Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Fighters, Bombers and Recon Discussion Board
Sign In   Return to Topic Page
Subject: USAF CoS Prefers F-35, UAS and NGB. Also say USAF has enough TACAIR capability
DarthAmerica    5/27/2009 10:45:26 PM
U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Norton Schwartz said increasing production rates for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and developing the next-generation bomber are at the top of his wish list of projects to fund if the service had more money. SOURCE: h*tp://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=aerospacedaily&id=news/SCHWARTZ052009.xml&headline=Schwartz%20Wish%20List:%20Boost%20F-35,%20Plan%20NGB Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on the Air Force?s $160.5 billion fiscal 2010 budget request May 19, Schwartz said service leaders felt they had enough tactical aircraft capability despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates? plans to halt F-22 Raptor procurement at 187 aircraft. The Air Force chief said the service?s leadership believed it was a ?prudent opportunity to accelerate the retirement of older aircraft.? The FY ?10 budget calls for retiring 250 F-15s, F-16s and A-10s, enabling the Air Force to redistribute more than $3.5 billion over the next six years to modernize combat air forces into a ?smaller but more capable force,? Schwartz and Air Force Secretary Michael Donley told lawmakers in joint written testimony. Schwartz did say more money would make it easier and faster to upgrade remaining legacy aircraft and make modifications to the F-22 until the F-35 starts rolling off the line in large numbers. Schwartz said the Air Force would like to see F-35 production boosted to at least 80 aircraft and perhaps as many as 110 per year before the F-16s start retiring in large numbers. Committee members, including Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) and Rep. John McHugh (N.Y.), the senior Republican on the panel, worried about producing and flying an aircraft while it was still being tested. Donley conceded budget constraints compelled the Air Force to make some difficult calls. If there was more money ?we might have made some different choices,? Schwartz added. But both leaders insisted the Air Force was not short-changing itself. The chief of staff said his wish list also included developing plans for the future long-range strike capability. ?We need, through the QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review] and the NPR [Nuclear Posture Review] to get our secretary of defense comfortable with the parameters of what we propose for that platform.? Gates canceled funding for a next-generation bomber study, which Schwartz said was of concern to the Air Force ?Once we get him comfortable with the parameters ? range, payload, manned, unmanned, nuclear, non-nuclear, low observable, very low observable ? then we need to proceed aggressively with that program.? Schwartz said the Air Force also needs to explore using additional automation in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to reduce manpower. He noted that currently one crew operates a single UAS.
 
Quote    Reply

Email Me When A New Comment Is Made
Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Pages: PREV  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23   NEXT
DarthAmerica    SYSTEMS BASED APPROACH   6/8/2009 9:28:42 PM

Press: Two real quick questions. One, the airborne FACs you just mentioned, would they be in AWACS aircraft? Or what type of aircraft would they be in, number one? And number two, given the size of the JDAM and its slightly reduced accuracy compared to a laser-guided bomb, does it become of increasingly less value when we start talking about urban CAS?

General Moseley: That's a great question. Let me take the first one.

The airborne FACs are in a mix of A-10s, F-16s, F-15Es, F-14s, F-18s, all of the Navy, Marine and Air Force aircraft that we can bring to bear that have FAC A-qualified pilots and crews, we'll use them. In fact they're up there right now, again today. We started this so we could stay over the top of the city and provide support.

So if you check into the CAS stack you may be working with a Marine in an F-18 or Navy crew in an F-14 of an Air Force pilot in an A-10. You won't know the difference. You'll just know the call sign and the location. So I think that's another wonderful testimony to joint training, joint doctrine, joint CAS, and being able to work the command and control to get the airplanes up there.

If I sound like a proud father, I am, because I am extremely proud of these guys because they really, really do a good job.

Your second question about the JDAM, no, we've used the JDAM before in Afghanistan doing this same sort of work and we're using the JDAM every day.

The average miss distance on the JDAM has been about the length of the bomb. When some people say that we've got these GPS jammers up there, I find that's humorous also because we've killed every GPS jammer that's come up with a GPS weapon, so that hasn't worked out very well for them.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seems like we are familiar with anti-"telemetry" issues and how to work around it.

 
-DA
 
Quote    Reply

warpig       6/8/2009 11:23:55 PM


The PRCs have our telemetry protocols. ALL of them.


Herald


Please feel free to tell me what those two sentences mean.

 
 
Quote    Reply

Herald12345    Reply to WP and to the amateur.   6/9/2009 4:22:42 AM


Press: Two real quick questions. One, the airborne FACs you just mentioned, would they be in AWACS aircraft? Or what type of aircraft would they be in, number one? And number two, given the size of the JDAM and its slightly reduced accuracy compared to a laser-guided bomb, does it become of increasingly less value when we start talking about urban CAS?


General Moseley: That's a great question. Let me take the first one.


