The overall reliability of Lockheed Martin Corp's (LMT.N) F-35 fighter jets is being pulled down by initial versions of the aircraft which do not perform as well as more recently delivered jets, the Pentagon's head of the F-35 program said on Tuesday.What is going on here?
The program has experienced extensive delays and cost overruns, but the price per jet has steadily declined as production increased, Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan of the U.S. Department of Defense said at Australia's Avalon Airshow.
As U.S. President Donald Trump pushes Lockheed Martin and its suppliers to cut costs, Bogdan said the price per jet should fall to $80 million by 2020 from $94.6 million at present.
The first F-35 aircraft were delivered to the U.S. military in 2011. With some of those earlier aircraft, production advances means they underperform newer models, Bogdan said.
"Unfortunately today the aircraft reliability and maintainability of the airplane is what I would call flat," he said. "It is not bad. It is just not getting a whole lot better really fast. You separate out their (Lockheed Martin's) good airplanes, they are getting better, faster. But not if you include the older airplanes. We have to work on that."
"Eventually when we modify those older airplanes up to the standards of the newer airplanes we will have a fleet that is fairly robust," Bogdan told reporters.
 |
| A South Korean Student Soldier During the Korean War, Days Before he is Killed by Advancing North Korean Troops. His Letter for his Mother is Discovered on his Body via Historium Tumblr Page. |
Thursday, August 10th, 1950It's a shame he couldn't keep his word to his mom. War doesn't care about promises or hopes/dreams...or loved ones.
“Mother, today I killed a man
I threw a terrifying device called a grenade and it killed him instantly
The explosion nearly tore out my ear drums
Even as I write, my ear is filled with dreadful echo.
As much as an enemy they are to me, it pains my heart knowing that the people I’m shooting at are my people who I share the same blood and language with
And as if death is approaching, my fellow student comrades lay hopelessly in the sun, as if the enemy might advance any moment.
The enemy is dead silent, I do not know when they shall strike.
They have countless foes, we only have 71.
I am scared because I do not know what to do next.
Mother, there is a chance I might die today
It’s unlikely that those numerous soldiers would just ignore us
Mother, it’s not that I’m afraid of death
I’m afraid that I shall never see you or my siblings again.
However, I shall live
I promise I will survive
Mother, my heart is starting to settle now.
Mother, I shall survive and be at your side again.
I want to eat fresh lettuce wrap right now
I want to slurp down on cold noodles until my teeth fall off beside the waterfall.
Ah, the enemies are coming now.
I shall write again.
Mother goodbye! Goodbye! Ah, it’s not goodbye.
For I shall write again.
Until then.
A senior Navy intelligence leader whose provocative comments this year about Chinese bellicosity stirred an international controversy has been shelved in the wake of an investigation into his conduct, Navy Times has learned.Capt Fanell was punished for trying to warn the nation about a danger to its very existence. ISIS is a sideshow. Russia isn't a threat and even if they were the EU nations could handle it. China. China is the danger but few want to wrap their heads around that reality.
Capt. James Fanell, the director of intelligence and information operations at U.S. Pacific Fleet, has been removed from that position by PACFLT boss Adm. Harry Harris and reassigned within the command, Navy officials confirmed.
Fanell warned during a February public appearance that a recent Chinese amphibious exercise led naval intelligence to assess that China's strategy was to be able to launch a "short, sharp war" with Japan, an unusually frank assessment about a closely watched region.
His comments, which ran counter to the Pentagon's talking points on building ties to the increasingly assertive Chinese navy, were picked up by media outlets from The New York Times and Reuters to London's Financial Times and Daily Telegraph. Top defense officials, including the 4-star head of the Army and the Pentagon spokesman, were forced to respond to his comment in the following days.
Boeing (NYSE: BA) has received a potential two-year, $678.7 million contract to build seven lot 40 EA-18G Growler aircraft, five F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jets and related aerial electronic attack kits for the U.S. Navy.Some will undoubtedly focus on the number of aircraft procured. From my seat that's the wrong metric. I believe that the aircraft are needed but the main goal of this contract is to provide the seed corn necessary for Boeing to secure the production line/expertise/workforce. But even that isn't the real goal. I believe the US Navy is seeking to set the stage to ensure a quick ramp up in production when the new defense bill is signed.
The company will perform work in California, Missouri, Minnesota, New York, Texas, Arizona, Ohio and Canada through February 2019 under the sole-source, fixed-price contract, the Defense Department said Monday.
