US Navy Admiral Questions Expensive Stealth Platforms

Trepidity writes "United States Navy Admiral and Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert stirred a controversy by questioning much of the thinking underlying current U.S. defense technology. He argues that stealth technology is unlikely to retain its usefulness much into the future, and so focus should switch towards standoff weapons. In addition, he criticizes the focus on expensive all-in-one platforms such as the F-35 fighter, arguing for a payload-centric, flexible approach he compares to trucks rather than luxury cars."

Comments

Cut military spending.

[Anonymous Coward]

We spend entirely too much money on our military. We are so far ahead of the next country in terms of dollars spent it's not even close. We keep bases all around the world, protecting everybody, so that they don't have to spend their own money on a military and instead can spend it domestically. It needs to end. It's no longer 1955.

Re:Cut military spending.

[Darkness404]

Exactly. We need diplomacy, not bombs. We need to stop trying to be the world's "policeman", stop propping up dictators, stop propping up the rebels to take down the dictators we earlier propped up, and slash military spending. Consider Switzerland, for example.

Re:Cut military spending.

[Anonymous Coward]

Awkward moment when even the military is calling out excessive military spending

Re:Cut military spending.

[0123456]

Many of those countries 'use you as a proxy army' because the US government didn't want those countries to be military competitors post-WW2. While that may have been a sensible policy, you can hardly blame them for something the US government itself encouraged.

Re:Cut military spending.

[Taco Cowboy]

Your average street cop isn't out there to protect you, they are out there to serve the interests of the government.

 
I beg to differ
 
The average stret cop isn't out there to serve the interests of the government - rather, his or her main interest is to serve herself / himself
 
As for secondary interests, maybe for local business concerns or drug lords, or whoever can pull the right strings for the local street beat cops
 

Re:Cut military spending.

[Zemran]

It is not the amount but the effectiveness of it. A few years back I was working with air traffic controllers, installing systems that could bring together all the data and recreate and replay an event from all the data, voice, radar etc. Anyway, I was talking to the ATC guys on a small European island and one of them told me about a time when a plane came into his airspace without showing tags that let them know automatically who it is. He demanded to know who it was and the pilot was surprised because even the pilot thought that his stealth plane could not be seen. It turned out that the stealth bomber is only invisible to modern radar and on this island with older larger, dishes they could see the plane as clearly as any other plane. That is old radar like most of our enemies have... The ATC guy explained the technology to me and how to create a system that would see any stealth plane created using current technology (i.e. a range of different bandwidth/size radar dishes).

Trillions of $$$ and it is useless... but we the public are sold on the idea that this technology is unbeatable.

Re:Cut military spending.

[DesScorp]

Exactly. We need diplomacy, not bombs.

This is stupid beyond words. We HAVE diplomacy, and always try diplomacy first, Democrat or Republican in office. Further, this kind of thinking completely ignores the fact that the US has intractable enemies that won't be swayed from their national interests by any amount of diplomacy. Russia is always going to see the US as an adversary. China is always going to see the US as an adversary. Various Middle Eastern and Asian countries are the same. No amount of diplomacy is going to stop Russia and China from blocking UN support for freedom movements in countries with rulers they support. No amount of diplomacy is going to stop Putin's Russia from trying to reassert supremacy over their former satellites in East Europe. No amount of diplomacy is going to stop China from trying to claim all of the islands, oil fields, and shipping lanes in the South China Sea.

Get your head out of the sand. Everyone here... myself included... agrees that we need a smaller military. But "diplomacy not bombs" is hippy-ish stupidity. Try diplomacy first. If that doesn't work, then you'd damn well better have the bombs.

Re:Cut military spending.

[catmistake]

We need software, not bombs.

FTFY

make install, not war

Re:Cut military spending.

[shutdown -p now]

Really? What has diplomacy EVER solved?

Not getting nuked during Cold War was a fairly nice achievement, if you ask me.

