thedrifter
03-14-06, 12:44 PM
March 13, 2006
DoD softens ‘go-joint-or-die’ approach
By Christopher P. Cavas and Greg Grant
Special to the Times
While the Pentagon’s top executives continue to urge multiservice program participation, and the great majority of developing operational concepts have a heavy joint emphasis, the push to “go joint or die” has softened.
The just-completed 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), for example, breaks up the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program into separate Air Force and Navy entities.
“The QDR took the J-UCAS program, which was a $4 billion joint Air Force-Navy technology demonstration program, and split it into two pieces,” said Bill Balderson, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for air programs. “It gave the Air Force money to work the classified piece, and it gave the Navy $1.8 billion to do a Navy UCAS program focused on carrier suitability.”
The directive to develop a specific carrier-based version will result in Boeing and Northrop Grumman revising their existing J-UCAS competitive designs to tailor them to specific Navy needs.
Still, development of joint acquisition programs remains a priority for Pentagon planners. DoD officials reaffirmed the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the largest of all U.S. defense acquisition programs, after a strenuous examination during the planning of the QDR and 2007 budget.
The U.S. Navy’s ambitious Sea Base program continues to evolve as the Marine Corps, Army and Air Force modify and develop their roles in the concept. And the Pentagon recently reorganized its Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program to become a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration Program.
Another requirement that may — or may not — be met by a joint platform is the need for a new aerial signals intelligence collector. The Navy had piggy-backed on the Army’s Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) program, but severe design problems forced the Army to cancel ACS in January.
Now, Balderson said, the Army, Air Force and Navy are assessing their needs to see if a joint program is still possible.
“I don’t know what the answer will be,” said Balderson. “It could end up being three service-unique alternatives, it could end up being two-service joint, three-service joint, manned or unmanned. There are all kinds of possibilities.”
The joint ACS assessment is to be completed this summer.
Wanted: Heavy Lift The need for more capable heavy-lift aircraft also could result in a split-service approach.
Although U.S. military strategy calls for rapidly deployable ground forces that can conduct forced-entry operations in distant countries, the Pentagon’s current fleet of cargo aircraft limits such operations to covert insertion of special operations troops or other light infantry.
The Army is examining how to take forced entry to the next level: heavier forces that pack more armor and firepower that can be dropped deep inside enemy territory. It’s the vision behind the service’s most ambitious and costly modernization program ever, the $161 billion Future Combat Systems (FCS).
But FCS, whose vehicles likely will not fit aboard the Pentagon’s workhorse C-130 airlifter, requires a cargo aircraft that doesn’t exist yet.
So the Army has commissioned industry teams from Boeing, Sikorsky and Frontier Aircraft to come up with a vertical take-off and landing, heavy-lift aircraft that can carry FCS vehicles. This could produce the most powerful vertical-lift aircraft ever fielded ever built by an American company.
The future of joint heavy-lift (JHL) depends on what happens with the Air Force’s cargo mainstays, the C-17 Globemaster and the C-130J, said Robert Work, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. He noted the Marine Corps is participating in what is largely an Army study, but remains leery of a JHL program that could threaten its own plans to replace the CH-53 heavy-lift helicopter.
The Marine Corps has tried to keep JHL separate from its funding stream for a Heavy Lift Replacement Helicopter, a more powerful CH-53 that can lift nearly 14 tons. But Congress is pushing the Marines to work with the Army on common requirements for any future heavy lifter. The Marines contend they need a new heavy-lift helicopter much sooner than JHL, which is expected to arrive sometime after 2025.
“Developing a program that naturally fits all the service requirements is extremely difficult,” Work said. “If it makes sense that the same platform will do the mission, they will gravitate toward each other. If they don’t, they won’t.”
That’s the case, he said, with the Army’s and Navy’s need for high-speed ferry-like vessels.
“To minimize costs, the Army and the Navy agreed to combine the Army’s Theater Support Vessel and the Navy’s High Speed Vessel programs. As with the ACS, the intent was to try to minimize costs for both services. But each service sees this vessel differently. The Army sees it as a way to conduct operational maneuvers from strategic distances. The Navy sees it as a multipurpose Sea Base connector. As long as the two services are satisfied their specific service requirements can be met in a joint program, it will continue,” Work said.
“These programs show that it is not so much a step away from jointness as it is a recognition that although there is a compelling logic on these common platforms, sometimes the requirements simply can’t be made to be compatible with the other services.”
