B-2's Bomb ISIS!

H/T Edpop at F-16.net This is pretty much a repeat of what I posted at F-16.net

It is interesting that CNN focuses on the body count.

It does gives proof to the old adage "If it bleeds it leads' but my, how 'Southeast Asia 1965' of them.

What's more important: Were the right terrorists killed. This is pretty much a repeat of what I posted at F-16.net

Q: Why use B-2s?
A: So ISIS never saw us coming.

Q: Why 2 B-2s to drop 38 weapons when 1 can carry 80 500lb JDAMs?
A: To bomb both locations at the same time, like probably down to the last second unless they wanted to cause a response in one first by bombing the other. And more than 38-40 would have probably been overkill.

Q: Was this cost-effective?
A: Aside from killing the terrorists who would have carried out attacks in Europe and probably elsewhere now and later (CNN and their 'militants'....F*! both.) it probably:

a.  flattened their training facilities, weapons building capability and stockpile and the trainers of future terrorists,  

b. it will also make the survivors look up in the sky at night and loose their beauty sleep.

The immediate and later costs of letting any attacks happen probably far outweighed the cost of flying 2 B-2s and expending a few bombs.

There are some less obvious positives about this, given the 'international' interest in the region, but I will not air them here.

Now  expect some slacker in the media to use the 'kitchen sink' definition of $/FH to rail against the strike as 'wasteful' in 5...4...3...2...

On a personal note...

I had a very small role in fielding the Smart Bomb Rack Assembly (Smart BRA: gotta' love it). I suppose since they dropped only 38 JDAMs they could have used the Rotary Launchers (RLAs) but that's OK too, since I also played a small role developing and testing the smart weapons interface that allowed GATS/GAM then JDAMs etc. to be dropped as well.

I feel pretty good about all that right now.

Updated 20 Jan 17: Well now the reports coming in say 'over 100' JDAMs, and some specifically assert 110 JDAMs were dropped in two camps. It appears by some accounts there were to be up to four camps targeted initially but the terrorists had consolidated as well as relocated between the time the missions were conceived and executed. I'm sure the AF still enjoys it when targets bunch up. 

It would have been hard to move assets around the Middle East to hit Libya like this without contrarian interests leaking it beforehand, I still remember Operation Allied Force and how ops departures out of Comiso seemed to be on TV in real time. The message here is: you won't see us coming unless we want you to.   

As it perhaps looked like a last tasking from Former President Obama to our enemies, I imagine they were just as surprised as some of the media appear to be when a Buff and UAVs took out a few AlQaeda in Syria in followup. 

Northrop Grumman's B-21 Bomber Concept Revealed

Newly released B-21 unclassified computer art? Deja Vu Baby!

The artist's concept revealed by the Air Force for the newly-revealed B-21 "bomber" (will that moniker survive or will it become something else when it is all said and done?) is "Deja Vu all over again". Cool.

Contrast the B-21 computer sketch just released:

...with the first artistic rendering of the B-2 for public release:

  

Someone has a sense of humor...and history.

Note the similarities between the two in what is obscured and what is revealed. Both illustrations mask the exhaust design completely and 'shadow' the aft window areas. The B-2's debut drawing had more details shown for the intakes, but there may not be any details to be masked in the B-21's design....or some interesting details left out perhaps?

Both illustrations give ZERO indication of what the underside shape or volume may be. The B-2's leading edge rendering gives a hint to what had become one of its most critical design features: the 'toothpick' leading edge (P.64). I do see something that I find kind of surprising in the B-21 illustration (not going to say what it is until maybe after I talk to some folks) but I wonder now if there's a critical design feature hinted at here that will only come out in time just like the B-2's 'toothpick'?

I'll let our potential enemies' minds boggle over the possibilities. I'll also just enjoy the possibility that the data from original B-2 high-altitude design optimization seems to have come in handy for Northrop Grumman in preparing their winning design.

Minor Snickers

1. So much for all that cranked-kite speculation eh?
2. The conspiracy nuts are going to have a field day with the revelation there has been no prototypes built.    

LRS-B Contract Award to Northrop Grumman Found to be Correct

Which means the protest was found not too valid. Hooray for sanity!
Read about it here.
Ignore the grossly incompetent journalistic failure in the last paragraph. Laura just forgot to ctl-alt-desnark at the end.

Update @ 22:56 Central: The Defense News piece I linked to has since been updated. the offending paragraph I was referring to is no longer last. It read in (offending) part, with the offending bit highlighted:

The timing of the news raised questions about implications to the protest decision, but the Air Force maintained that the official, Richard Lombardi, was not involved in the LRS-B source-selection process and was not the service acquisition executive at the time. The Air Force reassigned Lombardi to duties outside the acquisition portfolio and referred the issue to the Inspector General.

It is a known and verifiable fact that Lombardi was not the responsible "service acquisition executive" at the time. It is known that he was brought in as the responsible executive's replacement, and we know who Lombardi replaced by name and when. Lara Seligman (or her editor) needs to save the 'maintained' verb for unverified assertions.
As to maintaining Lombardi was not involved in the source selection at all, we know 'you can't prove a negative', but you can at least research your subject to get a feel for the probability or possibility that something IS or IS NOT true. For example, I may maintain Lara doesn't strangle puppies for entertainment in her leisure time, but a modicum of research on my part would probably prove it to be VERY UNLIKELY, and therefore not worth mentioning.      

GAO's LRS-B Findings Tomorrow?

