US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

[FORBIN]

How many aircraft sorties in a day for Ford and Nimitz ?
and Ford carry more ammo/fuel as Nimitz which carry 3000 and 9000 t ?

 

[FORBIN]

US nuclear forces, 2015

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The more interesting

4,760 nuclear warheads. Of this number, they estimate that approximately 2,080 warheads are deployed while 2,680 warheads are in storage
794 deployed missiles and bombers

Under New START, the US Air Force plans to reduce the ICBM force to 400 missiles, probably by retiring one of three missile squadrons at one of the three bases, leaving two bases with 150 missiles each and one with 100 missiles

Starting in 2015, the number of missile tubes on each Ohio-class SSBN will be reduced by four, from 24 to 20. The reduction is intended to reduce the number of SLBMs that can be deployed at any given time to no more than 240, in order to meet the limit on deployed strategic delivery vehicles set by New START for 2018.

As of March 2014, for example, the 240 deployed SLBMs carried an estimated 1,047 warheads, or an average of four to five warheads per missile.

The US Air Force currently operates a fleet of 20 B-2 and 93 B-52H bombers. Of those, 18 B-2s and 76 B-52Hs are nuclear-capable. (New START counts 20 B-2s and 89 B-52Hs.) Approximately 60 bombers (16 B-2s and 44 B-52Hs) are thought to be assigned nuclear missions under US nuclear war plans.

Each B-2 can carry up to 16 nuclear bombs (B61-7, B61-11, and B83-1 gravity bombs), and each B-52H can carry up to 20 air-launched cruise missiles. An estimated 1,000 nuclear weapons, including 528 air-launched cruise missiles, are assigned to the bombers. Although only 200 to 300 weapons are deployed at the bomber bases under normal circumstances, the remaining 700 to 800 weapons are in central storage at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

The US Air Force is planning a new bomber, known as the long-range strike bomber (the LRS-B, or simply the next-generation bomber), to begin replacing existing bombers beginning in the mid-2020s. Procurement of 80 to 100 aircraft is envisioned, some of which are planned to be nuclear-capable, at a cost of at least $80 billion. The US Air Force reportedly issued a request for proposals in July 2014 and plans to award the first public contract in the spring of 2015. But significant budget increases from $258.7 million in 2013 to $3.5 billion in 2019, as well as a relatively short development and production schedule calling for completion in 2025, indicate that significant long-range strike bomber development may already have been completed using funds from classified budgets

The long-range strike bomber will be equipped to deliver the new B61-12 guided standoff bomb (which will eventually replace all other gravity bombs) and the long-range standoff cruise missile, or LRSO (which will replace the air-launched cruise missile around 2025). In 2014, the US government’s Nuclear Weapons Council selected the W80-1 warhead to arm the long-range standoff. Under the plan, the W80-1 would undergo a life-extension program to extend its service life through the middle of this century. The life-extended warhead would be known as the W80-4 and partly include components and technologies developed for the B61-12 program.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The number of long-range standoff cruise missiles planned has not been announced, but it is thought to involve around 500 missiles.

On two B-52 bomber bases only one get a storage for nuclear weapons, Whiteman have it for B-2.

 

[Franklin]

A very interesting article about the proliferation of cheap but just good enough weapons around the world that the US sees as a threat to its dominance.

The ‘Hyundaization’ of the Global Arms Industry

The rapid spread of cheaper but good-enough weaponry poses a serious threat to U.S. military dominance.

Precision weapons and networked targeting have helped maintain America’s military superiority for decades. But technology marches on. New defense exporters are joining the global game with advanced and well-priced offerings, creating potential threats to the U.S. and its allies, and weakening Western influence. The Pentagon has a plan to cope with these evolving threats, but is it enough?

To understand what’s happening, consider the global automotive industry. South Korea’s Hyundai Motorsbecame a serious global competitor by leveraging the rapid diffusion of technology, an initial edge in cheap labor, and a “good enough” product for value buyers. Their success wasn’t obvious in 2001, but by 2015 the proof was in our parking lots. A similar “Hyundaization” process is under way in the global defense industry.

