Tag U.S. AIr Force

The Cold War Roots of the Integrated U.S./Japan/NATO Air Defense Network

Continental U.S. Air Defense Identifications Zones [MIT Lincoln Laboratory]

My last post detailed how the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 prompted the U.S. to undertake emergency efforts to bolster its continental air defenses, including the concept of the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). This post will trace the development of this network and its gradual integration with those of Japan and NATO.

In the early 1950s, U.S. continental air defense, designated the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment air defense system or SAGE, resembled a scaled-up version of the Dowding System, pioneered by Great Britain as it faced air attack by the Luftwaffe in 1940. SAGE was initially a rudimentary and analog affair:

The permanent network depended on each radar site to perform GCI [Ground Control & Intercept] functions or pass information to a nearby GCI center. For example, information gathered by North Truro Air Force Station on Cape Cod was transmitted via three dedicated land lines to the GCI center at Otis AFB, Massachusetts, and then on to the ADC Headquarters at Ent AFB, Colorado. The facility at Otis AFB was a regional information clearinghouse that integrated the data from North Truro and other regional radar stations, Navy picket ships, and the all-volunteer GOC [Ground Observer Corps]. The clearinghouse operation was labor intensive. The data had to be manually copied onto Plexiglas plotting boards. The ground controllers used this data to direct defensive fighters to their targets. It was a slow and cumbersome process, fraught with difficulties. Engagement information was passed on to command headquarters by telephone and teletype. At Ent AFB, the information received from the regional clearinghouses was then passed on to enlisted airmen standing on scaffolds behind the world’s largest Plexiglas board. Using grease pencils, these airmen etched the progress of enemy bombers onto the back of the Plexiglas board so that air defense commanders could evaluate and respond. This arrangement impeded rapid response to the air battle.

It is hard to imagine an air defense challenge of the magnitude that potentially faced the U.S. and USSR by 1955. The Strategic Air Command (SAC) bomber fleet peaked at over 2,500 in 1955-1965, with 2,000 B-47s (range of 2,013 statute miles) and 750 B-52s (range of 4,480 statute miles). The range of U.S. bombers was extended considerably by the ~800 KC-135 aerial re-fueling tanker aircraft fleet as well.

In spite of the much publicized “bomber gap,” taking Soviet production numbers (and liberally adding aircraft of shorter range or unavailable until 1962…) produces an approximate estimate for a Soviet bombing fleet:

  • M-4 “Bison” (range of 3480 statute miles) = 93
  • Tu-16 “Badger” (range of 3888 statute miles) = 1507
  • Tu-22 “Blinder” (range of 3000 statute miles) = 250-300
  • Tu-95 “Bear” (range of 9400 statute miles) = 300+

That gave the U.S. an advantage in bombers of 2,750 to ~2,200 over the Soviets. Now, imagine this air battle being conducted with manual tracking on plexiglass with grease pencils…untenable!

Air Defense and Modern Computing

However, the problem proved amenable to solutions provided by the pending computer revolution.

At the Lincoln Laboratory development continued on an automated command and control system centered around the 250-ton Whirlwind II (AN/FSQ-7) computer. Containing some 49,000 vacuum tubes, the Whirlwind II became a central component of the SAGE system. SAGE, a system of analog computer-equipped direction centers, processed information from ground radars, picket ships, early-warning aircraft, and ground observers onto a generated radarscope to create a composite picture of the emerging air battle. Gone were the Plexiglas TM boards and teletype reports. Having an instantaneous view of the air picture over North America, defense commanders would be able to quickly evaluate the threats and effectively deploy interceptors and missiles to meet the threat.

The SAGE system was continually upgraded through the mid-to-late 1950s.

By 1954, with several more radars in the northeast providing data, the Cambridge control center (a prototype SAGE center) gained experience in directing F-86D interceptors against B-47 bombers performing mock raids. Still much development, research, and testing lay ahead. Bringing together long-range radar, communications, microwave electronics, and digital computer technologies required the largest research and development effort since the Manhattan Project. During its first ten years, the government spent $8 billion to develop and deploy SAGE. By 1958, Lincoln Laboratory had a professional staff of 720 with an annual budget of $22.5 million, to conduct SAGE-related work. The contract with IBM to build sixty production models of the Whirlwind II at $30 million each provided about half of the corporation’s revenues for the 1950s and exposed the corporation to technologies that it would use in the 1960s to dominate the computer industry. In the meantime, scientists and electronic engineers in the defense industry strove to install better radars and make these radars invulnerable to electronic countermeasures (ECM), commonly called jamming.

The SAGE development effort became one of the foundations of modern computing, giving IBM the technological capability to dominate for several decades, until it outsourced two key components: hardware to Intel and software to a young Microsoft, both of which became behemoths of the internet age. It is also estimated that this effort brought a price tag which exceeded that of the Manhattan Project. SAGE also transformed the attitude of the USAF towards technology and computerization.

Current Air Defense Networks

In the 1950s and 60s, the U.S. continental air defense network gradually began to expand geographically and integrate with NADGE and JADGE air defense networks of its NATO allies and Japan.

NATO Air Defense Ground Environment (NADGE): This was approved by NATO in December 1955, and became operational in 1962 with 18 radar stations. This eventually grew to 84 stations and provided an inter-connected network from Norway to Turkey before being superseded by the NATO Integrated Air Defense System (NATINADS) in 1972. NATINADS was further upgraded in the 1980s to include data from the E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft (AEGIS (Airborne Early-warning/Ground Environment Integrated Segment); not to be confused with the USN system with the same acronym.)

