Non-Slavic military & F-22 CRAPtor.

[TsarSamuil]

China launches first domestic amphibious assault ship in major naval breakthrough.

RT.com
25 Sep, 2019 10:30

China’s navy is one step closer to greatly boosting its capabilities with the launch of a Type 075 ship, China’s first modern amphibious assault vessel, a 40,000-ton behemoth carrying dozens of helicopters and military vehicles.

The launch ceremony on Wednesday took place at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai, with local and Beijing officials as well as the vessel’s designers and workers present. The launch has expected for weeks after photos of a mostly-completed ship began circulating on Chinese social media.

The Type 075, which has been in development since at least 2011, is estimated to have a displacement of 40,000 tons, a length of 250 meters and a speed of 23 knots. Her size is slightly behind the US Navy’s counterparts, the 41,000 ton Wasp-class and the 45,000 ton America-class, but far ahead of those operated by France, Australia, Spain, Japan, and South Korea.

The new Chinese ship is expected to carry as many as 30 attack and transport helicopters on its deck, which can also be used to launch planes with vertical or short take off and landing capability. Her arsenal also includes amphibious tanks and armored vehicles and air-cushioned landing craft.

The capabilities of Type 075 are significantly improved compared to the Type 071, also known as the Yuzhao-class, which currently serves as the backbone for the Chinese navy’s amphibious assault operations but carry only two helicopters.

The newly-launched ship will require an unspecified period of sea trials and equipment adjustments, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Two Type 075 ships are currently in the making while a somewhat bigger third one was reportedly planned.

[TsarSamuil]

China shows off HYPERSONIC missiles & STEALTH drones during its 70th National Day.

RT
Oct 1, 2019



Beijing has unveiled its nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle and showed off other latest military tech at a grand parade at Tiananmen Square, marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

[TsarSamuil]

Sleeping dragon no more: China about to replace US as strongest naval power and Washington is too late to stop it.

RT.com
21 Dec, 2019 08:46

China might soon shift the world naval balance and unseat the US as the modern master of the seas. The process appears to already be under way, and there is little that Washington can do about stopping it.

Visibly shaken by what it has seen on a photo showing just one of China's military shipyards near Shanghai, the business magazine Forbes recently told its readers an alarming story about the "impressive rate" and "vast scale" of Chinese naval modernization.

The shipyard in question indeed appears to be an impressive sight to behold. There, one can see a total of nine newly constructed destroyers lined along the quay and docked in an inner shipyard basin. By contrast, the entire UK Royal Navy has a total of just six similar-class vessels, Forbes notes.

As if it was not enough, the same shipyard is also building China's newest aircraft carrier – the third in a row. The second one, called the Shandong, was commissioned by the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) earlier this week. Designed to carry 36 J-15 fighter jets, it is China's first fully domestically produced carrier.

The one under construction at the Shanghai shipyard is expected to be even bigger and better. In particular, it will have an electromagnetic catapult – just like the US Navy’s newest carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford.

More importantly, this one shipyard is but a sneak peek into China's real capabilities as there are "many yards across China, which are similarly impressive," Forbes warns its readers.

'Good reason' to worry

What might have come as a surprise for Forbes has been occupying the minds of all sorts of analysts for quite some time. The US media and think tanks alike are all united in their concerns about Beijing's growing military power.

In June, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a Washington-based think tank, argued that China's industrial and technological capabilities might help it "beat the Americans at their own game" and get an edge in the new arms race.

"The Soviets were never able to match, much less overcome, America's technological superiority. The same may not be true for China," warns the CNAS paper, adding that Beijing "strives to achieve technological parity, and eventually technological dominance."

Similarly, a whole range of media outlets from The Diplomat to the National Interest spared no efforts telling their readers that China's military modernization poses "a challenge" to the US and gives Washington "good reasons" to worry. Harvard Policy Review made a step further and wondered whether Beijing's strategy could put it on a "path to hegemony," eventually admitting that it mostly depends on "how far China is willing to go."

Meanwhile, the RAND Corporation – a premier US military think tank -- showed in its research that China's rapid military development program has already allowed it to drastically close the gap in power and technology, and even to put the US at a disadvantage in certain scenarios.

The think tanks and the media apparently believe it is high time Washington started worrying about losing its military superiority to the Chinese dragon, which seems to be just spreading its wings. But when it comes to naval power, it might already be too late.

'Unprecedented program Americans cannot even dream of'

Beijing has made its naval forces the cornerstone of its military modernization, analysts tell RT. China is actively pursuing the role of a global military power able to project its force to any corner of the earth, and the US may not have the sheer industrial capacity to compete.

"It is easier for China to increase its fleet numbers as it is the world's biggest shipbuilder. They have immense shipyard capacities, which the US lacks, as its commercial shipbuilding has been thrown into disarray over the past decades," says Vasily Kashin, Far East researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Political scientist and military expert Aleksandr Khramchikhin, deputy head of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis, described the Chinese navy development program as "totally unprecedented."

One cannot even count all the ships being built there. The modern Chinese program is unrivaled throughout the world and the Americans cannot even dream of such pace.

Khramchikhin believes that Beijing might be able to rival Washington in terms of the sheer fleet size in a decade or so. He particularly noted that China has been able to build frigates, corvettes and even destroyers by the dozen over the past decades.

"Ten years ago, the US had 15 aircraft carriers and China had none. In ten years, they might become even… They have more shipbuilders than the rest of the world together."

Closing the technological gap

One advantage the US would seem certain to hold on to is technological superiority. It could try to curb China's emerging naval might by limiting Beijing's access to modern technologies. That strategy is unlikely to work, the analysts believe, as China already has some cutting-edge technologies it could easily develop further. Besides, it can also approach its strategic partner, Russia.

