Western Air Power in Decline?

[JohnT]

Interesting article on BeeB web site today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32290224

I noted the following quote in particular....wonder what he was referring to ..

"The military have also contributed to their own misfortunes by conspiring with defence contractors to build ever more expensive weapons that can only be afforded in much smaller numbers than those they are supposed to replace.

Pierre Sprey, chief designer on the F-16 fighter noted the ruinous consequences of buying stealth aircraft at hundreds of millions of dollars a copy.

"It's a triumph of the black arts of selling an airplane that doesn't work," he said."

Please keep comments on certain new aircraft projects clean and polite when expressing opinions to save the Mods having to mark it

[stevej60]

The F35 Argument will no doubt make an appearance in any debate of present/future air power, the supporters of such aircraft will argue that one of

these stealthy aircraft will have the ability to take out any opposition without loss which is great unless your opposition has a similar aircraft thankfully

the "other two" nations fielding this type of aircraft are a fair way off in parity and I would take a pretty good guess the Americans are already well

advanced in the next generation of aircraft which have something missing in the cockpit! If I can court controversy it would be to say that if I was an

American taxpayer or senior Military commander I would be thinking it,s about time Europe started to increase spending and capability and start standing

on it,s own two feet!

[thomastmcc]

i saw and read it john was interesting to say the least..

thomas

[Giorgio N]

Honestly I can't believe how a media establishment with the supposedly high reputation of the BBC could define Pierre Sprey as chief designer of the F-16 !

Mr. Sprey had NOTHING to do with the design of the F-16, he's not even an engineer, he's an analist that was one of the least important persons in the group that defined the CONCEPTS behind the original LWF program from which the F-16 emerged. I repeat, the concepts, not the design. The original concept was for a very simple and lightweight aircraft aimed at AA missions in visual air combat situations only, something very different from the capabilities the F-16 can deploy today. This concept was found to be so flawed that even the original F-16A was a much better equipped aircraft.

Now not only the BBC here is making a false statement, but the position of Sprey within the USAF "Fighter Mafia" group was already discussed here in this thread a while ago

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234972689-f-35-according-to-f-16-co-designer/?hl=sprey

Regarding the decline of western air power, I'd say that the author should have a look at what the US alone can field against their enemies in terms not only of numbers, but also capability and force multipliers. Any country that should decide to have a go at the USAF today is bound for some very bitter surprises...

And again, the usual story about buying more chaper aircrafts is contradicted by parts of the same article: it's the number of units that can be fielded that dictates how many aircrafts a country can afford. No point in having 500 aircrafts if the country can only afford to have 100 pilots and relative structures. If only 100 aircrafts can be maintained by the Country, these should better be the very best the market can offer

Edited April 14, 2015 by Giorgio N

[OverTorque]

Wester Air Power in decline?Well, Spray doesn't even know how good the Typhoon is, so for me those are empty words.

[XV107]

he's an analist ....

[XV107]

More seriously than my last, Sprey appears to be having a last hurrah, where - as Giorgio notes - reporters without a grasp of the fighter mafia grouping and no real awareness of John Boyd, or Everest Riccioni et al, assume that Sprey was the 'main man' behind the F-16 and credit him with playing a greater part than he did. He makes the same points repeatedly, and since he is rarely interviewed by anyone with a grasp of the subject (or, on occasions, by people who have an agenda and thus don't ask awkward questions), he seems to get away without being challenged.

The fact that his ideal air force would be pretty useless - lightweight fighter, no radar, WVR vs SU-27 = uneven contest, no matter how many you have - seems to be overlooked. The F-16 being kitted out with all the things Sprey decries (a contributor to its success) is usually given a stiff ignoring as well. Given a choice between the cockpit of an F-15/Typhoon or a fighter which'd meet with Mr Sprey's approval, I'd be in the overly-expensive piece of junk with a radar, a defensive aids system and AIM-120 (later Meteor), thank you very much.

