Some things haven't changed much.

 As I think of things to write about for this next year it is of great interest how many military programs have not changed much. 

Programs that needed to change or just end are still consuming billions of dollars and returning negative value.

-Stryker.

-LCS.

-F-35.

USS England

Late in WWII, German and Japanese submarines were outmatched by Allied anti-submarine efforts. The Japanese even more so as they didn't have  any kind of homing torpedo. 

A great story about the USS England, which transitions to present day, where U.S. warships have stupid  names.

Back to blogging

I am back to blogging.

It may be about anything but more times than not it will be Defense/Defence related.

My social media is Parler.

Dangerous Dan

Took a break on the blogging for a bit as the recent unpleasantness in the news occupies everyone.

With that, consider this WWII story. After Japanese-Americans were put in camps, they still served and served well....

On April 21, 1945, Lt. Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on a heavily defended ridge near San Terenzo in Liguria, Italy, called the Colle Musatello. The ridge served as a strongpoint of the German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, the last and most unyielding line of German defensive works in Italy. As he led his platoon in a flanking maneuver, three German machine guns opened fire from covered positions 40 yards away, pinning his men to the ground. Inouye stood up to attack and was shot in the stomach. Ignoring his wound, he proceeded to attack and destroy the first machine gun nest with hand grenades and his Thompson submachine gun. When informed of the severity of his wound, he refused treatment and rallied his men for an attack on the second machine gun position, which he successfully destroyed before collapsing from blood loss.
  As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, Lt. Inouye crawled toward the final bunker, coming within 10 yards. As he raised himself on his left elbow and cocked his right arm to throw his last hand grenade, a German soldier saw Inouye and fired a 30mm Schiessbecher antipersonnel rifle grenade from inside the bunker, which struck Inouye directly on his right elbow. The high explosive grenade failed to detonate, saving Lt. Inouye from instant death but amputating most of his right arm at the elbow (except for a few tendons and a flap of skin) via blunt force trauma. Despite this gruesome injury, Lt. Inouye was again saved from likely death due to the blunt, low-velocity grenade tearing the nerves in his arm unevenly and incompletely, which involuntarily squeezed the grenade tightly via a reflex arc instead of going limp and dropping it at Inouye's feet. However, this still left him crippled, in terrible pain, under fire with minimal cover and staring at a live grenade "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore."
Inouye's horrified soldiers moved to his aid, but he shouted for them to keep back out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker began hastily reloading his rifle with regular full metal jacket ammunition (replacing the wood-tipped rounds used to propel rifle grenades), Inouye quickly pried the live hand grenade from his useless right hand and transferred it to his left. The German soldier had just finished reloading and was aiming his rifle to finish him off when Lt. Inouye threw his grenade through the narrow firing slit, killing the German. Stumbling to his feet with the remnants of his right arm hanging grotesquely at his side and his Thompson in his off-hand, braced against his hip, Lt. Inouye continued forward, killing at least one more German before suffering his fifth and final wound of the day (in his left leg), which finally halted his one-man assault for good and sent him tumbling unconscious to the bottom of the ridge. He awoke to see the worried men of his platoon hovering over him. His only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them back to their positions, saying "Nobody called off the war!"
  The remainder of Inouye's mutilated right arm was later amputated at a field hospital without proper anesthesia, as he had been given too much morphine at an aid station and it was feared any more would lower his blood pressure enough to kill him.

Disbanding the United States Air Force

The idea of rolling the United States Air Force into other services is not a new. Let us look at some of the issues and opportunities that this has to offer.

Creating the United States Air Force (USAF) in 1947 was the right idea at the right time. Military aviation technology concepts were moving fast. It offered a focus on learning new technologies in aviation and space.

Today, after the  end of the Cold War, USAF no longer has a large number of creative aerospace engineers working for it and is hardly pushing any world beating technology of  its own initiative.

