The evolving USMC and USN Aviation Plan

On April 17 this year, the Armed Forces Committee of the House of Representatives had a hearing on the aviation plans of the services, with the following high-profile witnesses:


• Lieutenant General Charles R. Davis USAF 
Military Deputy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition

• Lieutenant General Burt Field 
Deputy Chief of Staff, Operations, Plans and Requirements, U.S. Air Force, USAF

• Rear Admiral Bill Moran USN 
Director of the Air Warfare Division, U.S. Navy

• Lieutenant General Robert E. Schmidle USMC 
Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps for Aviation, U.S. Marine Corps

• Vice Admiral W. Mark Skinner USN
Principal Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research,
Development, and Acquisition), U.S. Navy

• Mr. Michael J. Sullivan
Director of Acquisition and Sourcing, U.S. Government Accountability Office


During the hearing, a juicy information was dropped about the future shape of the fighter/attack fleet of the US Marines Corps, which represents a very noticeable change from earlier plans daring back to the 2010 and 2011 aviation plans. The subject is, of course, the F-35. The US Marines continue to plan for a purchase of 420 aircraft, but the split between F35B and F35C has changed from 340 / 80 to 353 / 67, and the planned number of squadrons has changed very significantly.Let's see how the USMC aviation plan has evolved.


2010 plan
Up to the Memorandum of Understanding for the integration of tactical air fleet between US Navy and USMC, signed in March 2011 by the admiral Gary Roughead, the secretary for the Navy Ray Mabus and the commandant USMC James F. Amos, the USMC planned to operate a force of 420 F35B.
These were to entirely replace the "legacy force" composed by:

7 squadrons of F/A-18 Hornet A/C (12 aircraft per squadron)
5 squadrons of F/A-18 Hornet D (12 aircraft per squadron)
1 squadron of F/A-18 Hornet C (Reserve) (12 aircraft per squadron)
7 squadrons of AV-8B Harrier (14 aircraft per squadron)

1 Fleet Replacement Squadron of AV-8B and TAV-8B (28 aircraft)
1 Fleet Replacement Squadron of F/A-18 B/C/D (36 aircraft)

with a fleet of:

14 squadrons of F-35B (10 aircraft per squadron)
7 squadrons of F-35B (16 aircraft per squadron)
3 squadrons of F-35B (Reserve) (10 aircraft per squadron)

3 Fleet Replacement Squadrons of F-35B (20 aircraft each)


Post-MOU
Following the signing of the MOU on TACAIR integration, the USMC split its planned buy of F-35s between the B and C variant, with the committment to provide five squadrons of F-35C to complement the 15 US Navy squadrons on the same aircraft, needed to equip all 10 Carrier Air Wings.
This represented an uplift in the CVN responsibility of the USMC, which has so far provided only three squadrons of F/A-18 B/C/D aircraft.

The immediate effect was a change in the number of 10-aircraft F-35B squadrons, which dropped from 14 to 9, as five squadrons were now planned to deploy 10 F-35C each instead.


Today
The new USMC plan detailed in the April hearing is very different, and comes with a significant drop in the overall number of squadrons, probably due to the need to achieve significant savings in the budget.
The USMC now plans to have:

9 squadrons of F-35B (16-aircraft each)
5 squadrons of F-35B (10-aircraft each)
4 squadrons of F-35C (10-aircraft each)
2 squadrons of F-35B (Reserve) (10-aircraft each)
1 Operational Evaluation Squadron (6 F-35B)

2 Fleet Replacement Squadrons of F-35B (25 aircraft each)
10 F-35C provided for training alongside the USN's own training fleet, probably enabling the US Navy to stand up 16 instead of 15 F-35C squadrons, keeping the total of 20.

The remaining aircraft will be assigned in this way:

58 F-35B
12 F-35C

as Backup Aircraft Inventory

25 F-35B
5 F-35C

as Attrition Replacement Aircraft

The Backup Aircraft Inventory (BAI) is a reserve of airframes which are rotared into the frontline units to keep them up to strenght while aircrafts undergo scheduled and unscheduled depot-level maintenance, modifications, inspections and repairs.

The Attrition Reserve is an inventory of airframes used to replace unanticipated losses due to peacetime accidents or wartime attrition. The aircrafts can also be used to reconstitute combat units in the event of mobilization. 


The new plan will of course have an impact on Basing plans, as well. When 21 regular squadrons were planned, they were expected to be spread in the following way:

10 squadrons (plus 1 Reserve Sqn) between MCAS Beaufort and MCAS Cherry Point
5 squadrons plus OEU Sqn in MCAS Yuma (one squadron would actually be stationed to Iwakuni, Japan) 
6 squadrons in MCAS Miramar

Now it seems that both USMC F-35B training squadrons will be home-based in MCAS Beaufort, with the first, VMFAT-501 "Warlords" squadron, transferring from Eglin AFB in January 2014.
The bases will now be in competition to get a share of 18 (instead of 21) Active Component squadrons, and 2 instead of 3 Reserve Component formations.


The US Navy requirement remains set at 40 Active Duty frontline squadrons, with 440 aircraft, spread over 10 Carrier Air Wings.
In the long term, 20 squadrons will have the Super Hornet (12-aircraft per squadron) while 20 (in 2011 planned to be 15 USN + 5 USMC, now 16 + 4) will have the F-35C (10-aircraft per squadron), giving to the standard peacetime air wing a consistency of 44 strike fighter jets. Each carrier wing has two squadrons of F-35C, one squadron of F/A-18E single-seat Super Hornet and one squadron of F/A-18F twin seat.