The Naval Air Systems Command will obligate the full contract amount from the service branch’s aircraft procurement funds for fiscal 2016 at the time of award.
The Growler is a variant of the F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jet and has Advanced Electronically Scanned Array radar, air-to-air missiles, digital datalinks and tactical jamming platforms that work against hostile air defenses.
The Boeing-made Super Hornet is a twin-engine fighter jet that has enclosed weapons pod and conformal fuel tanks and is designed to land and take off from an aircraft carrier.
Sometime in the late 4th or early 5th century, as the late Roman Empire stumbled along in the twilight of its power, an author of whom almost nothing is known compiled a book on the art of war to present to the emperor.And then this.
Rome’s economy was soft, its politics corrupt, but what most concerned the author was the creeping disintegration of the one institution that at least kept those other two extant: the military.
Like the rest of Roman society, its once mighty fighting force had fallen victim to decadence. Whereas the army of the early empire had consisted of highly disciplined, well-trained Roman regulars, the standards of the legendary legionaries had fallen, as had their numbers; a much smaller standing army was now supplemented with auxiliary units composed of barbarian mercenaries.
Epitoma Rei Militaris (Epitome of Military Science) by Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus (known simply as Vegetius) was an attempt to get the emperor to remedy the military’s weaknesses before it was too late. “Epitome” here refers to a summary, as Vegetius’ work was not an entirely original composition, but rather a collection of “commentaries on the art of war abridged from authors of the highest repute.” The Epitome of Military Science collects the wisdom of Rome’s early military commanders on organization, equipment, arms, leadership, logistics, and more. The book contains both practical advice on how to recruit, train, and harden troops of excellence and courage, as well as pithy maxims on tactics and strategy. Vegetius said the work could be called a “Rule-Book of Battle” or the “Art of Victory.”
“For there is nothing stabler nor more fortunate or admirable than a State which has copious supplies of soldiers who are trained. For it is not fine raiment or stores of gold, silver and gems that bend out enemies to respect or support us; they are kept down solely by fear of our arms.”Gents, this one is a must read...there are no new issues, and we can look to history for solutions. Check it out here.
“He who wants victory, let him train soldiers diligently. He who wishes a successful outcome, let him fight with strategy, not at random. No one dares challenge or harm one who he realizes will win if he fights.”
2008 RAND SimulationUS military leadership know a dirty secret that we've been talking about on the pages of SNAFU! for a couple of years now. Yesterday I posted a story brought to our attention from one of my eagle eyed readers about a RAND assessment that in their scenarios the US could lose a major war. That's the second assessment by RAND in a little less than a decade (I shutter at the thought of what the classified war games reveal). The story above was the first open source admission of the truth, but a critical view of other readily available information tells the tale.
In Stillion and Perdue’s August 2008 war simulation, a massive Chinese air and naval force bore down on Beijing’s longtime rival Taiwan amid rising tensions in the western Pacific. A sudden Chinese missile barrage wiped out the tiny, outdated Taiwanese air force, leaving American jet fighters based in Japan and Guam to do battle with Beijing’s own planes and, hopefully, forestall a bloody invasion.
In the scenario, 72 Chinese jets patrolled the Taiwan Strait. Just 26 American warplanes — the survivors of a second missile barrage targeting their airfields — were able to intercept them, including 10 twin-engine F-22 stealth fighters that quickly fired off all their missiles.
That left 16 of the smaller, single-engine F-35s to do battle with the Chinese. As they began exchanging fire with the enemy jets within the mathematical models of the mock conflict, the results were shocking.
America’s newest stealth warplane and the planned mainstay of the future Air Force and the air arms of the Navy and Marine Corps, was no match for Chinese warplanes. Despite their vaunted ability to evade detection by radar, the JSFs were blown out of the sky. “The F-35 is double-inferior,” Stillion and Perdue moaned in their written summary of the war game, later leaked to the press.
The analysts railed against the new plane, which to be fair played only a small role in the overall simulation. “Inferior acceleration, inferior climb [rate], inferior sustained turn capability,” they wrote. “Also has lower top speed. Can’t turn, can’t climb, can’t run.” Once missiles and guns had been fired and avoiding detection was no longer an option — in all but the first few seconds of combat, in other words — the F-35 was unable to keep pace with rival planes.
And partly as a result, the U.S. lost the simulated war. Hundreds of computer-code American air crew perished. Taiwan fell to the 1s and 0s representing Chinese troops in Stillion and Perdue’s virtual world. Nearly a century of American air superiority ended among the wreckage of simulated warplanes, scattered across the Pacific