Tomorrow was the planned release of the GAO's findings on Boeing's LRS-B contract protest. It technically is two days later than the required timeframe/due date, but the deadline was on Sunday and today was a Federal holiday. Will the tempest-in-a-teapot over someone's second-hand ties to a Northrop (or Northrop Grumman) pension that emerged last week delay the announcement? I think it would be pretty silly for it to cause delays, since the person involved had nothing to do with the source selection: he was THAT guy's replacement AFTER the selection was made.

But we live in the 'stupid era' and lawyers are involved. 

What wouldn't have raised an eyebrow a couple of decades ago will set off a storm of controversy because...well because the coddled, noisy elements of society are particularly ignorant and easily manipulated these days and soapboxes have never been so cheap.

Standing by......

FYI: GAO's findings, whatever they are, are not binding on the DoD. But if the DoD wants to go against them, it will require varying degrees of political capital to be spent. Should be interesting... if it is not boring...when the news is finally let out.

LRS-B Cost Story Not Really About LRS-B

DefenseNews has a young posse of correspondents that are pretty hapless when it comes to analysis, but they still manage to do some actual reporting from time to time. If you can stand having to read around the speculation, hearsay, and opinions coming from the usual anti-defense sources who seem to feed DefenseNews and most other D.C. media outlets, you can pick up some odd useful stuff.

This time, Lara Seligman reports:

... In last year’s budget request, the Air Force included about $12.6 billion in its research, development, technology and evaluation account for the next-generation bomber from FY17 through FY20, according to official budget documents. But for the same time period, the service’s FY17 funding profile for LRS-B is about $9.1 billion – a significant drop of about $3.5 billion.  

Budget observers took to Twitter Tuesday after the initial budget rollout to lambaste the Air Force for cutting resources for the bomber. However, the reduction simply reflects the service’s updated cost estimate for the program since awarding a contract to Northrop Grumman Oct. 27, Air Force deputy for budget Carolyn Gleason told reporters Tuesday at the Pentagon. ...

Now the real news here isn't that the estimated program cost dropped nearly 28% with better newer data, or that some people over-reacted to the budget change and ASSUMED the worst.

The REAL story is:

1. How much cost estimates can and do vary wildly depending upon assumptions made and external factors...even over short periods of time.
2. No cost estimate involving the design and fielding of new technology in an unstable funding environment is any more 'REAL' than ANY other.

These two points should be kept in mind whenever one hears a cost estimate asserted in the press and is received as gospel. Many fonts of these estimates, such as Todd Harrison, who is now a go-to CSIS soundbite source, need to start assuming some mantle of humility in their cost and budget assertions, if only to at least PRETEND that someday they will be held accountable for their applying inconsequential knowledge to consequential things.

I submit that ALL such cost estimates should be prefaced from this day forward with...

 the 'Doc' Brown Disclaimer:

 

Faux Reform's Camel Already Has Her Nose Under the LRS-B Tent

The Faux Reform Crowd are hilariously heavy-handed. May it ever be so.

Embedded in the bottom in an otherwise very fine article at Breaking Defense about Northrop Grumman winning the LRS-B contract we find this nugget from Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA):

“We need to keep the Long-Range Strike Bomber on track and hold the Pentagon to its promise of delivering a tested, reliable airplane for $550 million a copy [in 2010 dollars],” Speier said in a statement. “The Rapid Capabilities Office has made some good decisions to use proven technology and accept the recommendations of independent weapons testers and auditors in their development process. But there are warning signs, including a clerical discrepancy that resulted in a $16.7 billion misreporting error to Congress.”

(I suspect this and the oblique 'emerging critics' reference early in the piece were Sidney's contribution. He likes to cite politicians as if they are soothsayers.)

LOL! Well THAT didn't take long. 

A clerical error, in only one of many documents, on a number everyone knew beforehand, and was corrected as soon as it was noticed, after being so out of place it was noticed quickly is a 'warning sign'? I got Jackie's warning sign for her right here: It's called the revolving door between faux military reform operations and Prog legislators teamed in a pernicious self-licking ice cream cone with Punk Journalists . That IS the "Faux Reform Message Machine".

I could take these people if they were honest with their arguments, but if they were honest with their arguments they couldn't stand the laughing.

Mmmmmmm. #SmellsLikePogo

I Believe the First Hit Piece Against the LRS-B Has Been Written

It looks like the 'Faux Reform' crowd has begun the long campaign with a 'retrospective'-themed hit piece on he B-2 as part of the wind-up.

It's typical 'Bloomberg' garbage. With a title like: "Almost Nobody Believes the U.S. Air Force Can Build an Affordable Bomber" * , how could it not be? I notice that those non-believers visited in the article have zilch long-range strike credentials. You don't often see the 'bandwagon' fallacious argument brazenly (stupidly?) combined with a fallacious appeal to authority right up front in the title, but there it is... 

*Note, 1 June 15: Craptastic Bloomberg site changed the links and memory-holed the comments since post was put up. Link changed to go to the Bloomberg piece again...for now. 

There's only a few non-misleading bits, such as... 

“There’s already the usual suspects out there telling us that we don’t need this or it won’t work,” Major General Garrett Harencak, assistant chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said at an Air Force Association breakfast in January. The new bomber “will be affordable and it’s desperately needed,” he said.

...buried at random amid the otherwise unrelenting drivel oozing from old and new "usual suspects",

Here's the 'B-2 history' graphic found at the link with corrections to make it 'true', or at least a hell of a lot truer than the 'B.S.' concocted by the article's 'author' David Lerman.

The Bloomberg 'piece' is "Punk Journalism" at it's finest.

And of course, it's all part of the plan:

Lerman's new enough to the game that I would probably categorize him as a "Grubber". If he wakes up to how he's been 'played' and resists from here on out, then he can be seen as a 'Former Pawn'. Otherwise we could be seeing an emerging Loyal Babbler.