Two Reserve squadrons (20-aircraft each) are planned, probably one for Super Hornet and one for F-35C.
There is a Fleet Replacement Squadron on each Coast, for both types. FRS have 30 aircraft each.


The transcript of the Hearing is available here.

From the News

If it is true, the British Army is dead 

The Telegraph says that in October all the 31 remaining battalions of the army under Army 2020 will be cut back further, to 520-man establishments.

This is a completely new thing. The Army has been planning to reach the 82.000 regulars figure having only Light Role infantry battalions cut back to comparable levels, and even those actually higher: 561 men. Considering that this means removing one rifle platoon from each Company, hoping in a top-up coming from paired reserve battalion before deployment, i can't even begin to imagine what a battalion of 520 men would look like. It would probably be utterly useless.


The reduction to Light Role Infantry battalions and Gurkhas already can't be described as smart because the Reserves recruitment is, so far at least, going horribly, and there are three such downsized infantry battalions which do not have at all a paired reserve battalion from which to draw manpower: 1 SCOTS battalion and the two Gurkha battalions are left unpaired in the announced Army 2020 plan, because there are not enough reserve infantry battalions.

The figures released so far to Parliament and Defence Committee about the establishments of the major components of Army 2020 speak of:

729 armoured infantry battalion
709 mechanised infantry battalion
561 Light Role Infantry
581 Foxhound-mounted infantry
567 Gurkha battalion
660 PARA battalion
587 Challenger 2 tank regiment
528 FRES SV reconnaissance regiment
404 Jackal-mounted light cavalry regiment
370 Adaptable Artillery light gun regiment (apparently with only two gun batteries, a paltry 12 L118 guns. I'm unable to confirm this at 100% certainty at the moment)
around 600 Reaction Artillery regiment (18 AS90 in three batteries, 6 GMLRS in one battery)
around 600 Reaction Royal Engineer regiment
around 500 Adaptable Royal Engineer regiment

An armoured infantry battalion of 520 is frankly unthinkable of. It would probably be able to field a single company.

Since the above are Army 2020 figures, the new cut announced by the Telegraph is either:

- Not true
- Indication that the Army and MOD are total idiots which did not understand the extent of the manpower reduction and are back to square one
- Indication that the 82.000 regulars are to become even fewer already, while sticking to the absurd rule that no more goddamned capbadges must go

In any case but the first, the Army is about to become entirely useless. If the Telegraph is right, the mania of protecting capbadges has reached the level of absolute foolishness.

If the second point is true, serious questions must be asked about Army top brass, and about the Army itself, because if the target is still 82.000 regulars, they have to explain where all the manpower goes. 82.000 should be more than adequate to sustain the establishments announced so far. 



Assembly of the Ski Jump on HMS Queen Elizabeth: more complex than you think 

The 200-ft.-long ramp is the longest ever fitted to a carrier and, like the Queen Elizabeth-class carriers (QEC) themselves, is the first of its type to be purpose-designed from the outset for F-35 operations. Angled at 12.5 deg., the ramp wiii be 20-ft. high and is designed to reduce the required deck roll on takeoff by up to 50%, or allow an increased payload of up to 20%. The ramp achieves this by boosting vertical velocity, giving the aircraft a ballistic launch profile that provides it with additional time to accelerate to flying speed.

The assembly of the Ski Jump on HMS Queen Elizabeth has started, and it is not so straightforward a process. The ramp has been carefully designed by BAE in collaboration with Lochkeed Martin, to make sure that it is fully and safely compatible with the F35B.

You'll find the details on Aviation Week & Space Technology / 19 Aug 2013 pp.33-34, in the article: "RAMP UP - Deck-mounted ski-jump assembly marks key step toward U.K. carrier-based JSF operations", by Guy Norris.

The first section of Ski Jump is already on deck. Photo by

cockneyjock1974

A spectacular diagram showing the current state of the assembly, by

Wizz

Remember that an excellent place where to follow in almost real time the assembly of the new carriers is the huge thread up at MilitaryPhotos.net.



RAF pilot is the first non-US pilot to operate an F35B at sea

RAF Squadron Leader Jim Schofield, is the first international pilot to have conducted sea-based launch and landing in the F-35B.
Schofield made history while flying from USS Wasp, during the ongoing second period of sea trials for the F35B. A third test period is planned for the future, to lead to US Marines Initial Operating Capability in 2015. 

Waiting for Typhoon as the force vanishes

Typhoon: it'll keep us waiting forever

The Ministry of Defence has revealed, in an article on the magazine Defence Focus, issue 273, August 2013, the next planned milestones for the Typhoon fighter jet.
A lot of capability is coming, but, as always with this plane which has sucked the MOD budget dry over decades, slowly. So slowly that, well before the plane is mature, the 52 jets of the Tranche 1 will be withdrawn from service unless there is a (more and more unlikely) change of plan. So slowly that, unless Typhoon gets a mid-life upgrade and life extension, maturity will be achieved just nine years before the type is expected to retire from service.
It is frankly astonishing and depressing to see how the Typhoon sets for itself modest targets and yet constantly fails to achieve them. The weapons that have to get integrated on the aircraft aren't new, except for the Meteor anti-air missile. Brimstone, Paveway IV, Storm Shadow, have all been in service for years and have all long been expected to be integrated on the Typhoon. Yet, even the In Service Date (ISD) for Paveway IV is two years away (2015). A depressingly long time, for the integration of a laser/GPS guided bomb and for the preparation of the force for its use.

