Did CNO just take a big swipe at F-35?

1st503rdsgt · by **1st503rdsgt** » 03 Jul 2012, 20:54

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/07/03/did-c ... pe-at-f35/

The latest on the USN's lukewarm attitude on the F-35C.

"Outrageous! Translation: We cannot afford to keep up our side of the arms race between “stealth” and detection — we are going to lose. So rather than trying to persist with stealthy platforms, we need new longer-range standoff weapons and new kinds of electronic attack...

Greenert’s piece removes all doubt about the Navy’s continued institutional resistance to F-35 — or at best, it now makes its official support very confusing...

Moreover, the Navy also has shown it was willing to publicly undercut the F-35 anytime it pleased, with more orders for F/A-18E and F Super Hornets; its decision to begin studying a new “sixth-generation” F/A-XX it probably can’t afford; and its now-infamous leaked slide deck positing very, very high costs for the new jet. Greenert’s Proceedings article is only the latest example of that trend...

Still, an aircraft-launched standoff weapon with enough range and precision might mean you don’t even need a stealthy jet to carry it. The Navy’s existing Super Hornets (or Super-Duper Hornets) could get close to the dangerous boundaries of an “advanced adversary,” release their new super-missiles and then bingo back to the ship. Why bother with an expensive, advanced, stealthy aircraft whose “stealth” might not even work?

Because, the Air Force and the Marines and the F-35’s international customers all would argue, the world’s good guys need to take advantage of the commonality they’ll get from all operating the same advanced aircraft. Plus you could argue that Greenert is giving way too much credit to the bad guys’ air defense innovations and severely undercutting the performance of his own airplane. Plus you could argue that Greenert is putting way too much faith in long-range guided weapons and way too little in manned aircraft: What if his spooky new submarine-based suppression of enemy air defenses doesn’t work? What if tomorrow’s Super-Tomahawks can’t get a satellite signal to find their targets? You need a highly trained naval aviator in the cockpit of an airplane willing to ride the highway to the danger zone..."

spazsinbad · by **spazsinbad** » 03 Jul 2012, 21:04

Repeated here - top of page: http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopi ... rt-45.html

1st503rdsgt · by **1st503rdsgt** » 03 Jul 2012, 21:14

popcorn · by **popcorn** » 03 Jul 2012, 22:12

If that's, true,,we can expect the X-47B and eventually the UCLASS to be scrapped soon not holding my breath.

firstimpulse · by **firstimpulse** » 04 Jul 2012, 03:55

Apparently the Navy likes boats more than planes. :roll:

sferrin · by **sferrin** » 04 Jul 2012, 04:36

firstimpulse wrote:Apparently the Navy likes boats more than planes.

They get rid of the planes they won't have their boats for very long. :lol:

mk82 · by **mk82** » 04 Jul 2012, 14:07

Interesting, Admiral Greenert is from a submarine background. I wonder if his views may be a little different if he was a naval aviator.

count_to_10 · by **count_to_10** » 04 Jul 2012, 14:16

mk82 wrote:Interesting, Admiral Greenert is from a submarine background. I wonder if his views may be a little different if he was a naval aviator.

Actually, that would make a lot of sense -- it would be natural for him to promote guided missile subs over carrier groups.

quicksilver · by **quicksilver** » 04 Jul 2012, 15:59

He asks fair questions, but the fact that he does so in public suggests where the Navy is going in advance of the next round of cuts, sequestration or otherwise. Some who wear the uniform believe the Navy has been over-invested in aviation and under-invested in the ship-building accounts (and other stuff) for some time. Imagine the conversation -- "So, tell me Admiral Brownshoe, we've bought this, we're buying that, and now you wanna spend more for (take your pick)? Explain this to me..."

Lead-time to put things in place for the institution's future are very long, and you can't make major heading changes every time someone gets a bright idea. If you are the "CEO" of that institution, how do you balance competing priorities going forward?

count_to_10 · by **count_to_10** » 04 Jul 2012, 16:46

Also important: threat level isn't uniform, and the bulk of forces that our military go up against are out-of-date at one level or another. When looking forward, you have to consider how far the present systems will have proliferated, not just what cutting edge systems will be deployed by leading edge opponents.

redbird87 · by **redbird87** » 04 Jul 2012, 17:30

Good point count to 10. Along those line, when would the F-35C even reach full IOC in our fleet? In other words, a full complement on all 10 carriers? 2020? 2025? With the amount of money we are talking about, it sounds like the admiral may be concerned that the F-35s vaunted stealth may be largely mitigated by CISR4 technology advances not long after that. At that point, the Navy would have been far better off spending its capital budget in a more balanced way. More UCAV, more Virginia's, more stand-off weapons, perhaps more F-18/EA-18s. Of course by the time-frame I am discussing here (late 2020s) the current F-18 E/Fs themselves will need to be replaced. Perhaps the admiral thinks: 1) with smart purchases in long-range weapons and a good EA-18, F-18, UCAV mix, the Navy will be just fine until 2030. 2) In the 2030s, a better aircraft than the F-35 can be produced and purchased for use until 2060.

