2 juin 2020 | International, Naval
By: Valerie Insinna
WASHINGTON — In the coming years, the U.S. Navy will be faced with a decision that will radically shape the carrier air wing: Is the service willing to sacrifice dozens of new Super Hornet jets for the promise of a sixth-generation fighter in the 2030s?
The Navy is opting to buy a final 24 F/A-18E/Fs in fiscal 2021, slashing a planned purchase of at least 36 Super Hornets that would have spanned FY22 through FY24. The move will save $4.5 billion, which the service plans to redirect to its sixth-generation fighter program, known as Next Generation Air Dominance, or F/A-XX.
However, the decision may not be as clear cut — or final — as budget documents make it seem.
The Navy is at the very start of the NGAD development process, having completed an analysis of alternatives in June 2019, as well as broad requirements and guidance for a concept of operations. The effort is now in the concept development phase, during which defense companies explore ideas “that balance advanced air dominance capabilities and long-term affordability/sustainment,” said Navy spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez.
But with an economic downturn potentially leading to even more pressure on the defense budget, the Navy may not have the funds to proceed with NGAD as a clean-sheet fighter jet.
“Although the Navy would like to start developing the next generation of aircraft ... I just don't think — and increasingly people in the department are thinking — there's not going to be the money to devote to this next generation of fighter,” said Bryan Clark, an analyst with the Hudson Institute and a retired naval officer.
“I think they are going to fall back to looking at F/A-XX as a modification or an evolution of the F-35,” he said. “Instead of the other half of the air wing being some new aircraft, you'll have a combination of F-35Cs and then some modified version of the F-35 or a modified Super Hornet."
Jerry Hendrix, a retired Navy captain and an analyst with the Telemus Group, said the service's enthusiasm for F/A-XX is a sign of a continued preference for manned aviation as well as a desire to shut out any hope of fielding a long-range, penetrating strike drone.
“I've always been in favor of extending the Hornet production line because it is solid and stable,” Hendrix said. “But the extension was based on the proviso that we're extending in order to get to an unmanned combat aerial vehicle. If it was an extension to get to the next manned fighter ... we're missing the idea of what the future competitive environment, or really the present competitive environment, is all about.”
A tightrope of risk
The Navy has grappled in prior years with the question of whether to cease production of the Super Hornet in favor of a future fighter, and it is an argument that lawmakers are wary of.
The Navy first planned to stop buying the F/A-18 in its FY15 budget — a decision made to fund the transition to the F-35. But technical issues and delays pushed out the fielding of the Navy's F-35C takeoff-and-landing model for aircraft carriers to 2018, leaving the service dependent on a fleet of aging, battle-worn F/A-18s in need of a service-life extension. The Navy ended up listing the F/A-18 on its unfunded priorities list, and Congress followed by funding enough Super Hornets to keep Boeing's line running.
“If we go back a few years and we look at what happened when we thought we were going to plant the F-35, we let the F-18 slide down,” Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., said in a March 10 hearing. Norcross is the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces.
The process of standing up the F-35C was much slower than expected, and the Navy ended up buying additional F/A-18s to bridge the capability gap, he said. “Yet, here we are getting ready to curtail 36 Super Hornets because we are expecting, you know, the F/A-XX to come online,” he added.
Asked how he could be confident that F/A-XX would stay on schedule, Rear Adm. Gregory Harris, the Navy's director of air warfare, said he could provide lawmakers a more detailed defense of the Navy's Next Generation Air Dominance family of systems in a classified setting.
“We're working closely with the Air Force to ensure the systems that we put on that have the [technology readiness level] that gives us confidence that we can achieve that aircraft on time in the early 2030s to replace the F/A-18E/F as it reaches the end of its service life,” Harris said.
Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler, the subcommittee's top Republican, pointed out that the Navy already has a fighter shortfall of about 49 aircraft, with additional F/A-18s being pulled from the operational fleet into a service-life extension period that will take at least a year.
“I feel like this is too much operational risk,” she said. “If you add all those up, this is a severe shortage that we are experiencing, and if you don't account for the attrition rate, actually in combat we would have a very large gap there potentially.”
James Geurts, the Navy's assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition, said there is always risk when transitioning from legacy to new aircraft, but that improved mission-capable rates and a steady flow of jets moving through upgrades will help balance the shortfall.
“We're taking risk until the late 2020s. I think 2029 is when we will get to the full fighter inventory, and so we had to take some risk as we balance that,” he said.
The most likely scenario is that, as the Navy presses forward with its plan to curtail funding for F/A-18s, Congress will simply continue buying more of them, Hendrix said.