Re:Cut military spending.

[AmiMoJo]

his is stupid beyond words. We HAVE diplomacy, and always try diplomacy first, Democrat or Republican in office.

One of the main criticisms of the Iraq invasion is that you didn't give weapons inspectors time to do their work (and surprise surprise it turned out their failure to find any weapons was because there were not any), and did not exhaust diplomatic options. Not only did you fail to properly negotiate with Iraq, you failed to properly negotiate with the UN and started the war on dubious legal ground.

Further, this kind of thinking completely ignores the fact that the US has intractable enemies that won't be swayed from their national interests by any amount of diplomacy.

We used to think that about the IRA, but when we finally stopped fighting them and actually sat down and worked it out the situation was resolved. Afghanistan looks like it will be the same, with peace ultimately depending on a negotiated resolution with the Taliban.

Russia is always going to see the US as an adversary. China is always going to see the US as an adversary.

If the US were not trying to Team America World Police I think you would find their attitudes towards you quickly soften. Saying "never" is almost stupid beyond words when you look at how many countries have reconciled. How about Britain and the US? Or Japan and South Korea? France and Germany?

Re:Cut military spending.

[gtall]

Revisionism isn't helpful. In Iraq, the U.S. removed a dictator who prevented the majority Shi'ites from living in a democracy. They may not have one yet but at least now they have a chance. And Saddam was another war waiting to happen, the only reason it didn't from he or his sons is because the U.S. spent 10 years and a lot of money making sure he couldn't rearm enough to start one. When it became clear, he or his sons were going to be a perpetual threat, the U.S. took him out.

The IRA was only brought to the bargaining table after it was rammed into their thick heads they couldn't win. That took a lot head-bashing to get them to that point. And if they had succeeded, they'd have started in on Ireland because the IRA was a bunch of socialists on a mission to unify the island under their direct control.

Britain and the U.S. fought it out, then reconciled, Japan and S. Korea are not reconciled, they simply have decided not to fight it out...yet. Japan recently claimed some islands that S. Korea thinks are theirs, and S.Korea halted progress on a defense pact over the issue. France and Germany only reconciled after Germany was defeated and France had nothing left with which to continue the fight. The U.S. made them reconcile by liberating France and defeating Germany.

Putin's Russia will never reconcile with the West simply because he wants to create another Stalinist state, but one he thinks can be run efficiently. The whole problem with the U.S. and Russia over Syria is because if the West succeeds in forcing the government there out, then Putin is worried he'll look like the petty dictator he really is and the West might attempt to force him out as well. His methods for keeping power are not all that dissimilar to Assad's and he'll be calling out the military should there ever be a popular groundswell of opposition to him. You can take the man out of the KGB but you cannot take the KGB out of the man.

Islam will never reconcile with the West either either. The West believes in democracy where power comes from the people. Islam believes that power comes from Allah. You can see it starting to reassert it's political basis in Turkey. Erdogan cannot stop himself from attempting the slow Islamization of Turkey's political landscape. Give it another 10 years and there won't be any democracy left in Turkey.

China is busy expanding into anything they think they can grab. There's no accommodating them unless by that you mean acquiescing to whatever their demands are this year. A single party system has no bounds stopping it from becoming a major headache.

And by 'controversy', I think they mean ...

[pipedwho]

'interfere with the military industrial complex gravy train'.

How about...

[Darkness404]

How about trying to maintain a foreign policy that encourages peace and free trade? I'm sure that will keep us much safer and will cost us less. But instead we spend our billions on arms and look for conflicts to use them in...

Nonsense... it is 100% effective

[AlienIntelligence]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/f-22-germans/

"In mid-June, 150 German airmen and eight twin-engine, non-stealthy Typhoons arrived at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska for an American-led Red Flag exercise involving more than 100 aircraft from Germany, the U.S. Air Force and Army, NATO, Japan, Australia and Poland. Eight times during the two-week war game, individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.