Moronic Jackjawing on B-1 CAS Friendly Fire Incident

Way to Stay 'Classy'...NOT!

Hat Tip: 'Count_to_10' over at F-16.net

The results of the investigation into the June 2014 ‘friendly fire’ B-1 incident is out.  Read the summary here. I’ll wait until you get back…..

Welcome back!

If you bothered to read the comments, you saw it sure didn’t take long for the morons to start twisting the results to mesh with their own stupid little beliefs held in the vast emptiness of what outwardly appears (to the unsuspecting) to be human heads sitting on their shoulders. 

In the first FIVE comments, on this article reporting on the findings, only one, made by a person named ‘Joe Hardy’, managed to make a cogent, if terse observation as the second commenter:

The JTAC may not have been up to date on the latest B-1 capabilities, in part because its relatively newness and the experienced JTAC might not have worked with a B-1 with this capability before or with any frequency, but Mr. Hardy's statement at least looks towards where the problem in this chain of events was: on the ground.

The guy with ‘firsties! Honors’, one Chris Smith, managed to conflate who did what out of the gate:

 

Yes Chris, you do need to “get this straight”…. and fast. Re-read what you wrote and see if it makes any sense to you the second time.

The B-1 crew told the JTAC and Ground Commander they could not see the IR strobes. The guys on the ground did not process that information correctly. This wasn’t about what they did or didn’t know, this is about confusion in the heat of battle leading to someone on the ground giving direction to the B-1 to bomb the wrong spot.

The on-scene Commander makes the call, the JTAC is supposed to make sure the on-scene Commander and CAS assets get the information they need to make the call and deliver the ordnance. No doubt the splintering of the commander’s forces without his or the JTAC’s knowledge was a serious compounding factor in the confusion. It could have even been the key link in the chain of events that created the confusion, but in any case it had to have contributed to the tragedy.

The B-1 put the bombs right where it was told to put them. It wasn't the choice of aircraft, or the aircrew's fault. Got it straight now? Well if not, read on.

The third commenter was the delightfully named 'Jerry Barker':

 

Jerry makes unsupported assertions and allusions, implying what he apparently perceives to be a deficiency in the B-1 or any aircraft that depend on “pods”. He also apparently operates under the mistaken belief that the A-10 would not have had ANY comparable problems in performing the same mission under those same conditions.

He assumes too much.

We cannot positively state that an A-10 would have been able to even DO the job under the conditions at the time. All we can say is that perhaps an A-10 driver might have been able to see the ‘IR beacons’ once he got within the range of his NVGs, but that would only be IF he could have discerned the general battlefield.

If an A-10 wasn’t carrying a Sniper pod, he would have had more difficulty using those same NVGs (and/or other targeting pod that are nowhere near as proficient at that task as the B-1’s Sniper pod), to even get into the position to where he might have seen the IR strobes, AND be able to figure out where most of everyone else was (remember, not even the ground commander knew his guys had split up).

The sun had set just before the B-1 arrived on the scene, and over an hour before the B-1 made its pass. This can be a bad time of day for visible and IR light contrasts. Was it on this night? What was the weather like? Was there haze? Dust? Clouds?

The waxing moon was a little more than half-moon, and would have been approximately half-way to apogee. This could have meant deep shadows (mountains remember?) were present that would have created contrasts that might play more hell with NVGs or any targeting pod with less capability than a Sniper Pod. Even if the A-10 had a Sniper Pod, unless he was at the same altitudes as the B-1, the scene would have been more difficult to assess.  Since there is only one set of eyeballs in an  A-10, the pilot would have had to spit his time between flying the plane, talking to the ground, and looking at his sensors.

The B-1 crew can use the sensors more effectively and manage the workload better. All they need is for someone to give them the right coordinates.

The fourth commenter was a ‘Michael Murphy’:

Less ardent and more succinct in his stupidity than Jerry, but every bit as thoughtless.

The fifth and final dipsh*t is one ‘Mister’ Curtis Conway:

Says the guy with no CAS aircraft design, development, or employment experience. His comment is more ‘Murphy’ than ‘Barker’….he’s just more self-assured in his stupidity.

I’ve not bothered to make much effort to slap him around in response to the usual tripe he manages to post with regularity (and with that same ‘qualifier-free' declarative style seen above) at sites I frequent.

I may have to change that.

 

In Closing

If anyone who reads this is on Facebook, feel free to share this far and wide. Point out that these D-bags made their stupid little statements without consideration for the well-being of the survivors (those who were involved in the mistake and those who weren’t) AND without consideration for the family and loved ones of those that were lost to this tragedy within a tragedy we call ‘war’.  Tell these sad losers to go vent their misplaced ‘outrage’ on the back of something less sacrosanct than the deaths of good men in a hard war.

Just in case some of this stupidity tries to get flushed down the memory hole, here's a screen cap of the thread at the time I excised the comments presented:

     

Operation Allied Force: 15 Years After

I have no real time to do any substantive postings right now, and I want to get back to the '20 questions series' in that regard before I move onto other topics. But I could not let this anniversary pass without a nod to what may have been my biggest contribution to National Defense (six years after retiring from the AF) at that time.

I'm the guy who told the Air Force in 1998 that unless the missions are too long for the aircrews, they shouldn't bother to forward deploy: They could do more operating from home station. The B-2 was getting beat up (wrongfully--sound familiar?) for not being 'deployable'.  The program SPO came to my 'shop' and contracted us to accurately describe where any shortfalls were and recommend corrective action. The first question in answering that question is: "Under what circumstances will it make sense for the B-2 deploy instead of operate from Whiteman AFB?" the second question was "When it does deploy, where should it deploy to?" The analysis showed a clear answer to both questions: deploy rarely and only a handful of locations would provide coverage for the entire globe.

