be some creative accounting done to get us there. These programs almost always go over budget, but the payoff is that we'll be getting a far more capable aircraft than we could have envisaged when we embarked on the AIR 6000 journey. But also, look for some 'left field' solutions such as the manned element of AIR 7000 being cut back because the JSF will be able to fulfil many of the overland and littoral ISR requirements currently being performed by the AP-3C and which will be done by the P-8A MMA. Look also for some of this work to be done by an upgrade to the Wedgetail as well. This means some of the roughly A$3.5 billion which would be required to replace 10-12 AP-3Cs with a manned platform may be better spent on another squdron of JSFs?

Geez...I'm starting to rant like Kurt...

Magoo

I don't think you are. If you were, you would sniff at the rest of us, assume an air of (mostly) un-deserved superiority and talk down to the rest of us as fools, and castigate anyone who doesn't immediately agree with HIS views and kowtow before his (over-inflated) opinion of his own intellectual prowess.

I'm certain that he would not at all agree with RAAF, (in fact he has already done so, see his earlier posts) and declare that anyone who doesn't immediately switch to UCAV's simply doesn't belong in the airpower game.

He would then go on to insist a fleet of 20 non-upgraded legacy Hornets, would be all we'll ever need to defend continental Australia, in combination of course with UCAV's.

Any comments pointing out that no UCAV'a are anyway near initial operational capability, let alone full operational capability, will be summarily dismissed as irrelevent...

 

[Kurt Plummer]

Magoo,

>>
It didn't quite happen like that though. Although AIR 6000 was established to evaluate possible contenders (or concepts - much like the UK's FOAS) for the ADF's new air combat capability, it very quickly became apparent to the program's managers that the ONLY viable solution within the timeframe required which would give the RAAF a true "5th generation" capability (and conform to the guidelines laid out in the 01 White Paper) would be JSF.
>>

The RAAF made a mistake buying into the F-111 and even with all the 'work with us' fixes and followon upgrades, it has never eventuated as the platform it was supposed to be, let alone needs to, today.

That this stigma is now also joined by a lost-sheep view of the airframe as economically 'non participative' should have been obvious even before he failed to show just cause on what I feel is the most crippling elements of the story:

1. Limited force numbers.
2. Highly variated performance profiles (the F-22 is probably closer to an F-104 in terms of hi-far-fast)
3. Specific Mission enablers as a function of mine own 'better bullet theory'.

You start adding in things like 30,000lbs of fuel and 6,000lbs of ordnance (2 AGM-142 and 2 AARGM or HSARM class ARM) which are the MINIMUM threshold for standoff vs. an S-300 or better threat environs in the opening days of an air campaign which could 'also ran' the F-35 if only the munitions were availabe to it, internally, and you had bloody well better explain how the jet is going to clear 14,000ft and 'Mark' .75-.8 until it burns up on fuel.

An F-22 cannot afford to stick around waiting for that profile adjustment to happen. And the F-111 cannot afford to lose lift retracting the wings to go faster, higher, quicker.

IN THIS ALONE, the F-111 is entirely too like the F-35: a subcruiser which cripples the F-22 by virtue of the 'close escort' deficiencies that have been known since 1940.

And that's not even accounting for the TF30s which have always had a 5-10% TSFC deficiency. And now are themselves 'past it' on the operational utilization/spares pipe level.

If the F-111 was nothing but a dumb truck, it might not matter. But it's not. And adding modern systems to the F-111 (which the F-22 not only doesn't have but _won't have_ as a function of money-spent-elsewhere) will not improve it's age, it's compatibility with other airframes or it's ultimate economic 'interest' to companies bidding as subs in a commercial aerospace world dominated by basement boarding (if not buyin which is AD illegal here but not overseas) to a future major program sale.

Kopp made a terrible mistake in aligning the F-111 with the F-22 and then saying that 'netcentric cannot work' because he has created a casepoint whereby even the most basic of NCW _has to_ work because neither of the airframes are terribly capable.

>>
This evaluation included the F-22 which, even at that time (circa 2000/01), it was recognised it would enter service with 10-15 year old hardware and software codes and would require a number of upgrades to match many of the JSF's baseline capabilities, especially its ISR capabilities. JSF is always going to be 1-2 generations ahead of the F-22 in these capabilities. OK, so JSF doesn't supercruise, but it's multirole potential and therefore its potential applications, many of which haven't even been thought of yet, are far more exciting.
>>

Baaaah. The F-22, like any other jet, is a blank canvass in terms of integrating the principe apertures. Nobody realizes that, in addition to not having wings that fell off, the F-15C was essentially 'new from the windscreen forward' in terms of avionics. Largely as a result of espionage effects on the APG-65. Similarly, the type has redundant cooling and processor power for both the AIRST (now chin mounted) and the side looking arrays. So the added requirements for a specifically 'button/tile/brick' modded AESA are not beyond reason. Certainly MP-RTIP is _specifically_ intended to fulfill exactly that role, as a plug'n'play replacement on a large number of other 'ISR' assets.

