Pentagon Labyrinth
Posted: Friday, May 4, 2012 - 11:36
I was surprised to see in my Washington Post this past Wednesday morning an eight page "advertising supplement" commemorating "100 Years of Marine Corps Aviation." The material shown was a little interesting: interspaced among sections hyping contemporary USMC drones and, of course, the V-22 and the F-35B, there was some bio material on the Marine Corps' early aviation pioneers.
The latter material had some interesting assertions about what the Marine Corps says air power is for; it is best summarized by the quote on page two from pioneer Major Alfred A. Cunningham: "The only excuse for aviation in any service is its usefulness in assisting the troops on the ground to successfully carry out their missions." To illustrate, parts of the...
Posted: Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - 10:04
GAO's "snapshot" of DOD's "2011 portfolio" withholds what I regarded as the most important data until you get to Appendix II on page 171: DOD's 96 Major Defense Acquisition Programs have grown in both R&D and Procurement by $74 billion in the past year, $233 billion in the last five years, and $447 billion since each of the 96 programs started.
Simple math shows that cost growth could be accelerating: the $74 billion in cost growth in the last year is more than the average cost growth over the past five years ($47 billion).
Note also that the Pentagon's acquisition menu has grown in cost more in a single year than the $55 billion DOD would be required to surrender under the sequestration mechanism scheduled to occur in January 2013...
Posted: Tuesday, March 27, 2012 - 09:31
Orginally published at Battleland
The House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces held an oversight hearing on air combat programs Tuesday. The first panel focused on the F-35 fighter-at $380 billion, the Defense Department's most expensive program in recent memory, and perhaps the most costly weapon system in American history.
Of the subcommittee's 25 members, 17 didn't bother to show up. It was a stunning phalanx of overstuffed empty leather chairs that faced the witnesses. Surely the ratio of missing overseers to dollars has never been higher.
The F-35 is not only DOD's most pricey program; it is also the most problematic. While the GAO testified to massive $119 billion cost overruns, that was just...
The proclamation that the Reaper (and, by implication similar drones) is the future of warfare bound to yield a revolutionary transformation in combat doesn't seem to stand up to a reality scrub. The evidence is out there for anyone willing to hunt it down and and compare, as they like to say at the Pentagon, apples to apples.
Bottom line: the Reaper is more costly to both buy and fly than the manned aircraft it is commonly matched against. The margins are not even close - the Reaper is approximately twice the price to acquire compared to a contemporary F-16 fighter-bomber, and up to six times the cost of an A-10 close-support aircraft. Reaper's annual operating costs are roughly four times the cost to operate an F-16 or an A-10. (See...
Predator purchases ended in 2009, with a total of 248 being bought by the Air Force.[1] Reaper purchases started in 2002, rose from four per year in 2004 to 48 per year in 2011, yielding a 108-strong Reaper fleet authorized by the end of 2010, with 48 more to be bought in both 2011 and 2012.[2]
Previous plans for combined Predator and Reaper production had been to support 65 CAPs (four air vehicles each) by 2013.[3] However, 2013 budget materials clarified that the 65 CAPs would not be complete until later, variously stated to be either 2014[4] or 2017.[5] Air Force budget documents for 2013 assert that by the end of 2011 there were 60 Predator/Reaper CAPs,[6] implying a total count of Predators and Reapers of 240. It seems like some of...
Posted: Monday, March 5, 2012 - 13:54
Many argue the most critical payload Reaper carries is sensors for finding targets and collecting information that is made available to operators on the ground. The current version of the Reaper has a “Multi-Spectral Targeting System” that combines infrared and optical sensors and a laser designator/range finder to employ Hellfire missiles and laser guided bombs.
But the ability of these sensors to identify targets—to discern just what they are, based on the clarity and resolution of the imagery received on the ground—has serious limitations.
According to test reports, these sensors have had difficulty finding and tracking targets as large as “vehicles,” and they have even more difficulty with “dismounts” (people).[1] To improve the...
Because of Reaper’s nature, unit-cost estimates can be tricky. Various media reports cite a per-unit cost from $4 million to $5 million. They are quite incorrect.
Because they are integral to Reaper’s ability to operate, the ground components for it must be included, and a Combat Air Patrol, or “CAP” (i.e. the specified Reaper operating unit), consists of four air vehicles, not one. Accordingly, the Air Force factsheet for Reaper cites a unit cost not for one air vehicle but for a Reaper CAP (“four aircraft with sensors”) at $53.5 million in FY 2006 dollars (which would be $60.3 million in 2012 dollars).[1] But even that Air Force fact sheet calculation is incomplete.
It does not include development and other costs that are included in...
Posted: Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 09:07
Revisiting the Reaper Revolution
In a surprise move this year, the Pentagon has reduced spending for two aerial drones. A version of the RQ-4 Global Hawk will be relegated to storage to be superseded by more capable versions, and future production of the MQ-9 Reaper is to be reduced from 48 per year to 24.
The decisions were surprising. Drones are widely touted as the future of warfare. How can it be that the 40-year old, manned U-2 reconnaissance aircraft can do the mission better than even an early-generation drone?
The Reaper decision was not attached to any admission of disappointment; it was just a matter of budget constraints and skilled manpower shortages, DOD said. The minor setback with Global Hawk notwithstanding, the aura of a...
Posted: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - 07:28
When the Pentagon released its budget materials and press releases last Monday, the press dutifully reported the numbers. The Pentagon's "base" budget for 2013 is to be $525.4 billion, and with $88.5 billion for the war in Afghanistan and elsewhere added, the total comes to $613.9 billion. (See the two DOD press releases: DOD Releases Fiscal 2013 Budget Proposal and Summary of the DOD Fiscal 2013 Budget Proposal)
Indeed, if you plowed through the hundreds of pages of additional materials the Pentagon released Monday, you would come up with little reason the doubt the accuracy of those numbers as the totality of what Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was seeking for the Pentagon. It would also seem reasonable that those amounts constitute...
Posted: Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 14:25
Circulating today in the New York Times and Armed Forces Journal is a remarkable exposure of what is occurring today in Afghanistan--a situation not accurately reported to the American public, and of course Congress. Col. Danny Davis (USA) is the officer making this exposure possible. It will not surprise some, but it will also come as news to many, perhaps because they have consciously or unconsciously chosen to accept a more comforting view of the un-remedial situation in Afghanistan after 10 years of American conflict there. To Col. Davis we all owe a debt of thanks and support.
The exposure also involves subjects every bit as important as the insights about the war in Afghanistan. As you read Col. Davis' article in Armed Forces...