Deployment is Hard Work for Not a Whole Lot More Return

Because when units deploy, it looked like it took at least a week to get packed up, move, get set up and start forward operations. The B-2s in most circumstances spend that week getting a head start (in servicing aim points) on any other system that has to deploy, and the B-2 and B-1 experiences in Allied Force actually played out to prove that assumption. Once a system is forward deployed, the logistics of feeding fuel, munitions and everything else is tougher than the logistics of doing same at home base. I had modeled that even if the forward deployed system was able to adequately generate sorties for all their airplanes 'faster' (because they were closer) that for a six bomber package, all the unit at home station had to do was add one aircraft at home station (easily done) to surpass the deployed sortie rates.

The News Was Well Accepted

When I briefed  my findings to the 509th at Whiteman in the summer of 1998, I had one maintenance officer tell me after the brief that when a package forward deploys, the first airplane that breaks hard usually becomes the forward deployed parts bin and 'hangar queen'. They probably wouldn't even need to add a plane at home station to equal the 'forward-deployed" effort.
One of the positive developments that came out of the effort before Allied Force was that the Air Force decided to get off the dime and start setting up, at key FOBs, the portable shelters they had been developing. By the time Allied Force kicked off, there was significant movement in that area which would pay off not very much later in Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom (another war story).

The B-2's Contribution....and More

To commemorate the anniversary the B-2's successful combat debut, here are a few slides extracted from a General Hawley brief. I got my hands on it in early 2000, but it was probably one of the last big presentations the General made before retiring in mid-1999.

Leading up to Operation Allied Force...

We were testing CALCMs on the ranges before they were used in Desert Storm, and in 1993 I was testing the smart weapon interface for what would become the GATS/GAM and later JDAM weapon concepts 

Operation Allied Force...

The 'Air Boss' Lt General Michael Short called the B-2 one of the 'Stars' of the campaign. He said he could count on "sixteen quality DPMIs" for every sortie. DPMI = Designated (NOT 'Desired') Mean Point of Impact

This was 'then' in 1999

Developments after Operation Allied Force....

This was a big step. Carrying even MORE SDBs, or a couple of BIG BLUs, and mixed loads is a quantum jump  

This is 'Now' 

                

DoD Buzz-Job

"Buzz-Job".
1. Noun: A colloquialism for what happens when commercial military-oriented websites  "disappear" their mistakes down a memory hole instead of acknowledging them.
2. Verb: The act of erasing an e-publishing mistake on the internet in leiu of admission of same.

Usage: "Hey! They just pulled another "Buzz-Job" by posting that lame article called "Phantom Bombers Weigh Down Military Budget" and then pulling it without comment."

The "Phantom Bombers Weigh Down Military Budget" that, apparently, "aren't".

I'd link to the 27 December DoD Buzz article by Michael Hoffman that has the title as in quotes above, except it isn't "there" anymore. (Update: See end of this post for a link to Hoffman's 'do-over').

I noticed the link to it was missing from the DoD Buzz main page on the 4th of January. Thinking I must have incorrectly remembered where it was , I went looking for it elswhere. Nope. It WAS on DoD Buzz as the screen capture below of the 'Google cached' version then showed:

At the time, Google showed over 1500 hits for "Phantom Bombers Weigh Down Military Budget":

Here's a screenshot of the article as it was when it was 'disappeared'.

Here's my comment made the day it was posted.... with +33 'thumbs up'? (on DoD Buzz? Surprising, I know):

As of 6 January, the Google 'cache' link leads us to:

No preview available, and no web bots allowed. Tsk.

So the article is REALLY disappeared now. Except of course for the screenshot above.

One of the few merits of having a printed 'press' is the inherent accountability from not being able to recall their mistakes once distributed. The inverse of the same is the great scourge of e-journalism. They can make mistakes, relay falsehoods and publish propaganda press releases as 'news', complete do-overs, or even just lie.

They can do these things because in the end they can always just pretend it never happened if they can 'pull' the offending piece... and nobody notices.

Hey! Just checked again and DoD Buzz's Hoffman now has a ''Do-over" article up. In it he acknowledges his earlier 'mistake' - something I wish more journalists would do. I still think a correction to the original would make a better audit trail.

Feel free to compare the two stories.

LRS "News"? Pffft -- What is Old Is New Again

Dave Majumdar at Flight Global has commentary (but no link such as this)  concerning an aircraft design patent application by Northrop Grumman. He speculates a bit as to its relevance to a possible Long Range Strike design that NG may, or may not, have in the works.

This design concept is not 'New'.

Popular Science used an artist's concept of the design as a visual aid to discuss (poorly) potential advancements and their relevance:

But before that, (March 2009) John Croft at Flight Global noted the filing of the patent:

And in December 2007, Graham Warwick ALSO had a Flight Global post up commenting on an non-LRS application for apparently the same design: the "Speed Agile" project.:

(The canards make sense for a STOL airlifter more than anything else.)

Modularity Smodularity

As to Dave's "Interestingly, one of the big innovations was that it was designed for modular construction--which could make it less ungodly expensive" line, I note that the design 'modularity' looks almost JUST like the B-2's design approach. Note that MOST of the B-2 was assembled from modules built outside then-Northrop:

In case it needs to be said, again, the reason the B-2 became 'ungodly expensive' is ONLY because of two reasons:
1. The late change in requirements that tasked Northrop to build a bomber that could also fly low-level instead of the initial requirement for only high-altitude operation. This late requirement forced a redesign and stretched the development schedule.
2. The 'buy' getting cut from 132 bombers to 20 bombers. this was by far the biggest cost contributor to the whole program. 
       