The milestones ahead are:

January 2014: delivery of first Typhoon Tranche 3A (airframe number BS116) to the RAF
April 2015: 5th (and last, almost certainly) frontline Typhoon squadron stands up on RAF Lossiemouth
2015: full ISD for the Paveway IV
2016: first Typhoon tranche 1 scheduled to be withdrawn from service, a mere 10 years after the first frontline RAF squadron (3 Sqn) was stood up at Coningsby
2017: Meteor initial testing
2018: Meteor ISD. Storm Shadow ISD at the "end of the year"
2020: Brimstone 2 missile ISD
2021: AESA radar expected to reach full capability

2030: currently expected Out of Service Date for Typhoon

A tiny little bit of good news comes from the fact that the 27mm gun mounted on Typhoon (which years ago barely survived a mental plan to get rid of it to save some money) has now been given Frangible Armour-Piercing (FAP) ammunition, made by the german Rheinmetall.

The company thus offers a new type of ammunition for its 27mm automatic cannon. Highly effective against hard- and soft-skinned targets, the company’s frangible armour-piercing (FAP) ammunition 27 x 145mm/ PEB 327 performs its mission without conventional explosives or a fuze. Weighing 260 grams, the projectile is completely inert. It consists of a core made of a frangible tungsten mix, enveloped by several layers of tungsten-steel alloy. When the projectile penetrates the target’s outer skin, it progressively breaks up, causing catastrophic damage as it travels deeper into the internal structure of the target. A high-energy cloud of fragments and shrapnel results, reliably destroying the target. Thanks to its inert projectile and lack of toxic elements, the FAP 27mmx145 is also suitable for training purposes. Moreover, there is no need to store special service ammunition, obviating the need for expensive demilitarisation at the end of its shelf-life. This results in substantially lower lifecycle costs. Rheinmetall has already started to supply the Royal Air Force, the first customer for the 27 mm FAP, with 244,000 rounds of this innovative ammunition.

FAP ammunition is a valuable addition to the Typhoon's capability, especially when coupled with the proper software for land attack, rolling out now with the current program of Typhoon enhancements. This includes gun strafing modes.  

But all the rest is not pleasant. The dates are all uncomfortable. And this is before further delays happen, obviously. In particular, the AESA radar is likely to suffer further slippages, as there is no contract at all agreed by the partner nations with the Euroradar consortium. Only hopes that drag themselves forwards, year on year, barely alive.
Paveway IV integration is ongoing by a long time, and it is depressing to see that ISD is still so far away. I don't think there's any other case in the whole world where the integration of a 500 lbs bomb and its release to service take so damn long.

There is a contract signed for the integration of Meteor on the Typhoon, finally. The document was only signed last June, buring the Paris air show. The 2018 ISD for Meteor represent the hundredth slippage of the intended entry into service of this new air-to-air missile. In the NAO Major Projects report 2012, the ISD for the missile was described as:

The first Front Line Unit is declared Operational with at least (CONF)*** missiles and having demonstrated achievement of In-Service Date 2 Key Performance Measures.

and was scheduled for June 2017, after having been planned for 2015. Earlier still, the ISD had been planned for 2012. 
The extent of the delays to Meteor has been so great that the RAF has had to maintain a stock of AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles for use on the Typhoon, which would otherwise have entered service without a medium/long range AA weapon. The OSD for AMRAAM has had to be pushed to the right already twice, and the NAO notes that the AIM-120 missiles could exhuaust their intended shelf life before the replacement is delivered.

There is some risk that part of the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile stocks will not endure until the revised In-Service Date and hence we may fall below the minimum required stockpile liability, although this cannot be confirmed at present.

As far as i know, the Storm Shadow and Brimstone situation could be even worse. Their integration has suffered constant delays in the years, and there is not yet a signed contract, which means that further delays are more than possible.
Storm Shadow, however, should begin test flights on the Typhoon this year, thanks to Saudi Arabia's money and requests. Hopefully, at least the (ridiculous) 2018 target will be met.

The Brimstone 2020 ISD is an even greater problem, as the Tornado GR4, the only platform currently employing the missile, will be retired from RAF service by the end of March 2019, meaning that even in the best case scenario, there will be another gap (the hundredth) in the capabilities of the british armed forces. Any further delay would make the situation even worse. The Typhoon is due to receive the Brimstone 2, the new variant, in development, of the successful Brimstone Dual Mode, comprising a new, more lethal and multipurpose insensitive-munition (IM) compliant warhead and IM rocket motor.

It is expected that the Typhoon will be used, possibly as early as next year, as the platform for the flight tests of the SPEAR 3 missile, a new weapon in development specifically for use on (and into, crucially) the F35. It would be a nice addition to the Typhoon's capability, but there seem to be no plan for integration, and judging from the other weapons, it would take a decade anyway...

The Conformal Fuel Tanks aren't mentioned among the milestones, but one has to hope that they will be adopted at some point, because Storm Shadow, despite early promises, seem to only be compatible with the two "wet" underwing pylons. Which means that, in order to carry the larger cruise missile, Typhoon must do away with external tanks, dramatically reducing its fuel load and, consequently, its strike range. CFTs would remedy to this problem.