"They make great technological advances," Kashin says. He points that the Chinese were the second nation in the world to equip their ships with integrated universal weapons systems rivaling America's Aegis – an advanced command and control system using powerful computers and radars to track and guide the vessels’ weapons.

Khramchikhin believes that Chinese naval technologies are already in many ways comparable to those of the US. "When it comes to surface ships, the Chinese already have some of the most advanced technologies."

It is true that some military technologies are difficult to master and take decades to develop. It is particularly relevant in the case of submarines, a field where China is still trailing the US. Here, however, close cooperation between Beijing and Moscow might tip the scales, the analysts believe.

Most recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin told an end-of-the-year press conference in Moscow that Russia will continue to work with China as a "strategic partner" in the field of defense technologies, even though he denied any plans on entering a formal military alliance with Beijing.

"Some joint development projects, sophisticated equipment components… these can all come from Russia," Kashin believes.

Washington might slow Beijing down a bit at some point, but the way things look now, the US doesn't seem to have any credible means to prevent China from becoming the world's next naval superpower in a decade or two.

[TsarSamuil]

Beijing Places ‘Heavy Orders’ as J-20B Stealth Fighter Enters Mass Production.

Sputnik
MILITARY & INTELLIGENCE 19:11 GMT 13.07.2020

The world’s third operational fifth-generation aircraft, the Chengdu J-20 “Weilong,” has entered mass production, according to insider reports. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force has reportedly placed a large order, now that many of the jet’s early problems have been sorted out.

According to PLA insider reports, a new version of the J-20, the J-20B, is ready to be fielded by the Chinese military.

“Mass production of the J-20B started on Wednesday. It has finally become a complete stealth fighter jet, with its agility meeting the original criteria,” a military source close to the project told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Sunday.
“The launch of the J-20B means this aircraft now is a formal fifth-generation fighter jet,” said SCMP’s source, which noted Chengdu Aerospace Corporation (CAC) had received “heavy orders” from the People’s Liberation Army.

Just a handful of J-20As have been made - 50 by the end of 2019 according to SCMP, which noted in January the PLA would likely need between 100 and 200 to fill its needs. It’s estimated CAC can make four J-20s per month.

The source noted the new version of the stealthy jet is equipped with thrust vector control, a high-tech function on some newer jet fighters that allows them to change the angle their jet engines are pointing. This function makes an aircraft supermaneuverable.
Some other jets with the ability include the US’ F-22 Raptor, Russia’s Su-30-series fighters and Su-57 and China’s J-10C.

Related to the matter of thrust on the J-20 is the development of its engines: Beijing has been attempting to replace the J-20’s underpowered WS-10 and AL-31 engines, the latter of which is built in Russia, with the domestically produced WS-15 high-thrust turbofan engine, but the work remains ongoing.

“The Chinese engine designed for the J-20s still failed to meet requirements, but its development is going quite smoothly, and it may be ready in the next one or two years,” the source told SCMP. “The ultimate goal is to equip the J-20B fighter jets with domestic engines.”
The report makes no mention of a rumored naval version of the J-20 that would complement or replace the staple of the PLA Navy’s aviation wing, the J-15. As Sputnik reported, a naval version of the J-20 would have to be much smaller than the present design in order to comfortably fit on an aircraft carrier.

The other aircraft under consideration is the Shenyang J-31 or FC-31 Gyrfalcon, a newer fifth-generation jet than the J-20, but for which the PLA has struggled to find an adequate use. However, the Chinese Aeronautical Establishment, the research and development branch of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, said earlier this month it plans to begin testing a “new type of aircraft” for naval use in conjunction with Shenyang Aircraft Corporation, the maker of the FC-31.

[TsarSamuil]

Photos: China Begins Final Assembly of Next Two Advanced Aircraft Carriers, Aims for 2021 Delivery.

Sputnik
MILITARY & INTELLIGENCE 19:07 GMT 20.07.2020

According to photos and reports emerging from China, the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN’s) third and fourth aircraft carriers are having their massive hulls assembled simultaneously. The warships are anticipated to sport electromagnetic catapults, like the US Navy’s newest carrier, making them more dangerous than ever.

Photos have emerged on Chinese social media showing the assembly of two massive warships at the Jiangnan Shipyard outside Shanghai, where the PLAN’s next two aircraft carriers are being built. Anonymous, independent sources told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) they are indeed the first two Type 002 carriers, the first of which will be completed next year.

“Assembly of the new aircraft carrier has begun and is expected to be completed in the first half of next year, because the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down progress,” one source told SCMP. “Workers are also starting the keel-laying for the new carrier’s sister ship. Both ships have been built by the Jiangnan Shipyard outside Shanghai.”

In the photos, several pieces of the ships, assembled separately, can be seen being slowly fitted together.

Earlier this month, observers noted the arrival of the “mega-modules” carrying the pre-assembled pieces into the new shipyard area at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

​A second source told the SCMP, “Construction for the second Type 002 will be faster than the first one because workers have learned and overcome a lot of problems building the first one.

It’s a challenging job because the Type 002 is our country’s first domestically designed aircraft carrier.”

The sources told the paper that work on the first Type 002 began in 2015 and on the second ship in 2018, although it was paused last year for technical reasons.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, DC, estimates the ships’ displacement to be roughly 80,000 tons each, with a 40-meter beam at the waterline. That’s nearly twice the displacement of China’s present carriers and comparable to the US Navy’s first supercarriers, but not quite the size of the Nimitz-class and Ford-class carriers Washington uses today and which clock in at 100,000 tons.

Beijing commissioned its first domestically built aircraft carrier, the Shandong, in December 2019. The warship is a close parallel to the Liaoning, China’s first carrier, which it bought as an incomplete hull from Ukraine, begun in the final days of the Soviet Union as the Kuznetsov-class carrier Riga. Russia operates the Liaoning’s sister ship, the Admiral Kuznetsov, as its navy’s flagship.