Oh Noes! Bill Sweetman Keeps Bringing back the 80's

Looks like another generation gets to deal with the problem child that won't grow up. 

CUDA vs. SHOULDA (NOT)

I'm still working on 'guesstimates' of the performance and design nuances of the LM in-house CUDA missile project. It's not a 'secret program' and from what I can tell, not even a government program. (Though there is almost certainly some classified technology involved about which I won't hazard to even guess about in private). From all indications so far, based upon the verbiage I've seen, the 'difficulty' the LM marketeers are having in releasing info is related to 'Proprietary' concerns. If I find out otherwise, I'll probably drop it and STFU.

Contrast talking about a company-funded concept slow-leaked by the marketing department, with Bill Sweetman's latest offal.

A few observations ought to sufficiently express my... distaste shall we say, with anyone actively trying to delve into national secrets as if it is either some noble public service or even a respectable endeavor.

"Sources"

The 'sources'  who can't be  named should be tried and shot if they're 'credible' at all. If they are 'credible' they are probably Congressional Staffers, or people who have a habit of stroking Staffer egos they should be shot twice.

Texas Sharpshooter Approach 

Sweetman covers a lot of speculative ground concerning what might be black budget activities. he throws enough up against the wall and he MIGHT get something close to right that he can point to later. He's probably hoping he does better than he did in the 80's and 90's. I'm hoping he keeps repeating the Aurora and Stealth Aircraft debacles.

Love/Hate

I usually LOVE Sweetman's retrospectives on historical aircraft or aircraft already in the public eye. That which I don't like is whenever he substitutes 'narrative' for actual 'history'.  It's his speculative stuff that serves no purpose other than to perhaps reveal or point to secrets that those responsible for the defense of the nation have deemed necessary to keep secret, that drove us up the wall in the 80s-00's.

The Cognitive Dissonance of  Lamenting High Defense Budgets While Subverting Defense Program Objectives

Has Bill Sweetman EVER pondered how much of the utility of the U-2 and  SR-71 and their relatively long service lives were due to the secrecy that surrounded them? Has he ever postulated how many weapons programs didn't NEED to be developed, so long as the SR-71 was effective?

The Next Generation Warrior's Burden: It's 'CRAPTASTIC'!

Looks like an entirely new generation of weapon system developers and secret squirrels gets to deal with Sweetman's overwrought hand-wringing ( Is There Too Much Secrecy? Answer: NO.), perennial heavy-handed fishing expeditions, and fanboy fellow-travellers propagating his mythology across the world wide web.

BTW: I winder if ole' Bill even noticed the irony of sharing the byline on this piece with a guy... in China?  Who needs Wikileaks when we've still got AvLeak?

The Long Range Strike Imperative

World's Finest Bulk Exporter of Tritinol and Steel 

An "Op For" post (more specifically a comment in the thread) reminded me that there are ‘those’ out there who think we are ‘fat’ with the most critical Long Range Strike assets (AKA Strategic Bombers).

For those so inclined, I would counter with (Emphasis Mine):

Nations that can maintain freedom of action and the ability to threaten and apply violent force without retaliation will hold the ultimate strategic advantage. Failure to maintain credible LRS capabilities diminishes the effectiveness of the other instruments of national power. Although the US military has provided a dependable backdrop of international security for over 60 years, the size of that force has diminished recently even though the need for a strong force has not. In light of the present situation, one that closely resembles the slow demise of the British and Roman global powers, we would do well to heed Julian Corbett’s remarks about the intrinsic advantage of sea control during the waning years of Britain’s global preeminence: “Yet the fact remains that all the great continental masters of war have feared or valued British intervention . . . because they looked for its effects rather in the threat than in the performance. . . . Its operative action was that it threatened positive results unless it were strongly met.” Just as sea control and power projection proved critical for Britain, so is LRS valuable for today’s leading nations. Global actors such as China, Russia, and India recognize LRS’s strategic value, considering it imperative to a successful national security strategy. These rising global competitors, especially China and Russia, seek to obtain or develop their own LRS and to cultivate antiaccess [sic] and area denial capabilities to diminish the enduring strategic advantage of the United States...

--- Major Wade S. Karren, USAF. Read it all HERE (PDF).

"It's ALWAYS the 'Fighter's Turn', It's just that every now and then the rest get their fair share". Even with whatever the NGB will become, this chart won't change much from when I first built it around 2000

We are not ‘fat’ with Long Range Strike/Strategic Bomber capabilities.  

We are not even ‘fluffy’.



'Marauder' in the comments nails it (Photo Added 18 Aug 2012)

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. Steps in 'It'...Again.

Sydney Freedberg Jr. Just Isn't Having a Very Good Week.

You can be ignorant of the fact that something you believe is a myth. No problem.

What you shouldn’t be able to do is recycle old tropes as if they were fact, in your manifest ignorance of what you are attempting to write about with impunity, but it is done way too often these days concerning Defense in general, and Low Observability specifically. To foster myths as a ‘journalist’ is perhaps typical,  but it is disturbing. And that goes double for an ‘Editor’. You want to write about things? Fine Sydney. Just pick a topic you know something about.