There is a very real risk (and in some cases, a certainty) that important capabilities will be (at least) gapped as the Tornado GR4 force is swiftly reduced, then wholly removed from service in March 2019. The RAPTOR high-definition imaging reconnaissance pod has not a planned future after the withdrawal of Tornado, and a replacement is not in sight. For a while at least, there might not be the capability to fire Brimstone missiles. And further delays are always possible, which would make everything even worse.
By April 2014, two of the five Tornado GR4 squadrons will be disbanded: 617 Sqn and 12(B) Sqn will go, with the first scheduled to move onto the JSF program to work up to become the first british, frontline F35B squadron.
It will 2016 before the squadron stands up again, in the US, on the MCAS Beaufort airbase, and 2018 before it moves to Marham, in the UK, and achieves an initial combat capability. A second F35B squadron, with navy colors, will stand up later on, with the plan yet to be finalized and announced.

With the fifth squadron on Typhoon to stand up only in 2015, it means that next year the RAF will be down to just 7 frontline squadrons (four on Typhoon, three on Tornado GR4) and only in 2015 will return to 8 (5 + 3).
The consistency of the frontline fleet will further drop in 2019, when the remaining Tornado squadrons disbanded. It is seen as highly likely that, during 2019 and 2020 at least, the UK will be lining a paltry six frontline squadrons of combat jets (5 Typhoon, 1 on F35B) rising to seven possibly within 2023.

Some time ago, it was suggested that the Tranche 1 Typhoons could be kept into the 2020s, to sustain a sixth and perhaps even a seventh squadron, to keep up the number of frontline fast jets formations. It does not seem to be the plan. The suggestion would appear to have been turned down, if it ever was seriously made within the RAF.
That means retiring 52 Typhoons aging just about 10 years each, while cutting, in the next six years, the number of combat squadrons from 9 to 6.
Before the SDSR 2010, the combat squadrons were 12 (3 Typhoon, 2 Harrier, 7 Tornado GR4), and this means that, in less than ten years, the consistency of the UK's fast jet force will have been brutally halved. And despite promises of possible "additional F35 orders", it is hard to see the force being in the position to argue for the regrowth of combat squadrons if the number is allowed to drop so much, so quickly.

This Typhoon shows off its payload capability: from bottom to top, ASRAAM, Meteor, Storm Shadow, Brimstone 2, Meteors and 1000 liters fuel tank under belly, a SPEAR 3 rack, Taurus, Meteor, ASRAAM. In practice, for several more years, the only stores actually cleared for use on Typhoon are ASRAAM and the belly fuel tank.

Regardless of what you think of the airplane, Typhoon is a disaster under many points of view. It is taking ages to live up to its promises, a lot of its capability will continue to exist only on paper for many more years. It has sucked the MOD budget dry over decades, swallowing billions of pounds. And when the deliveries are completed, around 2018, the RAF will have taken 160 Typhoons without, on current plans, ever having more than 5 frontline squadrons. That's a combat force of 60 aircrafts, from a total order of 160.
For each frontline Typhoon squadron of 12 airplanes, if the retirement of the Tranche 1 between 2016 and 2019 goes ahead, the MOD will have procured and paid for 32 aircrafts. An abomination.



F35: 48 guaranteed. Maybe not.

The F35, in the meanwhile, is moving onwards. Main Gate 4 is due in the coming months. This is expected to mean approving the purchase of 14 jets, which will be used to form the first frontline squadron on the new type (617 Sqn).
The UK has so far received three airplanes, to be used for tests and evaluation. A fourth aircraft will be part of the LRIP 7 lot of production, and long lead orders have been placed for four more inside LRIP 8.
The fourteen jets to be now approved might or might not include these four. It is not clear yet.

17 Squadron has given up its Typhoons (moved to 41(R) Sqn) and has disbanded to move onwards towards an F35B role. Between late 2014 and early 2015, the squadron will stand up again, on Edwards AFB, in the USA, as Operational Evaluation Unit for the british F35B force. 617 Sqn is scheduled to stand up in 2016 as the first operational squadron, based on MCAS Beaufort, where the personnel will be trained and the squadron built up to strenght before it moves back to the UK in 2018.

Flightglobal reports that decisions on weapons integration will have to be made as well. Unfortunately, this part is not as clear as we'd like. SPEAR 3 is described as a replacement for Brimstone, and this is incorrect as they are two completely different weapon systems and will actually co-exist at least for part of their service life. The misunderstanding probably generates from the fact that all complex weapons programs in the air sector have been grouped under SPEAR (Selective Precision Effect At Range); with SPEAR Capability 1 covering development and improvements to the Paveway IV bomb, SPEAR Capability 2 covering the evolution of Brimstone, SPEAR Capability 3 being a whole new weapon primarily developed with the F35 in mind, and with SPEAR 4 being the planned mid-life upgrade to Storm Shadow, to be made in the early 2020s in collaboration with the french. 
Here is interesting to note the 24 number: in order to carry 24 SPEAR 3 missiles, the F35 will have to carry six quadruple racks, which means four will be carried externally, under the wings. This seems a wise approach.

Paveway IV, at least for now, is only being integrated for internal transport, which means just two bombs. Hopefully, this is only valid for Block 3 software, with an expansion to cover external pylons afterwards, because it would be a waste to ignore the other hardpoints.

The ASRAAM situation couldn't be more confused than it is. Once it was planned (who knows why) that it would be integrated for all-internal carriage, with four missiles to be fitted in the bays. This ridiculous arrangement, which would give a stealth load consisting of just four short-range AAM, in a sort of modern imitation of the Sea Harrier FSR1, was abandoned by 2008, with the decision to move to an integration plan comprising two internal and two external missiles.
Now, although it is not clearly explained, it seems we are down (as was to be expected, see my earlier reports on the complexities of using IIR, rail launched missiles from inside the weapon bays) to the sole external integration.