There is a point in there about defence cost inflation, often the result of poorly-written contracts, over-optimism (on the part of the contractor or the customer or both) about capabilities and when they will work as desired, but many others have made the point. There are political aspects to this - no intention of going there, most of us know what they are, those members who don't can quickly find out by googling 'Pork Barrel' or reading Pprune (filtering out the 'It's all rubbish and was so much better in my day' posts there - so about 75%) and there's no need to breach the site rules - in the broadest sense in terms of sovereign capability, maintaining industries, etc, etc. While making thousands of lightweight fighters might seem like a good way of maintaining your industrial base, when air forces which can afford the high-tech kit are ignoring your product in favour of buying more expensive and more capable kit, it becomes a mis-step.

The point, I think, is that we have seen a decline in mass amongst western air forces, while the capability of the kit that opponents can obtain has increased - be that ever-improved Russian SAMs, or Su-27s/30s, or J-10 or J-11. And, of course, the aircraft which are closer qualitatively to western types now come with BVR weapons that are apparently more capable than could be obtained from non-western sources (and the Soviets weren't, if memory serves, great exporters of their BVR weapons either), and the 'gap' that once existed has narrowed. Your lightweight, radar- and DASS-less WVR fighter, unless controlled by a (very vulnerable) high value asset like AWACS, is going to get smacked, at range, before the pilot knows what's hit it. Whether one thinks the F-35 to be a much-maligned type which will come good, or a heap of over-priced junk which'll never cut it, the idea that the sort of fighter aircraft Pierre Sprey believes in could ever serve as a replacement/substitute is rather bonkers.

[The James]

Here is an interesting, if somewhat lengthy, article slating the F-35 for anyone that's interested...

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5

[upnorth]

Regarding the decline of western air power, I'd say that the author should have a look at what the US alone can field against their enemies in terms not only of numbers, but also capability and force multipliers. Any country that should decide to have a go at the USAF today is bound for some very bitter surprises...

And again, the usual story about buying more chaper aircrafts is contradicted by parts of the same article: it's the number of units that can be fielded that dictates how many aircrafts a country can afford. No point in having 500 aircrafts if the country can only afford to have 100 pilots and relative structures. If only 100 aircrafts can be maintained by the Country, these should better be the very best the market can offer

There's also another angle of if a country can afford to keep certain aspects of their military functioning at all.

We've seen certain countries in Europe not maintain a fighter force at all in favour of arranging a rotation of friendly countries with fighters to patrol their airspace for them such as we see in the Baltic Air Policing mission these days. Albania and Slovenia have similar air policing arrangements.

I once heard rumblings of Slovakia replacing their MiG-29s with F-16s, more recently I've been hearing that they may retire the MiGs and try to arrange an air policing deal with other NATO countries. Not sure how much truth their is to it, but it wouldn't surprise me were it true.

Sometimes, New Zealand as case in point, whether you have the money or not for fighters; it may not make sense for you to spend money on them when you are a small country geographically so close to a friendly large neighbor who can easily extend their defensive umbrella to include you should the need arise.

[Giorgio N]

ooooppsss.....sorry, bad spelling that led to some "interesting" result... :lol:

[-Neu-]

Funny as I was considering buying Mark Urban's new book. However after reading this article, which cites Pierre Sprey, I've definitely decided not to. It really speaks to a simplistic analysis that doesn't grasp the profound changes that are occurring in this area.

Let me start with a premise: Western Airpower has never been more powerful or effective. We're coming out of a decade of unprecedented levels of joint operations and investment into emerging technologies, such as battlefield networking and UCAVs. Over 80% of the World's investment into aerospace occurs within a NATO partner country or Japan, with Russia's aviation industry behind that of Canada. I've visited a number of major production facilities in the past year for work, and the level of technology we're incorporating is stunning. Some of the operational concepts that are emerging are just as groundbreaking. In a way it reminds me of the 1897 Spithead Review: the British Empire at its apogee of its military power, though its economic position was under threat.

I also take exception to the view that we've loss mass. Its a far too one-sided view of the actual situation. If we simply compare us to ourself, then yes, the West has decreased in size: between 1988 and 2008 the US, France and UK saw their aircraft inventory drop by 40%. However in that time we also saw the PLAF drop its size by 72% and the USSR/Russia decline by 77%. If I crack open my copy of the Military balance, I suspect that the gulf has widened even more in the past seven years.