But one unanswered question is whether lawmakers will also intervene to force the Navy to consider a wider range of aviation options that could give the carrier air wing longer legs.
“I'm hopeful that there will be a broader conversation, led by Congress and the administration, perhaps together, to say: ‘We are looking at the future security environment. We are looking at the Chinese threat. We are looking at what's happening in Taiwan, what's happening [in] Hong Kong and within the first island chain, and we really need to have this new capability of long-range, penetrating strike,' ” Hendrix said.
“What I do realize is that because the Navy is very conservative right now in how it's approaching its procurement programs, the Navy will not be the one to say we need this mission.”
No matter what the Navy decides, it could impact its procurement of the MQ-25 unmanned tanker drone currently under development by Boeing. Hendrix sees the MQ-25 program as a likely bill payer, particularly if the service continues to buy Hornets.
“What was the reason for the MQ-25? It was to take the strain off from the Hornets,” which were being used to refuel other F/A-18s and burning through their service lives faster than anticipated, Hendrix said. “When you reopen the Hornet production line and you add 120-something new Hornets, you actually took that strain off the Hornet fleet. So there really isn't a requirement now for a recovery tanker.”
Clark agrees that the Navy should develop a long-range unmanned combat aircraft but is unlikely to do so.
But should the Navy choose not to proceed with an F/A-XX program, Clark believes the service could funnel some of that money into modifying the MQ-25 to supplement strike, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capacities, and could even end buy more MQ-25s than planned.
“The MQ-25 program, once it gets fielded and proven out, I could see the Navy expanding it,” he said. “I think the operational and programmatic pressures have driven the Navy to embrace the MQ-25, and because it's a complement to the manned aircraft, it's generated less resentment among the manned aviation community.”
12 octobre 2023 | International, Terrestre
Saab will provide the sight- and fire control capability for the BAE Systems’ CV90 ordered by the Czech Republic earlier in 2023 and will carry out the work in Sweden...
21 octobre 2020 | International, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR
Steve Trimble Lee Hudson Finding ever new and efficient ways to sink enemy ships is usually assigned to the U.S. Navy and, to a lesser extent, the Air Force, but not anymore. Though still focused on its primary role of maneuvering against land forces and shooting down air and missile threats, the Army is quietly developing an arsenal of long-range maritime strike options. As the Army carves out an offensive role in the Pentagon's preparations for a mainly naval and air war with China, service officials now seek to develop a capacity for targeting and coordinating strikes on maritime targets with helicopter gunships in the near term and with long-range ballistic missiles by 2025. The Project Convergence 2020 event in September focused the Army on learning how to solve the command and control challenge for a slew of new land-attack capabilities scheduled to enter service by fiscal 2023. The follow-on event next year will expand to include experiments with the Army's command and control tasks in the unfamiliar maritime domain. “I think we have a long way to go in terms of partnering with the Navy for some of the maritime targeting [capabilities],” says Brig. Gen. John Rafferty, the Army's cross-functional team leader for Long-Range Precision Fires. “And I think that'll be a natural evolution into Project Convergence 2021,” Rafferty says, speaking during the Association of the U.S. Army's virtual annual meeting on Oct. 15. The Army operates a small, modest fleet of watercraft, including logistics support vessels and Runnymede-class large landing craft, but service officials have been content to respond to attacks on enemy ships at sea with the Navy's surface combatants and carrier-based fighter squadrons. Last year, the Air Force also revived a maritime strike role by activating the Lockheed Martin AGM-158C Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile on the B-1B fleet. But the Army's position has changed. The AH-64E Capability Version 6, which Boeing started developing in 2018, includes a modernized radar frequency interferometer. The receiver can identify maritime radars, allowing the AH-64E to target watercraft at long range for the first time. Meanwhile, the Defense Department's Strategic Capabilities Office started working in 2016 to integrate an existing seeker used for targeting ships into the Army Tactical Missile System (Atacms), which is currently the Army's longest-range surface-to-surface missile at 300 km (162 nm). Beginning in fiscal 2023, the Lockheed Martin Precision Strike Missile (PrSM) is scheduled to begin replacing the Atacms. The Increment 1 version will extend the range of the Army's missiles to 500 km. A follow-on Increment 2 version of PrSM is scheduled to enter service in fiscal 2025, featuring a new maritime seeker now in flight testing by the Army Research Laboratory. “As we begin to develop the PrSM [Increment 2] with the cross-domain capability against maritime and emitting [integrated air defense system] targets, obviously we'll be partnering with the Navy on that,” Rafferty says. Targeting ships from land-based artillery systems is not unique to the Army. The U.S. Marine Corps plans to introduce the Raytheon-Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile, firing the ground-based anti-ship