Base Air Defense Ground Environment (BADGE): This was the automated system, in the same fashion as SAGE, which replaced the manual system in place with the JASDF since 1960. The requirement was stated in July 1961, and was actually modeled on the Naval Tactical Information System (NTDS), developed by Hughes for the US Navy. This was ordered in December 1964, and operational in March 1969. This was superseded by Japan Aerospace Defense Ground Environment (JADGE) in July 2009.

Japanese Air Defense and the Cold War Origins of Air Defense Identification Zones

Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ) in the South China Sea [Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa)/Creative Commons/Wikipedia]

My previous posts have discussed the Japanese Air Self Defense Force (JASDF) and the aircraft used to perform the Defensive Counter Air (DCA) mission. To accomplish this, the JASDF is supported by an extensive air defense system which closely mirrors U.S. Air Force (USAF) and U.S. Navy (USN) systems and has co-evolved as technology and threats have changed over time.

Japan’s integrated air defense network and the current challenges it faces are both rooted in the Cold War origins of the modern U.S. air defense network.

On June 25, 1950, North Korea launched an invasion of South Korea, drawing the United States into a war that would last for three years. Believing that the North Korean attack could represent the first phase of a Soviet-inspired general war, the Joint Chiefs of Staff ordered Air Force air defense forces to a special alert status. In the process of placing forces on heightened alert, the Air Force uncovered major weaknesses in the coordination of defensive units to defend the nation’s airspace. As a result, an air defense command and control structure began to develop and Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ) were staked out along the nation’s frontiers. With the establishment of ADIZ, unidentified aircraft approaching North American airspace would be interrogated by radio. If the radio interrogation failed to identify the aircraft, the Air Force launched interceptor aircraft to identify the intruder visually. In addition, the Air Force received Army cooperation. The commander of the Army’s Antiaircraft Artillery Command allowed the Air Force to take operational control of the gun batteries as part of a coordinated defense in the event of attack.

In addition to North America, the U.S. unilaterally declared ADIZs to protect Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan in 1950. This action had no explicit foundation in international law.

Under the Convention on International Civil Aviation (the Chicago Convention), each State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory. While national sovereignty cannot be delegated, the responsibility for the provision of air traffic services can be delegated.… [A] State which delegates to another State the responsibility for providing air traffic services within airspace over its territory does so without derogation of its sovereignty.

This precedent set the stage for China to unilaterally declare ADIZs its own in 2013 that overlap those of Japan in the East China Sea. China’s ADIZs have the same international legal validity as those of the U.S. and Japan, which has muted criticism of China’s actions by those countries.

Recent activity by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and nuclear and missile testing by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) is prompting incremental upgrades and improvements to the Japanese air defense radar network.

In August 2018, six Chinese H-6 bombers passed between Okinawa’s main island and Miyako Island heading north to Kii Peninsula. “The activities by Chinese aircraft in surrounding areas of our country have become more active and expanding its area of operation,” the spokesman [of the Japanese Ministry of Defense] said.… “There were no units placed on the islands on the Pacific Ocean side, such as Ogasawara islands, which conducted monitoring of the area…and the area was without an air defense capability.”

Such actions by the PLAAF and People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) have provided significant rationale in the Japanese decision to purchase the F-35B and retrofit their Izumo-class helicopter carriers to operate them, as the Pacific Ocean side of Japan is relatively less developed for air defense and airfields for land-based aircraft.

My next post will look at the development of the U.S. air defense network and its eventual integration with those of Japan and NATO

The Japanese Aerospace Industry

A schematic rendering of Japan’s proposed F-3 fighter [Tokyoexpress.info]

In my previous post, I discussed the progression of aircraft in use by the Japanese Air Self Defense Force (JASDF) since World War II. Japan has also invested significant sums in its domestic aerospace manufacturing capability over this same time period.

Japanese aircraft manufacturing has long been closely tied to the U.S Air Force (USAF) and U.S. aerospace majors offering aircraft for sales, as well as licensed production. Japanese aerospace trade groups categorize this into several distinct phases, including:

  • Restarting the aircraft business – starting in 1952 during the Korean War, Japanese aerospace firms like Mitsubishi and Kawasaki reacquired aircraft manufacturing capability by securing contacts with the USAF for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of damaged USAF aircraft, including the F-86 Sabre, considered by the Americans to be the star aircraft of the war (although many believe its opponent from the Soviet side, the MiG-15 to have been superior.) There was little doubt, then, that the JASDF would purchase the F-86 and then license its domestic production.
  • Licensed production of US military aircraft – “Japan has engaged in licensed production of U.S. state-of-the-art fighter planes, from the F-86 to the F-104, the F-4, and the F-15. Through these projects, the Japanese aircraft industry revived the technical capabilities necessary to domestically manufacture entire aircraft.”
  • Domestic military aircraft production – Japanese designed aircraft, while independent, unique designs, also leveraged certain Western designed aircraft as their inspiration, such as the T-1 and eventual F-1 follow-on and the clear resemblance to the British Jaguar. This pattern was repeated in 1987 with the F-2 and its clear design basis on the F-16.
  • Domestic Production of business, and civil aircraft – “Japan domestically produces the YS-11 passenger plane as well as the FA-200, MU-2, FA-300, MU-300, BK-117, and other commercial aircraft, and is an active participant in international joint development programs with partners such as the American passenger aircraft manufacturer Boeing.”