>>
I've read numerous articles recently about this, and have been briefed at official and 'unofficial levels' by USAF, USN and RAAF end users, and the trends all show that, for the type of warfare we are going to be fighting over the next 20-30 years, the JSF should be the platform of choice for any air arm, including the USAF.
>>

Snort. Foxes telling the farmer what defines a chicken and it's coup. If an MQ-1 can do the 'convoy escort' job better _because it is there_ (endurant and cheaply so) and because _nobody is shooting at it_ at the ranges for which (even) AAS-52 and APY-8 allow it to stand off, then the question becomes WHAT ELEMENT OF 'FIGHTER' PERFORMANCE IS ESSENTIAL TO AN ISR CAPABLE _BOMBER_ AIRCRAFT?

>>
The F-22 is a blue chip air supremacy fighter with the ability to toss a few SDBs or JDAMs at some of the more stubborn targets.
>>

There are 170 F-35C planned. And roughly that number of Marine versions. Whether you are 'just' attacking a few stubborn targets or 'just' doing air superiority. Or JUST doing _battlespace dominance_ which is the COE baseline for both missions as a function of /avoiding tangential threats/.

The simple fact of the matter is that the JSF is going to do no more than the F-22 until the F-22 /gets there/ it will not be self escorting or sorties-per-day capable of holding equivalent targets at risk.

What this basically means is that, even as a '1 war nation with an ongoing global fight' we will not be able to threaten China sufficiently to force a negotiated truce with EITHER platform.

That said, we will be lucky to buy 1,200, let alone 1,500 F-35A. And without that place marker as a mean number to drive the scalar economics, all the ROW purchases will collapse and that will further depress our own buys.

If you want a robust force, you need one which is cheap to BUY, OWN and USE-TO-LOSE. And that is in no way the F-35A. Because it is an F not an A or M designate airframe with all the mistakes inherent to that system functionality emphasis.

>>
However, can you honestly see a high-value asset like an F-22 being employed to 'escort' a high value convoy by feeding real-time video (which it can't do) or SAR/GMTI data (which it can but not as well as the JSF) from 18,000ft of what lies on the road ahead, to a laptop in the convoy's lead vehicle? THIS type of assymetric warfare is the future, and although there is still a mission for an F-22 type fighter on Day one of a full-blown shooting war against a half-capable IADS, or in case China or Russia get hot under the collar, that's pretty much it. Australia will not be involved at an F-22 type level in any conflict like that in the foreseeable (or I suspect, the unforeseeable) future.
>>

The problem with your perspective is that you choose to make it an F-22 or F-35 debate rather than making it a MISSION FIRST (what is a chicken) outline of what assymetric warfare requires.

That is what is so ultimately contemptible and indeed /undefendable/ about manned airpower advocates in that they refuse to say _what exactly_ the man in cockpit driver is for the MAJORITY OOTW/SSC mission set. Because they know, deep in their ugly little black hearts, that their is no excuse. Not for the prices involved.

>>
If the JSF runs to the current schedule, which it probably will otherwise we'd be starting to see trends already, the RAAF's 2OCU should have its first Block 0 jets from late 2012 (in fact, the 47th LRIP jet off the line is currently pencilled infor the RAAF), and we'll see our first squadron of Block 2 jets (1SQN?) on the ground at Willamtown in 2015, the second (75SQN) in 2016, and the third (3SQN?) in 2017. The Hornets will start winding down from early 2014, and be all gone by the end of 2016.
>>

Which is exactly similar to what the USAF did with early block deliveries of the F-16A to NATO Europe. It didn't work out so good in the end as the lines were indebted to a GDFW 'package' of assemblables that cost them more than they thought it should (and effectively kept Europe out of the license production business until TUSAS started up in the later 80's). Of course by 'graciously' giving away early .1/.5/.10 airframes they were also guaranteeing themselves massive upgrades which have taken some airframes back to the Sabca/Fokker lines as many as FOUR times. For structurals, engines, radar and the OCU/MLU. A process which, to me, looks likely to be repeated with the failure of a requirement for Seek Eagle equivalent clearance on all the external crap these folks want carried in Lot-1 of the initial JSF builds. Even Lot-2 is only AAM's and tanks. WHAT HAPPENS if they find (having redesigned the lap-joints three different times in the pursuit of WIP/SWIP/CWIP equivalent weight savings and avionics/plumbing routing) that the wings on the F-35A are no better than they were on the F-16? MOST especially given they have also reduced the thickness of the skins which is a traditional cracking-point fastener and spar problem in a highly loaded wingbox?

Baaah. You would whore VLO to the world (the _sole_ are in which the F-35 is significantly better on a 'defensive fighter' basis) on the notion that this is a superior jet. When in fact, the aircraft that it is modelled on was a _total piece of crap_, in maintenance, in structural life, in avionics and their initial 'MSIP' upgrade capacities at the same point in it's career when it was rushed through to production.