However, the new Type 002 is believed to be a different design from the Shandong, which was called the Type 001a before its commissioning, but confusingly also referred to as the Type 002 at times. One major advance is that the new ships are anticipated to have electromagnetic aircraft catapults to lift their air wings into the skies, rather than the bow “ski ramp” system used by the Liaoning and Shandong.

Aircraft catapults mean the Type 002’s warplanes can take off with much more fuel and bombs than before - an important upgrade, since the staple aircraft of Chinese naval aviation, the J-15, suffers major limitations due to its size and weight. However, recent statements from the Chinese Aeronautical Establishment, the research and development branch of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, point to the advancement of proposals to make the experimental FC-31 Gyrfalcon stealth fighter into China’s primary carrier-borne aircraft, with tests beginning before the end of the year.

However, the US Navy’s USS Gerald R. Ford, the only other warship that uses electromagnetic catapults instead of steam catapults, has struggled to make the technology work reliably.

Hong Kong-based military commentator Liang Guoliang told the SCMP the Type 002 is expected to still be oil-fueled; by contrast, the US and French navies have carriers powered by nuclear reactors.

Sputnik has previously reported on the PLAN’s plans to dramatically expand its carrier forces, not just with large fleet carriers like the Type 002, but also with several Type 075 landing helicopter docks (LHDs), a type of helicopter carrier with facilities for dispatching thousands of marines and their equipment for an amphibious assault. China’s Global Times reported the first Type 075 will soon be ready to stretch its sea legs for the first time, and the second finished construction in April; the third is under construction at a different Shanghai shipyard than the Type 002s.

Beijing plans to have six aircraft carriers by 2035, organized into three fleets covering the Yellow Sea, East and South China seas.

[TsarSamuil]

No armor, no cry? UK govt reportedly debates SCRAPPING TANKS in favor of hi-tech weapons.

RT.com
25 Aug, 2020 09:20

A radical plan currently being debated by the government would see the British Army boost its air and cyber warfare capabilities while mothballing its armored fleet, according to a newspaper report.

British defense chiefs have outlined plans to deactivate the Army’s Challenger 2 main battle tanks and Warrior armored fighting vehicles (AFV), as the costs of maintaining them have skyrocketed, the Times newspaper has reported.

Costs aside, the armored fleet – which currently consists of 227 Challengers and 388 Warriors – has reportedly been deemed “obsolete.” Some in the military have argued that 21st-century warfare will rely on cyber capabilities, along with space-related and other cutting-edge warfighting technologies.

“The future is about manned/unmanned autonomous things [personnel remotely controlling or deploying unmanned equipment],” General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of Joint Forces Command, told the Times. Spending money “on a small number of manned platforms” would put the UK “another generation behind.”

According to the report, giving up the heavy armor comes as part of a government integrated foreign policy, defense and security review, which is set to be finished in November. London, however, has already reached out to its NATO allies, telling them of its plans to scrap the tanks.

The UK, one of the few bloc members with a sizeable tank force – is offering a lead role in attack, heavy-lift refueling and reconnaissance aviation, plus unspecified cyber, electronic and unconventional warfare, the paper has learned.

Critics of the controversial plan insist Britain will lose much of its geopolitical power if it gives up the heavy armor. “We simply will not be viewed as a credible leading NATO nation if we cannot field close-combat capabilities. It places us behind countries such as France, Germany, Poland and Hungary,” a high-ranked defense source told the Times.

If the plans are greenlit, the Challengers are most likely to be put into deep preservation, which would allow for bringing them back into operation in case of a crisis. Should the army decide to keep them, only 150 to 170 of them could be upgraded or replaced, according to the paper.

Britain isn’t the only NATO nation to float giving up the tank. A few years ago, the Netherlands has dissolved all of its tank squadrons, opting instead for the lighter infantry fighting vehicles. The Dutch military explained the move by the absence of military threats requiring massive tank deployment.

The tanks aren’t the only matter for debate concerning the armed forces in Britain. Earlier this year, the news that London had quietly agreed to purchase new US nuclear warheads to replace the homegrown Trident sparked quite a stir among MPs.

Lawmakers were outraged by the fact that that the pricey transfer was being carried out with zero consultation and zero scrutiny by Parliament, while the general public accused the Tory government of being Washington’s lapdog.

[TsarSamuil]

US’ successful ICBM intercept test brings us closer to a nuclear war and proves Moscow’s concerns were well grounded.

RT.com
17 Nov, 2020 19:43

The US has long dismissed Russian concerns over the deployment of the Aegis Ashore missile defense system on European soil. This week’s test of the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor against an ICBM has proven Russian concerns correct.

On Tuesday, the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced it conducted a test of an Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System-equipped Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the USS John Finn, against what was termed a “threat-representative Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) target” using a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA interceptor. The test object was launched from Kwajalein Atoll, in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, toward an area of the Pacific Ocean northeast of Hawaii. According to the MDA, the SM-3 Block IIA missile successfully intercepted its target.

The successful test is but the latest in a series intended to prepare the SM-3 Block IIA missile and its associated systems–the Aegis Baseline-9 Weapons System and Command and Control Battle Management Communications (C2BMC) network–for operational duty as America’s frontline missile defense capability.

Previously, the Aegis weapons system had been advertised by the US as being limited against short- and intermediate-range missile threats. This reasoning was cited by both US and NATO officials as a counter to long-standing Russian concerns that the Aegis Ashore missile defense systems installed in Romania and Poland represented a threat to Russian strategic missile capabilities. The shooting down of an ICBM-like target by the Aegis BMD System has shown that Russia’s concerns were, in fact, well grounded.