F35 sporting an internal load of 8 SPEAR 3 and two Meteor missiles. Sometime in the future. Hopefully...

The good but bad news of the day is that the MOD is still only hoping to have Meteor integrated as part of the release of the software Block 4 on the F35 fleet (not before 2020, indicatively). The news is good because it confirms that the MOD is working on it, but it is bad because, by this point, we should have much more than just hopes in hand.
One year ago, the US hoped to finalize the list of requirements for Block IV by March 2013, but it seems the target has been missed.
The delay in formulating a final request for Meteor integration might be partly due to difficult negotiations between UK and Italy: the two nations hope to share the Meteor integration costs on a 50:50 basis, but in Italy the F35 is a particularly sore political subject right now, and the italian MOD is probably having a tough time in getting a go ahead for this project.

Perhaps more worrisome is the news that even the 48 F35B order promised as part of the 10 year budget will actually be approved on at least two separate Main Gates: according to Flightglobal, a "Main Gate 5", planned for around 2017 is "expected to approve the remaining balance of the first tranche of F-35 procurement."
In practice, if Main Gate 4 approves the order of 14 airplanes, in addition to the 3+1+4 already delivered, ordered or pre-ordered, Main Gate 5 will have to confirm the order for the remaining 26 airplanes.

In the middle, in 2015, there's a Strategic Defence Review. And they never seem to deliver good news.

What is really wrong with the aircraft carriers...

The new NAO report on the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers program (also known as CVF, Carrier Vessel Future) unsurprisingly describes a world of ignorance within the MOD, and exposes the costs connected with some of the bad decisions made in the years.

But the 74 millions wasted in this double switch is nothing compared to the damage caused by far worse and even less coherent decisions taken by this government and by those which came before it. The 2008 decision to slow the program down, taken by Labour, added more than 1.5 billion of costs in the long term while adding absolutely nothing in terms of capability, so Labour should have the decency of just shutting up about this program in particular. 

But even this disaster is not quite the one i'm going to talk about. 

The real tragedy here is the lack of any capability to clearly select a path and follow it through with coherence. The ongoing uncertainty, the constant rethinks, the inability to recognize the capabilities that absolutely need to be preserved, are the real problems UK defence is wrestling with. 

Much more than carriers

Since the SDSR came out, i’ve been lamenting the total lack of coherence and strategy that is so evident in british military planning. The latest NAO carrier strike report adds even more to this astonishing awareness: the government and the MOD have no real idea of what they want to do.

There is not a focus. There is not a clear idea of what capabilities are needed and consequently no real plan to avoid gapping all of them in sequence. The ability of the MOD to fill up pages and pages of meaningless, useless rambling is amazing, but there is no evidence of a coherent plan behind the description “deployable armed forces”.

Deployable how? With what ambitions? With what means?

The provision of carrier strike is only part of an alarming lack of planning for the future. The “deployable armed forces” of the SDSR are facing, among others:

Soon to be gapped capability to deploy special forces safely by air, due to imminent withdrawal from service of the suitably kitted C130Ks, without Project HERMES having delivered the same level of capability on the C130Js.

Depleted capability to transport heavy equipment by sea, thanks to the removal of 2 out of 6 of the Point-class RO-RO vessels.

Insufficient air cargo capability, despite the welcome purchase of the C17s.

Depleted capability for the Army to operate in the Littoral and sustain its logistic effort in presence of water obstacles (removal from service of the Ramped Craft Logistic vessels without a replacement)

Dramatically reduced amphibious capability, due to the removal of 1 Bay-class LSD and the mothballing of one of the two LPDs.

Much depleted capability to operate at sea in presence of underwater and surface threats, due to the lack of a maritime patrol aircraft.

Much higher risks are due to be accepted in future when deploying the fleet in dangerous areas, due to the gapping of maritime airborne early warning capability.

Lack of air cover for the fleet for at least seven more years.

Most of the key enablers making complex deployments abroad possible have been or will be removed from service in the next few years. How does this fit in the ridiculous, vague claim about still having deployable forces?

It is time the MOD decided what it wants to be able to do, and take coherent decisions to reach the target.

The carriers are key enablers for an expeditionary force. They are indispensable in a wide range of scenarios which require the projection of military power far away from the UK’s shores. They are perfect for interventions that chiefly require air power, such as operations in Libya in 2011. But they are also excellent to gain air superiority far away from home and protect the arrival of land forces, including land-based aviation, which is notoriously most vulnerable on the ground, and which would incur huge risks in trying to deploy to a menaced base in a war zone in absence of friendly forces providing cover.

And they are of course essential to support a forcible entry operation, especially an amphibious assault.

For the UK, the two new aircraft carriers in construction are even more important because they are also the only possible replacement for the current LPHs platforms (HMS Illustrious and HMS Ocean), since the notional LPH(Replacement) program has been dead in the water at least since 2006.

A tiny spark of understanding of this factor emerged in the SDSR, when the Carrier Enabled Power Projection concept was revealed, and there was the first open talk of using the new vessels to carry not just fast jets, but Marines and their helicopters at the same time.

Ever since, the UK’s Strike Carriers have effectively been, in the facts if not in the design, Landing Helicopter Aviation vessels (LHAs). The Queen Elizabeth class is not just a replacement for the Invincible class carriers, but it is going to be the successor to HMS Ocean and to the “Commando carrier” HMS Illustrious (in itself a “re-rolled” Invincible class vessel).