The results were a surprise to the Germans and presumably the Americans, too. “We were evenly matched,” Maj. Marc Gruene told Combat Aircraft’s Jamie Hunter. The key, Gruene said, is to get as close as possible to the F-22 and stay there. “They didn’t expect us to turn so aggressively.”"

Re:Nonsense... it is 100% effective

[Jimme Blue]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/07/f-22-germans/

"...individual German Typhoons flew against single F-22s in basic fighter maneuvers meant to simulate a close-range dogfight.

The results were a surprise to the Germans and presumably the Americans, too. “We were evenly matched,” Maj. Marc Gruene told Combat Aircraft’s Jamie Hunter. The key, Gruene said, is to get as close as possible to the F-22 and stay there. “They didn’t expect us to turn so aggressively.”"

I don't doubt this report. However, my understanding is that the point of F-22 is to conduct its engagements at long-range and avoid these close-range knife fights. If the threat gets to dog-fighting range, the F-22s have screwed up and lost their greatest advantages.

Re:Nonsense... it is 100% effective

[thesandbender]

The F-22 is ultimately meant to protect our AWACS planes. If the AWACS are taking out, the USAF loses their view of the airspace and controlling it becomes much more difficult. The F-22 are meant to loiter a distance away from the AWACS and take their targeting instructions from them. The enemy aircraft get popped and if it's done right the F-22 are still hidden.

If they know its going to be a true dog fight, they're going to send in the F-15s which have proven time and again that it can hold it's own (b/c despite their size, they were designed to be close in knife fighters). The F-15's won't always maintain this superiority and newer Mig's and Sukohi's have closed much or all of the gap... but it's still one of the best out their.

Anyway, using a ground based analogy... the F-22 is meant to a sniper, supporting the F-15's and F/A-18's are the grunts who will be doing the close in work.

Re:Nonsense... it is 100% effective

[LWATCDR]

Actually not anymore. One of the reasons that the F-14 did so little in the Gulf Wars was that it lacked the modern radars that could do None Cooperative Target Identification. Modern radar can ID a target well past visual range. Your about 10 to 15 years out of date.

Re:Nonsense... it is 100% effective

[Iamthecheese]

So imagine you're a racing company. A big one. You have fingers in every pie from demolition derbies to dirt bikes to those 2,000 horsepower sprint races. You've got stock cars, Formula 1 monsters, and banged up heavily reinforced pickups. You may save money by making a stock car that can compete in F1 but in the end you risk losing because your car couldn't cut it in the right field. Now the F-22 is like a formula one car. Fast, very expensive, highly specialized. In its domain it's the best in the world. But you would lose a 500 lap nascar race in one. So you don't build as many and you use them only where they belong.

Re:Nonsense... it is 100% effective

[DesScorp]

That was the point of the F-14 Tomcat, too -- an airframe designed around carrying the AIM-54 Phoenix long-range missile to engage and destroy incoming Soviet bombers at ranges that would force them to launch their anti-ship missiles before acquiring good targeting information; while the swing-wing gave it an increased flexibility in maneuver, it was still a large, relatively unmaneuverable fighter. You will note that, despite upgrades like the Super Tomcat, the F-14 has been phased out, replaced by the much smaller F-18 and variants, plus the increasingly late and over-budget F-35C.

Uh, the Tomcat had a tighter turn radius than anything but the F-16 and F-18... and it was pretty close. The swing wings gave it miraculous maneuverability. The problem that the Tom did have in performance wasn't maneuverability or even it's large size, but rotten engines that were underpowered and finicky. The Tomcat drivers I knew used to joke that "If it says Pratt & Whitney on the engines, it'd better say Martin Baker on the seat" (for those that don't get the reference, Martin Baker makes ejection seats for military planes).

