Wasting Money Buying Over Engineered Aircraft

The article linked below is about how over engineered aircraft are wasting money when it comes to combat effectiveness. The whole concept of one aircraft, the F-35, for the Air Force, Navy and Marines guaranteed engineering delays and huge cost overruns. The Marines' requirement for short takeoff vertical landing required a much bulkier and heavier airframe that makes other services' models much less maneuverable. I remember that the F-111 was originally supposed to be a fighter both the Navy and the Air Force would use for both interception and tactical bombing. It ended up as a costly fiasco, which ultimately saw action only with the Air Force and only as a bomber. We should have remembered Robert McNamara's F-111 project was not the panacea that he promised. Instead, we repeated the mistake with the F-35 project.

The author mentions that for the price of one F-35, we could buy a small single purpose air to air fighter, and a single purpose ground attack bomber like the A-10 Warthog. The maintenance and flying costs of the combination would also be far lower that the F-35 and the mission readiness rate would be far higher. The Pentagon believes, almost religiously, that every airplane they buy has to be multipurpose. That's why the Air Force is trying to retire the A-10, because it only does ground attack. The fact that it does ground attack better than any other airplane we have in the inventory or plan to purchase is not enough to save the A-10, since it only does one thing. My solution is to give the A-10 in particular and the close air support mission in general to the US Army. They really appreciate the capabilities of the A-10.

I know this would require a change in the law. The Army lost almost all of its aircraft in a deal in 1948 that gave the newly established Air Force almost all current and future fixed wing aircraft. Currently, the Army can only operate helicopters as attack aircraft. But helicopters are a lot less capable and a lot more expensive to operate than "Warthogs." Congress should revoke the 1948 deal and give all the A-10 aircraft to the US Army. The Army should also be allowed to buy other fixed wing ground attack aircraft as needed in the future.

The author argues that while some stealth is worth it, super stealth is wasted on fighters because most air to air engagements are dogfights within visual range. Stealth only fools radar, not optics. Less stealth would be both cheaper to buy and cheaper to maintain.

The author's historical reference at the beginning of the article really backs up his point about overly sophisticated US aircraft. He mentions that the last air to ground casualties inflicted on US ground forces were inflicted by a PO-2 biplane. The PO-2 was a Soviet training, ground attack and crop dusting airplane made of wood and fabric. It had so little metal and flew so low and slow that US night fighters could not find it with radar.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418430/what-if-worlds-most-expensive-fighter-planes-cant-defeat-our-enemies-mike-fredenburg

Feckless Policies May Leave No Time To Recover

In the article linked below, Professor Thomas Sowell remarks that today’s feckless policies mirror similarly feckless policies of the 1930’s.  The Isolationism in the US and the appeasement of Hitler in Europe lead to World War II.  He then notes that during the war, the Allies took a long time to make up for the position their feckless policies left them in.  He commented that in a modern nuclear war we may not get the chance to make up for our mistakes.  I would like to explain further why that’s the case.

During World War II the Allies were able to trade space for the time needed to build up the armed forces we needed to win. In those days, flying across the Atlantic or Pacific was done in a B-17 bomber with a cruising speed of 182 miles per hour. Since the bombers range was only 2,000 miles you needed refueling bases to get all the way across. The need for airbases was the reason for the island hopping campaign in the Pacific. Today, a B-2 bomber has a cruising speed of 560 miles per hour and, with air to air refueling, can fly nonstop from its base in Missouri to anywhere in the world. While the distances are the same, the time you can get for a given distance is much less. And, as Professor Sowell says, the destructive power of nuclear weapons also destroys military forces much more quickly than conventional weapons did in World War II. War today is a come as you are affair with very little room for second chances. 

