RE: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,153122,00.html


IMO this is still a deal, considering they didnt spend billions in R&D and they are getting 30 years of U.S. stealth research.
The first test aircraft are alway more exspensive.

The JSF Program is a problem within a problem within an enigma. The
overriding problem remains "what does it do better?" which is
exasperated by the second problem that all three variants, each
costing over $140 million each in 2007, essentially have to abandon
their precious stealth capability in order to perform operationally
since external fuel tanks, pylons, bomb racks, missiles and weapons
are all necessary in order that the JSF undertake any of the present
missions performed by its legacy contemporaries. In fact the enigma
rests in the fact that the JSF cannot excel in the trinity of brute
force fighter capabilities (speed, height, and range) over that of any
of the older platforms it seeks to replace and remains in technical
limbo with sensor subsystems that to date have already been
excellently delivered to the air forces. It has been rushed into
development a decade or two before such a platform would have been
actually needed and the services are trying hard to discredit their
legacy platforms in order to rush forward the introduction of the JSF
in the replacement and modernization schemes. This is a typical
strategy used by the Pentagon and MoD's all over the world. The F-14
did not just grow old on its own accord; the US Navy deliberately
sabotaged its support system to make it grow old to rush in the
F/A-18E/F/G. Likewise, the F-111 fleet was force-deteriorated by the
Royal Australian Air Force in hopes to bring in the JSF faster, but in
a sense they shot themselves in their foot as the JSF delayed and
delayed. Now they are contemplating F-18E/F's because A/B/C/D's are
not refurbished easily if at all. The JSF unfortunately in its
present form and fit cannot earn its way into the legacy squadrons of
the aircraft it is to replace. In a similar vane the Marines have
committed themselves to the Harrier and small carrier assault ships
for the primary purpose of stopping the drain of their fixed-wing
resources to serve in Navy Air Wings for Navy purposes on Navy
large-deck carriers. Within this paradigm then the F-35B, the VSTOL
JSF, is absolutely necessary to continue Marine Aviation; hence the
Marine Corps has elected to commit air power suicide if it does not
get its way. The Congress should see this as just as unacceptable as
the failure in the JSF design effort to properly place it in the
proper light of the threats it will be needed to counter.



Right now - today! - the US military is engaged in a war characterized
as counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare, and basic air power capabilities
are necessary - such as strafing - and even the 30 mm gun from the
A-10 becomes too big a round because it causes too much collateral
damage in the urban landscape of the terrorist. The JSF can not
strafe - how then would it be introduced into Iraq or Afghanistan
without spending many times over. There is no COIN specialized
fighter being designed to fill in the insurgency-void and just for
grins the introduction of the V-22 Osprey into combat comes at a time
when there is not fighter-attack aircraft available to properly escort
it in its flight regime. Harriers and F-18's will be hard pressed to
do such a mission and therefore landing zones will have to be "prep'ed"
Vietnam style taking many minutes and essentially stopping the
momentum of the assault, forfeiting any surprise while the fixed wing
assets set up for the bombing, thus enabling the enemy to totally plan
around it and to eventually make a kill on a hovering Osprey - more
than likely with an ancient RPG rocket not a handheld SAM.



There is a way to fix all this and to bring better use of the failed
ship building efforts and the use of the legacy air platforms -
because sad as it may sound, part of the enigma is the fact that so
much of the broad defense picture for the US depends upon the failed
JSF and this happened because of the horrible dynamics of our present
procurement system and all the rules, policies, practices, reward
structure, and its management style.



1st: Cancel the present JSF program and move it into a generous
development program of one fixed wing CTOL prototype that will now
seek to provide both manned and un-manned versions of a basic airframe
that maximizes Naval and Land Based brute performance with a
"next-generation" stealth capability. Merged into this program will
be the UCAS/UCAV programs and the laser-weapon program because in a
decade or so a real stealthy JSF with a laser will become most
necessary in dealing with a more aggressive Russia, North Korea, PRC
China, Iran, etc. High-tech threats that have evolved with 5th
generation fighters and a new more advanced integrated air defense
system (IADS) that has both IT and new forms of connectivity. This
will save over 44 billion in the first four years and this will fund a
resurge of legacy aircraft programs (F-15/F-16/F-18) and upgrades in
avionics, counter-measures, and weaponry that also may spin off from
the JSF program. The consortium of JSF partners will be asked to join
in the new development program for technology purposes and their
investments can be used as credits towards legacy aircraft purchases.
High rate productions of existing aircraft will save hundreds of
millions and feed back directly into the aviation sector. This
enables a new post-Iraq and Afghanistan force structure to form more
focused on the evolving and newer threats.



2nd: This leaves Marine Aviation high and dry, sort of speaking. But
they were going that way anyhow - so immediately with the savings from
the JSF, a high production program of F-18F/G aircraft for the Marine
Corps with the USN offloading an initial two squadrons and the
immediate retiring of a like amount of Harriers and early model F-18's
to be transferred to the allies who are now in need and left high and
dry with the original sliding JSF schedule. The surge in F-18
production would drop F-18 prices some 15 to 25% and the whole Naval
aviation picture would improve. Australia and Canada could use some of
the Marine F-18A/B/C/D's while Argentina, Spain, Italy, India, and
Thailand would look hard at the Harriers improving allied relations.