The Aegis system tested off the coast of Hawaii is identical to those recently made operational in Romania and under construction in Poland, having been specifically designed to use the Aegis Baseline 9 Weapons System, and are interoperable with the US C2BMC European network. As such, there is no reason the European Aegis Ashore sites cannot be used to intercept ICBMs. Indeed, while the Romanian Aegis Ashore is currently equipped with the less-capable SM-3 Block IB interceptor, the Polish Aegis Ashore site will use the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor, providing an ICBM-killing capability for the European continent.

Russia has long held that the deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems in Europe represented a major alteration of the strategic balance of power, insofar as it empowered a potential US/NATO nuclear first strike scenario, in which US nuclear-armed missiles would be launched against Russian strategic nuclear forces in an effort to preemptively destroy them. Europe would then avoid the certainty of mutually assured destruction by hiding behind the US missile defense shield, which in theory would be capable of shooting down the handful of Russian missiles that might survive such an attack.

In response to the initial deployment of Aegis Ashore in Europe, Russia forward-deployed short-range nuclear missiles into Kaliningrad as a deterrent.

The SM-3 Block IIA interceptor represents a great threat to Russia. When deployed from aboard Baseline-9 equipped Arleigh Burke-class destroyers integrated into the C2BMC network, the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor becomes the anchor of a potentially global missile defense shield capable of nullifying the ICBM strike potential of all would-be adversaries–including Russia.

The US Navy currently bases four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers at its Naval Base in Rota, Spain, and has plans to increase this number to six in the near future. These destroyers have begun patrolling the Barents Sea, above the Arctic Circle, putting them in a position to shoot down Russian ICBMs trying to reach the US by overflying the Arctic.

The threat posed to Russia by the SM-3 Block IIA is real. Russia has long linked further progress in arms control to the need for the US to agree to limitations on its ballistic missile defense capabilities to prevent the very situation that is unfolding today.

By putting the SM-3 Black IIA interceptor to the test as an anti-ICBM weapon, the US has made the New START treaty irrelevant overnight, testing the willingness of Russia to agree to an extension. Even if Russia does allow the New START treaty to be extended, there is little doubt that it will insist on meaningful and verifiable limits to US ballistic missile defense capabilities, including the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor, before Russia could sign on to a new follow-on strategic arms reduction treaty.

More critically is what the new SM-3 Block IIA does to the current Russian nuclear posture, which is already being re-evaluated in light of the decision by the US to deploy low-yield nuclear warheads onboard US missile-carrying submarines.

The combination of low-yield nuclear weapons on board US submarines lurking off Russia’s coast with US destroyers equipped to shoot down Russian ICBMs is the stuff of any Russian nuclear planner’s worst nightmare. Russia will most likely be compelled to reexamine its alert posture to account for the increased possibility that the US may seek to launch a preemptive decapitation attack using low-yield nuclear weapons.

This means that Russia will be compelled to react quickly to any detection event suggestive of such a strike, reducing the time for leaders to consider the possibility of error before giving the order to launch. In short, while the US may claim that the SM-3 Block IIA is a defensive weapon that creates stability in regional and global security, the exact opposite is the case–the SM-3 Block IIA increases the chance for inadvertent nuclear war between the US and Russia. This is never a good outcome.

[TsarSamuil]

What about student loans, water or the homeless? Outrage follows report $1.7 trillion F-35 program is now considered a failure.

RT.com
24 Feb, 2021 23:51

A tacit admission by the US Air Force that the F-35 has failed its main mission has triggered an outpouring of outrage from Americans who think the stealth fighter’s gargantuan budget could have been better spent on other things.

Frustration with Lockheed Martin’s fifth-generation stealth jet flooded Twitter on Wednesday, after Forbes magazine published a story about how USAF commissioning a study into a new, cheaper and lighter fighter amounts to “a tacit admission that the F-35 has failed.”

“We could have used this cash to cancel student loans for every person in America,” lamented the liberal watchdog Public Citizen, pointing to the F-35 program’s estimated $1.7 trillion lifetime cost.

For that kind of money, “we could have completely replaced America's water infrastructure,” said environmentalist advocate Erin Brockovich.

“That's enough to house all homeless people in the United States 28 times over,”tweeted Robert Reich, Labor secretary in the Clinton administration.

Democrat activist Charlotte Clymer used the F-35 issue to argue that President Joe Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion coronavirus “relief package” would be money better spent.

Others, like Daily Beast reporter Spencer Ackerman, joked that the plane isn’t really a failure since “It very successfully transfers hundreds of billions of dollars of your money to defense contractors.”

Congress approved the purchase of 93 of the fighters, at $100 million or so on average, in the 2021 Pentagon funding bill.

Wednesday’s outrage was triggered by the Forbes story published the evening before. Author David Axe referred to an article from Air Force Magazine from last week that had gone largely unnoticed until now. It announced a tactical aviation study ordered by USAF Chief of Staff General Charles Q. Brown Jr, looking for a “clean sheet design” of something he called a “fourth-and-a half/fifth-gen minus” aircraft.

Brown compared the F-35 to a “high end” sports car, a Ferrari one drives on Sundays only. The plane’s engines are apparently “failing a little faster in certain areas” due to heavy use, so he wants to “moderate how much we’re using those aircraft.”

“We don’t want to burn up capability now and wish we had it later,” he said. Admitting that the solutions he is proposing won’t be popular, he said it was the only way to “accelerate change” in the Air Force.

“I have a degree in engineering; it’s all about numbers and facts,” Brown is quoted by the Air Force Magazine, which added that he told the staff tasked with the study, “don’t give me emotion, bring me the facts.”

What he wants is “something new and different” that has the capabilities of the aging F-16 “but gets there faster, using our digital approach,” Brown is quoted as saying.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter was supposed to be that “something” all along. Lockheed Martin originally promised a single platform that could replace all other aircraft in US service, with shared parts making production cheaper and maintenance easier. Instead, the F-35 ended up split into three distinct variants, all of which are experiencing chronic performance issues – and a price tag to make even the Pentagon blush.