Moreover there is a real qualitative disadvantage as well. Urban cites Sergei Lavrov, the longtime Russian Foreign minister. I find it laughable that he talks about a multipolar world, in which Russia is some sort of major power. His regime is basically presiding over the new sick man of Europe. Horrible demographics, economics and industrial development. A recent disclosures from within Russia suggest that over 30% of funding may be lost due to corruption. I know XV that you might be privy to some of the classified assessments of Russian capabilities, but many times the assessments are now best case scenarios. Reliability rates across the board are in the toilet. In open source literature, we can see it in the disgruntlement of Russia's client states over their equipment, various news reports coming out of Russia, or other indicators, like the repeated failure of the Bulava ICBM tests, or the troubles with the PAK-FA

Moreover there is a real technological stagnation occurring. The highly centralized state-run organizations simply are not innovative. It is completely unable to leverage dual use technology development in the civil sector, like in the U.S., which is a major source of innovation and a way to subsidize the cost of R&D. The US government does not have to pay the lion's share of development cost of the F-35 core operating system software (to take a random example) because Green Hills Software has already invested tens of millions to develop such a technology for the civil market. Their workforces are extremely old (I believe the average age scientist or engineer is approaching or above 50 years old), with the most promising young engineers siphoned off into more productive technology sectors or (more likely) the west.

What does this mean? Basically I think Russia has become an increasingly parochial, limited power. Sure they are effective at fighting vs a less numerous, ill trained force using the same weapons as they do (Ie Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014), but they would have severe difficulty in mounting a major campaign larger than what they are carrying out in today.

We've also been effective at denying potential adversaries of key technologies through multilateral efforts like the Missile Technology Control Regime. The recent analysis of the Chinese J-31's performance using Russian Klimov RD-83 engines (itself a poor effort) illustrates the immaturity of their efforts. They are catching up, yet I doubt that it will be anything close to the mid-term before they will be effectively able to challenge us outside of their immediate territory. I'd like to go into China a bit more because it is a fascinating case, but for brevity's sake I'll end it here.

I don't say these things to be sanguine about the threat to the West; certainly the Russians and Chinese have developed some areas of real comparative advantage. Russian SAMs provide a extremely lethal threat (its an area that has seen consistent, growing investment since the collapse of the USSR). However I am struck by the vast effort in the United States and its closest allies to maintain its technology lead through intelligence gathering and indigenous technological developments. But the bedrock of this system really was outlined in NSC 162 of the Eisenhower Administration, and it rings true today:

10. In support of these basic security requirements, it is necessary that the United States:

a. develop and maintain an intelligence system capable of:

(2)accurately evaluating the capabilities of foreign countries, friendly and neutral as well as enemy, to undertake military, political economic and subversive courses of action affecting U.S. Security.

c. Conduct and foster scientific research and development to insure superiority in quality and quantity of weapon systems, with attendant continuing review of the level and cmposition of forces and of the industrial base required for adequate defense for successful prosecution of general war.

So I view these threats as not invincible, but manageable through our current and future capabilities. There isn't something yet that has completely negated our airpower assets, and we're investing in systems that will allow us to maintain our lead.

Perhaps I come off as a western triumphalist, an optimist of our gilded age, but that's the way I see it.

Edited April 15, 2015 by -Neu-

[Giorgio N]

Here is an interesting, if somewhat lengthy, article slating the F-35 for anyone that's interested...

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/fd-how-the-u-s-and-its-allies-got-stuck-with-the-worlds-worst-new-warplane-5c95d45f86a5

I've read the article during the morning coffee... it's so full of technical inaccuracies that it's IMHO not even worth bothering with. Just to name one, the author clearly has no clue of what the "area rule" is, omits to mention that this only affects certain flight regimes and describes this totally inaccurately. Long and slender fuselage ? So should I conclude that the F-15 or the F-14 design make no use of the area rule ? Well, actually they do, and so does the F-35

There's also a very serious flaw in the reasoning behind the article, a flaw that many articles contain: the F-35 is meant to be part of a system including a number of other assets. A simulation where someone takes X F-35s and mixes them with Y Su-27s makes little sense. Since when did any US fighter operate without AWACS ? What is the command and control and the data distribution capability of the US forces compared to the opposition ?

