FCS and ABL terminated in new defence bill

[Vympel]

Link

New defense bill cuts waste, but not enough: Obama
Wed Oct 28, 2009 6:27am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will say on Wednesday there is still too much waste in U.S. defense spending, despite a number of costly projects being terminated in the 2010 defense authorization bill.

The bill authorizes Pentagon operations, and Obama's administration threatened a veto because it calls for several programs the Pentagon had deemed unnecessary. Among those is an F-35 fighter jet engine built by General Electric Co and Rolls-Royce Group Plc.

"This bill isn't perfect. There is still more waste we need to cut. There are still more fights we need to win," Obama will say, according to excerpts of remarks he will deliver at a White House ceremony to sign the bill into law.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Vice President Joe Biden and members of the Congress will attend.

Obama has taken aim at no-bid contracts and costly defense contracts that are often plagued by massive cost overruns and delays.

"No longer will we be spending nearly two billion dollars to buy more F-22 fighter jets that the Pentagon says they don't need," Obama will say on Wednesday.

He will say he rejects "the notion that we have to waste billions of taxpayer dollars to keep this nation secure."

The bill also terminates programs such as the Future Combat Systems and the airborne laser, and a new presidential helicopter that costs nearly as much as Air Force One.

Both the VH-71 presidential helicopter and the F-22 are made by Lockheed Martin Corp.

Obama said the bill would fund the Joint Strike Fighter, the littoral combat ship and more helicopters.

So I guess this means that the last vestiges of FCS are being swept away. The writing was on the wall for ABL anyway.

[Aaron]

I'm curious to see what they will pay in contract termination fees, especially for the new VH-71. I can see shades of the BS we went through with the Sea King replacement in the early 90's and again at the beginning of the 2000's.

[Sea Skimmer]

Remember, this is an authorization bill, not a spending bill. This is what Obama wants to happen, but it is effectively only an advisory to Congress. Congress still pass a spending bill to actually allocate money. Radical changes between the two are somewhat unlikely, but shuffling around a couple billion can change everything for what lives and what dies in the hardware budget.

I love how Presidents use the statements of individual yes men they personally appoint to represent the opinion of the entire military. Its a fucking retarded system from end to end.

[Vympel]

Of course, but Obama will veto any bill that comes to him that tries to keep funding for ABL and FCS.

I love how Presidents use the statements of individual yes men they personally appoint to represent the opinion of the entire military. Its a fucking retarded system from end to end.

Do you mean the SecDef? I'm sure they have their own views on things and that informs the President's decision. As for the entire military, POTUS doesn't have time to listen to all of them, nor should he. That's what the chain of command is for after all- there's already plenty of petty squabbling over limited resources by each service and each faction within each service as to what America (i.e. they) need.

[Simon_Jester]

Could someone explain to me why ABL is a waste of money?

[Vympel]

Could someone explain to me why ABL is a waste of money?

In a sentence?

"significant affordability and technology problems and the program’s proposed operational role is highly questionable".

The operational role is what kills it, IMO. It's just not terribly practical. Frankly, the way they talk about it makes it like it was designed for flying off the coast of North Korea.

[Ryan Thunder]

FCS is the future combat system isn't it? Ghost Recon stuff?

[Aaron]

FCS is the future combat system isn't it? Ghost Recon stuff?

Yes, though at this point I believe the only thing left was the vehicles. They've been cancelling parts of the "Ghost Recon" type kit for years.

[Ma Deuce]

"No longer will we be spending nearly two billion dollars to buy more F-22 fighter jets that the Pentagon says they don't need," Obama will say on Wednesday.

Right, that two billion a year is simply being spent on the F-35 instead, a plane that will not be in service before the end of Obama's presidency and could very well end up costing as much per unit as the F-22 given all the goodies they're cramming into it.

[Vympel]

Actually:-

A preliminary Pentagon cost estimate that the F-35 could cost as much as $17.1 billion more than currently planned is prompting calls from congressional sources for the program to be reassessed and restructured.

The congressional sources also wryly noted this seemed to raise questions about the wisdom of Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recent trip to the F-35 plant in Fort Worth to show his support for the program. One aide scoffed that the new cost estimates were “no surprise to anyone who hasn’t drunk the JSF Kool-Aid.”

The new cost estimate comes from the JSF Joint Estimate Team, formed this summer by Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn.