The USAF refuses to replace old aircraft at any useful pace. The new aircraft being purchased are expensive to own and operate, with no credible combat capability; including: no war attrition tolerance.

USAF tanker and airlift fleets are a mess. There is no replacement for the C-5 or C-17. Light airlift was killed.

The KC-46, a sick joke. For over 20 years, USAF is not capable of fielding a new aerial refueling tanker.

USAF flag leadership warm chairs with no value to the defense of the nation. All of the problems mentioned are a short list.

How would this merge to the other services (mostly the Army)  happen?

1. Airlift-Tanker.

A replacement of the C-5 needs to happen as a priority. The C-5M upgrade did not solve all C-5 ageing aircraft issues.

Until then, used 747-400s of which there are many, could be converted into cargo/passenger/tankers. This would help fill in theater-airlift gaps.

C-17s are an important capability. Unfortunately, early production jets are getting old. The C-17 is no longer in production. It has now joined the ageing aircraft club.

This replacement effort should be a priority.

The A-400M should be purchased as an additional airlift resource. When you look at the specifications of this aircraft it is neither fish, nor fowl. Yet, if the C-17 replacement stalls, medium tactical airlift will need help. This doesn’t solve the C-17 age issue but reduces the pain.

C-130Js should never be allowed to end production.

C-27s should used to supplement our airlift capability.

All of the airlift assets mentioned can be put into the Army Reserve and National Guard.

The American military aerial refueling capability is such a mess that drastic action will have to be taken. It should no longer be considered a  one-service dominant capability.

The KC-46 program has failed. As the winning vendor, it should be removed and replaced with the runner up: the Northrop/Airbus KC-30. The KC-30 is in service with other nations and works well.

Here the Navy can help. KC-30s should be assigned as one squadron per numbered fleet. Navy reserve where practical.

U.S. Army squadrons would also be created as needed. Army Reserve and National Guard where practical.

Where practical, contractors can do tanker operations for the U.S. military for the United States, U.S. territories and the Canada region. Also: aircraft deliveries overseas. No direct war support with contractors. This will happen with former USAF KC-135s until the market adapts other platforms.

KC-135s should be retired as fast as possible. Given the state of the tanker mess, this may take many years.

Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (IRS). This capability in all platforms--air breathing fixed wing and space--can be operated successfully by the U.S. Army.

2. Nuclear deterrent.

Inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM) can be managed by the U.S. Army.

The  mission of manned long-range, nuclear strike ends.

3. Long-range bombers.

The B-2 and B-1 will be retired. Both of these reside on the silly premise that these aircraft can penetrate a modern air defense system. Along with that: no future B-21 budget raider.

The B-52 will remain. It is a successful idea and doesn’t depend on penetrating a modern air defense system to be useful. Of the three long-range bombers, it has the best mission capability rates. A replacement with similar (not gold-plated) capability should be a priority.

4. Tactical aircraft.

Since there will be no USAF, there is no requirement to take responsibility of stupid decisions made by the service.

The F-35 USAF requirement will end. It eats too much national treasure for very little return in combat capability.

F-16 aircraft should be put into the 20 or so national air sovereignty locations throughout the U.S. as a separate command or numbered Army Air Force or whatever the leadership decides to call it. Much like the old USAF Air Defense Command (ADC). This is important for the purpose of focusing on the work at hand that is also shared with our Canadian allies. That is, to intercept unknown aircraft close to our national border. This should be a blended unit with active duty Army and Army Reserve as an important national defense effort; which does not require National Guard involvement. Many F-16s will be retired from this reorganization, however, the current low rate of F-16 production should continue to replace old F-16s.

The Zamboni mission. This is slang sometimes heard in the USAF to describe the deployed air domination mission of F-15C/D aircraft. They prepare the ice so the real mission of war winning by other tactical aircraft can happen. After most war efforts, they don’t do very much. Since the F-22 can do deep strike/interdiction, it doesn’t always fall into this category.

All F-15C/Ds go away. All F-15Es and new F-15s assist the F-22 in clearing air threats the first nights of a war.