Year after year, US military inspectors assembled never-ending lists of F-35’s flaws and problems, but the program had facilities across so many states, with so many jobs at stake, that lawmakers were loath to cancel it. Failure was not an option – at least until Brown came along.



The U.S. Air Force Just Admitted The F-35 Stealth Fighter Has Failed

Feb 23, 2021,08:00am
David Axe Forbes Staff - Aerospace & Defense

The U.S. Air Force’s top officer wants the service to develop an affordable, lightweight fighter to replace hundreds of Cold War-vintage F-16s and complement a small fleet of sophisticated—but costly and unreliable—stealth fighters.

The result would be a high-low mix of expensive “fifth-generation” F-22s and F-35s and inexpensive “fifth-generation-minus” jets, explained Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown Jr.

If that plan sounds familiar, it’s because the Air Force a generation ago launched development of an affordable, lightweight fighter to replace hundreds of Cold War-vintage F-16s and complement a small future fleet of sophisticated—but costly and unreliable—stealth fighters.

But over 20 years of R&D, that lightweight replacement fighter got heavier and more expensive as the Air Force and lead contractor Lockheed Martin LMT -2.6% packed it with more and more new technology.

Yes, we’re talking about the F-35. The 25-ton stealth warplane has become the very problem it was supposed to solve. And now America needs a new fighter to solve that F-35 problem, officials said.

With a sticker price of around $100 million per plane, including the engine, the F-35 is expensive. While stealthy and brimming with high-tech sensors, it’s also maintenance-intensive, buggy and unreliable. “The F-35 is not a low-cost, lightweight fighter,” said Dan Ward, a former Air Force program manager and the author of popular business books including The Simplicity Cycle.

The F-35 is a Ferrari, Brown told reporters last Wednesday. “You don’t drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays. This is our ‘high end’ [fighter], we want to make sure we don’t use it all for the low-end fight.”

“I want to moderate how much we’re using those aircraft,” Brown said.

Hence the need for a new low-end fighter to pick up the slack in day-to-day operations. Today, the Air Force’s roughly 1,000 F-16s meet that need. But the flying branch hasn’t bought a new F-16 from Lockheed since 2001. The F-16s are old.

In his last interview before leaving his post in January, Will Roper, the Air Force’s top acquisition official, floated the idea of new F-16 orders. But Brown shot down the idea, saying he doesn’t want more of the classic planes.

The 17-ton, non-stealthy F-16 is too difficult to upgrade with the latest software, Brown explained. Instead of ordering fresh F-16s, he said, the Air Force should initiate a “clean-sheet design” for a new low-end fighter.

Brown’s comments are a tacit admission that the F-35 has failed. As conceived in the 1990s, the program was supposed to produce thousands of fighters to displace almost all of the existing tactical warplanes in the inventories of the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.

The Air Force alone wanted nearly 1,800 F-35s to replace aging F-16s and A-10s and constitute the low end of a low-high fighter mix, with 180 twin-engine F-22s making up the high end.

But the Air Force and Lockheed baked failure into the F-35’s very concept. “They tried to make the F-35 do too much,” said Dan Grazier, an analyst with the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, D.C.

There’s a small-wing version for land-based operations, a big-wing version for the Navy’s catapult-equipped aircraft carriers and, for the small-deck assault ships the Marines ride in, a vertical-landing model with a downward-blasting lift engine.

The complexity added cost. Rising costs imposed delays. Delays gave developers more time to add yet more complexity to the design. Those additions added more cost. Those costs resulted in more delays. So on and so forth.

Fifteen years after the F-35’s first flight, the Air Force has just 250 of the jets. Now the service is signaling possible cuts to the program. It’s not for no reason that Brown has begun characterizing the F-35 as a boutique, high-end fighter in the class of the F-22. The Air Force ended F-22 production after completing just 195 copies.

“The F-35 is approaching a crossroads,” Grazier said.

Pentagon leaders have hinted that, as part of the U.S. military’s shift in focus toward peer threats—that is, Russia and China—the Navy and Air Force might get bigger shares of the U.S. military’s roughly $700-billion annual budget. All at the Army’s expense.

“If we’re going to pull the trigger on a new fighter, now’s probably the time,” Grazier said. The Air Force could end F-35 production after just a few hundred examples and redirect tens of billions of dollars to a new fighter program.

But it’s an open question whether the Air Force will ever succeed in developing a light, cheap fighter. The new low-end jet could suffer the same fate as the last low-end jet—the F-35—and steadily gain weight, complexity and cost until it becomes, well, a high-end jet.

If that happens, as it’s happened before, then some future Air Force chief of staff might tell reporters—in, say, the year 2041—that the new F-36 is a Ferrari and you don’t drive your Ferrari to work every day.

To finally replace its 60-year-old F-16s, this future general might say, the Air Force should develop an affordable, lightweight fighter.

[TsarSamuil]

Iran unveils new Predator-lookalike drone.

RT
Feb 27, 2021



Tehran has proudly flaunted its new Kaman-22 drone, which can reportedly fly for over 24 hours, and carry cargo and combat equipment. Commentators couldn’t help but notice it looks rather similar to the US-manufactured MQ-1 Predator.

The development comes over four years after Iran showed an example of what was apparently a captured US military Predator, which Tehran erroneously described as a US Army MQ-1C Gray Eagle.

[TsarSamuil]

America can successfully defend Taiwan against China – but only in its dreams.

RT.com
19 Apr 2021 | 20:36 GMT

The US military has deteriorated to the point that the only way it could win a simulated war game in which it was called on to defend Taiwan from a ‘Chinese invasion’ force was by inventing capabilities it does not yet possess.