Two congressional aides familiar with the program said. the cost estimate seemed to indicate that the approach of developing, building, flying and testing planes as they come off the assembly line – known as concurrency – may pose too much program risk in the short term and should lead Defense Secretary Robert Gates to scale back the emphasis on producing and testing planes and trim the number of planes the Pentagon wants to buy in next year’s budget.

*cackles*

[Simon_Jester]

In a sentence?

"significant affordability and technology problems and the program’s proposed operational role is highly questionable".

The operational role is what kills it, IMO. It's just not terribly practical. Frankly, the way they talk about it makes it like it was designed for flying off the coast of North Korea.

Could you expand on what you perceive its problems to be?

[Marcus Aurelius]

Right, that two billion a year is simply being spent on the F-35 instead, a plane that will not be in service before the end of Obama's presidency and could very well end up costing as much per unit as the F-22 given all the goodies they're cramming into it.

Highly unlikely, considering that the F-35 will initially be bought by the UK and Italy (at least) and will quite likely be later bought by many other nations as well. For example currently the (still unofficial) list of choices for the F/A-18C replacement around 2025 in Finland is exactly one aircraft long (the F-35) and there are many other countries in a similar situation. Larger production will drive the unit cost lower, since unlike the F-22 the F-35 is not going to be USAF only.

[The_Saint]

Australia has effectively committed to the JSF going so far as to hand over a lot of money to be a design partner and this occurred without any real contract bidding.

Can't imagine what might happen when the JSF is finally in production and we find the price tag too high...

[Ma Deuce]

Larger production will drive the unit cost lower, since unlike the F-22 the F-35 is not going to be USAF only.

I already considered that. The F-35's current flyaway cost is pegged at about $80 million per aircraft even factoring in the huge planned production run, nearly double what they were saying earlier in the program. Meanwhile, the F-22's flyaway cost is about $120 million even with it's small production run. Now, consider that the F-22 is already in production while the F-35 has yet to enter "dev hell", further cost overruns are almost certain, combined with the likelyhood that many customers will cut orders even if they don't pull out entirely (Canada recently reduced it's planned order by about 20%), including the US Military, who are are currently planning to buy four times as many aircraft as all the export partners combined. Though let's face it, the US military will not be getting 2,400 F-35s in the end. As Vympel noted in a previous thread, the currently planned production run is "pure fantasy".

[Sea Skimmer]

The early claims for F-35 costs never had any grounds in reality at all. They actually claimed it’d be cheaper then what an F-16 was selling for after over 4,000 F-16s had been produced. Such a price was literally fucking impossible, because even if the F-35 was built in a manner that didn’t cost any more, and if we built 4,000 of them, the fact remains its fundamentally a bigger heavier aircraft. Not by any small margin either, an F-16C/D being around 18,000lb empty while the lightest F-35 model will be over 26,000lb and the heaviest around 30,000lb empty. I expect the thing to end up costing around 100 million flyaway.

However the F-35 should be a whole lot more maintainable then an F-22 ever could be, and economy of scale is a huge factor in the cost of spare parts and training. This is very important since over the lifetime of a combat aircraft the initial production cost can be as little as 25% of the money spent. It also has actual export potential, while frankly even if the F-22 did not have so many technology export restrictions it just doesn’t do what most nations need out of a fighter. Few countries could afford a dedicated air superiority platform in the generation 3+ era, just look at the modest sales of the F-14/15.

But in the end the odds are that if solid state lasers work out to be even a fraction as good as some people are claiming, the F-35 won’t be a gold plated wonder weapon, it will be the minimal standard of a viable combat aircraft against a conventional opponent.

[FedRebel]

Could someone explain to me why ABL is a waste of money?

No obvious missile threat

The perspective is basically "there are no present strategic threats to America, so a strategic defense is 'wasteful' and unnecessary"

So instead of investing in superior military assets to face a hypothetical threat 20 years from now, the mindset is that we should invest in counterinsurgency and tactical ground support specific assets that won't enter service for 20 years to face the enemies of today (literal today)

[Vympel]

Could you expand on what you perceive its problems to be?

Well breaking down Gates' comment:-

* Affordability: the ABL has continually been subject to large cost overruns throughout development;
* Technology: self-explanatory really, and related to the cost overruns
* Operational: because it's a big chemical laser, ABL aircraft will require very specific support infrastructure for the laser and the massive vats of toxic chemicals required to make it fire, on top of the usual support burdens of other large aircraft. It'll need laser fuel production facilities close to the theatre of operations and unique maintenance. Establishing this support infrastructure will be a complete waste of time if very few ABLs are actually built, and a small number of ABLs won't be operationally effective anyway, because they can't stay in the air indefinitely for obvious reasons.