Please note that the Tomcat served longer in frontline service than any fighter in the history of the U.S. Navy. Over 30 years. Not even the Phantom served that long in fleet squadrons. The reason the Navy retired the Tomcat had nothing to do with performance and everything to do with cost. It was expensive as hell to maintain and fly. Even with the much-better GE F110 engines in the D model, the Navy simply couldn't afford to keep it anymore. Pilots that had flown both the Tomcat and the Hornet will tell you that in fleet air defense, they'll take the F-14 all day long, thank you. Ask any pilot familiar with both platforms and they'll tell you that, performance-wise, the Navy traded down. The Super Hornet won the day because of cost, cost to buy and cost to fly. It has much fewer maintenance requirements. Economics is the sole reason the Tomcat is no longer with the fleet.

Cui bono?

[jaymzter]

Think about the source folks. I'm an ex-Navy man so it pains me to say, but to me it seems obvious what's going on here. Ask yourself, does it benefit the Navy or Marines if we standardize on a subset of airframes? Who do you think would be the major driver of those designs? It's going to be the Air Force, and the needs of the fleet are going to come second to theirs.

Next, the Admiral himself brings up aircraft carriers, a platform not known for its stealthiness. In fact, pretty much any Navy ship designed for stealth is going to be smaller and have a small crew as well. He's defending his turf and his budget, which in a sense is very much his job as CNO. Or at least that's my take.

Go Navy, Beat Army! ;-)

Re:Cui bono?

[ColdWetDog]

If you had actually read the article, you would have noticed a few interesting things:

1. Although Stealth was indeed part of his thesis, it was only one of a number of subjects he touched on. He mainly was describing the current Navy attempts at creating Stealth vessels - attempts that have been very expensive and pretty much useless. He points out that anti stealth technology is advancing faster (and cheaper) than stealth construction techniques and it's tactical advantages tend to be rather modest. Basically, Stealth isn't and should not be the be all and end all of military research.

2. Most of the article described the long lead times of military gear (especially naval vessels) and the short half like of various military technologies (like Stealth). He posits that making modular systems that can be re purposed easily for whatever tends the be the threat de jour.

Of course, he spends a lot of time talking about non modular ships like the Enterprise (the CVN-65, not NCC-1701) and how they've been modified for different jobs over the years without being expressly modular, but the idea is there.

Re:Cui bono?

[RicktheBrick]

I joined the Navy in 1974. My first ship was the USS Virginia (CGN-38). Almost everything to me was a joke. My training in combat was almost nothing. I was a fire control man(FC). At first I was a FTM but that was dropped and FC was my designation. I was expected to maintain and operate the combat MK-74 weapon system. The computer did not have a hard drive and the program was loaded by using a tape system. Nobody really expected that the ship was going to be used in combat even though the ship was an expensive ship since it was nuclear powered. If I could get the weapon system to pass a daily test, I was good. It would throw some fake targets at the ship and if the radar detected them and generated a solution and if the launcher would load up a fake missile and point it, I could fire it and the test would be successful. Never at any point was there any training on what to do if we were really attacked by a real enemy. It was just like my duty to be on the quarterdeck. I was given a 45 and 10 rounds of ammunition. Of course the ammunition was never in the 45 as it was never fired on anyone. Once a year we would be taken to a firing range where we would be told to fire on a target. It did not matter how close we got to the target since they always told us the Navy could not afford to train us to fire accurately and besides if they failed us it would make us happy since it would mean that they could not assign us to the quarterdeck watch. Everything was a joke since several times, I would be assigned to walk on a deck with a shotgun but was never given training on when to shoot it. Or how to defend myself if there was an attack. I really do not know what would have happened if some pirate would have tried to board us on the fan tail. There would have been a watch there but he would have been unarmed and the only weapon would have been on the bridge. It would have been in the custody of someone with no training along with some officers with again no combat training. The armory would have been locked up at night and the key would probably be with a gunners mate who would have to get there unarmed to pass weapons to again other sailors with no training on how to use them. I did this on three other ships and my total experience was that it was a very big joke as I at no time felt I was defending this country from any enemy as I was given no training.

