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Lieutenant General
Registered Member
cyan1320 said:
"USA has more fighter planes than Russia and China Combined"
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AIR FORCE FIGHTERS

F15C 222 Will stay in service until 2025
F15D 22
F15E Strike Eagle 219 [Being upgraded and will stay in service until 2025]
F16 C/D 983
F22A 186 [Fifth generation stealth fighter]
F35A Lightning II 47 [Fifth generation stealth fighter]

MARINES
F18 A/C/D 149

NAVY
F-18 A/B/C/D 433
F-18 E/F 565
F-35 Lightning II 4
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Your number bad for USMC lack AV-8B 115 and this is 260 F-18.
 
Brumby

Brumby

Major
strehl said:
I thought CEC already did this but I guess they haven't gotten around to having a ship's weapons fired by a remote command source. However, it seems like a pretty obvious step in the evolution. Right now CEC mainly fuses the information and weapons status on all the participating elements:
system (GPS).
---------------------------------------------
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This test wasn't about CEC but to test system prioritization and assignment of task amongst potentially competing assets to avoid duplication of effort and unnecessary depletion of available resources.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Cooperative engagement is not new. It has been being developed for some time.

There are also differing variants of it.

First, the US Navy's USG-nX is cooperative engagement as used by certain US Naval vessels and the Hawkeye aircraft.

This has/is undergoing four major iterations:

- AN/USG-2A is the capability introduced first on in Aegis cruisers and destroyers, and then on the LPD-17/LHD amphibious ships, and Nimitz class aircraft carriers

- AN/USG-2B, is an improved version of USG-2A, and was introduced specifically to selected Aegis cruisers and destroyers.

- AN/USG-3 is the version that was introduced to E-2C Hawkeye 2000 aircraft.

- AN/USG-3B is the new version for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.

As you can see, AN/USG-2 is the variant made specifically for surface combatants, while AN/USG-3 is for naval aircraft. They work together in sharing data and making decisions about addressing threats.

There are two principle hardware components of USG CEC. The first is the Cooperative Engagement Processor (CEP) which collects all of the various radar and others sensor feeds and inputs and fuses them. The second is the Data Distribution System (DDS) which moves the CEP data around and exchanges it on various nodes.

This USG CEP system significantly enhances overall Air Defense capabilities for US Navy Task Forces which have it. Through integrating various...and often far flung...sensors into a single, integrated, real-time network, the AEGIS and other battle system's battle space is vastly expanded...the choices for the system (or the commander) to use to address the threats are enlarged...and the speed with which all of this can happen is improved by orders of magnitude.

The US Navy has been developing this capability for a couple of decades.

Now, the newer CEC initiatives involve merging these current efforts (and their improvements as they come), into an even wider CEC capability within the Naval Integrated Fire (NIFC) program (where there will ultimately be two variants...a counter-air (CA) and a Surface Warfare (SA) version). This program is going to expand the CEC network to include stealthy sensor platforms like the F-35B/C, the P-8 Poseidon, the MQ-4C Triton aircraft , and the new UCLASS drones (follow-on to the X-47B), to also be a part of the overall network and be involved in the identifying of targets, assigning of weapons, and employment of those weapons.

My guess is that the program will ultimately reach out to US Air Force platforms who may play in Joint TAsk Forces and efforts...ie. B-1B and B-2 Bombers, RQ-4 Global Hawks, E-3 Sentries, perhaps E-8 Joint Star (or its follow-on), E-9 Widgets, etc.)
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
Jeff Head said:
Cooperative engagement is not new. ...
Click to expand...

yes yes, but it seems to me in the article which probably started this discussion (https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/us-military-news-thread.t1547/page-368#post-329321)
the new information was the Aegis BMD system used
the distributed weighted engagement scheme (DWES) capability enabled
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since now a google search didn't show me anything newer than from this week about
distributed+weighted+engagement+scheme
(the results included a Polish description
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of this test though so I guess a Czech one will soon follow :) one of the reasons I follow the news here is to be ready for comments in Central European press LOL)
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
Jura said:
the Growler news:
Navy Mulls Expanding Growler’s Future After Blanking EA-18G’s Budget

source:
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more:
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The Pentagon has launched a wide-ranging study of
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, looking across the services at major platforms such as the
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and t
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.

“We are doing right now in the Department of Defense a study that looks at all
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[:] what is the situation in electromagnetic warfare across the spectrum in our maneuver,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert told the House Appropriations defense subcommittee yesterday.