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) won a contract to build the wing for the Boeing 787, a job that Boeing now considers a core competency, and is unlikely to outsource again (they kept this task in house for the more recent 737 MAX, and 777X aircraft). This shows MHI’s depth of capability.

Also in the previous post, I could not help but include the “F-22J,” a hypothetical fighter that has been requested by the Japanese government numerous times, as the air power threat from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) has grown. The export of the F-22, however, was outlawed by the Obey amendment to the 1998 Defense Authorization Act (a useful summary of this debate is here). So stymied, the JASDF and supporting Ministry of Defense personnel conducted a series of design studies in order to establish detailed requirements. These studies clarified the approach to be taken for the next aircraft to put into service, the F-3 program, ostensibly a successor to the F-2, although the role to be played is more of an air superiority or air dominance fighter, rather than a strike fighter. These studies concluded that range, or endurance is the most important metric for survivability, a very interesting result indeed.

Airframe developers…appear to have settled on something close to the 2013 configuration for the F-3 that emphasized endurance and weapons load over flight performance… That design, 25DMU, described a heavy fighter with a belly weapons bay for six ramjet missiles about the size of the MBDA Meteor. The wing was large and slender by fighter standards, offering high fuel volume and low drag due to lift but penalizing acceleration.… The key factor was that the high-endurance design provided more aircraft on station than would be available from an alternative fleet of high-performance fighters. – (Aviation Week & Space Technology, February 15-28, 2016)

I am curious about the air combat models that reached the conclusion that endurance is the key metric for a new fighter. Similar USAF combat models indicated that in a conflict with PLA armed forces, the USAF would be pushed back to their bases in Japan after the first few days. “In any air war we do great in the first couple of days. Then we have to move everything back to Japan, and we can’t generate sufficient sorties from that point for deep strike on the mainland,” according to Christopher Johnson, former CIA senior China analyst [“The rivals,” The Economist, 20 October 2018]. (History reminds us of aircraft designed for range and maneuverability, the Mitsubishi A6M “Zero,” which also de-emphasized durability, such as pilot armor or self-sealing fuel tanks … was this the best choice?) Validation of combat models with historical combat data seems like an excellent choice if you are investing trillions of Yen, putting the lives of your military pilots on the line, and investing in a platform that will be in service for decades.

Given this expected cost, Japan faces a choice to develop the F-3 independently, or with foreign partners. Mitsubishi built and flew the X-2 “Shinshin” prototype in April 2016. The JASDF also issued an RFP to existing aircraft manufacturers, including the BAE Eurofighter Typhoon, the Boeing F-15 Eagle, and the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. In October 2018, the Typhoon and the Eagle were rejected for not meeting the requirements, while the Raptor was rejected because “no clear explanation was given about the possibility of the U.S. government lifting the export ban.” The prospect of funding the entire cost of the F-3 fighter by independently developing the X-2 also does not appear acceptable, so Japan will look for a foreign partner for co-development. There is no shortage of options, from the British, the Franco-Germans, or multiple options with the Americans.

Evolution of the Roles and Missions of the Japanese Air Self Defense Force (JASDF)

[Sources: IHS Jane’s All the World’s Fighting Aircraft, Wikipedia, militarymachine.com, author’s estimates}

In my previous posts, I explored impact the political aftermath of the Pacific War on Japan and the gradual restoration of sovereignty had on its air power policy. During this time, aircraft and air defense technology changed rapidly and the roles and mission of the Japanese Air Self Defense Force (JASDF) evolved rapidly as well.

The JASDF has been closely tied to the U.S. Air Force (USAF) since its inception. This was true in terms of missions, doctrine, technology and equipment. The primary role of the JASDF has been air defense and the protection of Japanese sovereignty (Defensive Counter Air, DCA), since 1958 when this mission was transitioned back from the USAF. The 1978 National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) mandated this, and also prohibited mid-air refueling and precision-strike munitions. These missions were gradually permitted as the threat environment evolved. (See this thesis for a good summary.)

The role of offensive air power (i.e. Offensive Counter Air or OCA; attacking enemy airbases, missile launch sites and similar military facilities) has traditionally been reserved for the USAF due to legal limits on the possible missions by the JASDF. Specifically the U.S. Armed Forces, Japan, 5th Air Force is a considerable force, including the 18th Wing at Kadena, Okinawa with four squadrons of F-15s, and the 35th Wing at Misawa in Northern Japan with four squadrons of F-16s, among other support squadrons to tankers, AWACs, etc.

This posture and division of responsibilities between the JSADF and USAF has gradually changed over time, or “emerging as it really is”:

  • In the early 1980’s, the F-1 attack aircraft had a strike capability against shipping with the ASM-1 and ASM-2 missiles.
  • In the late 1990’s, the F-4EJ upgraded “Kai” version added ground attack and the ability to strike with the ASM-1 and ASM-2 missiles.
  • In the early 2000’s, the F-2 aircraft was introduced, with ground attack with precision-guided munitions and the ability to strike with the ASM-2.
  • Currently, as the F-35A is adopted, it will have state-of-the-art precision strike capabilities, and likely use the Joint Strike Missile (JSM).