The airborne FACs are in a mix of A-10s, F-16s, F-15Es, F-14s, F-18s, all of the Navy, Marine and Air Force aircraft that we can bring to bear that have FAC A-qualified pilots and crews, we'll use them. In fact they're up there right now, again today. We started this so we could stay over the top of the city and provide support.


So if you check into the CAS stack you may be working with a Marine in an F-18 or Navy crew in an F-14 of an Air Force pilot in an A-10. You won't know the difference. You'll just know the call sign and the location. So I think that's another wonderful testimony to joint training, joint doctrine, joint CAS, and being able to work the command and control to get the airplanes up there.


If I sound like a proud father, I am, because I am extremely proud of these guys because they really, really do a good job.


Your second question about the JDAM, no, we've used the JDAM before in Afghanistan doing this same sort of work and we're using the JDAM every day.


The average miss distance on the JDAM has been about the length of the bomb. When some people say that we've got these GPS jammers up there, I find that's humorous also because we've killed every GPS jammer that's come up with a GPS weapon, so that hasn't worked out very well for them.




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Seems like we are familiar with anti-"telemetry" issues and how to work around it.




 

-DA


To the amateur. I'm not talking about navaids, I'm talking about telemetry. That just shows you have no clue.. 
 
To WP. Hardware you seize is hardware that you can examine.. It drives your shopping lists.
 
 
 
 
Add to that, this:
 
 
That should not be possible for them yet; and yet there it is.
 
Herald

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Some of these flyballs we fail to field are critical.
 
 
 
 
 
Quote    Reply

DarthAmerica    Vitriol not necessary   6/9/2009 10:19:34 AM
To the amateur. I'm not talking about navaids, I'm talking about telemetry. That just shows you have no clue.. 
To WP. Hardware you seize is hardware that you can examine.. It drives your shopping lists.




Add to that, this:


That should not be possible for them yet; and yet there it is.

Herald



 


To the person who still doesn't know how to conduct himself in an open forum where different opinions are present. You greatly underestimate the ability of some people to recognize obfuscation. Rather than typing out vague out of context words such as "protocal" and "telemetry" mixed in with your usual sarcasm and vitriol. Try explaining EXACTLY what it is you are trying to say. That way we can all better determine one of three possibilities. You are trolling, don't know what your talking about or have a legitimate discussion point. Allow me to show you how that is done.

When I mention the GPS System, JDAMs and jammers. I am demonstrating in plain english a live system that depends on telematics, telecommands and encryption thereof  to function properly. We discussed how an actual enemy might try to usurp that functionality and what the USAF did about it so that it could continue fighting. In other words, complete acknowledgement of both sides of the ECM vs ECCM fight where the side with greater systems level dominance can still operate and fight when challenged by niche capability. 

What you are trying to say behind a lot of out of context statements that are beginning to indicate YOU may not understand the subject as well as you think is that in the presence of electronic warfare, UAVs will not work because they will not be able to receive data from the controller. In the abstract that isn't exactly untrue, but you failed to provide any context which in effect makes your post meaningless. It would be like saying the P-51D is a great fighter. OK, in 1945, yes. In 2009, nope. You need to learn context.

I deal directly with "telemetry" everyday so allow me to put this in context and ENDIT as Warpig so eloquently suggested. If we send UAVs into war with an opponent that poses good EW capability. We better make sure our ELINT and other technical intel capabilities are up to the task of accurately assessing the enemies capability so that we can institute proper security protocols to ensure the operation of our warfighting equipment in the face of enemy and friendly EW. This is what the GPS and GPS Jammers post was demonstrating.

It is not new that other nations spy. Including allies. The PRC being no exception. Showing examples of that simply means they have an active interest in maintaining a credible military capability across a wide range of military disciplines that they feel are important to their national interest. It's something we need to carefully protect to the extent possible.

Showing a Chin
 
Quote    Reply

warpig       6/9/2009 3:09:17 PM

Okay, thanks, having participated in some FME and having benefitted from a whole lot of it, I think I can appreciate how useful it is to the enemy as a shortcut in his own UAS development and acquisition cycle, as well as his countermeasures development cycle.  Regarding the Chinese, I suppose there would be many other examples, such as their first UAS being based on Ryan AQM-34 Firebees shot down during and after Vietnam, and their recent HALE UAS that looks just like our RQ-4A Global Hawk.  Oh, wait, they copied that without having access to one of ours.  Oh well, so I guess that's not such a good example of them always having to copy us from captured hardware after all.

 

I wish I could make more of an input into this thread at this time, but I'm having difficulty just following what is being discussed becuase it seems to have slid across several topics, most recently including:

How useful UCASs are in various roles, including air superiority.

How secure are our communications links to control our UCASs.

How secure are our crypto keys from espionage.

How much the threat has exploited our hardware through FME.

 
 
Quote    Reply

gf0012-aust    RedHen   6/9/2009 5:09:45 PM
there used to be an ex-USN operator on here who talked about the chinese doing a reverse FME on the Tomahawk.

 Williams lost technology on their small and micro-jets which ended up in chinese cruise missile and UAV's.