That study that goes far beyond any individual weapons system to examine America’s entire capability to control the electromagnetic spectrum, on which our networks, sensors, and precision weapons all depend.

Before making any decisions on specific platforms like the Growler, “I want to hear from the whole Department of Defense, because we are the jammer provider,” Greenert said. The Air Force has a small number of electronically sophisticated but physically ungainly EC-130H Compass Call aircraft, of which they plan to retire many. The
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and Marines have a host of short-range tactical jammers to defeat roadside bombs. But only the Navy provides a survivable aircraft capable of conducting electronic warfare in contested airspace.

The Navy’s unfunded requirements list for 2015 included 22 more EA-18G Growlers, a variant of the Navy’s standard strike fighter, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. Congress funded 15. There are
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, so both
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— which builds the aircraft — and Congress are eager to hear whether the Navy would like another plus-up. So are reporters, whose questions Adm. Greenert and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus deftly parried after yesterday’s hearing.

“We’re evaluating… how many JSFs vs. Super Hornets do we want to have” for the long-term in the 2020s, Greenert said when asked if a reduction in F-35 Joint Strike Fighter buys would require an increase in F-18s. “I haven’t had a discussion yet with the secretary” — brand-new Defense Secretary Ashton Carter — “about the unfunded requirement list,” he said. Many reports indicate there may not even be one this year.

Are you sending a signal to Boeing that you don’t need more Growler/Hornet aircraft, I asked?

“I don’t send signals, I talk to my boss,” Greenert said, turning to the Navy Secretary.

“The F-18 line currently, because of the 15 Growlers that were given in the ’15 budget, is going to go through ’17,” Mabus said. “We are working with Boeing in terms of how you smooth that out” — perhaps by adding refurbishment work for the current F-18 fleet — and we know that they are looking at foreign sales to keep that line going.”

Super Hornet sales abroad, however, have been distinctly unspectacular. “So far it’s been 20 years and they’ve got one customer[:] Australia,” said
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, aviation industry analyst extraordinaire at the Teal Group. (More countries own the older F-18A, B, C, and D models, but those are no longer in production). “Part of it is the price point,” Aboulafia told me. “It was getting close to an
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, and the F-15 really is in a class by itself in terms of…sheer range and payload and combat effectiveness.” For Boeing, which builds both planes, “it was easy to steer customers towards the F-15″: South Korea, Singapore, Saudi Arabia. “You’ve also got pressure from F-35, pressure from Eurofighter, pressure from Rafale.”

That said, Aboulafia went on, several countries are looking hard at Super Hornets: Denmark, Kuwait, Malaysia, Canada — which owns
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— and Qatar, which is probably Boeing’s best shot at a big sale in the next few years.

But to keep the Boeing line running after the current US contract ends in 2017, “some order has to be placed within say, a year-and-a-half of now,” Aboulafia said. The closer to 2017, he said, the more expensive it gets to save the line, because the supplier base will have already started packing up. “It’s a piece of cake later this year,” he said. “Early next year might get a little pricier… end of 2016, game over.”

That’s a tight timeline for an international competition. If the Navy wants to keep the F-18/EA-18 line alive and keep open its options to buy more of the aircraft, it probably has to order some.

Congress could add aircraft regardless of what the Navy wants. But that’s less likely in tight budgetary times than it once was. Politically it’s much easier to plus-up the budget for one of the service’s unfunded requirements than for something it doesn’t really want.

“I can tell you from personal experience that it’s real tough to sell a combat system when the home service doesn’t seem to want it,” said Loren Thompson, a defense industry analyst and consultant. What’s more, he told me, “with budget caps firmly in place, adding money to buy more Super Hornets would require finding some other program that could serve as a bill-payer.”

Traditionally, pundits have pitted the Super Hornet and its Growler variant against the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The Navy has always been the least enthusiastic of the three services buying the JSF, expressing deep doubts about the long-term value of stealth, but Thursday Greenert took pains to emphasize stealth wasn’t the only thing the F-35 had going.

“It’s not just stealth, it’s so much more,” he told the subcommittee. “It’s got tremendous range — you almost double the range from an aircraft carrier; [it] carries more ordnance; [it] has a detection radar for air-to-air which is much advanced, and it can network with other aircraft and other assets, ships and the like. [It can]
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n…..Each of those is a tremendous leap unto itself.”

That doesn’t sound like someone eager to sacrifice F-35s to buy more Super Hornets and Growlers.

So if Congress, foreign customers, and cutting the F-35 can’t save the F-18 factory, it’s up to the Pentagon — which brings us back to that electronic warfare study.