In 2018 and 2019, the US Air Force conducted detailed simulated war games that had its forces square off against those of China. On both occasions, the US was decisively defeated, the first time challenging the Chinese in the South China Sea, and the second time defending Taiwan – which China sees as an integral part of its territory – against a Chinese invasion.

In 2020, the US repeated the Taiwan scenario, and won – but only barely. The difference? In both 2018 and 2019, it played with the resources it had on hand. Last year, it gave itself a host of new technologies and capabilities that are either not in production or aren’t even planned for development. In short, the exercise was as far removed from reality as it could get. The fact is the US can only successfully defend Taiwan from a full-scale Chinese invasion in its dreams.

What the current war games underscored is that, as currently configured, equipped, and deployed, the US Air Force lacks the required combination of lethality and sustainability necessary to wage full-scale conventional conflict against a peer-level foe. The mix of aircraft currently in the US Air Force inventory was unable to ‘compete’ in the war game – even the current model of F-35 was excluded as not being up to the task of fighting and surviving against the Chinese military. Instead, the wargamers completely altered the composition and operational methodology of the US Air Force, providing it with combat aircraft that are either still on the drawing board, or have not even been considered for procurement yet. They also completely altered the ‘layout’ of forces, manufacturing new airfields that do not exist, and connecting them with command-and-control capabilities just as fictional.

There was a time when the notion of US air superiority, if not supremacy, was virtually guaranteed on any battlefield that could be imagined. This was especially true in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the corresponding disintegration of Russian combat power. The US was able to hold onto this edge over the course of the 1990s simply by exploiting the advantages accrued from years of investment made in modern aircraft and combat systems during the Cold War, and the fact no other nation was able and/or willing to invest in their respective military to challenge the US in that arena.

The events of 9/11 proved to be seminal in the decline of American military power. The United States poured its entire national security focus into defeating the forces of ‘global terrorism,’ and engaged itself in the futile act of ‘nation-building’ in Afghanistan and Iraq. In doing so, the needs of one combat command – US Central Command (CENTCOM), responsible for US military interests in the Middle East and Southwest Asia – took priority over all others.

Gone were the days when the US spent billions of dollars preparing to fight a major war in the Pacific, another major war in Europe, and a ‘holding action’ in the Middle East. In the post-9/11 world, the sole focus of the US military became low-intensity conflict and counterinsurgency. Every aspect of military existence – recruiting, training, organization, equipment, employment, and sustainability – was defined by the needs of CENTCOM in fighting the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. If something did not further the CENTCOM mission, it was either discarded or modified so it would.

The US military spent itself in the CENTCOM area of operations – physically, fiscally, morally, and intellectually. Every single principle of war necessary for a military to prevail was sacrificed in the deserts and mountains of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Today, with the political decision having been made to depart Afghanistan, and a similar decision being brooded regarding Iraq and its corollary conflict, Syria, the US military is a fundamentally broken institution. It lost its ‘forever wars’ in the Middle East and Southwest Asia by not winning. As such, the senior leadership at the helm of the US military has been conditioned to accept defeat as de rigueur; it comes with the territory, a reality explained away by lying – either to yourself, your superiors, or both. Too many successful careers were created on the backs of lies repackaged as truth, of defeats sold as victories, as deficits portrayed as assets.

In many ways, the recently concluded US Air Force war game is a byproduct of this psychosis – an exercise in self-delusion, in which reality is replaced by a fictional world where everything works as planned, even if it does not exist. The US Air Force cannot wage a successful war against China today. Nor can it do so against Russia. Its ability to sustain a successful air campaign against either Iran or North Korea is likewise questionable. This is the kind of reality that would, in a world where facts mattered, cost a lot of senior people their jobs, in uniform and out.

The culpability of this systemic incompetence is so widespread, however, that there can be no serious accounting for what has transpired. Instead, the US Air Force, having been confronted by the reality of its shortcomings, ‘invents’ a victory. In and of itself, this ‘victory’ is meaningless. If China were to invade Taiwan, there is literally nothing short of employing nuclear weapons the US could do to stop it. But by ‘beating’ China using fictional resources, the US Air Force has created a blueprint of procurement that will define its budgetary requests for the next decade.

In doing so, however, the US Air Force is simply repeating the mistakes of the CENTCOM-driven ‘forever war,’ focusing on achieving ‘victory’ in one theater of operations at the exclusion of all others. By building a fictitious ‘model’ military for the purpose of prevailing in a simulated war game in which every advantage was conceded to the United States, the US Air Force is simply continuing the pattern of behavior built around lies, deceit, and self-deception that has guided it, and its senior officers and civilian leadership, for the past two decades. The end result will be that, even if the Air Force gets all the tools and capabilities it claims it needs to win in any ‘defense of Taiwan’ war game (and it will not), the only way it can prevail in any such conflict will be in its dreams.

[TsarSamuil]

EMMA | THE CALLING | GOARMY

GoArmy
May 4, 2021

[TsarSamuil]

This is great! they rejected sale to Russia, now loose again, hopefully their naval industry collapses!

‘Stabbed in the back’: France ‘regrets’ AUKUS nuclear submarine deal that scuttled its multi-billion contract with Australia.

RT.com
16 Sep, 2021 00:33

A new plan to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines using US and UK technology may be aimed to counter China, but steps on the toes of NATO ally France, which lost a massive shipbuilding contract with Canberra.

US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his British counterpart Boris Johnson announced the ‘AUKUS’ initiative in a three-way virtual event on Wednesday. It is supposed to start 18-month consultations to eventually provide Australia with nuclear-powered but conventionally armed submarines – making it the first non-atomic nation with such weapons.