 
 
Quote    Reply

ArtyEngineer       6/9/2009 7:15:15 PM

Okay, thanks, having participated in some FME and having benefitted from a whole lot of it, I think I can appreciate how useful it is to the enemy as a shortcut in his own UAS development and acquisition cycle, as well as his countermeasures development cycle.  Regarding the Chinese, I suppose there would be many other examples, such as their first UAS being based on Ryan AQM-34 Firebees shot down during and after Vietnam, and their recent HALE UAS that looks just like our RQ-4A Global Hawk.  Oh, wait, they copied that without having access to one of ours.  Oh well, so I guess that's not such a good example of them always having to copy us from captured hardware after all.


 


I wish I could make more of an input into this thread at this time, but I'm having difficulty just following what is being discussed becuase it seems to have slid across several topics, most recently including:


How useful UCASs are in various roles, including air superiority.


How secure are our communications links to control our UCASs.


How secure are our crypto keys from espionage.


How much the threat has exploited our hardware through FME.


 



In regards to the highlighted, I would have to say "Very Secure".  Heck even the slightest chance that a key has been compromised will initiate a complete purge and generation and issuance of new ones. Or at least thats what teh commo bubbas tell me ;)
 
Quote    Reply

DarthAmerica       6/9/2009 7:43:53 PM




Okay, thanks, having participated in some FME and having benefitted from a whole lot of it, I think I can appreciate how useful it is to the enemy as a shortcut in his own UAS development and acquisition cycle, as well as his countermeasures development cycle.  Regarding the Chinese, I suppose there would be many other examples, such as their first UAS being based on Ryan AQM-34 Firebees shot down during and after Vietnam, and their recent HALE UAS that looks just like our RQ-4A Global Hawk.  Oh, wait, they copied that without having access to one of ours.  Oh well, so I guess that's not such a good example of them always having to copy us from captured hardware after all.


I wish I could make more of an input into this thread at this time, but I'm having difficulty just following what is being discussed becuase it seems to have slid across several topics, most recently including:


How useful UCASs are in various roles, including air superiority.


How secure are our communications links to control our UCASs.


How secure are our crypto keys from espionage.

How much the threat has exploited our hardware through FME.




 

In regards to the highlighted, I would have to say "Very Secure".  Heck even the slightest chance that a key has been compromised will initiate a complete purge and generation and issuance of new ones. Or at least thats what teh commo bubbas tell me ;)


Darn AE! I really didn't want to say that aloud even though it's pretty common knowledge considering there is no Distribution Restriction on the FM 11-53. But I'f I told you how many times I've been through this and much more strict COMSEC procedures just during deployment it would boggle the mind. Think about this. Just a single GT getting hit, a single aircraft crash, and the crypto isn't recoverable due to fire or just the plain fact that bad load plans and physics ejects stuff into oblivion, every single system gets purged by the 6 shop almost instantly. That doesn't even begin to get into other things that are done by SOP. Breaking into any of the secure communications protocols is extremely difficult. Staying in even more difficult. What's worse is if you have to emit in order to wage EW, there are a lot of people who's job it is to find and kill you and quite literally there is a bullseye on your head. So by no means does brief compromise invalidate a communications architecture that is as robust as this.

-DA 
 
Quote    Reply

Herald12345    Not what exactly U'm saying AE.   6/9/2009 8:05:43 PM
We can change keys all we want or even scramble the algorithm til the cows come home, but when your HARDWARE is on the enemy workbench, he has a good idea of what your tech tree looks like.
 
Familiar to you would be, how our glide bomb kits work ore how our artillery fusing works. Some of those families trace their base design back to the American Civil War!
 
Engineers, (the good ones anyway) try to find a good solution and stick with it That goes for code logics HARDWIRED into our circuit cards as it does for how we design something as simple and critical as a breech block for new tube artillery weapon...   
 
I'm not going to sit here and let some amateur aerially dismiss exploits we ourselves use every day to thwart our enemies.  

We're immune because we can write a patch?
 
 
Battlefield network is battlefield exploit.
 
Its called the MIDWAY LESSON for a reason.

Herald

 
 
Quote    Reply

ArtyEngineer    Darth   6/9/2009 8:12:44 PM
I absolutely hate everything to do with commo and crypto.  I try to stay as far away from it as possible as I live in fear of commiting some sort of violation!!!!  I did actually check I could say that before I did :)  Which talking about FM's you might like this, Im sure you are pretty squared away on all your FM's but here is a link to where you can get all FM's which are released for public distibution on one DVD,it also has links to all the non public which you can access via AKO:
 
 
Regards
 
Arty
 
Quote    Reply
PREV  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23   NEXT



StrategyWorld.com© 1998 - 2012StrategyWorld.com. All rights Reserved. StrategyWorld.com, StrategyPage.com, FYEO, For Your Eyes Only and Al Nofi's CIC are all trademarks of StrategyWorld.com Privacy Policy