I don't know which is worse. Using the F-35A to guarantee the manufacture of the other variants on an 'already building' basis. Or the notion that we must have the method by which the battlefield is made more risky so that the U.S. Military can pretend it has a job to do, however poorly it currently proves capable of it.

>>
As for the US$45m flyaway cost, that's in 2002 dollars and is an average unit flyaway cost across the life of the program. I suspect our Block 0 jets will probably cost at least half that much again each, whereas most of our second tranche will be around that figure. If we go with Tranche 3, they may even be a little cheaper than this, allowing for inflation from 2002 to 2018 of course. I predict A$12 billion should buy us about 85 Block 2/3 F-35As including simulators, the first couple of rounds of software upgrades (Block 0 to Block 1, Block 1 to Block 2 etc), and associated basing and support infrastructure.
>>

Dooooon't Yooooou Belieeeeeve Iiiiiit.

FMS exists to sell home jets and you are helping to pay for the _continuing_ qualification and service test of two other 'variant' (same name, new plane) models which will only begin to enter trials as your own versions arrive to Oz. You will be lucky to get 40-50 airframes to replace BOTH your F-35 -and- F-111 fleet and the only thing that will prevent matters from being even worse is if one or both secondary models are canned. Something which is unlikely given the RN version is the model the USMC want. And the USN controls USMC funding pipe.

>>
Look, if we decide to get the 100 JSFs, I'm sure there'll be some creative accounting done to get us there.
>>

Invisible ink that suddenly turns crimson when exposed to the light of day by which the entire civillian world HAS TO LIVE or face massive criminal and civil penalties. But which the government sells to it's sheep-taxpayers on the basis of Fitzgerald's First Law:

"Too early to tell (it's a POC). Too late to stop. (Penalties of failure).

>>
These programs almost always go over budget, but the payoff is that we'll be getting a far more capable aircraft than we could have envisaged when we embarked on the AIR 6000 journey.
>>

No. Because, by your own assertion, 'there can be no other'. And this only as a function of FAILING TO DEFINE THE MISSION BEFORE THE AIRFRAME.

So that as long as it comes attached with the F-word prefix, you don't really care. I swear, at least WWF fans are honest about the artificiality of it all.

>>
But also, look for some 'left field' solutions such as the manned element of AIR 7000 being cut back because the JSF will be able to fulfil many of the overland and littoral ISR requirements currently being performed by the AP-3C and which will be done by the P-8A MMA.
>>

Which you know to be a crock of the smelly because the ISR mission is about _loiter at radius_. And which further enforces the cracked notional idea that manned will always be 'better than' unmanned, even though you are now comparing an RQ-4 with 2,500nm of radius and 17-36 HOURS of loiter. With an airframe that is not capable of half the amount.

Of course if you look at a UCAV... You have a platform which can be made air refuelable. And which can loiter _without extra gas_ at 1,100nm for 2hrs.

Here too Doctor Kopp makes a mistake because the essence of NCW is not ONE GIANT SENSOR looking at a fixed swath of sensor graze. It is ten, twenty or a hundred smaller ones, each scanning separate parcels of dirt.

You create a _mosaic image_ with multiple channels of sensor data and you will engineer the ability to lock down a conflict rather than go for stupidly linear Schwerpunkt style tactics that ignore the rest of the war ongoing in the 90% fringe area of secondary interests.

God knows the military cannot have that either because then they might actually have to acknowledge that war without intent to HOLD what you grab is actually more akin to law enforcement on a 'moral' basis.

And they have proven utterly inept at Mountrying One Man with their existing baby-onboard spec.

>>
Look also for some of this work to be done by an upgrade to the Wedgetail as well. This means some of the roughly A$3.5 billion which would be required to replace 10-12 AP-3Cs with a manned platform may be better spent on another squdron of JSFs?
>>

Which is the same as saying that without a BMC2 upgrade to support the wide pipe which funnels down to the JSFs; you cannot do the NCW mission /anyway/. Even as it deliberately ignores (once again) the superior alternatives in the MQ-9B/C/D models as pseudolites on-the-cheap.

>>
Geez...I'm starting to rant like Kurt...
>>

No you make fun of me so that people will concentrate on my name. Rather than see the shell game lies you sell without comment for what they are. I am not blinded by YOU Mister Magoo.


KPl.

 

[Kurt Plummer]

Scraw,

>>>
Originally Posted by gf0012-aust
I'm always amazed at how opinionated people become when all they've got access to is unclassified and santized data. all the read and know about is what they see in the general media and they feel that this makes them qualified to pass technical comment. eg, the amount of times that I see someone quoting DACT as evidence of absolute capability drives me spare

>>>

In fact, the Indians were still largely using voice vector. It was secure, but they were better at it than we were because we were operating over an instrumented range that was listening to every burble and squeak we made.