Although non optimal, this is a coherent approach, and the only one financially sustainable and feasible, as the MOD is simply not going to be given the money to build and run the QE class purely for carrier strike, while fielding a number of sufficiently capable amphibious vessels.

While France has the nuclear powered Charles de Gaulle in the carrier role and three Mistral LHDs in the amphibious role, the UK will have to approach the problem differently.

In itself, this is because a quite debatable choice was made in the 90s to build an amphibious fleet made up by ships built around a single, main role: the LPDs (HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark) carry the best part of the task force’s landing crafts and the command and control facilities. The Bay-class LSDs carry the most of the “first wave” vehicles (more equipment would disembark later on from the civilian-standard Point RO-RO cargo vessels) while HMS Ocean (which had to have a sister which in the end was never built) would carry a big share of the Marines, and nearly all of the helicopters.

The separation in roles is dramatically reflected in the ships’ designs: the LPDs and LSDs have large flight decks, but lack hangars. Carrying and maintaining large number of helicopters on open decks at sea is nearly unthinkable, so HMS Ocean’s vast hangar is an absolutely fundamental part of any amphibious task force.

The separation of the roles is not a wrong concept in itself, but it is not a concept suited to the Royal Navy’s budget. As the failure in building a sister for HMS Ocean and the reduction in the original planned number of Bay LSDs (up to six, then reduced to four) remind us, even when the plan was first conceived it was not financially sound.

The reality is that, had the Royal Navy pursued the Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) path and built Bulwark and Albion in such configuration, much better capability would have been obtained. The French Mistral class vessels are there to remind us of the mistake made.

The credibility of the amphibious capabilities of the UK in the era that will follow the decommissioning of HMS Ocean rests in the cavernous hangars of the QE vessels and on their vast flight decks: the new carriers are desperately needed to keep the RN able to deploy meaningful task groups in the future.

Can’t think more than half an hour ahead

The return to the F35B has one only real advantage over the F35C: it removes the large short term expenditure which would have been needed to modify HMS Prince of Wales at build to take aboard the US EMALS catapults and AAG arrestor wires.

In the long term, the F35B risks to cost more and is surely going to deliver less capability than the F35C. In terms of costs, the NAO notes that the F35B is at least 10 million pounds more expensive, per plane, than the F35C. More importantly, its through-life running costs will be 20% higher. And other sources have suggested 25% higher.

There is a real risk that the reversion to the F35B will end up being a “save now, spend more later” decision. The NAO in its report suggests that, over a 30 years period, the F35B will cost 600 million less than the F35C option, but I’m unconvinced.

We could regret this decision in the future for a whole range of reasons: the inferior capability of the F35B could end up being a problem some day. Its cost, already expected to be higher, could escalate further. Worse, catapults and wires could soon end up being needed all the same, when the importance of large, weapon-capable unmanned aerial vehicles will grow enough to make them indispensable even for a MOD which is getting way too used to look the other way and ignore uncomfortable facts.  

For now, the MOD is hiding its head under the sand by deciding that the first UCAV (notionally planned for the 2030) will be a purely RAF affair, and will only operate out of land bases.

A great example of joint thinking and long term strategic planning, isn’t it?

I have to accept the bitter truth, however: in this case, the MOD did not have the chance to think ahead. The treasury was in no case going to help the MOD cover the higher initial costs of the catapults solution, so there was no way to accommodate the conversion costs in the budget without cutting savagely back in many other areas of Defence. 

However, the decision to return to the B can only be truly accepted, supported and welcomed if it means retaining both carriers in service. The high cost of fitting catapults and wires would have made it virtually impossible to operate both ships in carrier role. The second could and should have served as LPH, for the reasons covered earlier, even though the lack of strategic thinking of course made the government conceive the absurd, insane idea of selling or mothballing such a precious asset.  

However, the F35B makes it possible to operate both vessels as LHAs, combining the provision of combat air capability to the provision of helicopter support to amphibious operations. With the advantage that, with two hulls, an LHA is always available for deployment. 

The one thing that the return to the F35B must give us is the entry in service of both ships. 

Of course, the above concept is too simple to be readily grasped by government and MOD, and we are vaguely tempted with the option of having both ships in service, while the actual decision is pushed back to 2015.

If we ever needed a reminder of the appalling inability to think more than half an hour into the future, we have just been given it.

Self-inflicted problems

The capabilities of the F35 for the UK are further harmed by, again, the lack of a coherent plan inside the MOD. So far, the UK has only required the integration of ASRAAM and Paveway IV onto the aircraft, and according to the NAO even these requirements haven’t yet been finalized and fully costed.

There is also an ongoing saga about how and where the ASRAAM will have to be fitted on the F35: at the beginning there was a (ridiculous) requirement to integrate four ASRAAM for internal carriage. Why the RAF deemed necessary to spend huge amounts of money to try and carry four short range, infrared-guided missiles in the enclosed weapon bays of a stealth fighter goes beyond my possibilities of understanding. A return to the first Sea Harrier, with the ASRAAM carried internally replacing the Sidewinder carried externally?

It becomes even more ridiculous when you think that no one else is bothering with trying to integrate an IR missile for internal carriage on the F35; and it becomes worse when you realize that carrying 4 ASRAAMs internally means not carrying AMRAAM and not carrying air to ground weaponry.

In 2008, the difficulties and cost of such a stupid idea became clearer, and the plan changed, with ASRAAM to be integrated on the two internal AA stations in replacement of the AMRAAM and on the two AA-only external stations under the wings.