Freedberg, fresh off of having to backtrack ‘big-time’, undone by his mad skillz with creative headlines, is back today with a new ‘piece’ titled “Lockheed Dismisses $1 Trillion Estimate For F-35 JSF”, just couldn’t resist opening the ‘red meat’ section of his post with the following (emphasis mine) :

Stealth aircraft are notoriously expensive to maintain, with the radar-absorbing coatings on the B-2 prone to disintegrate in the rain, but Rubino argued that F-35 is a different animal. "We have learned a whole lot over the last 20 years as far as maintaining stealth," he said. "We built this airplane to be able to have very robust stealth, to the point where you can ding it, you can scratch it" and it does not lose its radar-evading properties. Even if you dismiss Lockheed's claims about F-35's maintainability, there are still serious questions about…[blah blah blah]

The F-35 LO design IS completely different (see slide to left) from all other systems, and the ‘maintainability headache’ aspect of LO systems from B-2 onward is another myth for another time. But the “radar-absorbing coatings on the B-2 prone to disintegrate in the rain”  crack is a pure myth that can be exploded easier than most.

The Source of the B-2 Coatings ‘Disintegrate’ Myth

The myth comes from the fusion of the wording in a 1997 GAO report, and the anti-B-2 crowd’s willful misrepresentation of same (OK we’ll give them the credit for merely being illiterate). If one does a roll-call, one will find many of the same Illiterati making the most noise over the F-35. One name on both lists is the source of much of the B.S. found in Freedberg’s article. (Not naming names, but his initials are “WW”). I leave the reader to draw their own conclusions on that point.
The GAO report In question was “B-2 Bomber: Cost and Operational Issues, GAO/NSIAD-97-181 August 1997. The offending passage usually cited (if any are cited at all) in claiming the myth is that the B-2 ''must be sheltered or exposed only to the most benign environments -- low humidity, no precipitation, moderate temperatures.''
 
What the journalists back then NEVER mentioned was the DoD response in the SAME REPORT:

Notice the reference to the ‘Block 30’configuration? In the report elsewhere is this little observation:

The Air Force is currently testing the B-2 and plans to complete the production program, including planned block 30 modifications, by July 2000.

This was an August 1997 report. The FIRST Block 30 aircraft was delivered on 5 August 1997. Block 30 was the final production configuration, and the final configuration wasn’t even fielded yet.
the GAO was basing it's guesses on stale data (again) on interim designs.
The GAO got the last word in commenting on the DoD response (Emphasis mine):

Design requirements for the B-2 include provisions for the B-2 aircraft to be deployed, without shelters, in all types of temperatures and climates. The operational test report for the interim B-2 concluded the B-2 must be sheltered or exposed only to the most benign environments (low humidity, no precipitation, moderate temperatures). According to B-2 Combined Test Force officials, permanent shelters at deployed locations are required. Therefore, while DOD commented that it is possible to deploy the B-2, it appears that effective operations from a forward operation location will require additional facilities and equipment not included in the original plan. The Air Force is still working to identify these additional requirements.

Yes. My goodness. Shelters are required because you can’t do body work or paint in the rain or high humidity. Go to your nearest Auto Body shop and ask them if they think this is worth mentioning. Aside from the passage being somewhat inaccurate in itself (different materials will ‘like’ different temps and humidity) you will also note there is not one, single, solitary, indication that the coatings “will dissolve in the rain”. THAT leap in logic sprang from the febrile minds of the anti-defense left and naïve isolationist/ peaceniks who then spoon-fed it (like SO many other myths) to their fellow-travelers: the all too willing 'Journalistas'.
Think about the “B-2 Rain Dissolves B-2 Coatings Myth” the next time you read something unofficial about the F-35.
EPILOGUE: So how’d the Block 30 B-2 do? Haven’t heard a thing about melting B-2s since 1997 have you? Air Force Magazine 1998:

Two B-2s deployed from Whiteman AFB, Mo., to Guam for a 10-day exercise in March and April. They achieved a 100 percent sortie success rate, flying almost 90 hours during the exercise. Because of recent damage to hangars at the base, one of the B-2s had to be left outside, exposed to the weather, which included driving rainstorms. The Air Force said that most maintenance, including that of low observables coatings, was performed outdoors. A spokesman for the 509th Bomb Wing said this "shot a hole" in the wild news reports last year that the B-2's stealthy coatings melt away in the rain.

Yet the 'myth' persists because the Luddites wish it so.

LRS-B: The Next-Next Generation Bomber!

Old School Long Range Strike (Click on Pic For Larger)

Work kept me from catching this story earlier. News slowly coming out about the new Long Range Strike platform in the works isn't substantial enough yet for me to determine if I should call it a 'great idea' or a waste of time in the continuing saga of fielding a new long range strike asset. How I think of it will depend largely on the unrefueled range and payload numbers if it is like the 'LRS-A'  in all other respects.
Phil Ewing at DoDBuzz 'disappoints' in this observation (emphasis in original):

By relying on proven technologies and by planning to evolve the aircraft over time as threats evolve, similar to the B-52 legacy fleet, the up-front acquisition costs will be reduced significantly from the B-2 experience. The average procurement unit cost is anticipated to be about $550 million in FY 2010 dollars for a fleet of 80–100 aircraft. The Air Force plans to utilize an executive-level, highly streamlined, stable oversight structure to manage the program, and keep requirements manageable, tradable [sic] and affordable. Funding in FY 2013 is $0.3 billion and totals $6.3 billion from FY 2013 – FY 2017.

Hey Phil? About that 'doing things differently' angle. If we would have bought 80-100 B-2s, in the first place the unit acquisition cost would have been far less than those "$550M" in 2010 dollars, and probably much less than that even in then-year dollars. CBO numbers for only 26 B-2s in the early 90s was $540M per plane. Northrop offered to sell the AF only half as many (40)  B-2Cs in 2001 for a fixed price of $545M/aircraft.

End Note:
Right behind an almost pathological ignorance (perhaps often feigned?) of the Logical Fallacies, the thing that bugs me the most about the state of the news media today is the absolute lack of (again, perhaps feigned?) awareness as to how math or economics are actually applied within the topics on they write so breathlessly.