However; the notion that it was the Indians or U.S. who wanted sub-40km engagement and 'tether all the way' AMRAAM engagements doesn't change the fact that _when all things are equal_ (nobody has an effective terminal defense AGAINST THE MISSILE) WVR is a 50:50 spin of the cylinder with three rounds in.

At best.

I've always believed in BVR dominance in any kind of 'realistic' (The Russian Horde, you shoot as they come and accept attrition to securing your MOBS, the muckluck mogal, you shoot as they come and trust the low traffic to give you genuine trade as you bomb HIS airbases into oblivion).

If you are going to attack that doctrinal belief then you need to do so on a basis which both explains and then limits NCTR, EOID, AEW&C jamming and IFF high-power interrogation. Even the reality that the AIM-120 has a 60` boresight and is fully pitbull capable at about 2nm underconditions which are 'fuzzy at best' for AIM-9M series heat.

Since you refuse to make your own argument, only snipe at mine, I think the only rational conclusion is that the Armed Farces have let enough truth seep out around the massive misinformational BS campaign as to be legitimately at risk of being seen for the frauds (Cosa Nostra has /nothing/ on our government) that they are.


Quote:
Dr Kopp— The other issue here is that we will not have an asymmetric advantage in networking in this region. The Russians have been selling equipment like TKS-2—it is called Tipovyi Kompleks Svyazi—which is basically a network for networking fighters. In fact, the Indians used it to embarrass the Americans in the Cope India exercise just over a year ago.

Kopp is wrong because he has his own fixation in the Pig. He doesn't CHOOSE to see that an A-45 /or like air vehicle/ with 12-14,000lbs of fuel, can lug 8 GBU-39 to 1,100nm and sit there for 2hrs. Something which the F-111 itself would be challenged to do, operationally. Because it is about as LO as a cement truck. And _could never do_ as a function of peacetime training hours and the assorted muck of pilot-support and spares pipes for it which is inherently where 90% of an aircraft's TLCC is thrown in the dumpster on.

If you buy a cheaper airframe. If it _stays cherry_ because it doesn't need to fly except when tensions arise requiring it's presence. If that presence is more assured because the basic airframe moldline can be exclusively tailored to a subsonic, LO, high-altitude=standoff glide munition, role. If it further contributes to a 'mosaic system' whereby it's apertures, either separately or in stereo overlap, generate an ongoing ISR picture which is itself able to end fights faster, then you see, not 300 billion dollar wars followed by 600 billion dollar 'peacekeeping' but a genuine ability to _suppress_ conflicts by virtue of shutting down the mobility and intelligence of the enemy UCW 'insurgent' effort.

In a D1/R1 environment, your first measure of capability has to be the number of threat-air shots taken against an aggregate raid system vs. the number of days /after/ the initial rollback that the threat can continue to pose a threat to your packages as they conserve assets and observe your tactical doctrine.

In this, a UCAV which is never going to be more-LO in groups than it is alone is placed against an F-16 model (which _is_ the basis of the F-35 one) in which not a missile has been fired against air threats which simply COE chose yield the field.

As such, a UCAV, whether interactive or with prefragged target lists, is actually more compareable to a cruise missile which ALSO has few if any contested engagements. But whose terminal vulnerability to _ground threats_ is bypassed by the UCAV's ability to release the same kinds of IAMs s the nominal 'fighter' does.

CONCLUSION:
The AF, as a bunch of pilot-bigots no better than the KKK interested solely in maintaining their own careers will never design a UCAV to replace a single manned mission. Robot = Black Man to them. Thus until you wrest the reins free from the spoiled brats and create a platform AROUND WHICH A MISSION CAN BE BUILT (backwards logic but think about the people who invented it); you will never get the opportunity to fairly compare the two capabilities.

Or indeed a /mix/ of the two. As in a LO manned asset with a very capable high-rate AESA as both modem and Volume Airspace Sanitizer. So that the robots are never off the leash. But simply are able to roll back 'across the board' so rapidly that an enemy has no choice but to respond. Or face losing their very national defense, in total, in the first raid.

THAT is the ultimate BS which I will never forgive the Armed Farces of my nation for perpetrating on the innocents in their care. Not simply that they are themselves incompetents. Nor even that they gouge the taxpayer for more than they are worth. But that their is no F-35A vs. A-45C comparison.

As there was with the A-10 and A-7D.

Which is laughable really. Because the AF chose the wrong airframe for that 'CAS' mission as well. But at least they put data on the table which showed what's what. By taking over the DARPA effort, remissioning it twice, bloating it to beat hell and /then/ cancelling on the premise of not being able to afford the resultant J-UCAS; the Air Force took a nominal UDS exit phase in 2006 for a 'SEAD Drone' and bumped it out past 2009. Just to make sure their late and over budget Just So Fracked would never have to make a comparison at all.