Today, it is not clear if this is still the plan of if the ASRAAM is now only due for external integration. 

ASRAAM: stations 4, 5, 7, 8 then rethink, 1, 4, 8, 11. And now?

With the AMRAAM due to leave british service by 2017 and a plan for the integration of Meteor on the F35 having not been finalized yet, the F35 at entry in service risks being as well armed for air to air combat as a Tornado GR4. How to downgrade a multirole aircraft to an under-armed bomb truck.

For a good few years, it appeared that the UK might not integrate Meteor at all on the F35. Hard not to think that the RAF was doing so not to harm procurement of the Typhoon. After all, the one service getting the bad end of the deal would have been the Navy, which ever since it lost the Sea Harrier FA2 has been tragically lacking a capable fighter for the air defence of the fleet.

Fortunately, MBDA, aiming to export opportunities, self-funded efforts to make the Meteor compatible with the weapon bays of the F35, and now the MOD seems to have regained a little bit of wisdom: a recent interview saw the Italian chief of the defence staff confirm that the UK has asked Italy to join a bi-national effort to integrate the Meteor on the JSF, presumably as part of the Block IV software release.

We have to hope that this is confirmed, otherwise the F35 might be done to the sole ASRAAM for a good few years, well into the 2020s.

The Paveway IV is only meant to be integrated on the two internal AG stations. Why?

Good question. I can’t find an answer.

Other weapons have been deleted from the list of requirements (Paveway II and III, Brimstone, Storm Shadow) and will only reappear… sometime, later on. Maybe with the Block V software release.

Just maybe, though. The NAO reports:

The Department is now planning to procure 48 STOVL aircraft in the first tranche in the same quantity and production profile as the carrier variant. Given that the STOVL variant will deliver an aircraft with less range and endurance over a target area compared to the carrier variant, the decision potentially represents a reduction in capability. However, since 2010, the Department has confirmed that it does not have plans to use weapons which would require the greater payload capacity of the carrier variant.

That reads to me like an admission that the F35B is not planned anymore to be able to employ weapons such as Storm Shadow. I hope I’m wrong, because it would make absolutely no sense if this was the case. They hopefully mean that they have no plan to procure a 2000 pounds bomb for internal carriage (the F35B has weapon bays that are 14 inches shorter than the F35C’s ones, limiting it to weapons with the same volumes as the US 1000 lbs JDAM.  

However, the things that make no sense are so common these days around the MOD that it wouldn’t surprise me if my pessimist interpretation was correct.

Among other self-inflicted problems, it is worth highlighting these passages of the NAO report:

As the Carrier Strike capability draws upon both air and navy forces, there is a risk of divergent views on delivering its benefits. There have also been a wide range of views as to what constituted the wider capability known as Carrier Enabled Power Projection while the Senior Responsible Owner has lacked budgetary power and authority to bring coherence to its elements which draw upon the different forces.

As a result, and to address concerns raised by the Committee of Public Accounts, in response to our Carrier Strike report, the Department made the Programme Director of Carrier Strike a full-time, two-star role and gave the role of Senior Responsible Owner for Carrier Enabled Power Projection to a three-star officer responsible for capability decisions across the Department. This move has effectively strengthened the budgetary authority of the role and in April 2013 their mandate was also clarified. The Senior Responsible Owner chairs an Executive Programme Board which is attended by those responsible for the delivery of all of the key elements of the capability. These changes are a welcome clarification of previously inadequate governance arrangements; however, the Senior Responsible Owner will continue to face difficult challenges in successfully delivering the Carrier Strike capability and overcoming the historic, cultural differences between the forces.

I don’t even want to comment this. I think it speaks by itself. To keep the matter under some degree of control, it has taken the formation of a castle of multi-star posts, just like it happened when Joint Helicopter Command had to be formed to remedy to the inconvenient placement of the battlefield support helicopters under RAF command instead of in the hands of the Army.

Thanks for confirming once more that bringing the RAF into the business of naval aviation ranks high among the worst decisions ever made.

The only relief provided by the NAO report is the information that the Chief of Defence Staff is uncomfortable with the lack of carrier air capability and applied pressure to avoid gapping it for any longer time than strictly unavoidable. This is reassuring. However, Chiefs change, and the presence of the RAF in the carrier air equation risks being a source of problems and infighting forever. Will we always enjoy the presence of a Chief of Defence Staff capable to preserve the carrier capability, or will we end up having a new Harrier tragedy?

Or a Nimrod tragedy, too. You can choose your favorite disaster.

Lack of vision

Another stunning demonstration of the lack of honesty and understanding within the MOD planning is the disastrous approach to the replacement of the Airborne Early Warning capability currently provided to the fleet (and to the joint force, as the enduring commitment to Afghanistan demonstrates) by the Sea King MK7 ASaC.

Already some time ago I had written that I was only waiting for the inexorable coming of the idiotic comment sayings that, with no carriers in the water, we don’t need AEW either.

Could I be kept waiting for once? Of course not.

Defense News reports on the NAO document and notes the statement offered by Hammond in reply:

The Department does not consider that the phased introduction of Crowsnest undermines the delivery of carrier-strike capability. Crowsnest will enter service at the same time as HMS Queen Elizabeth and will be fully operational by 2022. Until then, its maritime surveillance capabilities will be augmented by other platforms and systems.

There is one, and one only advantage that an helicopter-based AEW solution offers over the much more capable Hawkeye aircraft: an helicopter can be based on almost any kind of modern warship.

Sea King MK7 has in recent times been operating from HMS Ocean as well as HMS Illustrious, and it has also been aboard Type 45 destroyers.