Nonetheless, the primary mission of the JASDF remains air superiority and interception. The data visualization above illustrates the different types of air superiority aircraft in service with the JASDF over time. This chart is based on six quantitative measures of analysis, and has a moderate level of information density:

  1. Service Year – on the horizontal axis; when was this type introduced into service by the JASDF? This is often significantly after the similar type was introduced into service with the USAF. In some cases, this is an estimate, or in the case of the hypothetical “F-22J”, alternative history (aka wild speculation).
  2. Aircraft Type – each bubble represents an aircraft type.
  3. Range SMI (statute miles) – the color of the bubble, with darker being longer range; this is a the combat range of the aircraft type, often with optional drop tanks.
  4. Max Speed MPH (statute miles per hour) – the size of the bubble represents the maximum speed of the aircraft, measured from a base of 100 MPH. This is typically at high altitude.
  5. Rate of Climb FPM (feet per minute) – this is the ability of the aircraft to climb to altitude, and a key metric for an interceptor with a mission to rise to bombers which have violated the airspace of a nation.
  6. Thrust to Weight Ratio – this measures the ability to propel the aircraft compared with the loaded weight of the aircraft. This is often used to express the capability to climb, for when an aircraft has a high angle of attack, thrust becomes lift, so when an aircraft has more lift than weight, it can climb, and even accelerate while moving straight up.
  7. Wing Loading LBS/SquareFoot – this measures the size of the wing (and thus by proxy the lift generation capability) as compared to the weight of the aircraft, it is typically used to indicate the ability to turn quickly (i.e. change in degrees per second).

A few insights become clear when visualizing the data in this way. First, the F-104J in the role of interceptor was a huge leap in capability over the F-86 Sabre types. In many ways the F-104J set the standard to which later aircraft would match. Next, the linear progression between 1960 and 1980 of aircraft performance capability reached an apex with the F-15J, with a period of upgrades reflected in the “Kai” versions. Also, with some knowledge of these airframes, it can be seen that the Japanese market for military aircraft has been dominated by the Americans as opposed to the Europeans (or Russians). There are many aspects of these aircraft which are not captured in this chart, including weaponry, sensors, and stealth. I have discussed the relevance of these metrics in previous blog posts.

Today, the JSDF operates a wide range of aircraft, specialized in missions ranging across the spectrum of domains, with modern air force capabilities. A list of aircraft currently operated by force, and with numbers is presented in the annex, based upon the most current authoritative sources, but also updated for recent decisions by the Japanese government on procurement.

An “F-22J” is included as an “alternative history” in the chart above since the Japanese government has repeatedly sought to purchase this aircraft from Lockheed Martin for the JASDF. They have been stymied by the Obey amendment to the 1998 Defense Appropriations Act, which specifically forbade the export of the F-22 in order to protect the secrecy of its advanced technology.

Interchangeability Of Fire And Multi-Domain Operations

Soviet “forces and resources” chart. [Richard Simpkin, Deep Battle: The Brainchild of Marshal Tukhachevskii (Brassey’s: London, 1987) p. 254]

With the emergence of the importance of cross-domain fires in the U.S. effort to craft a joint doctrine for multi-domain operations, there is an old military concept to which developers should give greater consideration: interchangeability of fire.

This is an idea that British theorist Richard Simpkin traced back to 19th century Russian military thinking, which referred to it then as the interchangeability of shell and bayonet. Put simply, it was the view that artillery fire and infantry shock had equivalent and complimentary effects against enemy troops and could be substituted for one another as circumstances dictated on the battlefield.

The concept evolved during the development of the Russian/Soviet operational concept of “deep battle” after World War I to encompass the interchangeability of fire and maneuver. In Soviet military thought, the battlefield effects of fires and the operational maneuver of ground forces were equivalent and complementary.

This principle continues to shape contemporary Russian military doctrine and practice, which is, in turn, influencing U.S. thinking about multi-domain operations. In fact, the idea is not new to Western military thinking at all. Maneuver warfare advocates adopted the concept in the 1980s, but it never found its way into official U.S. military doctrine.

An Idea Who’s Time Has Come. Again.

So why should the U.S. military doctrine developers take another look at interchangeability now? First, the increasing variety and ubiquity of long-range precision fire capabilities is forcing them to address the changing relationship between mass and fires on multi-domain battlefields. After spending a generation waging counterinsurgency and essentially outsourcing responsibility for operational fires to the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy, both the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps are scrambling to come to grips with the way technology is changing the character of land operations. All of the services are at the very beginning of assessing the impact of drone swarms—which are themselves interchangeable blends of mass and fires—on combat.

Second, the rapid acceptance and adoption of the idea of cross-domain fires has carried along with it an implicit acceptance of the interchangeability of the effects of kinetic and non-kinetic (i.e. information, electronic, and cyber) fires. This alone is already forcing U.S. joint military thinking to integrate effects into planning and decision-making.

The key component of interchangability is effects. Inherent in it is acceptance of the idea that combat forces have effects on the battlefield that go beyond mere physical lethality, i.e. the impact of fire or shock on a target. U.S. Army doctrine recognizes three effects of fires: destruction, neutralization, and suppression. Russian and maneuver warfare theorists hold that these same effects can be achieved through the effects of operational maneuver. The notion of interchangeability offers a very useful way of thinking about how to effectively integrate the lethality of mass and fires on future battlefields.

But Wait, Isn’t Effects Is A Four-Letter Word?

There is a big impediment to incorporating interchangeability into U.S. military thinking, however, and that is the decidedly ambivalent attitude of the U.S. land warfare services toward thinking about non-tangible effects in warfare.

As I have pointed out before, the U.S. Army (at least) has no effective way of assessing the effects of fires on combat, cross-domain or otherwise, because it has no real doctrinal methodology for calculating combat power on the battlefield. Army doctrine conceives of combat power almost exclusively in terms of capabilities and functions, not effects. In Army thinking, a combat multiplier is increased lethality in the form of additional weapons systems or combat units, not the intangible effects of operational or moral (human) factors on combat. For example, suppression may be a long-standing element in doctrine, but the Army still does not really have a clear idea of what causes it or what battlefield effects it really has.