The scale is totally different nowadays....

[Anonymous Coward]

During WWII, they cranked planes out by the 1,000's if not 10's of 1,000's. Nowadays, the number of high performance jets is measured in the hundreds. If there were to be a conflict, due to the complexity of today's aircraft, there is no way to crank out new aircraft by the 1,000's or hundreds or even tens. There may certainly be a need for a much simpler aircraft that can be easily mass produced in significant quantities.

Re:The scale is totally different nowadays....

[ColdWetDog]

During WWII, they cranked planes out by the 1,000's if not 10's of 1,000's. Nowadays, the number of high performance jets is measured in the hundreds. If there were to be a conflict, due to the complexity of today's aircraft, there is no way to crank out new aircraft by the 1,000's or hundreds or even tens. There may certainly be a need for a much simpler aircraft that can be easily mass produced in significant quantities.

Those are called drones (and cruise missiles which really are a form of drone). The idea is that meatbags don't get to see the action up close. That's for the video gear.

I've met Admiral Greenert

[HangingChad]

And his logic is hard to fault. He pointed to the B-52 as an example of a flexible weapons platform that had a wide variety of uses that didn't require stealth technology compared to the limited usefulness of the F-117.

Solid, reliable and flexible is more important than stealth, which was designed for a war we're likely never going to fight.

It's the defence contractors...

[sydbarrett74]

...who want to shove this stuff down the armed forces' throats. The generals and admirals themselves say they don't want the kit, but the lobbyists and aerospace companies insist on making their billions or even trillions of dollars; and the members of Congress want their kickbacks and 'campaign contributions'.

The One True Airframe

[Sasayaki]

I'm not sure why this big push towards "the One True Airframe" exists in current aircraft design philosophy.

I'm a big fan of cheap, specialized airframes which are given one specific goal and then features are "added on". For example, take one of my favourite aircraft, the A-10 Warthog.

It's one-sentence goal is: "Easily destroy any armoured vehicle that the US could conceivably encounter within the next 50 years."

Which it does. Additional features it has:

- Extremely tough and rugged.
- Very long duration, able to loiter and provide cover for extended durations.
- Cheap in construction and simple to maintain.
- Minimally capable in missile-based air-air combat (it's not a dogfighter but it's not helpless either, like an AC-130 is).
- The A-10's cannon is effective against infantry (duh), buildings, helicopters and small naval assets.
- Able to deliver complex munitions (cluster bombs, air dropped mines, dumb bombs, smart missiles, etc).
- Able to function in electronic warfare/forward command roles.
- Fast enough to get to combat locations fairly quickly (subsonic, but still jet powered and fast compared to things like the AC-130 Spectre).

All of which is good, but are all of these things are secondary to its primary goal; blow the absolute piss and shit out of anything with treads or wheels. If it can't do that, the rest is fairly much window dressing.

The A-10's a perfect example how we should build combat aircraft. An air-supremacy fighter should be built with the goal of "Destroy any fighter aircraft the US could encounter within X years" and all other considerations secondary. A bomber's mission should be "Carry the maximum amount of ordnance to any location the US could want to bomb within X years", a spy plane's (mostly replaced by sats these days) should be "Take photographs of any location in the entire world without being detected or destroyed", etc.

Another way to look at it is: "A soldier should carry a knife for eating, a sword for dueling, a dagger for murdering, a claymore for horses, a razor for shaving, a bowie for skinning, a throwing knife for throwing."

Why are we trying to make The One True Edged Weapon, which if such a thing were built would be too sharp for eating, too short for dueling, too long for murdering, too short for horses, too dangerous for shaving, too awkward for skinning and too heavy to throw? (and cost $27,000,000...)

$110M Eurofigher against the $150M F-22

[perpenso]

It seems that in air-to-air combat, as in a knife fight, 'the bad guys' don't always play by the rules.