In the same vein as the sheep test on the M2 Bradley, this should tell you all you have to know about how far out into a twilight land called blatant self interest these folks really are.


KPl.

 

[scraw]

Well firstly I dont believe I sniped at your opinions at all, in fact I cannot recall responding to any of your posts.

Secondly I find it very hard to swallow that you seemingly want the RAAF to ignore the current options and step off into the uncertain world of future UAV/UCAV platforms.

For a medium power that seems to me to be nothing short of irresponsible. We simply do not have the budget to wager our regional air supremacy on technology that may well be both growing and promising but is most certainly embryonic and in terms of both air superiority and strike in a contested enviornment unproven.

 

[Magoo]

I know I'm probably going to regret this, but here goes nothing...

The RAAF made a mistake buying into the F-111 and even with all the 'work with us' fixes and followon upgrades, it has never eventuated as the platform it was supposed to be, let alone needs to, today.

Maybe; maybe not! I guess WE'LL never know for sure, but my feeling is that, in its day, the Pig was the best, bar none, tactical strike platform in the world. However, that day is quickly passing, and no matter how much you do to enhance the airframe, it will always require an escort and therefore be limited to the range of its escorts. How did we get on to F-111s anyway? I don't believe I mentioned them once in my last post!

And that's not even accounting for the TF30s which have always had a 5-10% TSFC deficiency. And now are themselves 'past it' on the operational utilization/spares pipe level.

Whilst I haven't endorsed retaining the F-111, and nor do I endorse Dr Kopp's proposal either, I wonder whether you have even read it. He proposes re-engining the aircraft, so the TF30s aren't a factor. And even if they weren't re-engined, you should see the warehouse full of spares stocks (some of which are new and others from the desert) we have at Amberley for those engines!!!

If the F-111 was nothing but a dumb truck, it might not matter. But it's not. And adding modern systems to the F-111 (which the F-22 not only doesn't have but _won't have_ as a function of money-spent-elsewhere) will not improve it's age, it's compatibility with other airframes or it's ultimate economic 'interest' to companies bidding as subs in a commercial aerospace world dominated by basement boarding (if not buyin which is AD illegal here but not overseas) to a future major program sale.

Kopp made a terrible mistake in aligning the F-111 with the F-22 and then saying that 'netcentric cannot work' because he has created a casepoint whereby even the most basic of NCW _has to_ work because neither of the airframes are terribly capable.

Again, I didn't even mention the F-111 in my last post. Why are you addressing me about Dr Kopp's proposal?

Baaaah. The F-22, like any other jet, is a blank canvass in terms of integrating the principe apertures. Nobody realizes that, in addition to not having wings that fell off, the F-15C was essentially 'new from the windscreen forward' in terms of avionics. Largely as a result of espionage effects on the APG-65. Similarly, the type has redundant cooling and processor power for both the AIRST (now chin mounted) and the side looking arrays. So the added requirements for a specifically 'button/tile/brick' modded AESA are not beyond reason. Certainly MP-RTIP is _specifically_ intended to fulfill exactly that role, as a plug'n'play replacement on a large number of other 'ISR' assets.

That's all fine, except in the QDR the IRST, side looking arrays and MP-RTIP (along with SDB, two-way DL) and other spiral upgrades were effectively traded off for four extra airframes and a drawn out production cycle at Fort Worth. So, unless they can find extra funding somewhere and then convince Congress to spend it, these upgrades likely wont happen.

Snort

Gee, and here was me wondering why people call you arrogant!

Foxes telling the farmer what defines a chicken and it's coup.

Normally, I may agree with you, but many of my conversations have been over a beer with mates who are in a position to know and who have no vested interest in whether we get JSF or not.

If an MQ-1 can do the 'convoy escort' job better _because it is there_ (endurant and cheaply so) and because _nobody is shooting at it_ at the ranges for which (even) AAS-52 and APY-8 allow it to stand off, then the question becomes WHAT ELEMENT OF 'FIGHTER' PERFORMANCE IS ESSENTIAL TO AN ISR CAPABLE _BOMBER_ AIRCRAFT?

I don't know, why don't you ask the F-15/Sniper, F-16/Sniper or F-14/Lantirn guys in Iraq. They seem to be doing a hell of alot of this work lately. And, I think the 600+ knot transit speeds of these fighters and the responsiveness it brings is a fairly major performance element!

The simple fact of the matter is that the JSF is going to do no more than the F-22 until the F-22 /gets there/ it will not be self escorting or sorties-per-day capable of holding equivalent targets at risk.

Of course the JSF will be self-escorting! You'll rarely, if ever have an F-22/F-35 combination go out unless they're part of a much larger 'gorilla'. F-22s will have their job, and F-35s will have theirs, and after 'day 1', they'll rarely cross paths.

That said, we will be lucky to buy 1,200, let alone 1,500 F-35A. And without that place marker as a mean number to drive the scalar economics, all the ROW purchases will collapse and that will further depress our own buys.

