via BlackFive.
The defense budget for 2014 is starting to take shape and we are going to be taking a good look at some of the items in it. Money is obviously tight, so we need to make certain that it is spent wisely and for the right reasons. All too often politics, lobbying and factors that have nothing to do with national security push programs and spending. In an era of austerity we simply can’t afford this.
The Chairman’s mark of the Defense Authorization Act is out and there are many good things in there. Rep. Buck McKeon is a solid advocate for a strong defense and this is his chance to comment on priorities and goals for defense funding. Most of the relatively short document relates to policy and has some requirements for explanations of debacles like Benghazi. But there are also some funding items that don’t make much sense.
One of these is a requirement to buy F-18 aircraft, which is a bit of a head scratcher. We cancelled the F-22 program before we bought anywhere near as many true air superiority fighters as we should have. We have cut back severely the number of F-35s that we plan to buy, but somehow we can find the money to buy a completely different and significantly less capable bird. That smells distressingly like some corporate welfare for Boeing, who makes the F-18.
I am unaware of any purely tactical or strategic military argument for splitting the funding for our fighter aircraft. There was a time back in the day where we had the F-14, 15 & 16 birds with different mission profiles and we let Northrop, Boeing and Lockheed duke it out to see how many of each we were going to buy. But we came to the logical conclusion that too often led to a contest between retired generals to feather their own company’s nest.
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I don't have an opinion.
What I do have is simmering anger. No. Make that boiling anger.
I hate being misunderstood so let me try this again.
I DESPISE THE THOUGHT THAT TWO AIRPLANES (F-35 & V-22) ARE GOBBLING UP THE ENTIRE MARINE CORPS BUDGET!!!
How bad are things from my viewpoint? We're going to cut the Marine's manpower to the barebones, not procure much needed replacements to the AAV, not buy the Marine Personnel Carrier, not update our fleet of MTVRs, make a questionable buy of lightly armored JLTVs, all because we are hyper dedicated to getting the F-35 and V-22!
I do not want the very nature of the US Marine Corps changed because of some gear. Gear is suppose to be a tool to help you do the job better, not become the service's reason for being. We do not need to become a quasi air force in green!
NOTE: The issue with the F-35 has been broken down into camps. Either your for it' or you're against it'....I'm in the Marine Corps camp. A real deal medium weight force that is expeditionary, can land on foreign shores, fight and win against technologically capable foes is what I'm all in on. Future foes will have IEDs, anti-armor systems and artillery. Protected transport for the infantry will be a must have. I don't see the AAV as meeting the challenges of the future.
What is this F-35 "capability" I hear so much about?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.box.com/files/0/f/147996487/1/f_2050884250
The reason the USN keeps buying the F/A-18 is that carrier aircraft need regular replacement, the F-35C isn't ready, and the E/F is very reasonably priced. We also haven't cut back on the F-35 unless he's talking year to year vs total buy.
ReplyDeleteThe issue with the Corps probably isn't the F-35 per se but rather the entire tactical aviation fleet being F-35's. Once upon a time the Corps flew cost effective attack aircraft. That said unless the Corps wanted a large number of F-35B's it's a matter of debate whether a new VSTOL (AV-8B) would have been developed.
Which begs the question exactly how useful VSTOL or STOVL is operationally and far more importantly for how much? The vast majority of USMC fighter aircraft do not deploy ashore nor operate from shore utilizing STOVL. Aircraft deploy strategically from one land base to another and operate from regular airfields with rather few exceptions.
The AV-8B force is very useful. An all AV-8B force would be wasteful in terms of dollars and lack various needed capabilities. An all F-35B force is even more wasteful in terms of dollars and while one can argue the F-35 can fill every requirement I'd suggest that if that's true then the requirement of a cost effective bomb truck and/or light attack aircraft wasn't considered.
The F-35 is a game changing world class strike fighter. To point out that expensive strike fighters are not the answer to every equation is not to be against the F-35. That's also one of the major objectives of the F-35 program that wasn't met. The entire notion of replacing cost effective aircraft like the F-16 and A-10 with a state of the art fighter larger than an F-15C was always, in my view, a pipe dream in terms of cost.
It's our damn fault. We didn't enforce the anti-trust laws and they merged until they were too big to fail and could charge an arm and a leg instead of competing.
ReplyDeleteActually we encouraged all those mergers in the 90's to "save" the defense industrial base when we had our procurement holiday. That aside what is our fault was believing a strike fighter was the answer to everything and that if we built enough of them they'd be affordable.
ReplyDelete