In the wake of the 1990-91 Gulf War and the ensuing “Revolution in Military Affairs,” the U.S. Air Force led the way forward in thinking about the effects of lethality on the battlefield and how it should be leveraged to achieve strategic ends. It was the motivating service behind the development of a doctrine of “effects based operations” or EBO in the early 2000s.

However, in 2008, U.S. Joint Forces Command commander, U.S Marine General (and current Secretary of Defense) James Mattis ordered his command to no longer “use, sponsor, or export” EBO or related concepts and terms, the underlying principles of which he deemed to be “fundamentally flawed.” This effectively eliminated EBO from joint planning and doctrine. While Joint Forces Command was disbanded in 2011 and EBO thinking remains part of Air Force doctrine, Mattis’s decree pretty clearly showed what the U.S. land warfare services think about battlefield effects.

Status Update On U.S. Long Range Fires Capabilities

Soldiers fire an M777A2 howitzer while supporting Iraqi security forces near al-Qaim, Iraq, Nov. 7, 2017, as part of the operation to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. [Spc. William Gibson/U.S. Army]

Earlier this year, I noted that the U.S. is investing in upgrading its long range strike capabilities as part of its multi-domain battle doctrinal response to improving Chinese, Russian, and Iranian anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities. There have been a few updates on the progress of those investments.

The U.S. Army Long Range Fires Cross Functional Team

A recent article in Army Times by Todd South looked at some of the changes being implemented by the U.S. Army cross functional team charged with prioritizing improvements in the service’s long range fires capabilities. To meet a requirement to double the ranges of its artillery systems within five years, “the Army has embarked upon three tiers of focus, from upgrading old school artillery cannons, to swapping out its missile system to double the distance it can fire, and giving the Army a way to fire surface-to-surface missiles at ranges of 1,400 miles.”

The Extended Range Cannon Artillery program is working on rocket assisted munitions to double the range of the Army’s workhouse 155mm guns to 24 miles, with some special rounds capable of reaching targets up to 44 miles away. As I touched on recently, the Army is also looking into ramjet rounds that could potentially increase striking range to 62 miles.

To develop the capability for even longer range fires, the Army implemented a Strategic Strike Cannon Artillery program for targets up to nearly 1,000 miles, and a Strategic Fires Missile effort enabling targeting out to 1,400 miles.

The Army is also emphasizing retaining trained artillery personnel and an improved training regime which includes large-scale joint exercises and increased live-fire opportunities.

Revised Long Range Fires Doctrine

But better technology and training are only part of the solution. U.S. Army Captain Harrison Morgan advocated doctrinal adaptations to shift Army culture away from thinking of fires solely as support for maneuver elements. Among his recommendations are:

  • Increasing the proportion of U.S. corps rocket artillery to tube artillery systems from roughly 1:4 to something closer to the current Russian Army ratio of 3:4.
  • Fielding a tube artillery system capable of meeting or surpassing the German-made PZH 2000, which can strike targets out to 30 kilometers with regular rounds, sustain a firing rate of 10 rounds per minute, and strike targets with five rounds simultaneously.
  • Focus on integrating tube and rocket artillery with a multi-domain, joint force to enable the destruction of the majority of enemy maneuver forces before friendly ground forces reach direct-fire range.
  • Allow tube artillery to be task organized below the brigade level to provide indirect fires capabilities to maneuver battalions, and make rocket artillery available to division and brigade commanders. (Morgan contends that the allocation of indirect fires capabilities to maneuver battalions ended with the disbanding of the Army’s armored cavalry regiments in 2011.)
  • Increase training in use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) assets at the tactical level to locate, target, and observe fires.

U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy Face Long Range Penetrating Strike Challenges

The Army’s emphasis on improving long range fires appears timely in light of the challenges the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy face in conducting long range penetrating strikes mission in the A2/AD environment. A fascinating analysis by Jerry Hendrix for the Center for a New American Security shows the current strategic problems stemming from U.S. policy decisions taken in the early 1990s following the end of the Cold War.

In an effort to generate a “peace dividend” from the fall of the Soviet Union, the Clinton administration elected to simplify the U.S. military force structure for conducting long range air attacks by relieving the Navy of its associated responsibilities and assigning the mission solely to the Air Force. The Navy no longer needed to replace its aging carrier-based medium range bombers and the Air Force pushed replacements for its aging B-52 and B-1 bombers into the future.

Both the Air Force and Navy emphasized development and acquisition of short range tactical aircraft which proved highly suitable for the regional contingencies and irregular conflicts of the 1990s and early 2000s. Impressed with U.S. capabilities displayed in those conflicts, China, Russia, and Iran invested in air defense and ballistic missile technologies specifically designed to counter American advantages.

The U.S. now faces a strategic environment where its long range strike platforms lack the range and operational and technological capability to operate within these AS/AD “bubbles.” The Air Force has far too few long range bombers with stealth capability, and neither the Air Force nor Navy tactical stealth aircraft can carry long range strike missiles. The missiles themselves lack stealth capability. The short range of the Navy’s aircraft and insufficient numbers of screening vessels leave its aircraft carriers vulnerable to ballistic missile attack.

Remedying this state of affairs will take time and major investments in new weapons and technological upgrades. However, with certain upgrades, Hendrix sees the current Air Force and Navy force structures capable of providing the basis for a long range penetrating strike operational concept effective against A2/AD defenses. The unanswered question is whether these upgrades will be implemented at all.