[minor cut/paste errors corrected 2/17]

Oh Those 'Tricky' Cost Numbers

(I await the day that Flight Global gets their ‘captcha’ feature worked out.)

In two back-to-back posts, Steve Trimble channels that doyen of defense malcontents, one Winslow Wheeler, yet AGAIN, on a defense topic near and dear to my heart: O&S costs. Using data acquired ‘somehow’ by Mr. Wheeler (now, ask yourself: where might a “I-know-defense-better-than-the-DoD”-cawing magpie who worked decades inside the Congressional Staffer Club ‘might’ have gotten a hold of such information, if real?  You get three guesses…), DEWLine presents graphics representing data we are not provided, and data I suspect that no one in Flight Global was qualified (who was also available) to interpret. In short, other than for its shock! value effect on the innumerate, the information is worthless as presented, and while it may raise a question or two, it answers NONE of them.

DEWLine blog notes:

Writing about "costs" is always tricky. Numbers can vary dramatically depending on what gets included. In this case, we're talking about operational costs. This includes operations costs, including fuel, parts and maintenance, as well as interim contractor support and manpower. It excludes modifications funded by procurement accounts. The total cost number is divided by the total number of flight hours flown by the fleet, and that is the operational cost per flight hour.

Steve Trimble nails the part about costs being ‘tricky’. It may be even said to be ‘trickier’ than he realizes. Here is the complete list of general O&S cost categories, with areas with the largest potential for huge confounding factors noted in red :

1.0 MISSION PERSONNEL
  1.1 Operations
  1.2 Maintenance
  1.3 Other Mission Personnel
2.0 UNIT-LEVEL CONSUMPTION
  2.1 Pol/Energy Consumption
  2.2 Consumable Material/Repair Parts
  2.3 Depot-Level Reparables
  2.4 Training Munitions/Expendable Stores
  2.5 Other
3.0 INTERMEDIATE MAINTENANCE (EXTERNAL TO UNIT)
  3.1 Maintenance
  3.2 Consumable Material/Repair Parts
  3.3 Other
4.0 DEPOT MAINTENANCE
  4.1 Overhaul/Rework
  4.2 Other
5.0 CONTRACTOR SUPPORT
  5.1 Interim Contractor Support
  5.2 Contractor Logistics Support
  5.3 Other
6.0 SUSTAINING SUPPORT
   6.1 Support Equipment Replacement
   6.2 Modification Kit Procurement/Installation
   6.3 Other Recurring Investment
   6.4 Sustaining Engineering Support
   6.5 Software Maintenance Support
   6.6 Simulator Operations
   6.7 Other
7.0 INDIRECT SUPPORT
7.1 Personnel Support
7.2 Installation Support

Aside from the plentiful catchall ‘Other’ categories, there is quite a bit more in this list than “operations costs, including fuel, parts and maintenance, as well as interim contractor support and manpower”. I think Mr. Trimble may want to revisit his ‘list’.

If one views the graphics provided with an eye towards ‘what is different’ between ‘comparable’ weapon systems, it should lead one to consider WHAT is driving these differences? Without the actual data in hand I am left with these questions:

RE: WC-135W O&S Increase in 2006. I have a feeling there is no mystery here, but how much did this spike have to do with preparation/upgrade/equipping then forward deploying the WC-135W forward to monitor the NoKo's nuclear testing debut? 

RE: VC-25 O&S increase in 2009. As overseas deployment of AF One involves a major logistics planning and execution overhead, how much of the 2009 bump was due to President Obama visiting more countries that year than a lot of Presidents do in four years? It is not as if no one noticed. Or were there upgrades on the bird that went into PDM that year? How much of the increased cost came from transitioning to a new support contract with Boeing Wichita?

RE: That 'Wild' B-2 O&S increase from about 2004. Yes, 2004. The charts ‘smoothing’ function combined with cyclical cost events tend to mask what could be the costs of implementing an upgrade program in PDM. What percentage of these ‘increases’ are (primarily) related to implementing the challenging yet wildly successful AHFM upgrade? I ask, because the ‘curves’ appear to strongly mimic the PDM AHFM upgrade implementation timing. I suspect some of the 2010 B-2 data also has all the costs involved to get the bird that caught fire in Guam in 2010 back home. Expect future depot costs to show up in the out-years for other upgrades.

Side question: How much does the B-52 still benefit from having the Attrition Reserve fleet collocated (if it is still) that enables the collocated operational wing to rotate hard-broke birds off the operational books for maintenance and rotate fresh birds from the Attrition Reserve pool into the unit?

RE: F-22 and V-22 O&S costs. This is my favorite. How much of the drop in F-22 O&S comes from the learning curve and Performance Based Logistics since the airplane went IOC late in 2005? And shouldn’t any numbers before IOC be excluded? How much of the rise in V-22 O&S comes from the fact that it is a little more expensive to operate in Iraq and Afghanistan than CONUS?

These are just a few of the most obvious questions raised, but I would be remiss if I did not also warn the reader against the world-class ‘chartsmanship’ contained in the DEWLine graphics. I particularly enjoy the use of the ‘smoothed’ line function that make ‘Highs’ seem ‘higher’, ‘Lows’ seem ‘lower’, and the swings between the two seem more dramatic. The use of line vs column is a minor nit, but it promotes the idea that the data is continuous instead of in discrete annual snapshots. Most egregious of all is the use of non-zero baselines which amplify the differences in the data within each chart.

If I had to offer one piece of advice to the Flight Global crew it would be to stop hauling the mail for Winslow Wheeler and CDI. Winslow may look like the Tech-savvy engineer of the future Montgomery Scott (i.e. “Scotty”) on Star Trek, but to these eyes (ie IMHO) he operates more on the level of Harcourt Fenton Mudd. 