An helicopter AEW platform, or HEW, If you want, with the H for Heliborne, has the advantage that it can provide any kind of flotilla an invaluable AEW solution, even if there is no large flat top in sight.

HEW does NOT NEED the carrier.  

The carrier NEEDS the HEW platform.

Moreover, not only the carrier needs HEW, the whole fleet NEEDS HEW.

Conclusion: the lack of a carrier does nothing to reduce the importance of HEW.

The need for early warning of incoming air and, later on, missile attacks has been clear even since the 1940s. The massive air attacks, and the threat of the japanese Kamikaze in the Pacific theatre were the original driver for the quick development of early warning solutions.

First was the radar picket ship, vessels fitted with powerful radars sent ahead of the task force to form a first line of defence and to provide early warning to the thick of the force.

Of course, being on a picket ship was a very dangerous job: picket ships were the first to be attacked and the first to be sunk.

Desperation with this situation brought to the light a number of imaginative solutions, including the use of submersibles fitted with radars, destined to stay on the surface to track enemy air activity. Submersibles were harder to spot from the sky, and could always dive underwater, so they had much better chances of surviving the day. But they also made for poor platforms for air control radars.

Nonetheless, the US Navy did use many such EW vessels. The last such boat to be kitted for the role was a nuclear propelled submarine!

Fortunately, by then, technology had progressed enough to make airborne EW platforms viable and effective.

Already once the Royal Navy had the great idea of gapping the AEW capability. It was swiftly punished with the Falklands War, which saw the senior service having to take a step back in time, all the way to using picket ships and, to a degree, submarine EW as well, when five submarines formed a line on the edge of Argentina's 12-nautical-mile (22 km; 14 mi) territorial limit to provide some form of early warning of incoming air raids.  

A cost was paid for this in sunk ships and lost lives. HMS Sheffield is a good image of this, as she was a picket ship, deployed ahead of the main force to make up for the lost capability provided, until not much time before, by the Gannet AEW aircrafts of the old HMS Ark Royal (IV).

Evidently, not enough ships and lives were lost, because the MOD is once again planning to gap this vital capability, from 2016 all the way to 2020 or, more exactly, 2022. Four to six years of return to “stone age” for the Navy.

There is no hiding behind the superior capabilities of the Type 45 and of its Sea Viper missiles. Physics has not changed, and the radar horizon for the detection of low-flying enemies continues to be too close to the ship for defences to work properly.

And at the Falklands the threat was the subsonic Exocet. Today, the threat could well be a massive, supersonic Yakhont missile fired by the BASTION coastal defence batteries sold by Russia to countries such as Siria.

Defences might have improved, but offensive weapons also have, and a missile coming low on the waves at Mach 2 or 3 will leave a ship struggling to react in the few seconds it’ll have between detection of the incoming threat and impact.

But perhaps mr. Hammond believes that the enemy will not want to use its missiles against frigates, destroyers, amphibs and merchant ships. Maybe the enemy will only fire its missiles if there is a carrier to try and hit.

Maybe. But I don’t think so. And Hezbollah doesn’t, either. There’s many people out there who probably don’t agree with mr. Hammond.

I hope, not for him but for the sailors that would pay the ultimate price in such an event, that he can get away with this insane decision without having his own HMS Sheffield moment. 

A decision taken is never definitive  

Another dramatic problem is the dramatic way in which programs even of primary importance tend to drag on and on and on without ever delivering. Even when the MOD takes a decision and starts some kind of activity, it takes uncountable years and uncountable acronyms and "studies" and "assessment phases" and "main gates" and "planning rounds" to get any progress in. 

Again, we return to the tragedy of AEW. 

The Royal Navy has been trying to find a replacemet for Sea King MK7 for well over a decade. We were still in the 1990s when the Future Organic Airborne Early Warning Aircraft (FOAEW) started. And with further research we might find out that the activities started earlier still. 

In the early 2000s the acronym changed, to MASC (Maritime Airborne Surveillance and Control) and in 2010 we arrived to the current CROWSNEST name. 

Capability delivered: none. 

Only this year CROWSNEST has entered the Assessment Phase. The selected path is to fit palletized radar equipment to the existing fleet of Merlin HM2 helicopters, with two proposals to choose from: Northropp Grumman/Lochkeed propose the VIGILANCE radar pod, which they have been testing in flight since last year, on a Merlin HM2. 

Thales proposes migrating the CERBERUS/Searchwater 2000AEW kit from the existing Sea King MK7 to a the slightly modified Merlin HM2 airframe. 

Thales proposal, with existing radar from Sea King MK7 migrated and fitted on sliding rails on the side of the Merlin HM2 fuselage.

 

The Vigilance pod proposed by Lochkeed.

Nothing revolutionary at all, in other words. It proposes to use an helicopter which will return in full service after the upgrade to HM2 standard over the next year. An helicopter that is currently planned to leave service in 2030, notably. 

If Thales wins, even the radar could remain the same, perhaps just touched up a bit. 

Yet they are dragging it along, for budget and non-budget reasons, so much to expect an entry in service only in 2020, with systems that won't be fully operational before the end of 2022. 

That's 9 years from the start of the Assessment Phase, and well over two decades after the whole saga began.    

To set the proportions straight, the E2 Hawkeye was born from a US Navy requirement in 1956, entered service as E2A in 1964 and by 1971 it had been completely upgraded twice, up to E2C standard. All in 15 years. 

I won't add anything else. I think facts speak loud enough.