samboct
Posts: 1817
Joined: 1/17/2007
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"You truly don't know jack all about the military or the procurement process."
Probably true- but then I'm not sure anyone does. Here's my first hand experience with the procurement process. I have a client come to me and say I've developed new technology to help find faults in an aircraft using a visual imaging technology. It would clearly speed the repair process. So I go to the Navy guy in charge of procurement of new technology and ask him what the next step is. He gives me a hangdog look, and says the Navy can't buy it, unless it comes from the primes. So I talk to the guy from Northrup Grumman (NG). He says that NG really isn't interested since they didn't develop it. (NIH- not invented here) Besides, NG can't sell anything to the Navy that the Navy didn't first request. But the Navy says that most of their new technology ideas come from the defense primes because the Navy doesn't have the resources to find out what's possible. Get the picture? It's a Catch-22.
Another example: SBIR contracts have been quite successful at helping develop new technologies. They're written by people in the services that have a need and want new technology to solve the need. Unfortunately, by the time the technology has been developed (it can take several years) the person who wrote the requirement has generally moved someplace else and is no longer responsible for the program. So a few years later, there's another solicitation, but by this point, the company that developed the technology has gone bust. Also- since SBIR contracts were supposed to be the method of moving innovative ideas into defense applications, you'd think that the primes would have an office for SBIR contacts. Well they do- most of them were established in the past two years. What you were supposed to do prior, I have no idea. I haven't found anyone else who does have a clue either. I'm not sure that anything has been commercialized through this pathway either.
So I think I do have some first hand experience with how the procurement process works- or rather doesn't work.
How about a few more examples of how these companies are broken?
NASA develops a composite fuel tank for the shuttle to save 1/3rd the weight of the aluminum tank it replaces. The tank works fine initially, but when one of them has an in flight failure, the group that used to build the tank is long gone, and there's no one there who knows how to figure out what went wrong.
At a meeting I was at- a guy from NG gets up and says "Back in the 50s we built a spar out of a certain type of aluminum (don't remember the designation) for the F-5/T-38. We don't know how to build it anymore. Can anyone help?"
These examples show where our taxpayer dollars are going- to reinvent the wheel. These companies have no institutional memory- they constantly have to reinvent stuff because the drawings got thrown out, the guy who knew how to build it retired/got canned... etc. I've already pointed out that these companies are also risk averse (and have been for at least two decades)- crippling the design process.
In terms of the Navy needing an air superiority fighter- they had one in the F-14. All the criticisms that have been leveled at the F-22 are valid here. How many enemy aircraft did it ever shoot down- half a dozen maybe? And those were operated by other countries. You claim it's a political decision to quit flying the aircraft. I suspect it has far more to do with parts availability. The F-14 was a very sophisticated airplane and had a number of dramatic technical innovations. The wing box is an amazing piece of design, materials, and engineering. It's also probably impossible to replace. Mind you, I don't consider the F-14 a waste of money. A certain level of preparedness keeps nogoodniks from getting ideas and preparation is cheaper than war (in dollars and especially lives.)
In the article on the A-10, the AF has resorted to having parts custom fabricated for the airplane. I suspect that's harder to do for the F-14- it's a much more sophisticated airframe. Plus the AF will fly planes with a certain level of corrosion as long as they think the part is basically OK. The Navy won't. I'm well aware of the differences in procurement in the services and how they handle maintenance- again, through first hand experience.
You seem to think that the Navy's system of procurement is fine, whereas the AFs is broken. My comment is that all the services have a broken system- especially since everything has to come in through the primes. The Navy's may not be as badly broken as the AF, but it's broken nonetheless.
You also commented that I used an example out of WWII to show that strategic bombers don't work down low. AFAIK, they never flew Buffs down low in Viet Nam or Iraq, so it seemed relevant. Your comments about the disaster of Linebacker II seemed less so- there is a world of difference announcing that you're attacking a heavily defended target in a mass formation, and a dispersed attack with hundreds of possibilities (i.e. a nuclear assault on the FSU) even if both are at the same altitude. Also- having read Johnnie Johnson's History of Air Fighting (along with numerous other books on the subject- I'm an airplane nut.) his comments are pretty clear- that the tactics of air fighting have evolved since the days of Dicta Boelcke close to a century ago, but there has been no revolutionary change which make these tactics less relevant today. (OK, there have been some tweaks.) And Johnson goes through the Falkland war. Since there has been only limited fighter on fighter engagements since then, the tactics that have evolved have not been tested in war. From my perspective, wars often provide the opportunities to unlearn all the new tactics developed and return to the basics. To your point about the F-4 in Viet Nam (as well as the F-8) I agree that the century series of AF jet fighters were not as successful on the whole as the F-4- the AF had forgotten that aircraft need to be able to dogfight and that missiles are not short range weapons, where a lot of dogfights occur.
As an aside- the F-4 was a terrible aerodynamic kluge. It just flew well, carried a gun, and could defeat the lighter and far more maneuvrable Migs with good tactics.
In terms of your comments about stealth...What happens when an opponent either figures out a stealthy aircraft of their own- or the even simpler expedient of overwhelming the expensive stealthy aircraft with sheer numbers. The Russian fighters in WWII generally did not have the performance of the German aircraft- but even with lousy tactics, they managed to wipe out the Germans. I suspect that tactics being developed that rely on stealth these days, will have to get unlearnt when they don't work in actual combat or stealth is defeated.
Your comments about the Navy not being needed in a ground war....absolute nonsense. The whole point of the carrier force is to provide a working air force where its needed. In WWII the conclusion was reached that while Army pilots had an abysmal record operating over water, naval pilots proved adept at strike roles on ground targets. Since there is no navy out there in the globe to threaten ours, it's clear that the point of the carrier is to provide a force to attack ground targets- especially in places where the AF doesn't reach. (and note- I agree with your comments with regard to tankers. I think the Bush administration's idea was to approve every stupid idea that the services have had over the last few decades so that it would become impossible to kill all the programs where Bush's butt buddies made out.) This has been shown in both Korea and Viet Nam, as well as the Falklands (and I think in Serbia or Crustacea as too.)
Sam
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RE: Gates proposes defense cuts - 
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