Senate Armed Service Committee Proposes Far-Reaching Changes To U.S. Military

Senate Armed Services Committee members (L-R) Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Chairman John McCain (R-AZ) and ranking member Sen. Jack Reed (R-RI) listen to testimony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill July 11, 2017 in Washington, D.C. [CREDIT: Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images]

In an article in Breaking Defense last week, Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr. pointed out that the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) has requested that Secretary of Defense James Mattis report back by 1 February 2019 on what amounts to “the most sweeping reevaluation of the military in 30 years, with tough questions for all four armed services but especially the Marine Corps.”

Freedberg identified SASC chairman Senator John McCain as the motivating element behind the report, which is part of the draft 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. It emphasizes the initiative to reorient the U.S. military away from its nearly two-decade long focus on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism to prioritizing preparation for potential future Great Power conflict, as outlined in Mattis’s recently published National Defense Strategy. McCain sees this shift taking place far too slowly according to Freedberg, who hints that Mattis shares this concern.

While the SASC request addresses some technological issues, its real focus is on redefining the priorities, missions, and force structures of the armed forces (including special operations forces) in the context of the National Defense Strategy.

The changes it seeks are drastic. According to Freedberg, among the difficult questions it poses are:

  • Make the Marines a counterinsurgency force? [This would greatly help alleviate the U.S. Army’s current strategic conundrum]
  • Make the Army heavier, with fewer helicopters?
  • Refocus Special Operations against Russia and China?
  • Rely less on stealth aircraft and more on drones?

Each of these questions relates directly to trends associated with the multi-domain battle and operations concepts the U.S. armed services are currently jointly developing in response to threats posed by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian military advances.

It is clear that the SASC believes that difficult choices with far-reaching consequences are needed to adequately prepare to meet these challenges. The armed services have been historically resistant to changes involving trade-offs, however, especially ones that touch on service budgets and roles and missions. It seems likely that more than a report will be needed to push through changes deemed necessary by the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman and the Secretary of Defense.

Read more of Freedberg’s article here.

The draft 2019 National Defense Authorization Act can be found here, and the SASC questions can be found in Section 1041 beginning on page 478.

Abstraction and Aggregation in Wargame Modeling

[IPMS/USA Reviews]

“All models are wrong, some models are useful.” – George Box

Models, no matter what their subjects, must always be an imperfect copy of the original. The term “model” inherently has this connotation. If the subject is exact and precise, then it is a duplicate, a replica, a clone, or a copy, but not a “model.” The most common dimension to be compromised is generally size, or more literally the three spatial dimensions of length, width and height. A good example of this would be a scale model airplane, generally available in several ratios from the original, such as 1/144, 1/72 or 1/48 (which are interestingly all factors of 12 … there are also 1/100 for the more decimal-minded). These mean that the model airplane at 1/72 scale would be 72 times smaller … take the length, width and height measurements of the real item, and divide by 72 to get the model’s value.

If we take the real item’s weight and divide by 72, we would not expect our model to weight 72 times less! Not unless the same or similar materials would be used, certainly. Generally, the model has a different purpose than replicating the subject’s functionality. It is helping to model the subject’s qualities, or to mimic them in some useful way. In the case of the 1/72 plastic model airplane of the F-15J fighter, this might be replicating the sight of a real F-15J, to satisfy the desire of the youth to look at the F-15J and to imagine themselves taking flight. Or it might be for pilots at a flight school to mimic air combat with models instead of ha

The model aircraft is a simple physical object; once built, it does not change over time (unless you want to count dropping it and breaking it…). A real F-15J, however, is a dynamic physical object, which changes considerably over the course of its normal operation. It is loaded with fuel, ordnance, both of which have a huge effect on its weight, and thus its performance characteristics. Also, it may be occupied by different crew members, whose experience and skills may vary considerably. These qualities of the unit need to be taken into account, if the purpose of the model is to represent the aircraft. The classic example of this is a flight envelope model of an F-15A/C:

[Quora]

This flight envelope itself is a model, it represents the flight characteristics of the F-15 using two primary quantitative axes – altitude and speed (in numbers of mach), and also throttle setting. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this is the realization than an F-15 slows down as it descends. Are these particular qualities of an F-15 required to model air combat involving such and aircraft?

How to Apply This Modeling Process to a Wargame?

The purpose of the war game is to model or represent the possible outcome of a real combat situation, played forward in the model at whatever pace and scale the designer has intended.

As mentioned previously, my colleague and I are playing Asian Fleet, a war game that covers several types of naval combat, including those involving air units, surface units and submarine units. This was published in 2007, and updated in 2010. We’ve selected a scenario that has only air units on either side. The premise of this scenario is quite simple:

The Chinese air force, in trying to prevent the United States from intervening in a Taiwan invasion, will carry out an attack on the SDF as well as the US military base on Okinawa. Forces around Shanghai consisting of state-of-the-art fighter bombers and long-range attack aircraft have been placed for the invasion of Taiwan, and an attack on Okinawa would be carried out with a portion of these forces. [Asian Fleet Scenario Book]

Of course, this game is a model of reality. The infinite geospatial and temporal possibilities of space-time which is so familiar to us has been replaced by highly aggregated discreet buckets, such as turns that may last for a day, or eight hours. Latitude, longitude and altitude are replaced with a two-dimensional hexagonal “honey comb” surface. Hence, distance is no longer computed in miles or meters, but rather in “hexes”, each of which is about 50 nautical miles. Aircraft are effectively aloft, or on the ground, although a “high mission profile” will provide endurance benefits. Submarines are considered underwater, or may use “deep mode” attempting to hide from sonar searches.