Not to forget that here we see aircrafts like the Su-27 described as some top class invincible adversary, forgetting that we're talking 1970's technology for the airframes, 1980's technology for the engines and, for most users, 1990's technology for the systems.

There's also another angle of if a country can afford to keep certain aspects of their military functioning at all.

We've seen certain countries in Europe not maintain a fighter force at all in favour of arranging a rotation of friendly countries with fighters to patrol their airspace for them such as we see in the Baltic Air Policing mission these days. Albania and Slovenia have similar air policing arrangements.

I once heard rumblings of Slovakia replacing their MiG-29s with F-16s, more recently I've been hearing that they may retire the MiGs and try to arrange an air policing deal with other NATO countries. Not sure how much truth their is to it, but it wouldn't surprise me were it true.

Sometimes, New Zealand as case in point, whether you have the money or not for fighters; it may not make sense for you to spend money on them when you are a small country geographically so close to a friendly large neighbor who can easily extend their defensive umbrella to include you should the need arise.

Very good point that outlines one thing that is often missing in the analyses read on many newspapers: the identification of the requirements for the military forces of any country.

New Zealand is IMHO a very interesting example as the elimination of the jet fighter force was not, as many think, a way to save money but was the result of a good work of identification of potential threats and a good definition of the Country military strategy.

For an island nation over 3,000 km away from any other stretch of land, it's clear that it's extremely unlikely to have to defend against land based aircrafts. Any threat has to come from the sea. Are a dozen or so of jet fighters the best defence against such a threat ? With the US alone capable of deploying a strong carrier force, there's no point in fielding something against such threat. Money is probably better spent in assets like missile equipped patrol aircrafts and submarines. And this is exactly what New Zealand did.

[Albeback52]

The F35 Argument will no doubt make an appearance in any debate of present/future air power, the supporters of such aircraft will argue that one of

these stealthy aircraft will have the ability to take out any opposition without loss which is great unless your opposition has a similar aircraft

Agree up to a point. I have reservations though;

1) The theory is fine but, theory often goes out the window when confronted with the reality of combat. It is almost axiomatic that the battle plans rarely survive first contact

2) A single breakthrough in detection technology and/or anti aircraft defence systems could render this hypothetical, hideously expensive fleet of stealthy aircraft if not obsolete then, at the very least vulnerable)

3) The current obsession with these mega expensive silver bullets could also result in an air force being so small it is incapable of meeting commitments and too expensive to put in harms way for fear of losing an aeroplane too costly to replace. It is all very well dropping a guided bomb or missile from miles away but, what if our troops call for air support? Will the hypothetical £200 million Stealth Superstar be up to this most basic of tasks or, do we have to say "Sorry chaps but our two dozen planes are too expensive to risk by putting them into a situation where people might shoot at them". Could this stealth mania not result in a serious capability gap because instead of having a well balanced force with multiple capabilities, we have put all our eggs into the stealth basket and ended up with a handful of what are effectively single mission aircraft? I would personally rather have a large force of proven and effective multi role aircraft like F-16, Typhoon, F-15

Pessimistic? Yes, I agree. I am no expert or strategist so, this is simply a bit of fun speculation. I may have completely misunderstood the point of this discussion I think the one thing that has been overlooked in all of this is a definition of the sort of air assets we NEED,. The UK has for example been embroiled in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. In these limited war situations do we really actually NEED an F-35 or, a Harrier?

.As for Mr Sprey, I would take any of his comments with a pinch of salt. I think Mr F-16 is a bitter man whose dubious contribution to aviation has been sidelined. This is the same man who described the Harrier as a "hopeless" aircraft.

I think we (or at least bean counting politicians) are guilty of believing or falling into the "more expensive = more capable= we will need LESS of them" trap. The only bit they will look at is the "we will need less" bit.. Stealth aircraft are being sold on the basis that that they can do anything and everything. Even if they ARE as good as advertised , each aircraft can only be in one place at one time. Add to that, a certain number will always be unavailable at any given time. Bearing that in mind, is it not also likely that our much reduced,super high tech air forces could find themselves being overwhelmed by sheer weigh of numbers . I see little wrong with having a small number of stealthy types specifically tasked for high value targets too hazardous for other types to tackle. I think that is common sense. What I do not like however is the possibility that we may ignore other equally important capabilities in the headlong rush to equip ourselves with the latest "must have"

Allan

Edited April 15, 2015 by Albeback52

[Calum]

Very good point that outlines one thing that is often missing in the analyses read on many newspapers: the identification of the requirements for the military forces of any country.

