RAF to become smallest since 1914...

[Aaron]

True, but UCAVs have a couple of problems. For one thing, the enemy successfully jamming communications between a manned aircraft and the troops it's supporting is a nuisance, but jamming communications between a UCAV and its ground-station renders the UCAV immediately combat-ineffective; they might be capable of returning to base unaided, but who in their right mind is going to give a current-gen AI the autonomy to drop live weapons? And if the enemy succeed in flattening said ground-station and its alternate with a few mortar rounds then you've got an even bigger problem.
Secondly, the best camera system in the world is not a perfect substitute for a set of Mark 1 Mod 1 Eyeballs and a Mark 1 Mod 1 Human Brain on the scene; a UCAV operator can't take his eye away from the crosshairs and look the way a pilot in a cockpit can.
Lastly, and I have to confess this is a personal ideological objection, but I can't help feeling that if we send UCAVs to fight our battles for us then we'll be a step further down the path of thinking that the negative consequences of war only have to apply to our enemies.

The same Mk I eyeball that lead a US A-10 pilot to strafe a Canadian platoon?

[Zaune]

Okay, let me rephrase myself. A set of Mark 1 Mod 1 Eyeballs and a functioning Mark 1 Mod 1 Human Brain.

On a more serious note, however, is a guy peering at a TV picture broadcast from a drone several miles away to the monitor of a workstation supplied by the cheapest and/or most buzzword-compliant bidder any less prone to blue-on-blue accidents?

[Lonestar]

One would imagine that he doesn't get his juices up to the degree that a pilot would, and so might think clearer.

[Phantasee]

He also wouldn't be so worried about someone possibly shooting their rifles up at him, since he's not in the cockpit, himself. Which IIRC was the issue with the F16 pilots? Or was that the same A10 pilot Cpl K is talking about?

[Aaron]

He also wouldn't be so worried about someone possibly shooting their rifles up at him, since he's not in the cockpit, himself. Which IIRC was the issue with the F16 pilots? Or was that the same A10 pilot Cpl K is talking about?

The F16 pilots where just straight up fucking morons. They new that the Canucks where conducting live fire exercises in the area, they where above the envelope of small arms fire, our tracers are red (the ammo the Taliban predominately use is green). The A-10 pilot ignored procedure and didn't verify the target with his pod.

Okay, let me rephrase myself. A set of Mark 1 Mod 1 Eyeballs and a functioning Mark 1 Mod 1 Human Brain.

On a more serious note, however, is a guy peering at a TV picture broadcast from a drone several miles away to the monitor of a workstation supplied by the cheapest and/or most buzzword-compliant bidder any less prone to blue-on-blue accidents?

-hasn't been in a cockpit for 12 hours
-not being shot at
-doesn't have the pilot mentality

Thats not to say it won't happen but I have more faith that an operator will make less mistakes then a pilot, US ones are notoriously bad with blue-on-blue.

[Sea Skimmer]

True, but UCAVs have a couple of problems. For one thing, the enemy successfully jamming communications between a manned aircraft and the troops it's supporting is a nuisance, but jamming communications between a UCAV and its ground-station renders the UCAV immediately combat-ineffective

SAMs that will comprehensively rape any turboprop short of a Tu-95 firing cruise missiles are way more common then any kind of effective modern long range radio jammer. All it takes is an SA-2 site surrounded by 23mm gun batteries to make life really unpleasant for such small slow and low flying planes.

Jamming systems which can do anything to EHF satellite communications are not exactly common even in the arsenals of major militaries. It is very hard thing to do because the signal is so directional, and the jamming is coming from the complete wrong way. The best way to do it would be to orbit a jammer next to the satellite, or failing that deploy an 18 meter class of dish antenna that actually tracks the satellite as it passed overhead. At this point we are in full on space war territory. The low cost counter insurgency advantage of the light turboprop is highly irrelevant to those scenarios don’t you think?

Meanwhile the Reaper UAV still has a great deal of relevance once the heavier jamming and SAM threats are suppressed because of its great range. Also the US is currently considering several proposals for a more combat oriented Reaper follow on that would use the same ground equipment under the MQ-X program. So this provides a direct evolutionary path to more hot war capability.

; they might be capable of returning to base unaided, but who in their right mind is going to give a current-gen AI the autonomy to drop live weapons?

Against a jammer? We’ve already got stuff flying that is supposed to do that now for tests, and a very long history of autonomous anti radiation weapons. Ever heard of the AGM-136 Tactic Rainbow? It was in every respect an autonomous live warhead UAV, save that its flight ended with the craft diving into the target instead of navigating back to base. Range was over 200nm which meant it had to be good at what it did, or else it really could physically fly back and hit friendly radars. Product of the 1980s too when computer processing power was still expensive. That’s why it got canceled at the end of the Cold War. But the concept was considered sound.

Hostile jamming and radar emissions, being rather unique radio-frequency wave patterns are much easier to categorize as threats then hostile aircraft and ships, let alone moving ground targets which are the main challenge. Fixed ground targets can be pre approved by a human, and then the UCAV basically functions as a reusable cruise missile to attack them.

Mistakes can and will happen manned or remotely pilot or autonomous, that’s war. This is an area to be improved. But like I was saying above, insurgents are simply not going to be able to do anything to jam a UAV like the Reaper. Jamming really small really simple UAVs might be a realistic threat, since a man portable jammer could be effective and a third party like Pakistan might supply them. But that’s just not a threat to a Reaper pulling COIN duty.

And if the enemy succeed in flattening said ground-station and its alternate with a few mortar rounds then you've got an even bigger problem.

You can fly the Reapers from a base in the UK. All USAF Predators and Reapers are flown from Nellis Air Force base outside Los Vegas. That’s satellites at work, and even if you didn’t want to use satellites a single 65,000ft airborne relay between ground base and UAV could allow close to 800 mile radius, and a direct radio link about then 250 miles radius from the base. That’s pretty darn good, since the launch airfield and the radio link base don’t have to be the same place.

Insurgents aren’t going to be able to do a thing about some guys inside a building on an RAF base in Scotland flying UCAVs. The long range of Reaper means it can base much further away from the threat too, and still loiter for a long time over enemy positions. A small manned turboprop will be based closer to enemy positions, whatever those might be in whatever kind of war, and both aircraft and pilot are vulnerable on the ground.

Now against a high tech enemy, the UCAV control center is at much more risk because a cruise missile can blow it the hell up from long range, but nothing stops UCAV control from mobile platforms like a transport plane or just trucks that shift positions periodically. This is nothing we don’t already deal with to counter enemy threats to our command posts, air fields and other facilities anyway. The worst threat will remain the enemy blowing up the aircraft itself, after which none of the other stuff is very useful.

Secondly, the best camera system in the world is not a perfect substitute for a set of Mark 1 Mod 1 Eyeballs and a Mark 1 Mod 1 Human Brain on the scene; a UCAV operator can't take his eye away from the crosshairs and look the way a pilot in a cockpit can.

I agree, one camera and one operator watching it is not as good as one set of eyeballs in a cockpit. But that's not the actual comparison. You do understand the fact that a UCAV is outputting a video feed right? You can split that feed and send it to as many people as you want. Reapers are operated by 2-4 man teams, but they can also downlink the video feed to 30+ users on the ground at the same time. Some are back in the US, most are on the ground in the area of operations. You could broadcast the UAV feed to the entire internet and every TV station on earth if you wanted and have 3 billion viewers. Can’t do that with human eyesight last I checked.

Reaper and Predator have dedicated nose cameras for the pilot, besides the FLIR turret but they also have auto pilots that work fine for circling objectives (these days the Air Force often has one pilot sharing time on 2-4 drones at once adjusting the orbits as needed) and the US Army Sky Warrior variant of Predator flies completely autonomously. The human operators just manage the sensors and tell it where to park itself. So splitting the view between flying and searching isn't relevant.

Now this very year, things are going to change big time, because the USAF is going to deploy the Gorgon Stare pod. Current UAVs are limited to a single FLIR/daylight TV turret which streams video at 30fps. But it can only look at one small spot at a time, though that spot could be a fair distance away.

The Gorgon Stare pod however has nine cameras providing complete coverage over a 4km diameter circle at about 2fps. What’s more each camera can automatically track sources of movement and keep track of three different ones at once at a higher rate, and each one can also simply be commanded to stare at a single spot. All of this is streamed to users on the ground, allowing them to keep track of a large number of dispersed targets and well as searching for new ones. Upgrades are already being worked on to increase the number of cameras to fifteen and provide auto tracking for 30 targets at once.

No way on earth can human observers on a plane match this. You could use a manned plane to carry the pod if you want, but an MC-12 Liberty with twin engines, a dedicated onboard system operator and above all room for future growth would make way more sense then any model of Tacano or similar plane for the job. You want something that can circle at altitude for as long as possible to exploit the massive surveillance capability the pod gives.

And just in case Gorgon Stare somehow doesn’t work, though we already know it does, a SECOND super camera pod is being fielded called ARGUS-IS. It will be carried by the MQ-18 Hummingbird helicopter UAV. This pod is even more nuts with no less then 92 cameras creating a common 1.8 gigapixle image at 12fps. It can also provide dozens of spot views at the same 30fps we stream video from normal FLIR turrets at.

This is an example that was release of ARGUS-IS video, both the wide area and spot views taken from a test pod flown last year.
http://sitelife.aviationweek.com/ver1.0 ... 6.Full.jpg

Think about what you can do with this, and how many people could help view it once you downlink the satellite data and connect it to military ground networks. Certainly air to ground cooperation problems exist with the way UAVs are operated today. UAVs are new, we need to work out new training, doctrine and communications to deal with them. Its not like the systems and procedures to control manned aircraft in a close air support role appeared overnight either. It took two world wars, and then a lot of evolution since then. Modern armed UAVs have only been around since 2001, but the road ahead is limitless. Buying Tucanos is just a reactionary head in the sand approach. Like I said, rushing them into combat makes some sense because its capability RIGHT NOW killing the enemy. But for any kind of long term planning it’s a stupid option.

The biggest reason for the US turboprop proposal program wasn’t even for the US to fly them in combat. It was so US pilots would be able to train foreign pilots from poor countries, mainly Iraq and Afghanistan, to do so. I don't think the UK has any plans to that end.

Lastly, and I have to confess this is a personal ideological objection, but I can't help feeling that if we send UCAVs to fight our battles for us then we'll be a step further down the path of thinking that the negative consequences of war only have to apply to our enemies.

I can understand that feeling, but it is straight up hopeless. I used to feel the same way and I was generally very skeptical of UAVs ever being more then an extension of conventional aerial reconnaissance. But warfare has been getting more remote and less personal since the first spear was thrown instead of stabbed. Nothing will reverse this process except the mass devastation of the entire earth. Then humanity will just swiftly reinvent the spear and get back to work. If you simply try to ignore it, it will only mean far more of your own people die and the enemy might win.

Also, what do you think preparing for counter insurgency will do? The next result is the military becomes more useable for COIN, which means the very common COIN kind of wars on earth are more attractive to fight. Buying light attack planes and other specialist COIN kit is just asking to get that stuff used.

If you want to make war less likely then it would make more sense to only prepare for the most intensive fighting. Only prepare to fight wars which would actually be a direct threat to the British state. That means buying only high end systems, and if that means shrinking the military a fair bit to modernize then so be it. I mean, if you scrapped all your light armored vehicles, and replaced them with nuclear tipped ABM weapons and mach 3 fighters, it isn’t too likely that anyone is going to ask to send those for peacekeeping in Sierra Leone.

People try to act like no real military threat exists to Europe anymore, but they totally ignore the fact that no real threat exists because Europe is still very heavily armed and has NATO to provide a collective defense. However European militaries are shrinking, and they are not modernizing very quickly. If you don’t have real militaries, then literally nothing would stop a scenario you wouldn’t imagine today like a Chinese naval missile bombardment of London. Or hell, just Iran plinking away at whatever it feels like with IRBMs or Libya declaring a tax on maritime passage past its coast or eighty thousand Russian micro drones targeting every power transformer in Europe. Collective defense must be sustained as a deterrent. Deterrence does work with conventional as well as nuclear arms and it prevents a lot of bullshit conflicts no one really wants (Falklands come to mind, the UK had real carriers then it would have just never happened). That’s why North Korea and South Korea and Syria and Israel and a couple other combos don’t just tear into each other. All sides have managed to make war equally unpleasant for the other, and so despite very heavy armaments full scale war does not break out.

Of course one could claim well the US will never let that happen to Europe, but this would be an open admission that the no threat thinking is a lie, and that in fact the threat does exist its just more convenient to leech off the US. But no reason exists for the US to stick around if it gets nothing in return. Right now NATO and its European military capabilities are still very useful to us. The planes that are bought today and in the next 10 years will last until 2040-2050 when that need not be true at all. That’s another issue, however expensive you think a modern fighter is now, it will be MUCH worse in the future. The F-35 may or may not be the last manned fighter, but its damn good enough that it actually could be, and will still be a credible weapon far in the future when the latest US F-50 megafighter costs 1 billion per aircraft. Typhoon is frankly kind of screwed because while performance is good, the avionics package is dated on arrival and now virtually all of the planned upgrades have been pruned away. They might come back, but it will probably be 15 years before that’s done as a very expensive mid life update.

All of this isn’t all directed at you or personally, sorry if it has to come off like that, but the thinking you express is very common right now, and I think dangerously flawed.

[Zaune]

If your air force is keeping single-crewed aircraft up on patrol for 12 hours at a time then you have problems that the introduction of UCAVs probably won't fix, and exactly what do you mean by "pilot mentality"?

You do however make a compelling argument in your second bullet point.

[Aaron]

If your air force is keeping single-crewed aircraft up on patrol for 12 hours at a time then you have problems that the introduction of UCAVs probably won't fix, and exactly what do you mean by "pilot mentality"?

You do however make a compelling argument in your second bullet point.

Pilots (fighter and CAS) tend to get their egos stroked a lot, their there to put ordnance on target and sometimes they get carried away. According to the rumour mill (I have a buddy that was present in the CP when the F-16s bombed our guys) that was a major factor in the incident.

[Zaune]

Thanks for the input, Sea Skimmer. There's quite a lot in there about UCAVs that I honestly did not know. However, I do have a couple of points.

First, multiple personnel watching each UCAV feed via satellite is possible in peacetime or limited-warfare operating conditions, but come a (hopefully unlikely) nightmare scenario like Russia deciding to put the Iron Curtain back up that'd get cut down quickly. The need to field as many UCAVs as possible as expeditiously as possible would mean that sophisticated optional extras like Gorgon Stare would likely have to be sacrificed in wartime attrition-replacement models, and the number of operators per vehicle would almost certainly be reduced for at least one training cycle. That would narrow the capability gap between a UCAV operator and a pilot in a cockpit quite significantly.

I take your point about jamming, and indeed it'd be simpler to knock out both the satellite and our ability to launch more. Far beyond the capabilities of al-Queda, certainly, but any government or commercial agency with the ability to put a satellite in orbit could probably cobble together a crude but effective ASAT system if they really wanted to. And the number of potential launch-sites in Europe is rather small if the Guiana Space Centre were to be put out of action one way or another.
Airborne relay aircraft are also rather high-value targets for enemy fighters, which means a lot of extra work for friendly air-defence assets. And every time one gets shot down, UCAVs will be thrown back on local control or grounded altogether. That opens up the possibly of jamming as well as another target for enemy strike aircraft and artillery.

I have to admit I overlooked SEAD, which is one role a UCAV could definitely perform without any operator input. It was engaging enemy armour or troop positions with weapons like Hellfire that I was thinking of, as processing and interpreting visual images is one thing the human brain still does better than even the best computers. Brimstone can allegedly use millimetre-wave radar mapping to achieve something similar, but if there are friendly assets in the vicinity then you're still going to want a live person in the decision-making loop.

Lastly, I should probably make it clear that I am not advocating the purchase of a pure COIN aircraft like the Tucano. I want to see a British answer to the A-10, something competent at low-level strafing and bombing but capable of looking after itself against modern SAM systems and enemy fighters.

[Starglider]

The need to field as many UCAVs as possible as expeditiously as possible would mean that sophisticated optional extras like Gorgon Stare would likely have to be sacrificed in wartime attrition-replacement models,

A large-scale conventional war is unlikely to last long enough for any significant attrition replacement to occur. Also even with the extras, UAVs are faster to build than strike fighters.

I take your point about jamming, and indeed it'd be simpler to knock out both the satellite and our ability to launch more. Far beyond the capabilities of al-Queda, certainly, but any government or commercial agency with the ability to put a satellite in orbit could probably cobble together a crude but effective ASAT system if they really wanted to.

Any war serious enough to start taking out satellites and launch complexes will almost certainly become a nuclear war very quickly, after which neither UAVs nor CAS fighters are terribly relevant.

Airborne relay aircraft are also rather high-value targets for enemy fighters

UAVs could mesh network if necessary. Also the comms relay capability could be combined on to AWACS aircraft, that already have to be defended.

I want to see a British answer to the A-10, something competent at low-level strafing and bombing

There is zero chance of the UK funding such a specialised aircraft on its own, and if we did have the money it would be a stupid thing to spend it on. A couple of squadrons of strategic bombers (say B-1A class) would be much more useful and would at least help pay for themselves by reducing the need for global/foreign basing.

[TimothyC]

UAVs could mesh network if necessary. Also the comms relay capability could be combined on to AWACS aircraft, that already have to be defended.

Spring Quarter I had a class with a guy who is working on just this (on the unclass side anyway). I imagine some form of AI might be what helps crack the bandwidth problem (IE the AI adjusts the datapaths on the fly), that is if it can be cracked.

[Sea Skimmer]

First, multiple personnel watching each UCAV feed via satellite is possible in peacetime or limited-warfare operating conditions, but come a (hopefully unlikely) nightmare scenario like Russia deciding to put the Iron Curtain back up that'd get cut down quickly. The need to field as many UCAVs as possible as expeditiously as possible would mean that sophisticated optional extras like Gorgon Stare would likely have to be sacrificed in wartime attrition-replacement models, and the number of operators per vehicle would almost certainly be reduced for at least one training cycle. That would narrow the capability gap between a UCAV operator and a pilot in a cockpit quite significantly.

That it would. I do not disagree, in a mobilization scenario we would not be able to have a dozen people watching that pod, at least not until the first wave of conscripts are trained. Sustained warfare without going nuclear or calling some kind of truce to avoid nuclear is also just unlikely. Weapons will be expended far quicker then they can be replaced, and you'd be waiting years for the first increases in production.

But your missing one thing here. In COIN the trouble is ever finding the enemy. That’s why we need a huge 15 million dollar semi automatic area camera pods. They not only let us see a big area, they vitally let us track people a long time to see if they do anything very enemy like. People themselves are basically our only target.

In a conventional war the UCAV swarm is going to have hoards and hoards of enemy tanks and installations to attack. It’s a target rich environment. Radar like the Reaper’s current AN/APY-8 Lynx II can automatically detect vehicle targets automatically, and generate high resolution SAR imagines of the terrain. So even if you only have one pilot and one sensor operator life is going to be pretty easy in terms of finding things to successfully expend munitions on. If the target was a large installation like an air field an attack run wouldn’t involve anything much more then getting within ~10-15 miles or so to release whatever smart bombs you’ve decided to carry. Reaper can haul a pair of 1,000lb bombs, which is enough to tackle anything that isn’t made of at least four or five foot thick concrete.

I take your point about jamming, and indeed it'd be simpler to knock out both the satellite and our ability to launch more. Far beyond the capabilities of al-Queda, certainly, but any government or commercial agency with the ability to put a satellite in orbit could probably cobble together a crude but effective ASAT system if they really wanted to. And the number of potential launch-sites in Europe is rather small if the Guiana Space Centre were to be put out of action one way or another.

You don’t even need space launch capability to target many low altitude reconnaissance satellites. Even a SCUD class of missile can be made to apogee high enough to make attacks. The hit rate would be very low, but SCUDs are cheap and the big exploding warhead will have a large lethal area.

But anyway to guard against loss of satellite launch capability you need ABM and air defense on space launch facilities. The alternative is to develop space launch that doesn’t depend on fixed pads, like the Pegasus air launch booster. ABM has the potential not only to attack satellites, but to defend them from other ASAT weapons too. Many communications satellites are also simply in very high orbits, and even a high speed ASAT missile could take as long as 18 hours to complete a direct ascent intercept. That means lots of warning of the attack. All these factors tend to make space war unattractive, which is good since a space war really is best avoided. Its just that no one is crazy enough to live without ABM anymore, and ABM means ASAT capability, so we’ve got to prepare for space war so no one can think they can gain an decisive advantage at it. It really shouldn't be a big deal for the EU to field credible ABM coverage together. All the more so if they just buy into the existing SM-3 for area defense, and the French Aster based system for terminal defense.

Airborne relay aircraft are also rather high-value targets for enemy fighters, which means a lot of extra work for friendly air-defence assets. And every time one gets shot down, UCAVs will be thrown back on local control or grounded altogether. That opens up the possibly of jamming as well as another target for enemy strike aircraft and artillery.

The airborne relay is a high value target, but so are the E-3, E-2, RC-135, EC-130, U-2 and quite a few other specialist electronic warfare-reconnaissance platforms. If you can't defend these kinds of platforms or provide the capabilities other ways then you are screwed anyway. The airborne relay need not be a large specialist aircraft either. It could just be a pod on another Reaper or even many small relays mounted on many aircraft working together. The current and rather US Army RQ-7 Shadow does currently have the ability to operate with another Shadow as the communications relay, doubling its control radius from the ground.

Laser and space communications relays aren’t far away either, and then can provide high capacity trunk lines. That way very high bandwidth users, like a Block 40 Global Hawk aren’t hogging all the radio frequencies.

I have to admit I overlooked SEAD, which is one role a UCAV could definitely perform without any operator input. It was engaging enemy armour or troop positions with weapons like Hellfire that I was thinking of, as processing and interpreting visual images is one thing the human brain still does better than even the best computers. Brimstone can allegedly use millimetre-wave radar mapping to achieve something similar, but if there are friendly assets in the vicinity then you're still going to want a live person in the decision-making loop.

Sure, but one human can target those Hellfires pretty darn quickly if he has targets to shoot them at. A modern radar can automatically identify that a target is a tank. Once that happens it can flag its location and keep track of it. Then you have your one sensor operator use the FLIR turret to go from location to and identify each piece of armor in turn.

That kind of methodical approach is not going to happen with any reliability with the Mk1 eyeball from a 400mph aircraft, which is why very extensive coordination and dedicated forward air controllers are needed to control conventional close air support. They need people on the ground to identify the targets in the first place. You also need a fair bit of coordination to use the UCAV for CAS, but a UCAV attacking from a circle-loiter approach instead of diving strafing runs makes this a lot easier.

Lastly, I should probably make it clear that I am not advocating the purchase of a pure COIN aircraft like the Tucano. I want to see a British answer to the A-10, something competent at low-level strafing and bombing but capable of looking after itself against modern SAM systems and enemy fighters.

So you basically want an armored fast mover CAS plane that also has a very comprehensive avionics package? That will be incredibly expensive to develop. If you want an A-10 then the UK could just buy and modernize to the C standard some of the pile the US isn’t flying anymore, but it would be a crappy use of money compared to buying the F-35 since an A-10 isn’t carrier capable. You could make an A-10 that was, but that’s going right back into megabucks range.

[Starglider]

I imagine some form of AI might be what helps crack the bandwidth problem (IE the AI adjusts the datapaths on the fly), that is if it can be cracked.

Dynamic routing in mesh networks doesn't need any fancy AI, even for moving platforms in challenging signal environments. It just needs reasonably competent software engineering and plenty of processing power, and the latter is getting really cheap these days. I suspect ISPs and telcos will have this in common use well before militaries do, e.g. WiMax already has a pretty effective mesh mode, that various startups are doing interesting things with.

[Sea Skimmer]

The Transformational Satellite System was already supposed to create a network which was based in giving every user an IP address and internet style automatic routing for it. That program got canceled the other year, two more Advanced EHF satellites will be produced instead while they work on a successor, but this was far more because of hardware problems then the software concept. Basically they wanted not only 64 times the radio bandwidth of existing satellites and a couple laser orbit-orbit crosslink systems, they also wanted a whole battery of orbit-ground lasers which could provide large diffuse area covering beams like a radio broadcast as well as acting as normal point to point links. That all was pushing bleeding edge a little too quickly and something had to slip in the budget. We also just aren’t sure we really want single expensive satellites to do that much, as opposed to clusters of smaller ones which would be less vulnerable and also much easier to orbit during a war. An air launch system for 1000lb satellites is way more likely to happen then air launching 5 ton spacecraft for example.

[Zaune]

Sustained warfare without going nuclear or calling some kind of truce to avoid nuclear is also just unlikely. Weapons will be expended far quicker then they can be replaced, and you'd be waiting years for the first increases in production.

Only once it becomes obvious that one side is definitely going to lose. Things might settle into a stalemate where nobody has a clear advantage, but both sides are too bloody-minded to sue for peace but not brave/stupid enough to do break the no-first-use taboo.
Okay, so that would take a Turtledove version of the Salvation War in which Belial's first lava attack wipes out Corby instead of Sheffield and several hundred thousand humans switch sides out of gratitude, but a defence procurement strategy that focuses entirely on the likely scenarios costs lives.

You don’t even need space launch capability to target many low altitude reconnaissance satellites. Even a SCUD class of missile can be made to apogee high enough to make attacks. The hit rate would be very low, but SCUDs are cheap and the big exploding warhead will have a large lethal area.

But anyway to guard against loss of satellite launch capability you need ABM and air defense on space launch facilities...

I hadn't realised it was that easy. And securing a launch-site would also take a lot of military police, because I daresay Special Forces could find all sorts of ways to cripple your launch capacity for a couple of weeks, which is a long time if satellites you were depending on just got fragged. The European Union has the extra problem of our sole launch facility being in a French overseas colony with an unemployment rate of 20%.

The airborne relay is a high value target, but so are the E-3, E-2, RC-135, EC-130, U-2 and quite a few other specialist electronic warfare-reconnaissance platforms.

The RAF doesn't have quite the same problem -we have all of four E-3s and maybe a dozen aircraft that fill the same role as the RC-135 (when it's not falling out of the sky on a whim)- but it's still one more thing our fighters have to keep an eye on when they could be doing something more proactive. The peer-to-peer system using the drones themselves sound promising, if complicated.

There is zero chance of the UK funding such a specialised aircraft on its own, and if we did have the money it would be a stupid thing to spend it on. A couple of squadrons of strategic bombers (say B-1A class) would be much more useful and would at least help pay for themselves by reducing the need for global/foreign basing.

So you basically want an armored fast mover CAS plane that also has a very comprehensive avionics package?

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, BAE Systems already markets a fast-mover CAS plane based on our existing advanced trainer. It's no Warthog but it's fast, agile and relatively cheap. I'm coming round to the idea of UCAVs, but I still think it's worth evaluating as part of our manned-aircraft fleet if and when we give up on the JSF.
And my views on strategic bombers probably need a thread of their own, but that can wait until I've had a night's sleep.

[Sea Skimmer]

I hadn't realised it was that easy. And securing a launch-site would also take a lot of military police, because I daresay Special Forces could find all sorts of ways to cripple your launch capacity for a couple of weeks, which is a long time if satellites you were depending on just got fragged. The European Union has the extra problem of our sole launch facility being in a French overseas colony with an unemployment rate of 20%.

its certainly not easy to guard a space launch pad but you do need fairly serious weapons to damage the pad heavily, a few RPG rounds won't do that much. Space launch pads need a damn lot of maintenance, so the space base is fairly well geared up to repair stuff. Damage to the actual boosters will be a lot work to deal with, but not all of the available ones are likely to be at the launch base.

But as a top notch emergency backup, the option exists to place communication satellites on submarine launched ballistic missiles. I don't know if the UK will fund a Trident replacement or not, but France is firmly committed to maintaining a ballistic missile submarine fleet and may already have this capability. The US 99.9999% certainly does using land based ICBMs under the title of reconstitutable satellites'. In general EU space capabilities are still pretty basic because no one can agree on a firm structure for a European Rapid Reaction Force. Most European NATO requirements are met right now by having bought capability on US satellites. This is likely to change in the future, though of course the current fiscal crisis will delay decisions yet again.

Something to also consider is the redundancy provided by civilian owned satellites already. Right now the entire US Predator/Reaper flight is being flown using leased commercial satellites. The cost is about 1-1.5 million dollars a year per continuous flown UAV orbit in bandwidth and each orbit involves flying four UAVs to sustain. That money adds up as you add more orbits and run them for years, but its much easier to manage then orbiting satellites, since you only spend a lot money the time you actually sustain operations. Peacetime training flights over the UK or other friendly areas could use ground transmitters and cut out the satellite costs completely.

Since many of those civilian satellites are owned by European companies, they pretty well can be simply forced to give up as much bandwidth as you need for a space war emergency. All those extra satellites provide many times as more targets for enemy ASAT as a result, even if they are not committed to military traffic when the war first startsthey have to be attacked because they could switch over at any time. They will be more vulnerable to jamming and remote interference then military stuff, but that's why you counter attack the interference sources. An F-35 is ideal for that kind of mission since its so well equipped to suck in information and find the target.

The RAF doesn't have quite the same problem -we have all of four E-3s and maybe a dozen aircraft that fill the same role as the RC-135 (when it's not falling out of the sky on a whim)- but it's still one more thing our fighters have to keep an eye on when they could be doing something more proactive. The peer-to-peer system using the drones themselves sound promising, if complicated.

Making it work on the drones really isn't any more complicated then using any other aircraft is going to be. The main issue is just its weight and hard points taken up for the equipment to do it aren't carrying bombs instead. Its the same difference as a small cell phone tower and a big one. Same technology, but the big tower with dozens of antenna elements on it is much heavier and more expensive so you have fewer of them. The expectation is most future UAVs will be designed with highly modular payloads and sensors. That way you can adapt the airframes to the required mission, like replacing that Gorgon Stare Pod with an airborne relay pod, rather then needing many specialist kinds of drone.

As I pointed out earlier in the thread, BAE Systems already markets a fast-mover CAS plane based on our existing advanced trainer. It's no Warthog but it's fast, agile and relatively cheap. I'm coming round to the idea of UCAVs, but I still think it's worth evaluating as part of our manned-aircraft fleet if and when we give up on the JSF.
And my views on strategic bombers probably need a thread of their own, but that can wait until I've had a night's sleep.

Like I was saying before, a super HAWK isn't going to perform very well and it ends up being very expensive. Probably so expensive you could buy a brand new Block 50/52 F-16 for as much. If this is a whole new design merely based on the older aircraft that only exist on paper, then it'd be a joke. Never going to be paid for, even if was cheaper. Its got to be an off the shelf solution to be within reason. If you want A-10 like capability then buying A-10s would make sense, why reinvent the wheel? Actually you might be able to pick up some Su-25s for the price of dirt somewhere too, but they'd be a pain to operate.

The expense of a plane is everything yo do with its capabilities. If you want something that really is going to be cheap, and damn the capability then you need something very limited like the Super Tucano, which sucks for most jobs. Remember most of your money saved from killing the F-35 buy would already have to be dumped right back into either F/A-18s or extensive work to create a navalized Typhoon and then building more of those new for the same price as an F-35. Otherwise you just totally crippled the RN carrier fleet. You will have very little, if any, more leftover.

[TC27]

I have heard that Boeing have being quietly approached re Superhornets.....

I still think its very unlikely that we wont be using some form of F35 though.

[Zaune]

its certainly not easy to guard a space launch pad but you do need fairly serious weapons to damage the pad heavily, a few RPG rounds won't do that much. Space launch pads need a damn lot of maintenance, so the space base is fairly well geared up to repair stuff. Damage to the actual boosters will be a lot work to deal with, but not all of the available ones are likely to be at the launch base.
But as a top notch emergency backup, the option exists to place communication satellites on submarine launched ballistic missiles.

RPG rounds certainly wouldn't, but I can see someone planting demolition charges to bring down a launch tower, or damage it so badly that it has to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch.
I definitely like the SSBN suggestion; in fact, I was thinking the other night that it'd be a good way of reusing our boomers if we replace Trident with nuclear-tipped ALCMs.

Something to also consider is the redundancy provided by civilian owned satellites already. Right now the entire US Predator/Reaper flight is being flown using leased commercial satellites. The cost is about 1-1.5 million dollars a year per continuous flown UAV orbit in bandwidth and each orbit involves flying four UAVs to sustain. That money adds up as you add more orbits and run them for years, but its much easier to manage then orbiting satellites, since you only spend a lot money the time you actually sustain operations. Peacetime training flights over the UK or other friendly areas could use ground transmitters and cut out the satellite costs completely.

Since many of those civilian satellites are owned by European companies, they pretty well can be simply forced to give up as much bandwidth as you need for a space war emergency. All those extra satellites provide many times as more targets for enemy ASAT as a result, even if they are not committed to military traffic when the war first starts they have to be attacked because they could switch over at any time. They will be more vulnerable to jamming and remote interference then military stuff, but that's why you counter attack the interference sources. An F-35 is ideal for that kind of mission since its so well equipped to suck in information and find the target.

Assuming we could force them to do so, and I hope I don't sound like I've been reading too much Richard Morgan if I suggest that the British government's willingness or ability to give large corporations orders like that isn't what it might be.

Like I was saying before, a super HAWK isn't going to perform very well and it ends up being very expensive. Probably so expensive you could buy a brand new Block 50/52 F-16 for as much. ... If you want A-10 like capability then buying A-10s would make sense, why reinvent the wheel? Actually you might be able to pick up some Su-25s for the price of dirt somewhere too, but they'd be a pain to operate.

Point. I must admit I'm biased towards the idea of sourcing from domestic manufacturer rather than importing from overseas, mostly for ideological reasons but also because I can see two major advantages:
1. Spares and attrition-replacement airframes would be produced domestically and not subject to maintaining good relations with an overseas supplier. Our continued usefulness to the United States as an ally is not set in stone.
2. The economic benefits of the extra jobs created by building locally would offset the extra development costs by quite a bit, especially if we could produce something that countries outside the development group are actually interested in buying. (Admittedly this last one is dependent on the per-unit cost promised at the start bearing some resemblance to reality this time around. )

[Starglider]

I love the way that for any vaguely plausible future military capability, someone posts 'oh that is completely infeasible due to A, B and C', and within 24 hours Sea Skimmer responds with 'actually DARPA deployed a prototype that did A last year, Boeing intend to fly B next year, and a solution to C is already in low-rate production'. And for the implausible ones, we always have Shep ready with 'yes, SAC produced a design study of nuclear powered intercontinental tunnelling machines in 1963, sadly they were never funded'.

[MKSheppard]

We always have Shep ready with 'yes, SAC produced a design study of nuclear powered intercontinental tunnelling machines in 1963, sadly they were never funded'.

You mean.....PROJECT ICEWORM?

Basic idea: Use nuclear tunnelling machines to bore out hundreds of miles of tunnels under Greenland and Iceland's icecap to store hundreds to thousands of mobile IRBMs -- the soviets would then have to nuke all of the place to be sure of getting them.

[TimothyC]

I imagine some form of AI might be what helps crack the bandwidth problem (IE the AI adjusts the datapaths on the fly), that is if it can be cracked.

Dynamic routing in mesh networks doesn't need any fancy AI, even for moving platforms in challenging signal environments. It just needs reasonably competent software engineering and plenty of processing power, and the latter is getting really cheap these days. I suspect ISPs and telcos will have this in common use well before militaries do, e.g. WiMax already has a pretty effective mesh mode, that various startups are doing interesting things with.

Ah, thank you for setting me strait.

[Zaune]

You mean.....PROJECT ICEWORM?

Basic idea: Use nuclear tunnelling machines to bore out hundreds of miles of tunnels under Greenland and Iceland's icecap to store hundreds to thousands of mobile IRBMs -- the soviets would then have to nuke all of the place to be sure of getting them.

Please tell me you just made that up...

[Sea Skimmer]

Please tell me you just made that up...

He sure didn't, and what’s more the US got as far as building an Army base with shallow snow tunnel construction in Greenland to validate the concept. It was called Camp Century and included a small portable nuclear power plant! Trouble was the ice and snow moved more then we thought, so it was unlikely that unlined nuclear melted ice tunnels would last long enough in service. Lining the tunnels would get expensive since all the material would have to be prefab and shipped in.

The basic idea of basing missiles inside a network of underground tunnels, with survivability provided by concealed random movements came back in the 1970s as an MX basing strategy. Though with earth dug tunnels and concrete lining sprawling across the western US. It actually was the official MX basing strategy for a couple years until Reagan killed it.

[Norade]

Please tell me you just made that up...

He sure didn't, and what’s more the US got as far as building an Army base with shallow snow tunnel construction in Greenland to validate the concept. It was called Camp Century and included a small portable nuclear power plant! Trouble was the ice and snow moved more then we thought, so it was unlikely that unlined nuclear melted ice tunnels would last long enough in service. Lining the tunnels would get expensive since all the material would have to be prefab and shipped in.

The basic idea of basing missiles inside a network of underground tunnels, with survivability provided by concealed random movements came back in the 1970s as an MX basing strategy. Though with earth dug tunnels and concrete lining sprawling across the western US. It actually was the official MX basing strategy for a couple years until Reagan killed it.

My god that sounds like something a Metal Gear Solid game would be based off of except that the tunnelers would also be ICBM launch platforms. Needless to say the HAB should get some tunneling land submarines just for the cool factor.

[Zaune]

He sure didn't, and what’s more the US got as far as building an Army base with shallow snow tunnel construction in Greenland to validate the concept. It was called Camp Century and included a small portable nuclear power plant! Trouble was the ice and snow moved more then we thought, so it was unlikely that unlined nuclear melted ice tunnels would last long enough in service. Lining the tunnels would get expensive since all the material would have to be prefab and shipped in.

The basic idea of basing missiles inside a network of underground tunnels, with survivability provided by concealed random movements came back in the 1970s as an MX basing strategy. Though with earth dug tunnels and concrete lining sprawling across the western US. It actually was the official MX basing strategy for a couple years until Reagan killed it.

You know, I'm starting to feel I might have been a wee bit hard on US citizens who refuse to believe their government can be trusted to spend their tax dollars wisely.