A few examples: NATO allies Turkey and Poland didn’t buy their latest self-propelled howitzers from the U.S. or even Germany. Instead they turned to Samsung.South Korea’s Daewoois building Britain’s next naval supply ships, and Korea Aerospace Industriesis exporting TA-50 and FA-50 fighter jets to Iraq, Indonesia and the Philippines. The F-16 is America’s cheapest fighter; the new Korean, Pakistani and Indian fighters cost about 33%-50% less. If you’d rather pocket a 67% savings, Brazil’s A-29 Super Tucano has become the global standard for counterinsurgency. An urgent order from the United Arab Emirates is likely to see combat in Yemen soon.

The long-term threat involves the spread of precision-strike weapons that can hit what modern surveillance “sees.” In addition to Russian and Chinese exports, Turkey has begun to export new guided weapons, including a stealthy cruise missile. India’s Mach 3 Brahmos antiship missile is available, as are GPS-guided equivalents to Boeing’s JDAM, including the UAE-South-African Al-Tariq or Brazil’s Acauan. Pakistan has already bought Brazil’s MAR-1 radar-killer missiles for its JF-17 fighters. There are other examples.

America’s surveillance-strike capabilities helped defeat Iraq’s military in two wars. Now Western militaries must plan to face evolving versions of the same thing. Western navies and their marine forces, which routinely place themselves within harm’s reach during deployments, expect that these surveillance-strike capabilities will be more common a decade from now.

In addition to challenging the U.S. defense industry, this proliferation of value-priced and “good enough” weapons will challenge Western diplomatic and military relationships in two ways.

First, it’s hard to overstate the value of personal relationships with foreign militaries, which often begin through equipment training and support programs. As we’ve seen in Pakistan, Egypt and elsewhere, today’s colonel may be tomorrow’s president.

Second, the flood of choices in the global marketplace will make it harder to withhold advanced weapons from specific regimes, reducing Western leverage throughout the world. In the 1990s it was widely understood that Western opprobrium would have a meaningful impact on one’s military. By the 2020s, that idea will seem quaint.

How is the U.S. responding? With technology. Last November then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagelunveiled the Pentagon’s “third offset” strategy, designed to develop new technologies as a follow-on to the first two “offsets” nuclear weapons and precision-guided munitions. The Pentagon plans to shore up its eroding edge by investing in fields like cyberwarfare; advanced computing and big data; robotics and autonomous weapons; advanced manufacturing techniques like 3-D printing; and electromagnetic weapons like railguns and lasers, to boost naval firepower and replace some land-based defensive weapons.

At present, the third offset is merely a statement of intent. The question is whether it would be adequate even if fully executed. Countries whose civilian companies must master big data, for example, can transfer that expertise to their military. Ditto for cyberwarfare, as Iran and North Korea have demonstrated. Passive radars using superfast computing and big data might even compromise today’s stealth technology. Meanwhile, Islamic State is already using lightweight commercial drones, and Peter W. Singer’s recent book “Wired for War” cites 87 countries with military robotics programs.

The West can’t stop Hyundaization, but market barriers like limited investment capital, technological chokepoints, the role of politics in purchasing, and the difficulty of setting up global service networks will slow it down. Nevertheless, Hyundaization is happening, powered by a global tsunami of techno-industrial momentum.

Western governments have a number of policy options to address the numerous military and diplomatic threats Hyundaization presents. But this much is certain: A serious response will have to think beyond technology.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[PanAsian]

A very interesting article about the proliferation of cheap but just good enough weapons around the world that the US sees as a threat to its dominance.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The article makes valid points but is also overly alarmist. The "good enough" weapons these other militaries have are good enough against peer 2nd and 3rd tier militaries, not so much against the US.

The military technological lead the US has over the rest of the world is huge and it shares R&D and is allied with most of the other leading military technological powers. Russia and China are the only exceptions.

Several new military technologies the US is bringing online such as railguns and laser guns are also revolutionary.

The most important point in the whole article is the last one. Even if the US has worry free military superiority over the rest of the world forever, it should aspire to better ways of dominance than easily resorting to force.