Actually if you bother to read the article where the German pilots were surprised to find themselves on an equal footing in a dog fight you will find that they also said that at long range they did everything they could and basically had little chance against the F22.

Don't quote me but I think an F-22 can carry a maximum of six medium range missiles and two short range missiles. Assuming a 100% hit rate in a fight against multiple non-stealthy bogies the pilot will have his work cut out for him.

Not really. The Germans were flying the $110M (Euro 90M) Eurofigher against the $150M F-22. The Eurofighter is a contemporary of the F-22, only a couple of years older, not something from a previous design generation. The other guy is not going to have some huge numerical advantage.

That said, we should have a more balanced force. We have had long range over the horizon capable jets going back to Vietnam but they are rarely every allowed to engage at such distances. They are almost always required to get visual IDs on the other aircraft. I'm sure there will be specialized missions where the F-22s are the way to go and we should have some. But we should also have modern incarnations of a dedicated fighter and a dedicated close air support aircraft, as we did in the past with the F-16s and A-10s. For those unfamiliar with the origin of these legendary aircraft, the Air Force did not want either one. They were both designed by rouge design teams that did not believe in the concept of multi-mission aircraft, and after demonstrating amazing performance in their respective roles, they were forced upon the Air Force by a cost conscious Congress.

Re:Next 17 countries combined.

[nedlohs]

What sort of moron wants a fair fight if they can have an advantage?

Diplomacy does not always work

[Taco Cowboy]

We need diplomacy, not bombs.

 
In an ideal world, diplomacy should lead the way
 
Unfortunately we do not live in an ideal world
 
In this world we live in, talking softly while carrying a big stick is still the most practical way of doing things
 

Re:Diplomacy does not always work

[couchslug]

Bankrupting yourself building inappropriate sticks isn't "playing it safe", it's pork.

Re:Diplomacy does not always work

[Dynetrekk]

You guys already have a stick that's as big as everyone else's combined. How big do you really need it to be?

You can't be too rich, too thin, or have a too big stick.

Re:Diplomacy does not always work

[risom]

And yes, trickle down did work until we regulated industry out of the US and people had to choose asking if you want fries with that as a career path.

Nope, trickle down never actually worked. Have a look at the real wage development visualized in the diagram in the criticsm section of the wikipedia article.

Re:NObama 2012

[Black Parrot]

Will Hussein listen to his OWN generals? Hell no.

What *actually* happens, as you would know if you've been following the current case of the M-1 and a hundred like it before, is that the Pentagon decides that they don't want to spend their money on something that they don't think will help them accomplish their mission, and the the defense contractors who will lose funding run screaming to their congresscritter, who the goes screaming to the public that the {commies,terrorists,aliens} will win if the Pentagon is not allowed to spend all those billions of dollars in their district, so Congress puts in the defense budget even though the Pentagon doesn't want it.

'Cause we got to keep that pork flowing.

Re:NObama 2012

[Black Parrot]

Go Romney! The candidate with the shorter last name deserves to win!

Actually the candidate with the biggest dick deserves to win. (Though I'm not offering to check.)

Of course, politicians don't listen carefully, so they think the rule is that the one who *is* the biggest dick deserves to win.

Re:Private property equalling theft

[Alex Belits]

He put his capital at risk to start it up

Risk does not inherently deserve a reward. Certainly not a reward that involves control of other people and fruits of their labor.

All that being said, if you are a US citizen,

Not only I am not an US citizen, I also happened to live half of my life in USSR and half in US, what makes me more qualified to comments on matters of Communists, Socialism and Capitalism than most of US population including all US politicians, all US journalists, all US "historians" and, of course, you.

the first amendment does guarantee your right to have and espouse completely stupid opinion

It's nice that you have mentioned that. First Amendment is basically the right to lie to the public with impunity, as your favorite propaganda outlet, Fox News, demonstrated multiple times. If anything, your response demonstrates that those lies were extremely efficient.