cruise missile from a remotely operated Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. To strike a moving target at ranges beyond the horizon, the Army needs more than an innovative new seeker. A targeting complex linking over-the-horizon sensors with the Atacms and PrSM batteries is necessary. Moreover, the Army will need to adapt command and control procedures to an unfamiliar maritime domain. The annual Project Convergence events offer a laboratory for the Army to prepare the targeting and command and control complex before new weapons enter service. With the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, a medium-range ballistic missile and PrSM also set to enter service in the next three years, the Army is seeking to adapt quickly. Last month, the Army used the first prototype of the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node ground station. An artificial intelligence (AI) program named Prometheus sifted through intelligence information to identify targets. Another AI algorithm called SHOT matched those targets to particular weapons with the appropriate range and destructive power. An underlying fire-control network, called the Advanced Field Artillery Data System, provided SHOT with the location and magazine status of each friendly weapon system. A process that would otherwise take minutes or even hours dwindled—in an experimental setting—to a few seconds. The first Project Convergence event last month focused on the Army's traditional mission against targets on land. The next event will seek to replicate that streamlined targeting process against ships possibly hundreds of miles away. These experiments are intended to help the Army familiarize itself with new tools in the command and control loop, such as automated target-recognition systems and targeting assignments. The event also helps the Army dramatically adapt, in a few years, institutional practices that had endured for decades. “In order for a bureaucracy to change, [it has] to understand the need, and we have to create the use case in order for a bureaucracy to change,” says Gen. Mike Murray, the head of the Army Futures Command. “I think in Project Convergence, what we're able to demonstrate to the senior leaders in the army will further help drive that change.” In a way, the Army is seeking to achieve in the maritime domain a networked sensor and command and control system that the Navy introduced to its fleet nearly two decades ago. To improve the fleet air-defense mission substantially, the Navy's Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) generally develops a common, shared database of tracks from the multiple airborne, surface and subsurface sensors available to a carrier battle group. But the Navy also is building on the CEC standard. In 2016, a Lockheed F-35B demonstrated the ability to develop a target track of an over-the-horizon enemy warship. The track information was sent via the CEC to a launcher for a Raytheon SM-6. Although primarily an air- and missile-defense interceptor, in this case the SM-6 demonstrated an anti-ship role. A follow-on development SM-6 Block 1B is expected to optimize the weapon system as a long-range, anti-ship ballistic missile with hypersonic speed. More recently, the Navy has been quietly experimenting with its own series of Project Convergence-like experiments. Known as the Navy Tactical Grid experiments, the Navy and Marine Corps organized a series of demonstrations in fiscal 2019, according to the latest budget justification documents. Building on the common operating picture provided by the CEC, the Navy Tactical Grid is possibly experimenting with similar automation and machine-learning algorithms to streamline and amplify the targeting cycle dramatically. A new initiative is now replacing the Navy Tactical Grid experiments. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday tapped Rear Adm. Douglas Small, the head of Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, to lead the effort known as Project Overmatch. Small must provide a strategy, no later than early December, that outlines how the Navy will develop the networks, infrastructure, data architecture, tools and analytics to support the operational force. This includes linking hundreds of ships, submarines, unmanned systems and aircraft. “Beyond recapitalizing our undersea nuclear deterrent, there is no higher developmental priority in the U.S. Navy,” Gilday wrote in an Oct. 1 memo that revealed the existence of Project Overmatch. Aviation Week obtained a copy of the document. “I am confident that closing this risk is dependent on enhancing Distributed Maritime Operations through a teamed manned-unmanned force that exploits artificial intelligence and machine learning.” While Small is tasked with creating the “connective tissue,” Gilday directs Vice Adm. James Kilby, deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities (N9), with accelerating development of unmanned capabilities and long-range fires, Gilday wrote in a separate Oct. 1 memo outlining the details of Project Overmatch. Kilby's assessment must include a metric for the Navy to measure progress and a strategy that appropriately funds each component. His initial plan is also due to Gilday in early December. “Drive coherence to our plans with a long-term, sustainable [and] affordable view that extends far beyond the [future years defense plan],” Gilday wrote. https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/missile-defense-weapons/us-army-flexes-new-land-based-anti-ship-capabilities
26 juillet 2021 | International, Terrestre
The U.S. Army has chosen five teams to develop rough digital designs for its Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle.