Clark Griswold

Started looking over the report, while the air superiority situation is not good for us; the naval and amphibious landing situation for the PLA is very tough. They basically have to clear mines, quickly erected barricades, defensive positions, air defenses, enemy fighters and strike aircraft and mobile artillery all while under fire and having limited resources to absorb and replace losses in their naval task force. Just scanning the report, RAND seems to think they can maintain local air superiority over the strait, maybe over the island but with PGMs, the invasion force crossing the strait will be atrited to a point they will not be operationally effective when on the island. Pretty much if the PLA invades, they probably could get on the island, establish air superiority over the Taiwan strait maybe over the island but then they are in a bloody slow grinding fight to take the island. A military operation with a significant chance of failure. From page 118 of the report: We nonetheless conclude that, even under these circumstances, an invasion of Taiwan would, in the face of properly prepared defenses, remain a bold and possibly foolish gamble on Beijing’s part. There are three main reasons for this. 1. China has never actually done an amphibious landing offensive military operation. Taiwan has prepared to defend their territory & defense is inherently easier. 2. China does not have enough (as of now) amphibious landing ships for the size of the force needed to be landed and in an operationally feasible time frame. 3. China would be concentrating forces for landings and initial force movements that would be ideal for PGM engagement and likely to be bogged down in Taiwan's multiple layered defenses when on the island. While China could initially keep us from using MOBs like Clark and damage Kadena, Misawa, etc...eventually we would be in numbers in theater. They would get mauled pretty badly in the invasion and even if it is successful, it would likely be a Pyrrhic victory at best.

You have to un-hide the text that explains we only plan to fight circa 1990's Desert Storm massive air campaign style. You HAVE to have a $1 million logistical chain to support every mission you fly. If you don't, you might give Congress the idea, that - gasp - we might need to buy some weapons that don't cost a $50,000 an hour to fly and are tailored to fight these low intensity long term conflicts. Don't worry, your job is not going anywhere. JSTARS is funded for another 5 years but if I were king, then I would have the USAF fly the Sentinel R1 to fly something modern.

Agreed on contracting out AAR. i think the KC-767 mentioned in the article might have been a better choice but I'm not sure it could meet all the requirements like EMP hardening, bio/chem defense, etc... I agree with the sentiment that the new tanker doesn't necessarily need to be a some huge leap in capabilities necessarily but just something reasonably capable, reliable and supportable. I liked the High-Lo concept with the KC-767 and the SSTT concept but the Big AF is just not that creative or interested in efficiency for that. Every MDS has to be huge, ultra modern, unique and costs be damned. Bigger, Higher, Faster, Farther - no matter the cost and no matter whether that is appropriate. Referencing Coram's book on Boyd from this website: Be True to the Mission, Not to the Apparatus As Coram puts it, the generals “looked at technology rather than the mission. And if they did consider the mission, it was always the fashionable mission of the day” (156-57).

There's an app for that Good point but compared to the AF and our typical pattern of either over thinking the wheel (KC-46, F-35, etc.) or only believing a gold-plated system is the only viable option I think the Army has more common sense or less money which keeps them in check. Our mistakes of late have way to many zeros at the end of them. Copy - my answer to your rhetorical question is yes, we will fly a 5th gen fighter to drop a JDAM on a Hilux with 4 dudes and some AK's, don't forget the two tankers to keep the fighters on station, the JSTARS and his tanker, the Reapers and their FOB, etc... If there is a right way to do something and an expensive way to do something, we'll figure out a way to do it both ways.

Ditto. Not sure what the question is.

2 This may be off the mark but I think the AF is setting itself up for a nasty surprise with some of the VTOL designs coming up that the Army and maybe the USMC may procure, attack variants are proposed and they may take the CAS mission by a fait acompli. Watch the Valor 280 sales video and the Army is planning on building the capacity to have its own CAS in an attack tilt rotor variant, who needs the AF for CAS now? The performance is pretty good - 280 KTAS, 500-800 NM combat radius, 12k useful load - not sure if the attack model would mirror that as I think those are the utility specs but probably pretty close. If that attack variant of the utility tiltrotor is successful, following the historical model of the attack Huey then the Cobra, I think the USAF is going to get cut out of a mission.

Broken Booms: Why Is It So Hard To Develop & Procure A New USAF Tanker? Long but good article, waxes philosophical on procurement and why is it so FUBAR now. Worth the time to read.

You may be right about the Navy being less than interested in buying the full compliment of F-35Cs Navy Leans Toward Building More Super Hornets After F-35C Delays

It can be done, for a metric ton of money but it can be done. The 130 and the B-2 are roughly the same size and weight. That by itself doesn't mean a new LO HVAA platform should be that level of signature reduction or could be done affordable for an operationally relevant fleet size but it is an example of large aircraft built with stealth in mind from the beginning. Stealth tanker / airlift has been proposed and nothing done about it but a common platform with a modular mission bay could be a significant change to put stealth into the least stealthy part of how we do major air ops, namely the tanker, airlift, ELINT and EA missions to support the Night 1 strikes. Cutaway of a Speed Agile proposal: Take a platform like this and make it modular to be an LO tanker, airlift, ELINT, or inside a WEZ stand-off weapons delivery platform. Not that you have to build the capability to roll on roll off in 4 hours from one mission type to the next but a basic modular airframe to support these missions. I don't think you could convince the remaining bomber generals to support this but I think something like this rather than an LRSB that comes in under 550 mil a copy is more feasible.

No, but they could initially deny operations from MOBs like Kadena and Misawa while delaying or denying deployment to Clark AB. Guam is still just outside of the range rings but not so far that an improved DF could not reach it without too much effort or money spent improving it. My argument is that the way we plan to fight and the losses we are willing to accept make preparing to fight with conventional HVAAs at very long range orbits just necessary. A compliment of LO HVAAs will enable us to fight the way we do now in A2/AD environments with an appropriate amount of risk. Going back to the start of the thread, Stillion argues for a radical departure in tactics / systems to achieve and sustain air superiority and I think an evolution (LO HVAAs) is more feasible and far less risky.

Don't doubt they exist but just curious and keeping OPSEC front and center, are you saying that the tankers, AWACs, Rivets, etc.. could get closer? I think that (the 500-750 NM standoff) is the worst case on Day 1 but they have a some serious reach from the mainland, HVAAs are going to have to keep their distances as China has learned from watching us fight for the last 25 years. If we went to fisticuffs, there is no way they would let us either operate our force enabling assets in orbits close to them (inside of 500 NM) nor from MOBs just outside that range (Clark AB). Reference these missile rings: They would crater the shit out of any runway on a daily basis (unless we intercepted the daily SSM barrage) to keep our HVAAs from operating anywhere close. My idea for the trend in air to air combat is that LO needs to be incorporated into some larger, non-fighter aircraft if we want to continue to fight with AR, AWACS, EA, etc... this is just an example of where it would help to mitigate the A2/AD threat

Good podcast and worth the listen. As you said not directly related to the F-35 but I think it is tangentially related in that I don't think Western democracies take defense / military policies seriously any longer and no serious person can or should think the F-35 is still a good idea just based on the explosion in cost and delay in delivery. The average person serving in federal levels of government in the US, Europe, etc... probably hasn't served in any capacity in a military unit, has little substantive knowledge of the threats faced by aggressive states, thinks that victory is inevitable given the recent major military operations and that defense procurement is 50% military capability and 50% jobs and money in my district. Democracy is starting to loose the chess game against the authoritarian / autocratic regimes, not precipitously but slowly. Back to the F-35, wiki says Israel wants to buy them with mods for Israeli electronics and externally carried EW pods along with a two seat variant. Why not use these models but use the C model and have one a common EA aircraft across the Israeli, USN fleets and hopefully get the AF to buy a few for organic EA capability? Minor edit.

The article and MD's comments weren't saying that. Nor my intention to say the average illegal alien crossing has guns, drugs or nefarious intentions BUT there is a sizable percentage that do (gang members, cartel operatives, aliens from hostile nations, etc.). Just secure the border. Just that. If you did that THEN a rational, reasoned and sensible conversation could be had about what should happen to illegal aliens in the US who have lived and worked here with ties to the US. But the short sighted and corrupt economic and left leaning political interests won't turn off the tap so the boat continues to take on water. The border can be secured and policed reasonably. I as a tax payer would rather spend billions on keeping out random dudes with shotguns, AK-47s, MS-13 tattoos and multiple felony convictions than on useless shit like a GD stupid STOVL fighter that will likely never see combat against another fighter but may be used to bomb some jihadi in turdshitstan for probably 300K per mission. Rage subsiding.... Edit for grammar

Don't worry about this guy illegally crossing into the US with a shotgun, he's just looking for a better life. Shocking images from cameras on Texas-Mexico border capture steady stream of illegal immigrants sneaking into the United States with packages of drugs and guns Read more: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3042805/Shocking-images-cameras-Texas-Mexico-border-capture-steady-stream-illegal-immigrants-sneaking-United-States-packages-drugs-guns.html#ixzz3XdGdB4hC Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Possibly so. Interesting that he pushed the "Red Bird" which was not going to have a radar as an alternative to the F-15, OODA is about first gathering information on what is happening and I never understood why he would not have been at least somewhat interested in the BVR fight prior to a WVR fight. I don't think he ever flew a fighter with a radar so without that first hand experience, it just didn't interest him I suppose. Another article on Stillion's presentation. https://breakingdefense.com/2015/04/should-future-fighter-be-like-a-bomber-groundbreaking-csba-study/ Idea is very "all eggs in one basket" unless you would cut the UCAVs loose to go beast mode on whatever doesn't squawk the right IFF if the mothership had to run for cover, got shot down or the links were jammed. Probability of that happening: 0.00001% Good point brought up though not related to his new air superiority concept was on page 50 with the probable requirement for HVAAs, namely tankers to operate 500-750 NM from contested airspace (China-Taiwan scenario). He's not the only one to bring this up but instead of a UCAV controlling mothership, an LO tanker with a sensor suite to datalink the picture without the CAP having to transmit might be an evolution of how we fight to operate in A2/AD. A tanker version of the proposed FB-22 or LSRB could work.

Yup - Coram's book I think does a good job showing his thought process evolving from the practical to the theoretical to the philosophical. Haven't seen anything on Boyd's opinion or thoughts on stealth / low observability - did he ever write / present on stealth / lo ? Minor edit.

I hope not but history is rhyming Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In simple terms, Stillion argues that stealth, payload and sensor capability will trump traditional fighter metrics like speed, altitude and turn capability. Maybe but putting those sensors into something like an interceptor makes more sense as it could run away bravely if someone gets by the screen of fighters / UCAVS. He argues for a C2 mothership with UCAVs doing the fighting, sounds great but it can't be LO and talk to the UCAVs and if a leaker gets thru then the package (giggity) then a PLAAF J-20 or Russian AF T-50 gets a sweet guns kill.

Top 5 Cancelled Fighter Plane Programs Had not heard of the Atlas Carver and surprised the F-20 didn't make the list.

Long article but interesting (only perused some sections) - enjoy. Trends in Air to Air Combat Implications for Air Superiority John Stillion

Figures. This clip has probably been posted in another thread but probably a good analogy to what happened.

Sounds like the "Bigger-Higher-Farther-Faster" mentality Boyd had to contend with. They just can't imagine that the new platform doesn't have to be XXX times greater than old one for insert whatever metric(s) you want here. There is still a requirement for a CAS / Attack focused platform that can fly slow, turn tight and hang around while the TIC develops. It just needs to be a new aircraft with a sustainable MX base, improvements where needed to a realistic degree and reasonably affordable survivability built in. Serious question and don't mean to sound too out of my lane but instead of an LO platform why not design the A-X with as much signature reduction as you can but focus on a robust ECM suite integrated into the aircraft from the beginning?

Edsel

Probably so - that was just a guy's weekend (or several) project but still nice. The AE 2100D (J model 130 & 27) puts out (giggity) 4700+ ESHP so that could work and you could route the exhaust like on the A2D Skyshark But that's getting away from the intention of the original LAAR proposal. It needs to be something around 15 mil or less a copy and ideally cost less than 1K per hour to fly, those numbers were not stated in the original RFP but watching the whole thing unfold that appears what they wanted and now have in the A-29 program being run at Moody. I'm still a big believer in the Scorpion Jet and particularly that for the ANG, LAAR and would be good for DOMOPS / DSCA but without the ANG having its own procurement authority and the USAF not interested, probably a 0.1% chance. Got that covered.

Like it - just a plastic model but what an updated Skyraider might look like...