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/413953/nows-no-time-happy-talk-thomas-sowell

Give US Army a Better Air Force

The Pentagon Budget assumes retirement of all of our best ground support aircraft, the A-10 "Warthog." As an Air Force vet, I have a solution to the A-10 "Warthog" problem. Give them to the US Army. They really want to keep "Warthogs" and would cut something else to keep them. The Air Force has never liked dedicating airplanes and pilots to the single purpose of tactical air support. The key is the plane is low tech. That means it's relatively cheap to maintain, but not the "dual capable" holy grail of USAF desire. The Army lost almost all of its aircraft in a deal in 1948 that gave the newly established Air Force all current and future fixed wing aircraft. Currently, the Army can only operate helicopters as attack aircraft. But helicopters are a lot less capable and a lot more expensive to operate than "Warthogs." Congress should revoke the 1948 deal and give all the A-10 aircraft to the US Army.  The Army should also be allowed to buy other fixed wing ground attack aircraft as needed in the future.

Democrats Love to Lose Wars

The Democrats' attitude towards war is that it's a needless expense that drains money from domestic vote buying, I mean valid domestic needs. Part of the reason they can get away with this is that there were no "recriminations'" after the Vietnam defeat. Congressional Democrats cut off all of the money for supplying the South Vietnamese military while they were being attacked in 1975. This betrayal lead directly to the fall of Saigon and the infamous helicopter evacuation of the American Embassy there. While 500,000 Vietnamese fled the communists in leaky boats, and tens of thousands died in Vietnam and millions died in Cambodia, the left was proclaiming that there should be no recriminations. Now the Democrats are repeating their war losing strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Political Hack in Chief bugged out of Iraq as quickly as possible. He is also on his way out of Afghanistan. Once defeat is assured, the Democrats can argue that defense spending is futile, because it doesn't win wars. This argument justifies cuts in military spending which can enable satisfying more domestic needs to buy more votes. The right should learn that there should be the maximum amount of recriminations possible from this scandalous behavior. Swift boating selected candidates is not enough retribution to stop this liberal/progressive/Democrat strategy. 

Liberals Buy Votes, Not Defense

Liberals almost always under fund all aspects of national defense.  They also do everything possible to argue that defense spending is wasted.  The reason for this is that liberals always need more money to fund their "investment" in domestic spending.  They don't want defense spending to crowd out domestic spending.  The efficacy of the domestic spending is not an issue for them.   Liberals need ever larger domestic spending simply because that's how they buy their votes.  

Defense Cuts: Scope Creep or Horse Cavalry Charges

Any consideration of DOD procurement has to start with the way the development projects are managed.  First, the way initial program requirements are set is to state every aspiration that exists for "the next generation" of whatever weapon system without too much consideration of what's available off the shelf.  Once that's done, constant changes are allowed throughout the development process.  They almost have to be allowed because of the wish list way the initial requirements are set.  So then the way the requirements dance around becomes a text book case of what is known in the project management trade as scope creep.  Scope creep is also known to be absolutely fatal to any development process.  Just one example, it seems that the ejection seat for the F-35 is a developmental item.  Why did we have to move away from the existing family of ejection seats?  Anyway, moving to a new seat didn't work out so now we are moving back to the existing family of ejection seats after spending all kinds of money on developing the new ones.  http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-16239.html  Can't we just decide we're going to field a system based on what's available now?  That way we wouldn't have to be flying planes that average 26 years old. http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/aging-array-of-american-aircraft-attracting-attention-0901/   For example, we are still flying B-52 aircraft.  The B-52 design originally entered service in 1955.  The B-52 bombers currently in service were built in the early 1960's.  If we didn't gold plate every bomber system design we try to build, we might have been able to replace them with something a little easier to maintain.  The current pattern seems to be we have outrageously advanced designs which we develop, but can’t afford to build.  So we either cancel them and get nothing, or build very limited numbers. Either way we have to use obsolescent weapons to make up the difference.

               On the other hand, extreme cuts in defense can kill a lot of people. Just one example, the last US horse cavalry charge was by the 26th Cavalry Regiment (Philippine Scouts) against Japanese tanks in 1942. They had few anti-tank weapons and ran out of anti-tank ammunition. They attacked tanks on horseback with grenades and pop bottles full of gasoline. Needless to say, most of them were killed. See http://hnn.us/node/139372 for more details.

               There has to be a middle ground between gold plated weapons too expensive to buy and not enough of the right kind of weapons.