I'm not saying that WHAT the admiral wants. He'd probably love to have the F-35 in the mix. But to me, the extremely long lead-time of getting this thing fully developed, tested, and operational fleet wide, along with it prohibitive costs, are forcing the leadership to seriously consider other options.

Those of you that have taken a full dose of the F-35 cool-aid need not worry though. Even if the professional warriors who run the Navy decide the purchase of that aircraft is not the best course of action, I'm sure congress will make them buy it anyway:-(

count_to_10 · by **count_to_10** » 04 Jul 2012, 17:53

Red, the current SAMs are going to be proliferated more widely than any new counter-stealth SAMs. The F-18s are going to be less and less useful, while the F-35C is going to be able to cover all the lower end threats and be more useful against the high end ones. It is much more likely that the Navy won't get another fighter after the F-35 than it is that the F-35 will be canceled. This article actually makes a strong argument that the Navy should buy the F-35, as it is built to be upgradable, and satisfy future requirements with variants of it.

river_otter · by **river_otter** » 04 Jul 2012, 17:56

redbird87 wrote:... Perhaps the admiral thinks: 1) with smart purchases in long-range weapons and a good EA-18, F-18, UCAV mix, the Navy will be just fine until 2030. 2) In the 2030s, a better aircraft than the F-35 can be produced and purchased for use until 2060.

I'm not saying that WHAT the admiral wants. ...

No, you're clearly NOT saying what the Admiral wants. As Spazsinbad's 3:51am post in http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-19509-start-45.html points out, the Admiral's staff clarified that the reason he didn't directly state that the F-35C was a bad deal in the article is that he doesn't think it is. http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/07/03/the-navys-advanced-weapons-shopping-list/

His Proceedings article was about what to do next, AFTER the F-35C, at a point long in the future when stealth really is a matter of diminishing returns. Right now, the F-35C is the right weapon, already a little late. We need it now, not after a decade or two to develop something better. Right now, development of a new plane would only wind up with the F-35, except ready for use by 2030 instead of before 2020, and costing as much to develop as the F-35. However, we've already spent the F-35's development cost and, and we nearly have the F-35, neither of which are true for the new plane. If on the other hand we start in 2030, we will have a plane much better than the F-35C by 2040 at the earliest, more likely 2050, and it will have to serve until 2090 or 2100.

neptune · by **neptune** » 04 Jul 2012, 19:56

No!, he did not take a swipe at the F-35. He is a submariner and thus his offensive tools were missles and torpedoes. The invincibility of stealth in his opinion is limited and additional sources of offense must be developed. These missles are the quickest and least expensive to implement. Those that "tremble at the mention" of the much vaunted DF-21 "Ship Killer" will now have solace with our Navy fielding a more advanced and thus greater threat from his new ship killing missle. He indicates that the "light was turned on" for the sub fleet with the upgrading of all their signal processing computers. This has been implemented across the Navy, with sonar computer upgrades for all of the sonar fleet. It will be interesting to see how the replacement for the SH develops during his watch. Welcome aboard CNO Greenert :salute:

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quicksilver · by **quicksilver** » 04 Jul 2012, 20:56

river_otter wrote:
redbird87 wrote:... Perhaps the admiral thinks: 1) with smart purchases in long-range weapons and a good EA-18, F-18, UCAV mix, the Navy will be just fine until 2030. 2) In the 2030s, a better aircraft than the F-35 can be produced and purchased for use until 2060.

I'm not saying that WHAT the admiral wants. ...

No, you're clearly NOT saying what the Admiral wants. As Spazsinbad's 3:51am post in http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-19509-start-45.html points out, the Admiral's staff clarified that the reason he didn't directly state that the F-35C was a bad deal in the article is that he doesn't think it is. http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/07/03/the-navys-advanced-weapons-shopping-list/

His Proceedings article was about what to do next, AFTER the F-35C, at a point long in the future when stealth really is a matter of diminishing returns. Right now, the F-35C is the right weapon, already a little late. We need it now, not after a decade or two to develop something better. Right now, development of a new plane would only wind up with the F-35, except ready for use by 2030 instead of before 2020, and costing as much to develop as the F-35. However, we've already spent the F-35's development cost and, and we nearly have the F-35, neither of which are true for the new plane. If on the other hand we start in 2030, we will have a plane much better than the F-35C by 2040 at the earliest, more likely 2050, and it will have to serve until 2090 or 2100.

And let's be clear, SH and Growlers alone -- i.e. absent F-35 -- aren't going to be good enough long before 2030 rolls around.