Hoss Cartwright on Long Range Strike

Looks like Hoss is Still a Little Slow, even when trying to circle the wagons to protect the Womenfolk and Rice Bowls. I suspect the Rice Bowls are more important.

Well, Adam and Little Joe were always the smart ones.

p.s. the General is a fighter meat-servo. He's got the brains to know better, but it smells like he's got one very big Long Range Blind Spot.

Holding Back the "Cruise Missile Cultists"

I just know they're coming....a nefarious faction of the Opponents of Long Range Strike.

Sheesh. First at SNAFU, we get a winners and losers list with the B-2 and Tomahawks reversed and on the wrong lists (Sorry Solomon - I still love ya' bud). It gets linked to AvWeek's Ares' Blog 'Frago' post which also links to a doozy at Information Dissemination which in turn has an extract from, and link to, a cruise missile puff piece at National Defense Magazine .

Time for a short course in economics and the application of long range strike.

Why I'm the Guy to Give it....

This is the first air campaign (using the term loosely) that I've not been at least a small part of since 1991, or a significant contributor to since 1999. Between moi' and the sources above I'm probably the only person who has actually launched and tested cruise missiles, as well as understands their strengths and limitations. I'm also probably the only one to have done long range strike 'bang-for-buck' analyses and what-if scenarios for DoD campaign planning efforts and/or wrote his Master's thesis or capstone on the subject of the proper methodology for top-level conceptual design of next generation LRS platforms.

Ready? Here we go!!!!!!!!!!!

Lesson 1. There is no ONE best weapon for everything and cruise missiles are only the one best weapon at attacking a very small subset of the total target set in any conventional (non-nuclear) campaign. There are efforts to make them more effective against a wider subset of targets but that will add cost and probably complexity to their designs. The very best subset of targets for conventional cruise missiles are taking out 'soft' nodes of Integrated Air Defense Systems and Command and Control networks/Power Grids. They are 'enablers' that allow the non-stealthy aircraft in the force-mix to operate more freely over the battlefield and do that killing hoodoo-that-they-do so well....instead of getting shot down before their 'magic' happens. Valuable? Within a narrow confine, yes. Wonder-weapon? No.

Lesson 2. Cruise missiles are VERY expensive.... unless you never use them or if you use them, you won't miss them. Complexity costs money, and increases the probability of failure. The farther and longer a system has to operate to get to the target, the more the system is likely to fail on the way (see TLAM in Desert Storm note in the slides below).

Lesson 3. As long as the attrition rates are low enough, (and they don't even have to be THAT low) Direct Attack is ALWAYS cheaper and more effective than stand-off attack even if standoff attack has a PERFECT success rate.

I've dusted off and sanitized an extract of publicly available and unclassified data from a circa-2000 briefing I gave after Operation Allied Force. The exact dollars are 'off' now, but the relationships remain the same. Cruise Missiles are orders of magnitude more expensive to operate than using precision direct attack. BTW: These charts were all based upon 2000lb JDAM usage. Smaller JDAMs would be relatively cheaper and just as,or more, effective than TLAM Tomahawks.

Enjoy.


The TLAM accuracy and reliability have improved since Desert Storm, but it doesn't make any difference. It is a more complex machine than a JDAM, and must operate reliably for a much longer period of time. That line waaaay down at the bottom is the JDAM cost line. The cruise missiles are so expensive their real value comes in reducing risk to other systems: use as necessary - and no more.

In Operation Allied Force, the B-2 was dropping JDAMs using developmental software and it still had a 95% hit rate. The B-2 had the highest percentage of first-pass 'kills' of all the aircraft employed.
These dollar figures were probably mid-late FY 1990s when I used them in 2000. I notice TLAMS are even more expensive now, but JDAM kits are as well I suppose. As I noted at SNAFU in the comments, prices are very sensitive to lot buy quantities. So even if cruise missiles were 100% successful, and even if all aimpoints were suitable for cruise missiles, what would you spend your savings on using JDAMs?

Long Range Strike Moves Forward.....Finally?

...and is it in the right direction? Tech. Sgt. Shane A. Cuomo / Air Force

I'll reserve judgement until after the details inevitably emerge.

In today's announcement President Obama's Most Useful Idiot (why there seems to always be someone who until asked is NOT-generally-a-tool willing to be the front-man giving cover to Administrations that are malevolent and destructive to the national defense , I'll never understand) had this to say at least:

Finally, a major area of new investment for the Air Force will be a new long-range, nuclear-capable penetrating bomber. This aircraft, which will have the option of being remotely piloted, will be designed and developed using proven -- using proven technologies, an approach that should make it possible to deliver this capability on schedule and in quantity.

It is important that we begin this project now to ensure that a new bomber can be ready before the current aging fleet goes out of service. The follow-on bomber represents a key component of a joint portfolio of conventional deep-strike capabilities, an area that should be a high priority for future defense investment, given the anti-access challenges our military faces.

Of what was explicitly stated, I would only call the 'optionally-manned' criteria as 'gross stupidity' - and probably a product of an internal AF/DoD political schism . Being of a highly suspicious nature on this topic for some reason, we'll see what the emphasis on 'existing technology' means: could be 'good' but with this crowd one never knows.

The issue as to what kind of long range platform is needed and the open questions surrounding it were covered fairly well in a recent Air Force (Air Force Association) magazine article. The same source has a pretty good backgounder on the status quo here.

I might comment on the remaining gems and turds in this punchbowl of an announcement elsewhere. Alas, there's a few of the former and piles of the latter.