3 ms·

Whenever I try and understand what the Pentagon's actual policies are, I give up on reading announcements from PAOs etc. and look at what items each branch is f

by greedo 4y ago

Whenever I try and understand what the Pentagon's actual policies are, I give up on reading announcements from PAOs etc. and look at what items each branch is funding. The Navy has had a great UCAS for 8 years, but has barely funded it compared to how many F-18s it buys. So this tells me that the VF mafia in the Navy doesn't want competition. The Army has cancelled the following systems in the last few decades: Comanche, Crusader, and FCS. Yet it spent the money on these and only cancelled them when the costs ballooned out of control. Other than buying Avenger in the 1980s, the Army has almost completely neglected SHORAD. This tells me they don't give a hoot about the threat. Compare that to Comanche. They are all in on the Future Vertical Lift program. For Crusader, they've decided on incremental (and seemingly perpetual) upgrades to the M109. As well as investing heavily in ATACMs and PrSM.

ckozlowski 4y ago
Both the Navy and the USAF suffer from this in that the brass is staffed with former pilots, and those who have had combat experience at that. A lot of other missions have received little attention as a result, Space being a good example. I think they're slowly coming around to the idea that they need these, though it's arriving in the form of supporting roles and to solve a pilot shortage. With regards to ground, many of those cancellations came about as a result of the end of the Cold War. Comanche and Crusader were both 80's era programs The threat of a general European land war receded tremendously. Had those gone forward, I'm sure they'd be useful, but aged now even. I do wonder how useful Crusader would have been, given the shift to highly mobile wheeled SPGs as opposed to armored ones. (See CAESAR and Archer systems). FCS was later, and tripped over itself I think trying to make a series of vehicles that could do everything at a time when we weren't sure what we wanted a vehicle to do other than survive IEDs. They wanted air mobility (low weight!) but networking, tons of firepower, and be resistant to ATGMs and the odd buried 155mm shell exploding underneath it. It sounds like the Bradley all over again, but it's a tricky problem to solve. A combination of electronic jamming for IEDs and active protection for ATGMs might finally solve the problem. Might. I think you're right about SHORAD, and given the aerial performance in the Gulf and elsewhere, they've had little reason to think otherwise. The USAF and Navy have been so effective up until late that the Air-to-Air squadrons have had so little to do that the USAF invented sorties for their F-22 squadrons just to give them a shot at advancement compared to their A2G brethren. And while the Russians have been cranking out one fancy Flanker variant after another, they haven't had the funds to build them in any quality. The PAK-FA has been little more than a demonstrator. And up until relatively recently, the Chinese have been struggling to replicate Western and Russian turbofan technology. Lack of decent engines has held them back for years. It seems they're finally turning the corner on that. So yeah, they haven't had much reason to pay attention to it. Drones are starting to make them pay attention though. https://www.army-technology.com/news/us-ten-shorad-battalions-2024/ https://www.army-technology.com/news/us-ten-shorad-battalion... Better late than never I suppose.

by greedo 4y ago

ckozlowski 4y ago

Both the Navy and the USAF suffer from this in that the brass is staffed with former pilots, and those who have had combat experience at that. A lot of other missions have received little attention as a result, Space being a good example. I think they're slowly coming around to the idea that they need these, though it's arriving in the form of supporting roles and to solve a pilot shortage. With regards to ground, many of those cancellations came about as a result of the end of the Cold War. Comanche and Crusader were both 80's era programs The threat of a general European land war receded tremendously. Had those gone forward, I'm sure they'd be useful, but aged now even. I do wonder how useful Crusader would have been, given the shift to highly mobile wheeled SPGs as opposed to armored ones. (See CAESAR and Archer systems). FCS was later, and tripped over itself I think trying to make a series of vehicles that could do everything at a time when we weren't sure what we wanted a vehicle to do other than survive IEDs. They wanted air mobility (low weight!) but networking, tons of firepower, and be resistant to ATGMs and the odd buried 155mm shell exploding underneath it. It sounds like the Bradley all over again, but it's a tricky problem to solve. A combination of electronic jamming for IEDs and active protection for ATGMs might finally solve the problem. Might. I think you're right about SHORAD, and given the aerial performance in the Gulf and elsewhere, they've had little reason to think otherwise. The USAF and Navy have been so effective up until late that the Air-to-Air squadrons have had so little to do that the USAF invented sorties for their F-22 squadrons just to give them a shot at advancement compared to their A2G brethren. And while the Russians have been cranking out one fancy Flanker variant after another, they haven't had the funds to build them in any quality. The PAK-FA has been little more than a demonstrator. And up until relatively recently, the Chinese have been struggling to replicate Western and Russian turbofan technology. Lack of decent engines has held them back for years. It seems they're finally turning the corner on that. So yeah, they haven't had much reason to pay attention to it. Drones are starting to make them pay attention though. https://www.army-technology.com/news/us-ten-shorad-battalions-2024/ https://www.army-technology.com/news/us-ten-shorad-battalion... Better late than never I suppose.