Thankfully, the EFV white elephant has been put down. NLOS (missiles) is gone, as is SLAMRAAM for the Army.
* F-35B will go on a “two year probation” and move to the “back of the line” on development behind the “C” and “A” model. More F/A-18EF Super Hornets will be purchased and older F/A-18 Hornets will have their service lives extended for the Marine Corps to make up for the “B” delay or cut.
* EFV is gone. Savings will be used to upgrade the AAV with more armor, better electronics and weaponry.
* Army SLAMRAAM canceled.
* The Non-Line of Sight Launch System gone.
* Drawdown by 27K Soldiers and up to 20K Marines from end strength in 2015
What’s in — Air Force:
* More Air Force Reapers.
* More EELVs.
* Modernize F-15 radars.
* New long range nuclear strike bomber — that can be “optionally piloted.”
Army:
* More money for Army suicide prevention.
* Modernize the Abrams, Bradley and Stryker vehicle.
* More MC-12 surveillance aircraft.
* Quicker development of Grey Eagle UAV.
* Quicker development of vertical UAS.
Navy:
* More money for jammers.
* More money to upgrade and refit Marine Corps equipment used up in war.
* More money and accelerated development of an unmanned strike capability.
* Life extension for 150 F-18s.
* New ship classes, including a destroyer, LCS, oilers and ocean surveillance craft.
Missile Defense:
* More long range interceptors.
* More radar sites in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
I cant say the F-35B problems are that much of a surprise, given the views of people here that I trust on these things.
I guess...well, that's going to leave the new America class amphibs, as well as probably quite a few foreign carriers (Italy, Spain, for starters) reliant on Harriers and helos.
NLOS was already dead, this just settles the question of a Navy only version would be pursued. LCS is now more worthless then ever without anything heavier then a six pound shell for anti surface. SLAMRAAM has been canceled before and keeps rising from the dead because we'd need it if anyone ever had any worthwhile aerial opposition for us, but more and more it looks like Patriot-MEADS is the minimal credible air defense system anyway. Not a big deal in my mind because it could be produced fairly quickly in the future when realties change.
Glad to see funding for a new bombing creeping along but until they start doing real work, and thus a contractor has senators to call up, I can't see the funding as being very safe. Cuts in manpower and operations are the place to save money, this option is being taken but thanks to the administration redeploying everyone to Afghanistan it doesn't mean much.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Just out of curiousity, has anyone examine what the impact would be like on a future US force vs Chinese? The Chinese appears to be have been successfully investing money in catching up on vital technologies, creating a new stealth fighter prototype and missiles, improving their C3 systems and etc whereas the next generation US technologies appear(???) to have been bogged down for being too revolutionary or excess to needs.
Let him land on any Lyran world to taste firsthand the wrath of peace loving people thwarted by the myopic greed of a few miserly old farts- Katrina Steiner
PainRack wrote:Just out of curiousity, has anyone examine what the impact would be like on a future US force vs Chinese? The Chinese appears to be have been successfully investing money in catching up on vital technologies, creating a new stealth fighter prototype and missiles, improving their C3 systems and etc whereas the next generation US technologies appear(???) to have been bogged down for being too revolutionary or excess to needs.
Yes, but are the things the Chinese are working on as good as what the Americans currently deploy? I mean, just because there are problems with the F-35B, what does that have to do with an analysis of the F-22 vs whatever the new Chinese 5th Gen fighter is?
More curious to know what this would mean vis a vis the ability for China to project power in the Pacific vs the US ability to stop them.
Let him land on any Lyran world to taste firsthand the wrath of peace loving people thwarted by the myopic greed of a few miserly old farts- Katrina Steiner
Too bad there's no more F-22 resurrection, but the new bomber will more than make up for that, if it actually does happen.
What do they mean by "a new destroyer", are they talking about the "Arleigh Burke Flight III"?
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
A bit of a side track but how old is the Abrams? 30 years? They are just going to keep on modernizing them or will they be replacing it sometime in the near future? Or is the Abrams good enough for now that there's no need for a replacement?
ASVS('97)/SDN('03)
"Whilst human alchemists refer to the combustion triangle, some of their orcish counterparts see it as more of a hexagon: heat, fuel, air, laughter, screaming, fun." Dawn of the Dragons
Enigma wrote:A bit of a side track but how old is the Abrams? 30 years? They are just going to keep on modernizing them or will they be replacing it sometime in the near future? Or is the Abrams good enough for now that there's no need for a replacement?
The M1 design is basically from the late 1970s but we kept producing new ones for the Army and Marines from 1980 into the mid 1990s. No other tank on earth is clearly superior to the latest model of M1 Abrams and the considerable majority are clearly inferior so no reason exists to replace the design. A huge amount could be done to modify and upgrade the design if we felt like spending money short of new vehicles so the US is in no hurry to do anything about it. The current ground vehicle priority is a new infantry fighting vehicle as the Ground Combat Vehicle. More and more talk is being raised about including a new 155mm howitzer role for the GCV hull; this is the other glaring limit of US Army strength. The M109 is way older then the M1 and it IS clearly inferior to what other people are already using.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
Seaskimmer: Aren't the planned M1A3 tanks supposed to be new builds?
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
Isn't the F-35B the STOVL version? The one us lucky Brits want to fly off our new carrier? Perfect, more delays. Woo-hoo.
And what btw is SLAMRAAM? Sounds like something Shroomy would come up with.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Eternal_Freedom wrote:And what btw is SLAMRAAM? Sounds like something Shroomy would come up with.
I don't know for sure, but with military naming conventions, a good guess is a surface launched version of the AMRAAM (Advanced Medium Ranged Air to Air Missile). Which of course makes the AAM part of the acronym no longer applicable, but who said it had to make sense?