 

[Franklin]

The article makes valid points but is also overly alarmist. The "good enough" weapons these other militaries have are good enough against peer 2nd and 3rd tier militaries, not so much against the US.

The military technological lead the US has over the rest of the world is huge and it shares R&D and is allied with most of the other leading military technological powers. Russia and China are the only exceptions.

Several new military technologies the US is bringing online such as railguns and laser guns are also revolutionary.

The most important point in the whole article is the last one. Even if the US has worry free military superiority over the rest of the world forever, it should aspire to better ways of dominance than easily resorting to force.

I think the fear here is over lost of influence and arms sales rather than that these countries can give the Americans a run for their money in a war.

America's military/technological superiority over China and Russia at the moment is actually quite big but its lead over other countries are just overwelming.

 

[strehl]

I think the fear here is over lost of influence and arms sales rather than that these countries can give the Americans a run for their money in a war.

America's military/technological superiority over China and Russia at the moment is actually quite big but its lead over other countries are just overwelming.

Rome's lead over the German barbarians was also overwhelming. Hardware can't make up for poor leadership and a demoralized citizenry. There is no technological fix for bad policy.

 

[Bernard]

Should Future Fighter Be Like A Bomber? Groundbreaking CSBA Study

By

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

on April 08, 2015 at 3:46 PM

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Northrop Grumman Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) concept

WASHINGTON: America’s next war plane may look much more like

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

than a sleek, fast and maneuverable

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

.

That’s the conclusion of a wide-ranging study by the respected

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

. Breaking Defense obtained a copy of the report from a source not affiliated with CSBA.

Here’s the study’s main finding: “The overall conclusion of this study was that over the past few decades, advances in electronic sensors, communications technology, and guided weapons may have fundamentally transformed the nature of air combat.”

The conclusions are based on author

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

‘s analysis of a database of “over 1,450 air-to-air victories” around the world from 1965 to the present.

According to Stillion’s study, the ability to build an aircraft that can find, surprise and then kill enemy aircraft and anti-aircraft systems using speed and maneuverability is rapidly meeting the physical limits of range, speed and useful capability.

“The increased

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

signature reduction, RF [radio frequency] and IR [infra-red] countermeasures and robust LOS networks in building dominant SA [situational awareness], and the potential reduced tactical utility of high speed and maneuverability could mean that, for the first time, the aerial combat lethality of large combat aircraft may be competitive or even superior to more traditional fighter aircraft designs emphasizing speed and maneuverability,” the study says.

Put another way, missiles can now often outperform most fighter aircraft, although stealth and electronic warfare help even the score.

Trends from the database of air combat since 1965 show the rise of long range missiles and a steep decline in dog-fighting. Of the 33 U.S. kills in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, only four involved any maneuvering at all. 25 years on, the power of long range sensors and missiles is only greater, meaning that traditional fighter attributes such as speed, thrust-to-weight ratios, and turn radius are even less important to success today and in the future.

Stolen concludes that speed will not help future aircraft because higher speeds mean higher heats from engines and along leading edges and other aircraft surfaces. More combatants will rely on Infrared Search and Track Systems (IRST) because Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) jammers will disrupt search radars. (See page 36 of the study). So enemies will be looking for heat with those IRST sensors and fast planes will be easier to spot.

page 1 of 2

 

[Bernard]

page 2 of 2

What does this mean for the Pentagon as it explores building the next generation fighter, the so-called

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

?

Stillion says the Pentagon should consider “‘radical’ departures from traditional fighter concepts that rely on enhanced sensor performance, signature control, networks to achieve superior SA [situational awareness], and very-long-range weapons to complete engagements before being detected or tracked by enemy aircraft.”

That requires, he said in an email to me, that, “we should take a broad, objective and imaginative look at how to achieve air superiority in the decades beyond 2035. This may, or may not, result in a preference for non-traditional platforms rather than improved fighter aircraft, but more likely it will show we want a mix of both types of capabilities. The important thing is to do the objective assessment.”

The Pentagon has launched

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

and the related Air Innovation Initiative, a DARPA-led effort to come up with approaches to the F-X and its engines. Stallion’s study will clearly be read by DARPA and Frank Kendall, head of Pentagon acquisition as it mulls what to experiment with.