My understanding of procurement rules are, if the overall numbers drop, then the end of the procurement curve basically just gets chopped off. The early and middle phase jets may go up a little but no a huge amount, but you just won't don't get the cheaper jets at the end of the production cycle because they've been canned. The SDD, tooling and other costs are mainly amortised in the early part of the production cycle.

The problem with your perspective is that you choose to make it an F-22 or F-35 debate rather than making it a MISSION FIRST (what is a chicken) outline of what assymetric warfare requires.

No, you see Kurt, you're obviously not reading the rest of the thread. I was responding to an earlier post which had referred to Dr Kopp's F-22 proposal, and hence was making the case for the JSF over the F-22. I agree with you that it shouldn't be an F-22 vs F-35 debate, as for me, the F-22 isn't even in the game. It's the F-35 in 2014, or its UCAVs in 2025 for mine, and seeing as our Hornets wont stretch to 2025 and, as an AUSTRALIAN tax payer, I consider it unacceptable to be without any kind of organic air defence and strike capability for 10 years, then I guess it's JSFs.

That is what is so ultimately contemptible and indeed /undefendable/ about manned airpower advocates in that they refuse to say _what exactly_ the man in cockpit driver is for the MAJORITY OOTW/SSC mission set. Because they know, deep in their ugly little black hearts, that their is no excuse. Not for the prices involved.

Geesh! How can anyone possibly respond to that dribble? Like it or not, UCAVs aren't there yet, both from a capability and a political point of view, and are unlikely to be for some time! Hence my 2025 guesstimate!

Which is exactly similar to what the USAF did with early block deliveries of the F-16A to NATO Europe. It didn't work out so good in the end as the lines were indebted to a GDFW 'package' of assemblables that cost them more than they thought it should (and effectively kept Europe out of the license production business until TUSAS started up in the later 80's). Of course by 'graciously' giving away early .1/.5/.10 airframes they were also guaranteeing themselves massive upgrades which have taken some airframes back to the Sabca/Fokker lines as many as FOUR times. For structurals, engines, radar and the OCU/MLU. A process which, to me, looks likely to be repeated with the failure of a requirement for Seek Eagle equivalent clearance on all the external crap these folks want carried in Lot-1 of the initial JSF builds. Even Lot-2 is only AAM's and tanks. WHAT HAPPENS if they find (having redesigned the lap-joints three different times in the pursuit of WIP/SWIP/CWIP equivalent weight savings and avionics/plumbing routing) that the wings on the F-35A are no better than they were on the F-16? MOST especially given they have also reduced the thickness of the skins which is a traditional cracking-point fastener and spar problem in a highly loaded wingbox?

What if? What if? How the hell do I know? How the hell does anyone know, unless they're in the know? Are YOU in the know? I doubt it. But what I will respond to is (assuming the wings are OK which is all we can do really), there are unlikely to be many hardware differences between the various Blocks, except perhaps CPUs etc. The Blocks will be defined by software changes, and these will not require going...

back to the Sabca/Fokker lines as many as FOUR times

... It'll mean a day or two in the hangar while the black boxes are changed out.

Baaah. You would whore VLO to the world (the _sole_ are in which the F-35 is significantly better on a 'defensive fighter' basis) on the notion that this is a superior jet. When in fact, the aircraft that it is modelled on was a _total piece of crap_, in maintenance, in structural life, in avionics and their initial 'MSIP' upgrade capacities at the same point in it's career when it was rushed through to production.

Now, there's an intelligent piece of argument, so intelligent in fact that I don't understand any of it.

Dooooon't Yooooou Belieeeeeve Iiiiiit.

FMS exists to sell home jets and you are helping to pay for the _continuing_ qualification and service test of two other 'variant' (same name, new plane) models which will only begin to enter trials as your own versions arrive to Oz. You will be lucky to get 40-50 airframes to replace BOTH your F-35 -and- F-111 fleet and the only thing that will prevent matters from being even worse is if one or both secondary models are canned. Something which is unlikely given the RN version is the model the USMC want. And the USN controls USMC funding pipe.

But this isn't a traditional FMS style foreign buy. As program partners, Australia and everyone else will be paying the same amount for their jets as the 'home' forces will be. This is guaranteed in the partnership program.

No. Because, by your own assertion, 'there can be no other'. And this only as a function of FAILING TO DEFINE THE MISSION BEFORE THE AIRFRAME.

So that as long as it comes attached with the F-word prefix, you don't really care. I swear, at least WWF fans are honest about the artificiality of it all.

Again, WAY too intelligent for me, sorry!

Which you know to be a crock of the smelly because the ISR mission is about _loiter at radius_. And which further enforces the cracked notional idea that manned will always be 'better than' unmanned, even though you are now comparing an RQ-4 with 2,500nm of radius and 17-36 HOURS of loiter. With an airframe that is not capable of half the amount.