Eternal_Freedom wrote:Isn't the F-35B the STOVL version? The one us lucky Brits want to fly off our new carrier? Perfect, more delays. Woo-hoo.
Wanted to, you guys canceled it at your Defense Review last Fall in favour of the F-35C. The F-35B carries far less fuel and munitions than the A and C, and the LiftSystem adds another degree of complexity which increases the maintenance needs (and $$$) and chance of a failure. The F-35B is also having problems with the LiftSystem, that being the pressure and heat on a bare carrier deck is causing them to buckle; the USN estimated that if we were to operate it as it is they would reduce the lifespan of our carrier decks to only 45% of our carrier's service life. You guys should've never invested in the F-35B to begin with anyhow, since the QE-class is large enough for a catapult.
You, however won't be able to operate the F-35C until the Prince of Wales is finished. What's going to happen is the Queen 'Liz is going to be finished as a STOVL carrier and then immediately go into reserve operations, the Prince Charles (the name is actually PoW but I know how much you guys hate Charles so ) is going to be built as catapult assisted carrier, then the QE is going back into the dockyards (I would assume Rosyth) to be refit with the C-13-1 and C-13-2. IIRC the QE-class is also being designed with an eye towards the EMALS the USN is developing for the Ford-class.
On the SLAMRAAM thing, how can you have a surface-launched air-to-air missile? Unless I suppose the AA is anti-air.
Baltar: "I don't want to miss a moment of the last Battlestar's destruction!"
Centurion: "Sir, I really think you should look at the other Battlestar."
Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."
Corrax Entry 7:17: So you walk eternally through the shadow realms, standing against evil where all others falter. May your thirst for retribution never quench, may the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.
Eternal_Freedom wrote:Ah yes, I forgot we ditched the B. Oops.
On the SLAMRAAM thing, how can you have a surface-launched air-to-air missile? Unless I suppose the AA is anti-air.
It's just an AMRAAM modified with an extra booster so that it becomes a surface to air missile.
STGOD: Byzantine Empire Your spirit, diseased as it is, refuses to allow you to give up, no matter what threats you face... and whatever wreckage you leave behind you.
Kreia
Eternal_Freedom wrote:Ah yes, I forgot we ditched the B. Oops.
On the SLAMRAAM thing, how can you have a surface-launched air-to-air missile? Unless I suppose the AA is anti-air.
See what I said. AMRAAM, rather than the words behind the acronym, is effectively the name of the missile, and they added SL for surface launched in front of AMRAAM. Welcome to U.S. military naming conventions.
Also, SLAMRAAM is, when you get right down to it, not a bad name for a missile. I for one would be very averse to having someone fire SLAMRAAMs at me, even without knowing anything about how they work or what they're capable of. That just sounds like it's going to hurt- sort of like a "Hellfire" or a "Javelin."
So it's an entirely suitable name for a missile, even if the resulting acronym is a little silly.
I too am curious as to why they're still continuing with the LCS; what are the major incentives for keeping it around?
Years back, I won a contract to design a fix for the horrible exhaust systems of the ELV. The thing was a pig, and I can't say I blame them for tossing it into the bin.
This is my signature. Soon a fan-boy will use it for an ad hominem.
Simon_Jester wrote:Also, SLAMRAAM is, when you get right down to it, not a bad name for a missile. I for one would be very averse to having someone fire SLAMRAAMs at me, even without knowing anything about how they work or what they're capable of. That just sounds like it's going to hurt- sort of like a "Hellfire" or a "Javelin."
So it's an entirely suitable name for a missile, even if the resulting acronym is a little silly.
I too am curious as to why they're still continuing with the LCS; what are the major incentives for keeping it around?
The SLAMRAAM seems to have been overlapping with the capabilities of the MEADS, anyways.
Turns out that a five way cross over between It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the Ali G Show, Fargo, Idiocracy and Veep is a lot less funny when you're actually living in it.
So if I understand this, there hasn't actually been a decrease in military spending, there's been a decrease in the growth of military spending thanks to the DoD basically laying off a bunch of admirals and deciding to spend their infinite fun bucks on other, more different toys.
Pelranius wrote:
The SLAMRAAM seems to have been overlapping with the capabilities of the MEADS, anyways.
At its top end it does, but the main point of SLAMRAAM is you can make it work with three hummves. Command post, one towing a one axle Sentinel radar trailer, and one launcher. This combination could be air lifted by three and possibly two Chinook helicopters. Thus a fairly robust defense against fixed wing aircraft and tactical guided air weapons can be deployed anywhere we want quickly. The only other highly mobile system we have now is Stinger, and no MANPADS can be all that effective. Life would be better if we had Chaparral rolling around with AIM-9X.
MEADS meanwhile is a program the US Army has flat out said does not meet its requirements; though they won't specify what those are. Its living because its joint with Italy and Germany both of whom desire a direct replacement for HAWK and use HAWK to defend US bases in Europe. As such it has a rather large and somewhat clumsy design like HAWK had, with two different radar types and everything carried on a big convoy of 6x6 trucks. With no provisions for any other missile MEADS will be held back by the short range of PAC-3 which may not even be enough to match helicopter anti tank missiles in the future. I suspect this is what the Army objects too. An active radar full size Patriot missile was tested around 2000 called PAC-M with full 100km+ range, but it never had any production funding. But this would require larger FC radars to go with it.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
) is going to be built as catapult assisted carrier, then the QE is going back into the dockyards (I would assume Rosyth) to be refit with the C-13-1 and C-13-2. IIRC the QE-class is also being designed with an eye towards the EMALS the USN is developing for the Ford-class.