A priority replacement project has to happen to solve the F-22 aircraft ageing issues. This process is married to new F-15 aircraft capability.

Interdiction and close air support. The F-15E and new F-15 builds will be the primary interdiction aircraft. Other aircraft like the B-52 and Navy aircraft will assist as needed.

A side note on the threat. As Bill Sweetman pointed out years ago, no flag-level leadership was able to explain to him in what situation we would deploy land forces were we did not have complete control of the air and/or anti-access threat.

That should stand as policy. If we don’t have control of the anti-access threat, ground troops will die. We should never put our land forces into such a situation.

Insisting that the interdiction and close air support mission should be performed by some kind of gold-plated unreliable, expensive to own and operate stealth aircraft should be considered lunacy.

Close air support: A-10, Tucano, Apache, AC-130. Interdiction aircraft and multi-service aircraft where practical.

The Future.

All that I have suggested falls into the category of: now I have done my duty as an over-stressed taxpayer.

It should not be dismissed as impossible. Since the end of the  Cold War, the United States Air Force has been given several come-to-Jesus opportunities to solve its many problems. Each time they have failed.

Now is the time to thank that institutional idea for its service, and, end it.

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USAF aircraft mission capability rates for 2019

We have been here before; aging aircraft and underwhelming maintenance management results for the United States Air Force (USAF). 

This is the responsibility of flag-level leadership.

Not much has been done to fix the problem except maybe for a few aircraft like the F-15 or F-16. And, even that isn't great.

USAF has a long history of under-funding aircraft maintenance. For  instance, in the early 2000's B-1 bombers had a mission capability (MC-rate) of around 50 percent.

It turned out, USAF was under funding that activity at around, 50 percent. 

The C-5 is a sad story. It is a huge roll-on/roll-off cargo aircraft that is old, and needed, yet, USAF refuses to have a replacement fielded. 

They modified some of the fleet to the C-5M standard long ago; new engines and avionics, but this only brought MC rates up 13 or so percent. And, this modification did not (and was not designed to) address all C-5 maintenance issues. 

The C-17 is now getting old. Production for this aircraft should never have stopped. It, like the F-16, was sold to USAF as not needing 3-level maintenance. 

3-level maintenance is: flight line maintenance, phased and isochronic maintenance in a dedicated hanger at the unit level, and finally (in the case of the F-15 and others) the aircraft goes to a dedicated depot every 5-7 years for an extensive rebuild. The depot for the C-5, C-17, C-130 and F-15 is at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. 

Yes, C-17. After realizing the sales pitch was nonsense, it joined the F-16 as a 3-level maintenance aircraft. 

Years later, the F-35 was sold to the USAF as not needing 3-level depot maintenance. Today... because of the mush of different sub-variant blocks and other design errors, it is, a 3-level maintenance jet. 

To be fair, when the program was started, they looked at various maintenance activities to eliminate. The landing gear might be more expensive and not last as long due to corrosion, but they did eliminate a really nasty process of not having to remove and re-add chromium coating as a depot activity.  

With all of its faults, it costs anywhere between $44,000 and up per flight hour. The gun doesn't work and it has many on-going problems. 

In the case of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida--the schoolhouse for USAF F-35 pilots--they are stuck with older pre-Block3F aircraft that have training incompatibility issues as well as poor MC-rates. One option is to replace those aircraft with new ones. The F-35 program has been in low rate initial production (LRIP) since 2007. And, is suffering aging aircraft issues. Another first for "5th-Generation" aircraft.

Lessons that were learned, have to be relearned. No aircraft should be allowed into service without a solid 3-level maintenance plan. 

The F-22 has airframe fatigue issues and gets "dog-year" maintenance credits if it is operated in a dry environment. 

With no active production line. It will suffer more.

As a legacy of its design, the vertical take-off and landing, special ops, CV-22, will never enjoy high, MC-rates. 