Ellie
DoD softens ‘go-joint-or-die’ approach
By Christopher P. Cavas and Greg Grant
Special to the Times
While the Pentagon’s top executives continue to urge multiservice program participation, and the great majority of developing operational concepts have a heavy joint emphasis, the push to “go joint or die” has softened.
The just-completed 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), for example, breaks up the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) program into separate Air Force and Navy entities.
“The QDR took the J-UCAS program, which was a $4 billion joint Air Force-Navy technology demonstration program, and split it into two pieces,” said Bill Balderson, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for air programs. “It gave the Air Force money to work the classified piece, and it gave the Navy $1.8 billion to do a Navy UCAS program focused on carrier suitability.”
The directive to develop a specific carrier-based version will result in Boeing and Northrop Grumman revising their existing J-UCAS competitive designs to tailor them to specific Navy needs.
Still, development of joint acquisition programs remains a priority for Pentagon planners. DoD officials reaffirmed the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the largest of all U.S. defense acquisition programs, after a strenuous examination during the planning of the QDR and 2007 budget.
The U.S. Navy’s ambitious Sea Base program continues to evolve as the Marine Corps, Army and Air Force modify and develop their roles in the concept. And the Pentagon recently reorganized its Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration program to become a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration Program.
Another requirement that may — or may not — be met by a joint platform is the need for a new aerial signals intelligence collector. The Navy had piggy-backed on the Army’s Aerial Common Sensor (ACS) program, but severe design problems forced the Army to cancel ACS in January.
Now, Balderson said, the Army, Air Force and Navy are assessing their needs to see if a joint program is still possible.
“I don’t know what the answer will be,” said Balderson. “It could end up being three service-unique alternatives, it could end up being two-service joint, three-service joint, manned or unmanned. There are all kinds of possibilities.”
The joint ACS assessment is to be completed this summer.
Wanted: Heavy Lift The need for more capable heavy-lift aircraft also could result in a split-service approach.
Although U.S. military strategy calls for rapidly deployable ground forces that can conduct forced-entry operations in distant countries, the Pentagon’s current fleet of cargo aircraft limits such operations to covert insertion of special operations troops or other light infantry.
The Army is examining how to take forced entry to the next level: heavier forces that pack more armor and firepower that can be dropped deep inside enemy territory. It’s the vision behind the service’s most ambitious and costly modernization program ever, the $161 billion Future Combat Systems (FCS).
But FCS, whose vehicles likely will not fit aboard the Pentagon’s workhorse C-130 airlifter, requires a cargo aircraft that doesn’t exist yet.
So the Army has commissioned industry teams from Boeing, Sikorsky and Frontier Aircraft to come up with a vertical take-off and landing, heavy-lift aircraft that can carry FCS vehicles. This could produce the most powerful vertical-lift aircraft ever fielded ever built by an American company.
The future of joint heavy-lift (JHL) depends on what happens with the Air Force’s cargo mainstays, the C-17 Globemaster and the C-130J, said Robert Work, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington. He noted the Marine Corps is participating in what is largely an Army study, but remains leery of a JHL program that could threaten its own plans to replace the CH-53 heavy-lift helicopter.
The Marine Corps has tried to keep JHL separate from its funding stream for a Heavy Lift Replacement Helicopter, a more powerful CH-53 that can lift nearly 14 tons. But Congress is pushing the Marines to work with the Army on common requirements for any future heavy lifter. The Marines contend they need a new heavy-lift helicopter much sooner than JHL, which is expected to arrive sometime after 2025.
“Developing a program that naturally fits all the service requirements is extremely difficult,” Work said. “If it makes sense that the same platform will do the mission, they will gravitate toward each other. If they don’t, they won’t.”
That’s the case, he said, with the Army’s and Navy’s need for high-speed ferry-like vessels.
“To minimize costs, the Army and the Navy agreed to combine the Army’s Theater Support Vessel and the Navy’s High Speed Vessel programs. As with the ACS, the intent was to try to minimize costs for both services. But each service sees this vessel differently. The Army sees it as a way to conduct operational maneuvers from strategic distances. The Navy sees it as a multipurpose Sea Base connector. As long as the two services are satisfied their specific service requirements can be met in a joint program, it will continue,” Work said.
“These programs show that it is not so much a step away from jointness as it is a recognition that although there is a compelling logic on these common platforms, sometimes the requirements simply can’t be made to be compatible with the other services.”
Ellie