New Zealand is IMHO a very interesting example as the elimination of the jet fighter force was not, as many think, a way to save money but was the result of a good work of identification of potential threats and a good definition of the Country military strategy.

For an island nation over 3,000 km away from any other stretch of land, it's clear that it's extremely unlikely to have to defend against land based aircrafts. Any threat has to come from the sea. Are a dozen or so of jet fighters the best defence against such a threat ? With the US alone capable of deploying a strong carrier force, there's no point in fielding something against such threat. Money is probably better spent in assets like missile equipped patrol aircrafts and submarines. And this is exactly what New Zealand did.

They did Gio? Perhaps you'd better tell the NZDFwhere these assets are......because they certainly don't have missile armed MPA's or submarines. NZ's sole airborne offensive capability is Maverick (and Now Penguin) armed Seasptired and P-3's with dumb bombs. Even the Anzac Frigates still don't have a SSM

IMHO there was more than a bit of ideology in the decsion to get rid of the RNZAF Air Combat Force

[Giorgio N]

They did Gio? Perhaps you'd better tell the NZDFwhere these assets are......because they certainly don't have missile armed MPA's or submarines. NZ's sole airborne offensive capability is Maverick (and Now Penguin) armed Seasptired and P-3's with dumb bombs. Even the Anzac Frigates still don't have a SSM

IMHO there was more than a bit of ideology in the decsion to get rid of the RNZAF Air Combat Force

Sounds like things have changed a bit since I looked... I see there's no SSK even if these were among the proposed acquisition and the Orions didn't receive any missile, again as was proposed back then. IIRC the Orions should have used Mavericks.

I have to stand corrected on these, things didn't move as proposed then. I still think that the defence of New Zealand would be better served by MPAs and naval assets though

Edited April 15, 2015 by Giorgio N

[magwitch]

Here is an interesting, if somewhat lengthy, article slating the F-35 for anyone that's interested...

I was just thinking that another article on that subject was just what the Internet needed.

[alex]

Nah, western Airforces on the rise, to my point of view. Older aircrafts are replaced by new ones (well, not really original). The figures may be lower, but the capacities are not. A small example from our neighbor: Mirage 2000D has usally 2 GBU-12, two tanks, and maybe some missiles for self defence, and a pod. Rafale has up to six GBU-12, up to three tanks, and still some pylons left for some goodies. Oh, not to mention much better Radar, EO suite and self-defense capabilities. This applies for most airforces (legacy Hornet replaced by Super Hornet, Harrier and Tornados by EF2000 and JSF, and so on). In the book "Navy Hornets of OIF" there is a nice statement of a USN official: the question after the Super Hornet changed from "how many sorties per target" to "how many target per sortie". The introduction of the small diameter bomb changes it even more. Imagine a B-2 dropping >200 guided bombs in one pass... the new generation stealth (F-22 and F-35) can carry up to eight of them internally, and still have room for internally carried AAM. The F-35 may be a little late and over cost, but it's still in the beginning of its operational lifetime. The potential lies in the software and sensors, which can be improved with time.

Next thing is the manpower which you have access to, to develop new things. Western countries still attract most brilliant heads for R&D, where other potential forces usually are not attractive to scientists and developers. I think the numbers are now hitting lows, but with the present geopolitical situation, we will see more money going into defense. As many systems are already widely developed, the increase of numbers should be less expensive than we believe.

And not to mention U©AV, where the west, especially the US, is miles ahead.

Alex

[XV107]

I also take exception to the view that we've loss mass. Its a far too one-sided view of the actual situation.

With respect, that depends upon how you define mass. We have 5 Typhoon and 3 Tornado GR4 Squadrons now. Compare that with 1991, when we had more than that number of squadrons in just the Tornado GR1/1A force (2, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 27, 31, 617). Then add 7 Tornado F3 squadrons (5, 11, 23, 25, 29, 43, 111), 3 of Jaguar (6, 41, 54) three of Harrier (1, 3, 4), two/three of Sea Harrier (800, 801 + 899 as the HQ unit), 2 squadrons of Buccaneer (12, 216)...