Greenert’s description of the study — that it covers “all electronic attack” — sounds extraordinarily broad and vague. I’m still nudging the Pentagon to give me more details. But Aboulafia says that, from the Growler program’s perspective, the whole study boils down to one thing: “whether or not to increase the number of jammer planes on each carrier, pure and simple.”

As electronic warfare threats and countermeasures increase, the Navy is experimenting with
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that take advantage of the aircrafts’ passive sensors, rather than having them transmit all the time. Those new tactics, though, require three jamming aircraft in the air instead of the traditional two. Keeping three planes in the air at any given time for any length of time requires a larger squadron on the aircraft carrier: seven or eight Growlers instead of the current five. Adding two or three Growlers for each of 10 carrier air wings is 20 to 30 aircraft, not counting spares needed to account for maintenance, accidents, and training more pilots.

That’s a big investment. But electronic warfare is increasingly a big priority, not just for the Navy but for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The Pentagon’s chief of research, Alan Shaffer, has warned the US has
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,” on which all our networks and sensors rely, and control of the spectrum underlies
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. The Defense Science Board has
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. With Growlers the cutting edge of American electronic warfare, it’s quite likely the Pentagon study will say we need more — and even in tight budgetary times, it’s possible they’ll actually get them.
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source:
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S

strehl

Junior Member
Registered Member
Apropos of all the CEC/fusion postings. I don't know if this has been posted before but despite the terrible background music it is a good summary of the architecture. NOTE: since this video was made the number of US platforms carrying CEC is well past 100 vessels. The reference to integrated fire control is why I thought CEC already had optimized central fire control.

 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
BOOM! Surface boss orders ships to shoot guns daily
I was glad to hear this :) (the part I put in boldface):
Trice up your rack. Attend morning quarters. Stand watch. Oh, and shoot the guns.

Every day underway, the top surface warfare officer expects ships to release their batteries.

The head of Naval Surface Forces, Vice Adm. Tom Rowden, ordered all his ships to fire their guns every day. Shoot anything, from 5-inch deck guns to crew-served .50-caliber machine guns or the close-in weapons system, but shoot every day. Or else.

"All SURFOR ships are required to conduct live fire exercises daily while underway unless for safety, operational or environmental reasons you are not able to fire," Rowden wrote in the Feb. 5 message, the authenticity of which was confirmed by Navy Times.

The message also directed ships to use their towed array sonars to track subsurface and surface contacts "at every available opportunity," as well as streaming ship' anti-torpedo decoy known as Nixie. The message signals Rowden's renewed insistence on weapons training and SWO fundamentals, yet it was met with some sniping that this is one more requirement heaped onto busy crews.

The message to skippers: You will shoot ever day or you will need to explain to your superiors why you didn't.

"Short of the reasons listed above, I will assume if you are not shooting every day while underway it is because your weapon systems are broken or there are special circumstances on which you have pre-briefed your [immediate superior in charge] and, in turn, your ISIC has briefed my chief of staff and force gunner."

Rowden said that getting good at shooting was part of his effort to inculcate a warfighting spirit and increase proficiency in the force, and that those needs outweighed the inevitable broken CIWS and 5-inch guns that will result.

"The tactical proficiency developed through repeated live fire exercises far outweighs any potential material challenges associated with increased use of your main battery, crew-served weapons, and ship/area defense weapons," he wrote.

Rowden said in a Feb. 24 email to Navy Times that the feedback he's gotten has been positive, and that "leadership in the surface force understands that shooting more will ultimately develop more competent and confident watchstanders who are able to engage the enemy if called upon."

Some have wondered what led to the 3-star's order; commentator
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that there might be a cultural issue.

"Are we selecting personality types and have a culture at sea such that it requires such detail from a Vice Admiral in order to have your warships ready for action?" he wrote.

One reader commented that the message came after a recent live fire on a littoral combat ship had to be aborted at the last minute because of software issues that Rowden had known about.

When asked, Rowden said he sent off the message "for consistency purposes so all Surface Forces operate under the same guidance."

Others speculated that such guidance would cause SWOs to cut corners in an effort to comply.

But SURFOR spokesman Lt. Rick Chernitzer said there are plenty of "valid reasons" why a ship might not be able to shoot every day. Maybe there is too much traffic, they are in the middle of a training exercise and can't break away, or they are deployed to an area that isn't conducive to getting hot.

Gun shooting isn't the only thing on the surface boss' mind. In his second "Warfighting Serial" message, sent in late February, he reiterated the importance of regular space inspections to check that equipment is shipshape. Or else.
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