SNAFU!

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

F-22s intercepting Russian Bear-Hs near Alaska today's morning.

Thanks to Filippo for the pic!

A reader said that the TU-95 is a beautiful beast and I have to agree. I guess 100 year bombers are all en vogue these days cause I don't see this warhorse being sent out to pasture for awhile.

Light Amphibious Warship (LAW)...the more I hear about this concept the more I absolutely HATE it...

The more the USMC attempt to explain the Light Amphibious Warship and its future of operations the more I absolutely hate it. Quite honestly it seems like they've thrown stuff against the wall and they're hoping it can stick...while at the same time fooling us all with buzzwords and at the same time moving at light speed (for a bureaucracy) to get it across the finish line before anyone can protest.

Check out a few tidbits from USNI News.

In contrast, the LAW ships would remain outside the ARG/MEU structure, an official at the Marine Corps’ Combat Development and Integration (CD&I) directorate told USNI News. They would be based in areas where shore-to-shore movement of Marines and gear could be needed – places like the South China Sea if China were to fight for the islands and sea space it claims as its own, or the Baltic Sea if Russia were to make another land grab against a neighboring country – and would support the movement of Marine Littoral Regiments moving quickly from one piece of land to the next to conduct missions under the Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO) concept.

Lt. Gen. Eric Smith, the deputy commandant for combat development and integration and the head of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, told USNI News in a recent interview that LAW “is a smaller version of a traditional amphib but much more able to hide in plain sight, much more affordable, much more numerous because of its cost.”

Is he shitting me? What kind of thinking is that? So suddenly we don't have to worry about enemy ISR because this magical, mystical amphibious ship can "hide in plain sight"? But wait there's more!

The LAW requirements process was a “50/50” effort between the two services, Smith said.

“It was us saying, look, we need it to carry this many Marines and this many short tons, and we had the Navy saying, look, I can afford this sized crew if you’re talking that number of vessels,” Smith said.
“And we came to an agreement on major characteristics of the ship. So it was 50/50 right down the middle.”

According to the CD&I official, the LAW is going to be a pivotal part of how the Marines operate in certain areas of the world.

“Multiple threat-based wargames, scenarios, force structure reviews and the Commandant’s Planning Guidance have identified shore-to-shore littoral maneuver as the critical capability necessary to enable naval expeditionary forces to conduct distributed maritime operations in an archipelagic environment. The ultimate solution must be affordable, and seaworthy, a beachable platform, covering intra-theater distances, delivering a credible deterrence and combat force,” according to the official.

Here we go again. 75 Marines plus gear? So we're back to a missile force that gets on islands and prays to God that they aren't found, fixed and neutralized after their first shot.

“To improve their ability to perform various missions in coming years, including a potential mission of countering Chinese forces in a possible conflict in the Western Pacific, the Navy and Marine Corps want to implement a new operational concept called Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO). DMO calls for U.S. naval forces (meaning the Navy and Marine Corps) to operate at sea in a less concentrated, more distributed manner, so as to complicate an adversary’s task of detecting, identifying, tracking, and targeting U.S. naval forces, while still being able to bring lethal force to bear against adversary forces,” the report reads.

So instead of mutually supporting fires, we're going to distribute ourselves, have individuals ships focused and destroyed and we're going to do the same with our forces ashore?

This thing is a nightmare.

This will not work and countering it will be child's play.

The Chinese could simply designate one Burke equivalent and a couple of fighter squadrons to each island (assuming they even make it ashore) and pummel them till the micro fragment.

The real problem?

We keep looking for a magic solution to warfare. SOCOM ran into the problem by thinking that conducting high value raids against terrorist leadership would win the fight. After decades of such actions it still hasn't made a difference.

We've seen variations on the theme in Afghanistan with first fighting the Taliban, then trying to make it an Afghanistani fight and now we're finally trying to negotiate...oh and I left out all the money wasted to build up institutions that have yet to take hold after two decades of trying.

This is the same path we're taking with fighting the Chinese.