French shipbuilder Naval Group reportedly expressed “disappointment” at the announcement, as it meant Canberra was abandoning their contract for a dozen diesel-electric submarines. The Australian press has reported the value of that contract at AU$90 billion (US$66 billion).

The Naval Group contract was personally backed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who promised “full and complete” commitment to it as recently as June, according to AFP – even as Australia was already in talks with London and Washington, apparently.

Canberra’s “regrettable” decision was “contrary to the letter and the spirit of the cooperation which prevailed between France and Australia,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said in a joint response to the AUKUS announcement.

Both Le Drian and France’s former ambassador to the US, Gerard Araud, later said their country had been “stabbed in the back.”

Part of the problem with the Naval Group deal was that the Australian government was insisting on doing the manufacturing and sourcing the components locally, according to Reuters. At least one Australian MP has already wondered whether Canberra will make the same demands in the AUKUS deal, or simply buy off-the-shelf designs from Washington and London.

Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton and Foreign Minister Marise Payne are already in Washington, while PM Scott Morrison is expected to arrive later this month.

The Royal Australian Navy currently operates six Collins-class submarines, based on a Swedish design and built between 1990 and 2003 in Port River, near Adelaide. Canberra had made a deal with Naval Group in 2016 for a dozen new vessels, but the contract has since “broken down over a series of disagreements over spiralling costs, design changes, schedule slippage and local industry involvement,” according to the Australian outlet Financial Review.

After one European think-tank fellow called the cancellation “a knife in the back to Paris on a very important deal for France as it looked to solidify [its] own complementary role in the Indo-Pacific,” an Australian journalist in Berlin disagreed.

Australia was “long unhappy with the cost blowouts and missed deadlines of [the] French programme,” argued Trent Murray. “In the eyes of Canberra, Naval Group simply didn’t deliver what was being paid for.”

The AUKUS arrangement has both financial and political implications for France, numerous observers have pointed out. The French government has a 62% stake in Naval Group, with the remaining third held by Thales, itself partly state-owned. Losing the contract to the US and UK would also be a “major blow for Macron” and “could prompt a rethinking in France about strategic alliances with the Anglosphere,” said a Reuters correspondent in Paris.

The statement by Le Drian and Parly appears to bear this out, as they pointed out the “regrettable” decision by Australia “reinforces the need to raise the issue of European strategic autonomy” as the only “credible way to defend our interests and our values ​​in the world.”



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France says Biden acted like Trump as UK & US steal huge Aussie submarine deal in 'brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision'

RT.com
16 Sep, 2021 10:27

France's foreign minister has spoken of his "anger" and "bitterness" and has criticized the US and Britain, after the allies agreed a deal to supply nuclear submarines to Australia, undoing Paris' $40-billion deal for French subs.

"I am angry and bitter. This isn't done between allies," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told franceinfo radio on Thursday morning, after the leaders of Australia, the UK and US convened a virtual press conference on Wednesday night, announcing the AUKUS pact and the delivery of conventionally-armed nuclear-power submarines to Canberra.

The delivery of the nuclear subs under the AUKUS (Australia, UK, US) pact means Canberra will scrap a 2016 deal with French firm Naval Group to upgrade its fleet with more diesel submarines. The scrapped deal was reportedly worth $40 billion.

"This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr Trump used to do," Le Drian stated. He also took aim at Canberra, "it's a stab in the back. We created a relationship of trust with Australia and that trust has been broken."

Just two weeks ago, the Australian defense and foreign ministers reconfirmed their commitment to the deal with France, despite reported challenges. In June, French President Emmanuel Macron said the deal represented the promise of continued cooperation for years to come.

Earlier on Thursday, British defense secretary Ben Wallace denied it was a "betrayal" of London's French allies, but said he understood the disappointment felt in France and at Naval Group.

Under the 2016 deal with Paris, the Royal Australian Navy was to receive a fleet of 12 of its cutting-edge diesel-electric submarines, to replace its more than two-decades-old Collins submarines. It was broadly considered to be in the mutual interest of western nations in an effort to counter the perceived China threat.

As noted by Wallace, the nuclear vessels to be delivered under the AUKUS pact were harder to detect and don't need to resurface.

Also on Thursday, French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said the government would consider all options to safeguard the Naval Group, including asking for compensation from Canberra. "We are studying all avenues," Parly told French radio station RFI.

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‘Breach of confidence:’ French FM denounces AUKUS deal, says Europeans need to rethink alliances and partnerships.

RT.com
20 Sep, 2021 23:21

France will rethink its concept of alliances and partnerships after the US negotiated a nuclear submarine deal with the UK and Australia without so much as telling Paris, said the French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

“At issue here isn’t so much the breach of a weapons contract – even if this harms France – but the breach in confidence between allies,” Le Drian said Monday at a press conference in New York, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session. “This calls for serious reflection among Europeans on the very concept that we have of alliances and partnerships.”

US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British PM Boris Johnson announced last week that they will be working together to arm Canberra with nuclear-powered submarines. The project, dubbed AUKUS, scrapped a major Franco-Australian shipbuilding contract for diesel-powered submarines, and Paris reportedly found out about it from the media.

Le Drian said the US announced the decision “without telling anyone,” which is regrettable because “an alliance, a partnership, that means transparency, predictability. And none of this was there.” Alliances mean talking to one another, not hiding important matters from one another, and making them public without informing allies in advance, he said.

Unilateralism, unpredictability, absence of consultations between allies – in particular the US – “means that reflexes remain from an era we hoped had gone,” he added, in what was universally interpreted as a reference to the Trump administration.

Le Drian also wondered about the effects of AUKUS, which France considers to be “very confrontational towards China.” Regretting that Europe was excluded from this initiative, the chief French diplomat called on EU allies to “chart their own path.”

This sort of talk echoes the comments by President Emmanuel Macron in November 2019, when he condemned Turkey’s incursion into Syria as unilateral action unbecoming of a NATO ally and spoke of the “brain death” of the US-led alliance.