Maneuver units are represented by “counters” or virtual chits to be moved about the map as play progresses. Their level of aggregation varies from large and powerful ships and subs represented individually, to smaller surface units and weaker subs grouped and represented by a single counter (a “flotilla”), to squadrons or regiments of aircraft represented by a single counter. Depending upon the nation and the military branch, this may be a few as 3-5 aircraft in a maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) detachment (“recon” in this game), to roughly 10-12 aircraft in a bomber unit, to 24 or even 72 aircraft in a fighter unit (“interceptor” in this game).

Enough Theory, What Happened?!

The Chinese Air Force mobilized their H6H bomber, escorted by large numbers of Flankers (J11 and Su-30MK2 fighters from the Shanghai area, and headed East towards Okinawa. The US Air Force F-15Cs supported by airborne warning and control system (AWACS) detected this inbound force and delayed engagement until their Japanese F-15J unit on combat air patrol (CAP) could support them, and then engaged the Chinese force about 50 miles from the AWACS orbits. In this game, air combat is broken down into two phases, long-range air to air (LRAA) combat (aka beyond visual range, BVR), and “regular” air combat, or within visual range (WVR) combat.

In BVR combat, only units marked as equipped with BVR capability may attack:

  • 2 x F-15C units have a factor of 32; scoring a hit in 5 out of 10 cases, or roughly 50%.
  • Su-30MK2 unit has a factor of 16; scoring a hit in 4 out of 10 cases, ~40%.

To these numbers a modifier of +2 exists when the attacker is supported by AWACS, so the odds to score a hit increase to roughly 70% for the F-15Cs … but in our example they miss, and the Chinese shot misses as well. Thus, the combat proceeds to WVR.

In WVR combat, each opposing side sums their aerial combat factors:

  • 2 x F-15C (32) + F-15J (13) = 45
  • Su-30MK2 (15) + J11 (13) + H6H (1) = 29

These two numbers are then expressed as a ratio, attacker-to-defender (45:29), and rounded down in favor of the defender (1:1), and then a ten-sided-die (d10) is rolled to consult the Air-to-Air Combat Results Table, on the “CAP/AWACS Interception” line. The die was rolled, and a result of “0/0r” was achieved, which basically says that neither side takes losses, but the defender is turned back from the mission (“r” being code for “return to base”). Given the +2 modifier for the AWACS, the worst outcome for the Allies would be a mutual return to base result (“0r/0r”). The best outcome would be inflicting two “steps” of damage, and sending the rest home (“0/2r”). A step of loss is about one half of an air unit, represented by flipping over the counter or chit, and operating with the combat factors at about half strength.

To sum this up, as the Allied commander, my conclusion was that the Americans were hung-over or asleep for this engagement.

I am encouraged by some similarities between this game and the fantastic detail that TDI has just posted about the DACM model, here and here. Thus, I plan to not only dissect this Asian Fleet game (VGAF), but also go a gap analysis between VGAF and DACM.

Drones And The U.S. Navy

An X-47 Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) drone lands on the USS Theodore Roosevelt during a test in 2014. [Breaking Defense]

Preamble & Warning (P&W): Please forgive me, this is an acronym heavy post.

In May 2013, the U.S. Navy (USN) reached milestones by having a “drone,” or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) land and take-off from an aircraft carrier. This was a significant achievement in aviation, and heralded an era of combat UAVs (UCAV) being integrated into carrier air wings (CVW). This vehicle, the X-47B, was built by Northrup Grumman, under the concept of a carrier-based stealthy strike vehicle.

Ultimately, after almost three years, their decision was announced:

On 1 February 2016, after many delays over whether the [Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike] UCLASS would specialize in strike or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) roles, it was reported that a significant portion of the UCLASS effort would be directed to produce a Super Hornet-sized carrier-based aerial refueling tanker as the Carrier-Based Aerial-Refueling System (CBARS), with ‘a little ISR’ and some capabilities for communications relay, and strike capabilities put off to a future version of the aircraft. In July 2016, it was officially named ‘MQ-25A Stingray’.

The USN, who had just proven that they can add a stealthy UCAV to carrier flight deck operations, decided to put this new capability on the shelf, and instead refocus the efforts of the aerospace defense industry on a brand new requirement, namely …

For mission tanking, the threshold requirement is offloading 14,000 lb. of fuel to aviation assets at 500 nm from the ship, thereby greatly extending the range of the carrier air wing, including the Lockheed Martin F-35C and Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet. The UAV must also be able to integrate with the Nimitz-class carriers, being able to safely launch and recover and not take up more space than is allocated for storage, maintenance and repairs.

Boeing has fashioned part of St. Louis Lambert International Airport into an aircraft carrier deck, complete with a mock catapult system. [Boeing]

Why did they do this?

The Pentagon apparently made this program change in order to address the Navy’s expected fighter shortfall by directing funds to buy additional F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and accelerate purchases and development of the F-35C. Having the CBARS as the first carrier-based UAV provides a less complex bridge to the future F/A-XX, should it be an autonomous strike platform. It also addresses the carriers’ need for an organic refueling aircraft, proposed as a mission for the UCLASS since 2014, freeing up the 20–30 percent of Super Hornets performing the mission in a more capable and cost effective manner than modifying the F-35, V-22 Osprey, and E-2D Hawkeye, or bringing the retired S-3 Viking back into service.