And that's exactly why we'll also be getting some RQ-4s or some Mariners, because the UAVs can do the long range loiter work, and the JSF can be the manned response element of this program. Who knows...we may even hang some Hellfires off the Mariners?! You'll also notice I did qualify this statement by saying it will do alot of the "overland and littoral" work.

Of course if you look at a UCAV... You have a platform which can be made air refuelable. And which can loiter _without extra gas_ at 1,100nm for 2hrs.

See above two comments re 2025.

No you make fun of me so that people will concentrate on my name. Rather than see the shell game lies you sell without comment for what they are. I am not blinded by YOU Mister Magoo.

No, I make fun of you because you leave yourself open to it. I have no agendas here except to be as informed as I can on the subject matter at hand, and if required, express an opinion to the best of my knowledge levels. And I sure as hell aint selling anything. Are you?

If I'm wrong or off base a little, I'm happy to be told thus, but in a constructive manner by someone who has established their credibility.

Magoo

 

[gf0012-aust]

Scraw,

>>>
Originally Posted by gf0012-aust
I'm always amazed at how opinionated people become when all they've got access to is unclassified and santized data. all the read and know about is what they see in the general media and they feel that this makes them qualified to pass technical comment. eg, the amount of times that I see someone quoting DACT as evidence of absolute capability drives me spare

>>>

Since you refuse to make your own argument, only snipe at mine, I think the only rational conclusion is that the Armed Farces have let enough truth seep out around the massive misinformational BS campaign as to be legitimately at risk of being seen for the frauds (Cosa Nostra has /nothing/ on our government) that they are.......................


KPl.

I'm not sure whether this is directed at me or not but let me clarify my position.

Dr Kopp, for all his enthusiasm about his own knowledge base and competencies - does not have access to all the data to make a qualified decision. Blind Freddy can see that his grandiose comments about his competency and technical excellence re NCW are somewhat fatally flawed in both appreciation and dare I say it - comprehension.

The comments about DACT are aimed directly at him. DACT is a scripted exercise designed to elicit reactions under prescriptive scenarios - it is not an exercise designed to determine who has the best platform per se as the outcome is relevant to its intent.

Stating that DACT has pedestaled one aircraft type over another is an exercise in sophistry and self interest. he's smart enough to know that - so using DACT as a defining foundation in his arguments is disingenuine at the least. Everyone who wears an airforce uniform would know that - anyone who wears a military unfiorm should know that - and anyone who's been involved with a wargame will know that.

So, Dr Kopps comments about Su-27 superiority when taken in an encapsulated form becomes incredibly disingenuous - and mischievous when he leaves out all the minutae of the imprediments placed on "red force" to get reactions out of "blue force". To articulate a snapshot of a DACT outcome and therefore allude to it as a "given" is incredibly unprofessional - especially in light of the fact that the constitution of that committee had people who knew more about the gestation period of an elephant than they did about DACT and its purpose.

That, IMV is borderline deceitful.

 

[gf0012-aust]

Reminder
​

Stay on target - Play the ball and not the man.

Any threads that wander off and become personal will be edited.

It would be worthwhile for, everyone to remember that we're in here to do the following:​

• Learn​
• Impart Knowledge​
• Contribute to discussion in a considered but robust manner​
• Share opinions​

For those in the Defense Professionals and Analysts group - we all participate based on our own knowledge base, that doesn't mean that our own experiences or knowledge is an absolute that is unimpeachable and can't be questioned.

If our own pet beliefs are challenged then I expect everyone to respond as a professional - and that means treating other posters with approp respect and not disparaging their opinions just because it runs counter to your own.

Nobody in here has all the answers - some of us have access levels and clearances which also make it impossible to go and defend a position due to the nature of that classification. I would assumed that this would be self evident to most.

This is not a competition for opinion - its not a competition to enslave others to our own cherished beliefs about how military technologies work, how military platforms work or even how militaries go to war.

If you don't like another posters opinion then take it offline - don't bring the board into disrepute by having a cat fight in public.

and finally - Please use the forum tools properly when responding to quotations so as to keep the presentation of responses uniform and to assist other posters who may respond. ie use the quote buttons.
​

 

[Kurt Plummer]

Scraw,

>>
Well firstly I dont believe I sniped at your opinions at all, in fact I cannot recall responding to any of your posts.
>>

No you didn't, I was actually responding more to gfaust12, I didn't feel like digging back to find his post and then skipping forward to find the rest of the thread.

>>
Secondly I find it very hard to swallow that you seemingly want the RAAF to ignore the current options and step off into the uncertain world of future UAV/UCAV platforms.
>>

As Kopp himself has stated, 3.5 billion later, the F/A-18 is still not going to be obsolescent as an OCA 'escort' to the F-111, _right out of the shop_. That's money you've just burned for nothing.