France has so far responded to the AUKUS snub by recalling its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra for consultations, and canceling a celebration of the Battle of the Capes, a 1781 French naval victory that helped the American colonists win their independence from Britain.

Le Drian also scrapped a planned meeting with his British counterpart. He told reporters on Monday he had no intention of meeting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the UN, though he might run into him “in a corridor somewhere.”

Paris had previously expected to figure prominently in any US and Australian plans for the Indo-Pacific, given that France has a number of overseas territories in the region – such as French Polynesia and New Caledonia – where it also maintains a military presence.

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France cancels events with UK & Switzerland amid AUKUS fallout.

RT
Sep 20, 2021



France is fuming at Australia opting for US submarines over French ones: it is unthinkable to move forward on trade negotiations as if nothing has happened.

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‘Wake-up call’ for EU: Berlin voices support for France in AUKUS submarine row with US & Australia.

RT.com
21 Sep, 2021 11:13

EU powerhouse Germany says France being snubbed by Australia in favor of a partnership with the US and the UK is a signal to continental European nations to stand together and boost self-reliance.

France invoked EU solidarity after Australia cancelled a $40 billion contract for French-made attack submarines in favor of US-made nuclear-powered boats. The deal, which was announced as part of the so-called AUKUS cooperation mechanism also involving Britain, blindsided France.

German European Affairs Minister Michael Roth called the ongoing row a “wake-up call” for the EU.

“We cannot exclusively rely on others but must cooperate, and we have to overcome our differences [within the EU] and speak with one voice,” the minister told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday. He added that “the lost trust has to be rebuilt, and it will obviously not be easy. But we want to make a constructive contribution [to the process].”

Roth was speaking in Brussels ahead of a meeting of general affairs ministers of the 27-strong union. Other European officials expressed similar sentiments ahead of the summit.

French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune insisted that EU states “cannot act as if nothing happened” and should “look into all options” when formulating a joint response.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, called the situation “a crisis of trust” and blasted the “unilateralism, unpredictability, brutality” and lack of respect to partners that the move entailed. Paris believed those qualities to be “part of the past, but it continues,” he said, apparently referring to the treatment that European members of NATO received from the Trump administration.

Earlier on Monday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the treatment of France “not acceptable” and stressed that there were questions that needed to be answered before Western nations could go back to “business as usual.”

“We are friends and allies, and friends and allies talk to each other … on issues of common interest. This clearly did not happen,” she told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

The EU has reportedly postponed preparations for an upcoming EU-US trade and technology council, which is scheduled for September 29, in a gesture of protest. France earlier recalled its ambassadors from the US and Australia, demonstrating the level of its anger about being sidelined.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday disproved expectations that he would meet with French President Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week. “There is not an opportunity for that at this time. I'm sure that opportunity will come in time,” he told reporters.

Morrison will meet Biden and other European leaders in New York before travelling to Washington for a meeting of the so-called Quad, an informal Pacific security bloc that also includes India, Japan, and the United States.

[TsarSamuil]

‘It’s already over’: US has lost AI battle to China, Pentagon’s former software chief admits.

RT.com
11 Oct 2021 | 08:30 GMT

China is going to dominate the world through its advances in AI and other emerging technologies, and the US has already missed out on a chance to prevent it, the Pentagon’s recently resigned software chief has said.

“We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion,” Nicolas Chaillan told the Financial Times in his first interview since his shock resignation last month.

Chaillan, who was the first chief software officer for the US Air Force and oversaw the Pentagon’s efforts to boost cybersecurity over the past three years, announced his resignation in September in protest against the sluggish pace of technological progress in the American military.

“Whether it takes a war or not is kind of anecdotal,” but China, which has prioritized artificial intelligence, machine learning and cyber capabilities, is on course for global domination and control of everything from media narratives to geopolitics, he insisted.

Washington might be spending three times more than Beijing on defense, but this money is being used in the wrong areas, said the French-born tech entrepreneur, who became a US citizen in 2016. AI and other emerging technologies are more crucial for America’s future than massive and high-budget hardware projects like fifth-generation F-35 fighter jets, he argued.

One thing holding the US back is the ongoing debate on the ethics of artificial intelligence, while Chinese companies are devoting “massive investment” to AI without a second thought, according to Chaillan.

Chinese firms are also actively cooperating with their government on AI, but US companies, like Google, are reluctant to work with the American authorities, he added.

The former software chief also sounded the alarm over the cyber defenses of US government agencies, saying that they were at “kindergarten level” in some areas.

In the coming weeks, Chaillan plans to testify before Congress in relation to the issue to attract more attention to the danger posed to the US by China’s technological advancements.

Chaillan's resignation made a splash after he announced it in a bombshell letter in early September. He complained that bureaucracy and lack of funding had prevented him from doing his job properly, saying that he was fed up with "hearing the right words without action."

The Pentagon was "setting up critical infrastructure to fail" by appointing military officials with no expertise in the field in charge of cyber initiatives, the 37-year-old argued. "We would not put a pilot in the cockpit without extensive flight training; why would we expect someone with no IT experience to be close to successful?"

He kept criticizing the Department of Defense after his departure, claiming during a CyberSatGov conference earlier this week that American national security satellite providers were unable to develop "at the speed of relevance" finding themselves stuck in the Pentagon's ecosystem.

NASA was also grilled, with Chaillan saying that it was "a little bit of a disgrace that we had to wait for SpaceX to bring a capability to allow us to send Americans back to the ISS and not depend on the Russians." Souyz rockets, launched by Russia's space agency Roscosmos, have been delivering NASA astronauts to orbit from the shutdown of the shuttle program in 2011 till 2020 when SpaceX developed capabilities to send humans to space.