Notice within this quote the supposition that the F/A-XX would be an autonomous strike platform. This program was originally a USN-specific program to build a next-generation platform to perform both strike and air superiority missions, much like the F/A-18 aircraft are “swing role.” The US Air Force (USAF) had a separate program for a next generation air superiority aircraft called the F-X. These programs were combined by the Department of Defense (DoD) into the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. We can tell from the name of this program that it is clearly focused on the air superiority mission, as compared to the balance of strike and superiority, implicit in the USN program.

Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), wrote a letter to then Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, on 2015-03-24, stating, “I strongly believe that the Navy’s first operational unmanned combat aircraft must be capable of performing a broad range of missions in contested environments as part of the carrier air wing, including precision strike as well as [ISR].” This is effectively an endorsement of the X-47B, and quite unlike the MQ-25.

I’m in agreement with Senator McCain on this. I think that a great deal of experience could have been gained by continuing the development and test of the X-47B, and possibly deploying the vehicle to the fleet.

The Navy hinted at the possibility of using the UCLASS in air-to-air engagements as a ‘flying missile magazine’ to supplement the F/A-18 Super Hornet and F-35C Lightning II as a type of ‘robotic wingman.’ Its weapons bay could be filled with AIM-120 AMRAAMs and be remotely operated by an E-2D Hawkeye or F-35C flight leader, using their own sensors and human judgment to detect, track, and direct the UAV to engage an enemy aircraft. The Navy’s Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA) concept gives a common picture of the battle space to multiple air platforms through data-links, where any aircraft could fire on a target in their range that is being tracked by any sensor, so the forward deployed UCLASS would have its missiles targeted by another controller. With manned-unmanned teaming for air combat, a dedicated unmanned supersonic fighter may not be developed, as the greater cost of high-thrust propulsion and an airframe of similar size to a manned fighter would deliver a platform with comparable operating costs and still without an ability to engage on its own.

Indeed, the German Luftwaffe has completed an air combat concept study, stating that the fighter of the 2040’s will be a “stealthy drone herder”:

Interestingly the twin-engine, twin-tail stealth design would be a twin-seat design, according to Alberto Gutierrez, Head of Eurofighter Programme, Airbus DS. The second crewmember may be especially important for the FCAS concept of operations, which would see it operate in a wider battle network, potentially as a command and control asset or UCAV/UAV mission commander.

Instead, the USN has decided to banish the drones into the tanker and light ISR roles, to focus on having more Super Hornets available, and move towards integrating the F-35C into the CVW. I believe that this is a missed opportunity to move ahead to get direct front line experience in operating UCAVs as part of combat carrier operations.

Visualizing The Multidomain Battle Battlespace

In the latest issue of Joint Forces Quarterly, General David G. Perkins and General James M. Holmes, respectively the commanding generals of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) and  U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command (ACC), present the results of the initial effort to fashion a unified, joint understanding of the multidomain battle (MDB) battlespace.

The thinking of the services proceeds from a basic idea:

Victory in future combat will be determined by how successfully commanders can understand, visualize, and describe the battlefield to their subordinate commands, thus allowing for more rapid decisionmaking to exploit the initiative and create positions of relative advantage.

In order to create this common understanding, TRADOC and ACC are seeking to blend the conceptualization of their respective operating concepts.

The Army’s…operational framework is a cognitive tool used to assist commanders and staffs in clearly visualizing and describing the application of combat power in time, space, and purpose… The Army’s operational and battlefield framework is, by the reality and physics of the land domain, generally geographically focused and employed in multiple echelons.

The mission of the Air Force is to fly, fight, and win—in air, space, and cyberspace. With this in mind, and with the inherent flexibility provided by the range and speed of air, space, and cyber power, the ACC construct for visualizing and describing operations in time and space has developed differently from the Army’s… One key difference between the two constructs is that while the Army’s is based on physical location of friendly and enemy assets and systems, ACC’s is typically focused more on the functions conducted by friendly and enemy assets and systems. Focusing on the functions conducted by friendly and enemy forces allows coordinated employment and integration of air, space, and cyber effects in the battlespace to protect or exploit friendly functions while degrading or defeating enemy functions across geographic boundaries to create and exploit enemy vulnerabilities and achieve a continuing advantage.

Despite having “somewhat differing perspectives on mission command versus C2 and on a battlefield framework that is oriented on forces and geography versus one that is oriented on function and time,” it turns out that the services’ respective conceptualizations of their operating concepts are not incompatible. The first cut on an integrated concept yielded the diagram above. As Perkins and Holmes point out,

The only noncommon area between these two frameworks is the Air Force’s Adversary Strategic area. This area could easily be accommodated into the Army’s existing framework with the addition of Strategic Deep Fires—an area over the horizon beyond the range of land-based systems, thus requiring cross-domain fires from the sea, air, and space.

Perkins and Holmes go on to map out the next steps.

In the coming year, the Army and Air Force will be conducting a series of experiments and initiatives to help determine the essential components of MDB C2. Between the Services there is a common understanding of the future operational environment, the macro-level problems that must be addressed, and the capability gaps that currently exist. Potential solutions require us to ask questions differently, to ask different questions, and in many cases to change our definitions.

Their expectation is that “Frameworks will tend to merge—not as an either/or binary choice—but as a realization that effective cross-domain operations on the land and sea, in the air, as well as cyber and electromagnetic domains will require a merged framework and a common operating picture.”

So far, so good. Stay tuned.