3rd: Marine Expeditionary Battle Groups (MEBG) would suffer a
shortage of tactical air power and the mix of aviation assault ships
would be lopsided, but even now there is not enough deck space for the
numbers of V-22's required for current contingencies if in fact the
Osprey replaces the CH-46's on a better than one-to-one basis.
Therefore - immediately cancel the LHA(R) which is being made for the
JSF and remains twice as expensive as standard LHA / LHD's. Dedicate
all of these ships to helicopter and V-22 air components and add two
new ones. For Marine Corps tactical support aviation for the MEBG
refurbish the conventional John F Kennedy (CVA-67) not into a
full-deck aircraft carrier but as a larger aviation assault ship that
will host the new F/A-18F/G squadrons being formed and add many other
features such as a full spectrum of CSAR and SOF helicopters and
teams - plus the cancelled hospital ship that would now reside
embedded into the new Assault JFK. Modernization efforts would reduce
the ship by two screws and two boiler systems, reduce the deck by one
catapult and add billeting for up to 1500 Marines or SOF type units.



In a strategy similar to what was discussed about the F-18, the JFK
was characterized by the Navy as being old and decrepit not being able
to keep up with her nuclear sisters, in fact a $600 million
refurbishment cost was deemed too expensive - well until the cost of
the new CVN started to climb above the projected $3 billion to 5 then
7 and still growing. Oops the $600 million may not be so bad, however
an assault aviation ship would not have to or want to steam with the
CVN battle groups who would be on completely different mission
profiles - the assault ships are littoral oriented and civilian port
acceptable - all conventional power and black-oil, not the most
efficient but the most acceptable, most flexible, and most capable in
COIN environments for the allies that are a big part of the overall
MEBG mission.



4th: For the Marines the naval gunfire support issue is a big one yet
it sits in almost compete denial by the Navy. The gun on the DD(X) is
questionable and the DD(X) itself is a waste of money short of a
couple of critical survivability-focused design changes that could and
should be retrofitted to the DDG's. Cancel the DD(X) and build more
DDG's scaling down a variant for the Coast Guard and eliminate all the
waste in the cutter design mess. The billions saved on the DD(X)
could bring in more improved DDG's and it would bring back two
Battleships (BB's). The BB's are highly emotional issues but again
they are full of deliberate urban legends about their dedreiptness.
The BB's need not be fully refurbished they simply need to be
pre-positioned in the Persian Gulf (Bahrain) and in the Pacific (Guam)
and set up with skeleton crews to be rushed into conflict locations
where amphibious operations are moving to. Like the JFK, the BB's
would be optimized for the support role of the Marines not strategic
naval considerations so shore bombardment munitions may replace things
like cruise missile launchers. Army TACM's and long range
surface-to-surface rockets may become useful. It is a new look for
the MEBG's but is is a powerful new look. Marine helicopter and
tactical aviation resources are more than doubled and the fire-support
capacity for the associated Marine landing force is raised several
fold.



5th: The JFK / F-18 deck example to replace the F-35B also rests a
smart model for the British who are still throwing money into the
black hole of an indecisive carrier program that lacks a solid mission
and really needs to be a mirror backup of the Marine MEBG to serve in
the littorals with them. The sliding JSF serve the RAF when it
finally matures as a manned / un-manned laser weapon for extreme
high-threat environments of the future.



This MACRO game plan has been debated by staffers in and out of
government and in the Pentagon for the last three years and in each
turn the politics of "big spending", "its not in my lane", "not
invented here" and simply "what's in it for me/us" has overcome any
and all chances of progress.

Cancelation of the F-35 will never happen.

The USAF is currently looking into propeller driven COIN aircraft.

If you are an expert in COIN as your bio states you should already know this.

EasyTartar,

I fully agree with you and I have been saying this for many years now.
If we look at the current (and future) threat scenarios for the European countries (I am not talking about the US at this moment) I can not envision any situation in which the capabilities of the JSF would be required.

There is no more east-west scenario. The times of high tech, mass warfare are over.
For the next few decades we are looking at relatively small conflicts where we (NATO) act as peace keepers or peace enforcers. Even a war with Iran would be considered a small scale war, not requiring an enormous amount of high tech equipment.
In fact, if we look at the Iraq war we only see a lot of unconventional warfare on the ground. Sometimes a plane is called in to drop a bomb on some house or stronghold, but that is all.

So what we do require is pure and simple, down to earth, fire power.......nothing fancy, nothing special, basically A-10 and Apache stuff, they both do a very nice job in this perspective.
Furthermore, we don't need a 50 or 100 million USD platform to drop a bomb on a shed in the desert.

During the Gulf War the USAF found out that the not well liked A-10 was in fact the perfect machine for the job.
During the Bosnia conflict it was proven over and over again that a helicopter gunship was much more effective in breaking up road blocks than an F-16 or F-15E passing overhead at 10,000+ feet.

Unfortunately for the generals an A-10 or helicopter gunship is not as sexy as a brand new high tech toy.
Poor me, I always thought that you first had to make a threat analysis and based on that you would figure out which weapons you would need.

So, when we (the Netherlands) will buy the JSF we will end up with a plane of which we already know now that we will never use or require the capabilities we are now paying fortunes for to develop them.
In all, we will end up in a situation where we will have to buy additional weaponry to overcome the shortcomings of the JSF.
And that.........does not make any sense whatsoever.

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