The aircraft are far more capable, yes - but mass is not about capability; whether you go to the Air Warfare Centre, or the Air Staffs [at least under the previous ACAS, and I suspect under his successor), or any element of the RAF considering this, mass is defined in terms of number, not in terms of capability.

And the problem, and the reason that this is seen as an issue is that aircraft do not, as yet - no matter how glib it is to say it - possess the capability to be in two places at once, and if you have an aircraft which has gone unserviceable, or which has been lost from the fleet as the result of accident (be that as a write-off or being slowly rebuilt), and you have lost mass.

Thus while the Typhoon is (or is soon to be) a more capable air-ground platform than the Jaguar, Harrier and Tornado, it also has to do the air defence of the UK and the Falklands.

You thus have a smaller deployable force overall, and at some point, if the balance between capability and numbers gets out of line (and there is a strong belief in the RAF that we have gone beyond that point), you cannot do everything that you were once able to do - it might be that you now need (say) only 1 squadron of aircraft to achieve the effect that 2 squadrons used to be required to deliver because the new aircraft deliver their weapons much more accurately, are 'self-escorting' (to an extent) and possibly carry more weapons (Jaguar vs Typhoon, for instance), and you can thus prosecute target sets more effectively with a smaller number of airframes. But if you want to deploy that smaller force to two theatres of operation (Libya and Afghanistan), you start to risk the longer-term health of that force because you end up delaying servicing and your aircrew suffer skill fade across the range of capabilities that the aircraft type they fly offers.

While the sort of Daily Mail-esque suggestion that we're crippled as an air force because we no longer have the combat air mass that we did in 1991 is risible, there is a strongly-held view that the RAF, at least in terms of combat air, is now below the mass that is required to do all the things that it always does (e.g. standing commitments such as QRA), the things that it has been deployed to do (anti-Daesh operations) and have sufficient numbers to do a second contingent operation.

That's why I hold that mass has declined - mass and capability are not linear beasts, but they are very much interlinked and at present I would argue that we have to the point where the decline in numbers has overtaken the compensating factors brought about by considerable improvements in capability.

[AngstROM]

At a bit of a tangent, but not unrelated, I found this article at the BBC today:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-32305815

According to John Mecklin, the US plans to replace "all three legs of what is called the nuclear triad with entirely new weapons: a new land-based missile, a new long range nuclear bomber and new nuclear submarines." A new long range nuclear bomber? They'll be making those huge Cadillacs with massive tail fins again before we know it!

[colin]

Why would you want or need a long range nuclear bomber

[magwitch]

Why would you want or need a long range nuclear bomber

Because that will be easier to fund in Congress than just "a long range bomber".

[mumbles]

Why would you want or need a long range nuclear bomber

Because you can't recall or retarget an ICBM, SLBM or cruise once you've sent it on it's way. That's the reasoning as I've always understood it anyway.

[mumbles]

Money is probably better spent in assets like missile equipped patrol aircrafts and submarines. And this is exactly what New Zealand did.

Along with buying many more LAV's than the army could realistically operate

The flaw in the fast jets literally defending NZ itself against attack argument is that defending NZ home territory and defending NZ's interests aren't quite the same thing, and the NZDF as a whole has never been capable of the former on it's own (against any enemy with the wherewithal to seriously mount such an attack at least). It's pretty good at the latter though IMHO, and the ACW played a significant overseas role in that. In disbanding the ACW NZ took a well trained and capable force (for it's size and assets) that did good work for NZ and ditched it effectively on a political whim, with no real mandate and justified by the government concerned with ignorance and outright misinformation.

The problem with that is not only is that saying it isn't needed now, that's saying it is never going to be, which is a big call.

IMHO there was more than a bit of ideology in the decsion to get rid of the RNZAF Air Combat Force

Putting it mildly. When a government ignores the findings of a report that it commissioned in order to do the opposite it speaks of little else.

Edited May 7, 2015 by mumbles