There's also the question of just where this thing is supposed to do its job. Like I said, North Korea so far seems to be the only obvious answer. Given its range I don't see how it could shoot down Iranian missiles (for example), though I could be wrong.

[Winston Blake]

But in the end the odds are that if solid state lasers work out to be even a fraction as good as some people are claiming, the F-35 won’t be a gold plated wonder weapon, it will be the minimal standard of a viable combat aircraft against a conventional opponent.

This is fascinating. Could you elaborate on the effects of future laser technology vs non-stealthy aircraft?

[Simon_Jester]

The obvious point is that if you have an effective laser weapon that can fire at ranges comparable to those of the aircraft's missiles, you can mount the laser co-axial with your targeting radar and kill enemy planes as fast as they come in range. The only defense is not to be seen... assuming your enemy can field the lasers in the first place. I don't know if anyone but the US is actually working on laser weapons seriously.

[MKSheppard]

While I agree with the FCS restructuring termination, killing ABL is a bad idea. Sure, it is a big nasty chemical laser; but it is the most powerful laser yet that is mobile.

Solid State lasers of that power are a decade or so out, while ABL is ready now; and can be used to test many of the concepts behind DEW weapons, such as how are we going to aim the weapon? How are we going to track and fire it etc etc.

Also, maintenance of the optical components of any laser in field conditions are going to be tricky -- it really doesn't matter if your laser rangefinder gets a bit dirty on it's lenses since it will just diffract some -- but what happens when you're pumping megawatts of power through that lens?

[Starglider]

Solid State lasers of that power are a decade or so out, while ABL is ready now; and can be used to test many of the concepts behind DEW weapons, such as how are we going to aim the weapon? How are we going to track and fire it etc etc.

Also, maintenance of the optical components of any laser in field conditions are going to be tricky -- it really doesn't matter if your laser rangefinder gets a bit dirty on it's lenses since it will just diffract some -- but what happens when you're pumping megawatts of power through that lens?

ABL is an extremely expensive platform for that kind of research. Working on ground-based truck-mobile lasers for air/missile/artillery defense will tackle the same problems, but should be cheaper.

[MKSheppard]

ABL is an extremely expensive platform for that kind of research. Working on ground-based truck-mobile lasers for air/missile/artillery defense will tackle the same problems, but should be cheaper.

They're a long ways away, while ABL is 95% done with systems integration, which makes killing it now insane.

[Ryan Thunder]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what exactly was wrong with FCS?

[Coyote]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but what exactly was wrong with FCS?

Poorly handled from the get-go. They wanted a cool, integrated information systems technology thingy that didn't yet exist, not fully, and they wanted to put it into all these standardized vehicle hulls that didn't yet fully exist.

Somewhere along the line, the standardized vehicles hulls were all being built, but no one had figured out about the tech web part. So they were going to try to squeeze it into what was being built even though no one still knew what the final package was actually going to look like.

There have also been constant problems wuith the weight/size/armor issue that has plagued all American projects lately. They want to make a vehicle swarm that can all deploy instantly from C-130s: as in, it can be firing as it rolls off the ramp in a hot zone. So far, they have not been able to build a vehicle capable of doing that that can also include the armor protection that is thought to be needed, the electronics envisioned, and the number of troops and ammo and fuel required as well.

No one seems to be asking the real question: is the "C-130 gold standard" no longer realistic? It seems we can't fit a goddamn thing we think we need into one, so maybe we need a bigger tactical transport in general. Or, we can go the opposite route and accept that a we're asking too much of things that can fit in C-130s. The US defense system has a bad habit of wanting a vehicle to be all things.

[Sea Skimmer]

The C-130 requirement was officially abandon in FCS several years ago and planned weight of the heaviest versions allowed to grow to 24 tons which was still hopelessly unrealistic, thus the recent cancellation of all the vehicles (some already died back around 2005) in favor of placing the technology on legacy, and yet to be defined future chassis. The whole C-130 was really just post Operation Allied Force politics when the Army got a lot of heavy for how long it took to deploy some attack helicopters to Albania. Even if we could have ever met the weight goals, the USAF still could not even come close to flying enough sorties to make the idea work. The US Army drafted its Stryker and then FCS air mobility requirements without even consulting the air force to determine the amount of airlift they could realistically draw on.