Late Night Defense Ruminations

Its quite late here down under and admittedly I have had a few beers.  But I feel a need to rant about the state of a few US defense projects.  Just because I have read a fair amount in the milblog community and don't feel adequately knowledgeable to comment on those sites.

First, Joint Strike Fighter.  JSF was supposed to be a savior for the next generation of air defense fighters.  Cheaper than the F-22, and sharing most of the airframe across the USAF, USN, and USMC, it was suppose to fix the fighter gap that will be apparent in the next few years.  Congress, unintelligently in my humble uninformed opinion, canceled F-22.  While the Raptor is expensive and only available for the USAF, at least it worked.  It was on track in production now after some delays and cost overruns.  But it was being manufactured and flown.  Keeping that program on track would have kept cost down.  I don't agree with exporting it to Japan, but then again, I don't like the exportation of our major combat systems in general.  Now we are stuck with JSF which is way behind in production and testing and seemingly being advertised to both the US and our allies as something it is not yet capable of.  Its not a 5th gen fighter, for any sort of range or payload, it needs external mountings, negating much of its stealth.  It is not an air superiority fighter.  In its USAF mission it is meant to fly with F-22s.  In its Navy mission, it is really meant as a strike fighter.  With the retirement of the F-14, the Navy has mostly abandoned the idea of its carrier based fighter aircraft that have a sole mission of protecting the fleet from opposing air assets.  JSF is one of the prime examples of a program gone wrong.

Another program that some point out as being a disaster is DDG 1000.  It is over budget, has been slashed in numbers down to 3 ships and is generally avoided like the plague, at least at Carderock.  No one wants to work with it.  I for one, if I had to work in surface ships, would want to work on Zumwalt.  Yes, it is a relative flop compared to what it was advertised as.  It is not and can not be what it was designed to be.  Maybe it has stability issues or is too expensive.  But, I feel the three ships of the Zumwalt class destroyer will teach the Navy quite a bit.  It is a technology demonstration ship, as was the Seawolf class of submarines.  Yes, it is expensive.  So was Seawolf.  But what the Navy and industry learns from DDG 1000 will be more valuable than then upgrading of DDG 57 hulls as Flight III or Flight IV ships.  Indeed, the Flight II and IV Arleigh Burkes will be based on what is learned from Zumwalt.  Jimmy Carter has been more valuable than many will ever know about.  Zumwalt and her sister ships will be the same way.  The Navy did well to give them all to Bath Iron Works.  They will be well constructed and be as reliable as the design can be.  All ships have operational profiles, Zumwalt will be no different.  It is worth it, and those who say otherwise are not looking ahead.  The Navy does need smaller less expensive ships to do its dirty work.  Lessons can be learned from Zumwalt and maybe even LCS, who knows.  Perhaps by the time LCS is on track, Zumwalt technologies will be incorporated.   

Finally, there is subs.  Subs are the only program in the US Navy that come in under budget and at an accelerated schedule.  Newport News and EB both have issues from time to time, but boats being late or over budget are not one of them.  We know how to build subs.  Sometimes there are operational issues as well, but since Thresher, we have not lost a boat which considering their operational profile is impressive.  There are some voices that cry out for diesel or air independent propulsion subs.  The US Sub fleet is about power projection.  We don't need boats in the Caribbean.  Diesel subs that need forward bases are not what we need or should put money in to.  Again, selling boats to Taiwan is something I don't agree with.  We can help the Aussies develop their own boat, but we don't need to build it for them.  Which is an interesting position since I will be learning AIP boats while down here.  Building them as a training subs for the nuke boats to track isn't really worth the time.  I kid that building non nuke subs to put the woman submariners on would solve two problems in one but in reality I don't feel it is worth it.  Nix both "problems" and you won't have to build extra unwanted subs, or extra unwanted quarters and heads.  We can track the Aussies of Germans if we want the practice.  Submariners would want EB and even NGSB involved in the design and construction of their boats.  And building SubSafe AIP boats will likely not be as inexpensive as those who want them are willing to pay for.  Yes Unions are dumb from time to time.  But they produce damn fine boats, ones that I am happy to send Carelli out on, because they will come back up.

So obviously, much of this rant has no supporting info.  But it makes me feel better getting it out.  JSF is a disaster, we should keep the F-22 line up and running.  I have no idea what the Navy should do to replace the F-18 but that's not my job.  DDG 1000 might look backwards to even a NavArch, but it will prove all of its technologies and will make the next DDG worth it.  Zumwalt will be a good thing, I believe that.  Maybe more worthwhile than LCS, which I didn't rant about.  And the US sub program is the model of acquisition.  We will see how Ohio replacement goes, but if it is handled like Virginia, it will be a breath of fresh air.  Diesel and AIP boats are not something we should be looking at.  They will not help sea control missions any.  They will be a logistical difficulty.  And they will distract from what the good yards are really good at, building nuclear boats, with unlimited range, uncomprehendable speed and operational depth, and a really good acquisitions program.