The Ultimate Multirole Plane?

One industry source who has read the study said that, “Stillion makes a very good case that we should rethink our strategy. Why invest in the sixth generation fighter

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

? Such an aircraft will only offer marginal improvements over the F-22 at great cost. But it will still be fairly short-ranged (at least considering the operational distances in the Pacific and other theaters). Wouldn’t it be better instead to focus on a bigger aircraft?”

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Boeing Lockheed Long Range Strike Bomber concept LRSB

Those larger planes can have bigger apertures (radar and infra-red) to detect threats at longer ranges and can carry bigger missiles to strike the enemy before he can hit us.

“What I find most compelling,” the industry source says, “is the idea that we could develop a single, large, long-range, big payload, stealthy aircraft that would comprise the future United States Air Force’s combat arm. You would have a common airframe that could be outfitted with different payloads to do different missions.”

One airframe, the industry source speculates, could provide a strike version, an air-to-air missile version for self defense, a nuclear aircraft, an air superiority version fitted with directed energy weapons, and planes for airborne early warning and ground surveillance missions.

The ultimate expression of this approach: a future US Air Force with a fleet of roughly 400 aircraft “as the core of the United States’ power projection force,” the industry source believes.

“Some elements of the new battle force could be unmanned as well to take better advantage of the big aircraft’s endurance. Maybe we would want to call this aircraft the “Battleplane”—something envisioned by Guilio Douhet in the 1920s. Intercontinental range means this force can strike anywhere on the planet—and concurrently win air superiority. We would not need to deploy hundreds of short range fighters to close-in bases—we could operate from distant bases. Just think of the savings in terms of logistics, development, procurement, and manpower if we went to a single airframe,” the industry source opines.

An astute observer might read this study and conclude that the builder of the Long Range Strike Bomber (LRSB), with its long range and enormous weapons capacity, could find itself in an enviable position to build that new power projection aircraft. Maybe.

How much chance is there that the Pentagon will embrace such a radical departure from the norms of the last 75 years?

“History says no,” the industry source believes. “How will the Air Force leadership—primarily composed of fighter pilots—react to the idea of using ‘bombers’ to do the air superiority mission?”

Imagine the cultural shifts needed by the Air Force and senior Pentagon leaders to embrace such an approach. Perhaps the impending budget drawdowns, the increased aggression of

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

, and the looming rise of

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

can help illuminate the future for them.

This is one of those rare studies that we may all remember in another decade and cite in footnotes and wonder that the Pentagon had the courage to act. If we’re lucky. If you want to understand air combat alone, this is a must-read.

 

[asif iqbal]

How many aircraft sorties in a day for Ford and Nimitz ?
and Ford carry more ammo/fuel as Nimitz which carry 3000 and 9000 t ?

Ford class will do 160 sorties in a 12 hour period and 270 on a surge in 24 hours

Nimitz can do 120 and 240 on a surge in 24 hours

Also when a carrier increases sorties rates it takes a tool on the entire carrier fleet, they can do it for 24 hours and keeping going for 4-5 days but with ford class this process has been optimised to go for longer

I like to call it faster quicker longer

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

 

[Jeff Head]

I doubt India will complain since they are getting the 61 AH-64D Apache. Even if US allows Pakistan to buy 40 of AH-1Z it still pose no threat to India. And I don't believe Cobra can go toe to toe with the Apache. So never mind the numbers.

I beg to differ.

A AH-1Z Viper would be a threat to India. Plain and simple...or any other potential for to Pakistan.

The real issue is not whether the helos can take each other on...both nations have front line fixed wing aircraft for that.

The issue is how effective either are against ground troops, armor, and structures. Both of these helicopters will be VERY, VERY effective at that...among the best in the world.

The Apache is the most modern, front line attack helo used by the US Army.

The Viper is the most modern, front line attack helo used buy the US Marines.

That sort of says it all right there. If Indian Apaches are ever used against any other nation...they will be very dangerous. If Pakistani Vipers are ever used against any other nation...they will be very dangerous.