Nothing is easy. There are no short cuts. You have to accept the realities of peer vs peer warfare. There will be losses, there will be deaths, there will be suffering.

That is why war is so horrific. Until we put nothing but robots on the battlefield it will be a truly terrible thing.

Open Comment Post. 10 June 2020

Shocking News....USMC: Moog's Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform too heavy for JLTV

Story via Janes.

US Marine Corps (USMC) leaders are moving on with plans to field a new ground-based air-defence system built around the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) to defeat manned and unmanned aircraft. However, challenges integrating Moog’s Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform (RIwP) onto the vehicle led, in part, to programme delays and the service’s hunt for a different turret, Janes has learned.

Initially, the service had anticipated using the RIwP for its Marine Air Defense Integrated System [MADIS] Increment 1 programme but associated weight and egress hurdles pushed the service to seek a “lighter turret”, according to Fiscal Year 2021 (FY 2021) budget request documents.

“The MADIS programme is built on the premise of integrating mature components into the recently fielded JLTV as a means of getting capability to the warfighter in an expeditious and cost-effective manner,” Barb Hamby, a spokesperson for the Program Executive Officer (PEO) Land Systems, told Janes in a 3 June email. “Early challenges experienced while integrating army and Marine Corps developed components into a JLTV required the programme office to seek alternative solutions for the turret, command and control (C2), and effector systems.”

Although these changes have delayed the programme, Hamby said the service is still anticipating fielding a “relevant capability” by the fourth quarter of FY 2022.

Under the MADIS effort, the USMC envisions fielding two vehicle variants dubbed Mk1 and Mk2. The MADIS Mk1 includes a turret-launched Stinger missile, multi-functional electronic warfare (EW) capability, direct fire weapon, electro optical infra-red (EO/IR) optic, and a shoulder-fired Stinger missile for dismounted operations, according to the service. The MADIS Mk2, meanwhile, is envisioned as the counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) variant and includes a multi-function EW capability, 360° radar, direct fire weapon, EO/IR optic, and supporting C2 communications suite.

I'm shocked.

I really thought MOOG had this thing ironed out and it was ready to go. This is a major setback. Ground Based Anti-Air is a long running problem for Fleet Marine Forces and I thought they had it solved.

Back to the drawing board.

A missed opportunity for MOOG, a new and major opportunity for another manufacturer.

Tuesday, June 09, 2020

J-10 fighter jets take off for air combat training

Finnish Army receives Sisu GTP 4x4 test vehicles

Story here.

Late 70s concept art of USS Long Beach (CGN-9) rebuilt as a prototype for the Strike Cruiser

via Reddit

In the late 1970s, DARPA had proposed a new warship concept to the US Navy - the Strike Cruiser (CSGN). Its design was an evolution of the California and Virginia class nuclear-powered cruisers (originally classified as frigates), and was created as a response to the Soviet Kirov class cruisers.

The 17,000t ship would've been equipped with Aegis combat system, a pair of twin-arm Mk26 missile launchers (for Standard and ASROC missiles), four quad launchers for the Harpoon anti-ship missiles, eight Tomahawk land attack and anti-ship cruise missiles, and would mount the Mark 71 8-inch gun. For ASW, planned were both the hull-mounted and towed sonar systems, torpedo tubes, and a pair of LAMPS helicopters.

In 1976, the cost of a single ship was estimated at $1.37 billion and the ship was to be completed in December 1983. At that time the cost of a nuclear carrier was approximately $3 billion. A prototype was also proposed in the form of an extensively rebuilt USS Long Beach, with the same weapons and systems, at a cost of $800 million. US Congress didn't have much interest in these proposals, and instead opted out for a proposal to put Aegis on the hull of a Spruance class destroyer, which was then reclassified as a cruiser - the Ticonderoga class.

Two more proposals for a Strike Cruiser had emerged afterwards. One was to build Harrier-capable "aviation cruiser" similar to the Kirov class, and another was CGN-42, a derivative of the Virginia class CGN equipped with Aegis, but neither proposal was accepted.

Here is an interesting article on the Strike Cruiser concept, from Norman Polmar