OTOH, what if I told you that the UCAV could have been at least part developed for exactly the same money?

What if I told that, for the 15 billion dollars that aping the F-35 CONOP will buy you, you could DEFINITELY complete the initial development of a UCAV?

What if I told you the F/A-18 is a perfectly legitimate continental ADF /as is/ and that, for the next 10-20 years you will never face an expeditionary threat?

No one can attack Australia directly. There is no mission justification for an 'Australian Interest' overseas that does not involve playing in somebody else's dispute.

>>
For a medium power that seems to me to be nothing short of irresponsible.
>>

What is irresponsible is spending money because you have it. With no expectation of direct returns. On swords in a time of peace. The Romans were right you know. Make the Legions pay for themselves. Never become tricked into giving them 'protection money' for an absent threat. Especially when that money ends up overseas in another Empire's coffers.

The F-35A will never give you more than scraps from the beggars table and /wanting it to/ will destroy it's unified program economics, even before U.S. inventory reductions do.

Building your own alternative would lead to a competitive ability to sell to the WHOLE market which the burgeoning costs and lack of flight training are about to leave stranded by an incapable and tech-compromised JSF.

>>
We simply do not have the budget to wager our regional air supremacy on technology that may well be both growing and promising but is most certainly embryonic and in terms of both air superiority and strike in a contested enviornment unproven.
>>

Nonsense. First, you don't go it alone. BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP with 'local talent' does more to guarantee regional security than anything because it means you have a vested interest in each other's future and shared profits to make it worth both your whiles.

If you truly believe that America would let you rot in the face of a threat to your own expeditionary needs (which you must first define as a mission element needs statement requiring address rather than a tech-for-techs sake jonesmanship) you don't need to support their wars or their war chest by buying into a technology base that is inventory-buy faulted to the point of being unaffordable.

Second, _JSF is a lousy fighter_. Whoring VLO will make this obvious when it /has to/ perform like a Hornet (or Falcon or any other external carriage platform) because 'stealth' has become common enough to be countered and we are right back to the same ol' same ol' of EW and standoff. Then DEWS will arrive on scene (beginning less than 3 years after IOC) and you will be looking at another bunch of money thrown on the fire. For Nothing.

'Embryonic' must be compared to in-the-grave sir as a case point for not investing in a frickaseed corpses. Robots can't die. And they are cheap to buy, own and replace.

Third, 'low intensity' campaigns which seem to be what is really being espoused here (and is all that the F-111 could survive, unescorted) are not characterized by IADS level coordinated A2A/S2A threats.

In such a circumstance a King Air would be an incredibly capable 'fighter' because turboprops make for better loiter while still flying over the threat floor with reliable ease, an open cabin makes for easy raft mounting of COTS equipment and a SINGLE BRU-61 drops more bombs than an F-16 does with 'both pylons today'. Even as the GBU-39 itself keeps you well away from the target terminal defenses. Not least, a King Air would _be there_ because, not only can you have a relief crew, a head, and a place to stretch out and have a snack and a siesta, but a basic A-100 model came within a price tag of about $739,500.00 in 1972 dollars.

Now, pull the pilot and you have a Block IV BGM-109 Tomahawk.

With landing gear.

Because all the _subsystems_ which 'would have to go into a fighter anyway' are already developed. Targeting FLIRS. Micro-SARs. Imbedded INS/GPS. ITAG/Astro backup. It's all there. It's all OTS.

THAT is the level of 'embryonic' UCAV technology today sir.

Only two things remain to be 'milspec'd' as requirements from the military sector:

1. The comms pipe.
Which will happen for JSF anyway, and even here the capacity for high datarate, selective bandwidth, _discrete_ comms is more inherent to a miniature AESA talking to a pseudolite relay back to a BMC2 platform than a single seat fighter with a modem attached to it's AI hogs nose.

2. The Munitions.
Which are here but not yet proliferated widely enough to provide small smart bomb level (cheap, winged, IAM) to anyone outside the U.S. _except_ Australia. Which has the Awadi technical base to leverage on their 'own'.

To which I can only add that it is likely that the range:time factor dictates a small turbofan in a hardier structure to fly up out of the weather and to the target in less time than you would lose as loiter to a prop transit over radius. But even this (as the original A-45 shows) need not be mil sourced.

And as such, you folks have DONE IT ALREADY. With the Jindivik. You only need repackage the basics to have a better 'small war, medium power' platform.

It is YOU who refuse to look with eyes wide open at the mission as the spec for accomplishing it. Leaving it to 'experts' to tell you what can and cannot be done based on THEIR BIGOTTED SELF INTEREST in /never/ letting the robot take over.

You are collectively cow-eyed like a patient diagnosed with a terrible disease by a doctor you know to be drunk, crosseyed, dyslexic and borderline senile. Yet refusing to ask for a second opinion. "Because, even though you're pretty sure it's just a cold, really, you wanted to be a doc once too!".


KPl.