A variety of people inside and outside the USAF did their part to warn of these problems. 

Today, the USAF still has aircraft maintenance issues with hair on it, mostly because of inaction from flag-level leadership.

USAF mission capability rates for 2019 (source USAF via Air Force Magazine )

Mission System	2019 Mission Capable Rate
A-10C	71.2%
AC-130J	86.12%
AC-130U	85.62%
AC-130W	80.22%
AT-38B	74.62%
B-1B	46.42%
B-2A	60.47%
B-52H	65.73%
C-12C	99.05%
C-12D	100%
C-12F	92.4%
C-12J	100%
C-130H	65.51%
C-130J	77.02%
C-17A	82.23%
C-21A	100%
C-32A	90.24%
C-37A	93.85%
C-37B	86.47%
C-40B	89.48%
C-40C	85.9%
C-5M	63.16%
CV-22B	53.45%
E-3B	74.41%
E-3C	73.19%
E-3G	74.36%
E-4B	64.75%
E-8C	67.36%
EC-130H	73.19%
EC-130J	57.38%
F-15C	70.05%
F-15D	72.45%
F-15E	71.29%
F-16C	72.97%
F-16D	70.37%
F-22A	50.57%
F-35A	61.6%
HC-130J	79.81%
HC-130N	68.13%
HC-130P	61.52%
HH-60G	66.20%
KC-10A	79.37%
KC-135R	72.5%
KC-135T	71.11%
KC-46A	63.11%
LC-130H	40.28%
MC-12W	100%
MC-130H	68.65%
MC-130J	77.54%
MC-130P	28.07%
MQ-1B	99.52%
MQ-9A	89.32%
OC-135B	82.46%
RC-135S	90.39%
RC-135U	91.07%
RC-135V	74.1%
RC-135W	69.49%
RQ-4B	75.75%
T-1A	60.51%
T-38A	74.48%
T-38C	63.05%
T-6A	63.29%
TC-130H	26.32%
TC-135W	84.8%
TE-8A	73.42%
TH-1H	74.63%
TU-2S	74.96%
U-2S	78.39%
UH-1N	82.42%
VC-25A	92.86%
WC-130J	56.2%
WC-135C	63.05%
WC-135W	80.14%

Photo: Wikipedia

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RAAF F-18F Super Hornet Value

Defence may have some work to do on their message in regard to how much it costs to fly military aircraft. That is if anyone actually cared other than a few people.

In a previous post, I pointed out cost per flying hour for some of these aircraft for the 2018-2019 budget year.

Some were similar to what was observed for years. Some were a bit wild.

In the budget it mentioned that  $436M was budgeted for F-18F Super Hornet sustainment. Flying hours done in that year showed up in the next budget year. 3700 flying hours.  With, a cost per flying hour of $117,837.

This article is about 10 years of F-18F Super Hornet service with the RAAF.  It mentions the award of a 4 year, $280M contract for what appear to be avionics support for both the F-18F and the EA-18G.

"Today all 24 aircraft are still operational, flown by 1 Sqn and supported by an Air Force/Industry partnership under the Air Combat Electronic Attack Sustainment Program (ACEASP), which also supports the Growler fleet. The team consists of Boeing Defence Australia (which replaced Boeing in July 2016) as the prime contractor, together with sub-contractors Raytheon Australia, Northrop Grumman Australia, Airspeed, Pacific Aerospace Consulting and Martin Baker Australia.
In March, the ACEASP was awarded a four-year, $280 million, sustainment contract extension until 2025. Life of type for the Super Hornet is currently 2030 for the Super Hornet and 2035 for the Growler."

What is the breakdown of that $70M per year into the F-18F and EA-18G annual sustainment budgets?

Budget figures from years ago show that the F-18F Super Hornet was about $24,000--$26,000 cost per flight hour.

There is a lot of money being spent on the the F-18F and EA-F-18G.  Finding the cost per flying hour from public documents, will be difficult.

photo: Defence

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