War in the ocean. Why do the US should invest more and more in roundabout weapons
With the advent and deployment of the enemy of the winged and ballistic missiles of the long distance, from which enemies can attack the forces of the United States and allies have increased significantly. We believe that the era of low range ammunition in conflicts between equal opponents is almost over. Focus has translated the article by Josh Portzer and Jonathan Gosselin about why it is important to invest more in a long distance weapon.
According to the commander of the naval operations in his navigation for 2022, "to create dynamic chains of lesions necessary for [distributed maritime operations], we have to modernize and integrate the existing opportunities for drawing upbuilders, comparing our analytics, prototypes, experiments, experiments. By requirements and development of opportunities. " The US Navy must buy more long -range firearms.
They need these weapons to repel and destroy threats that spread rapidly in Indo-Pacific and European Theaters. By diversifying your portfolio of shock capabilities for aircraft carrier, the Navy can give commanding more tools capable of fire at distances, which take the radius of defense of the enemy.
The P-8A Poseidon is a multi-purpose marine patrol aircraft offering a platform Navy capable of creating a lesion chain for direct attack or assisting aircraft aircraft carrier by transmitting data to other shock aircraft. The Ministry of Defense should follow the example of the Navy, accepting and fully investing in a larger number of firearms, moreover on more platforms.
The P-8A is a favorable platform for demonstrating how the range on a multi-purpose aircraft can expand the USA capabilities in the Indo-Pacific. While the Ministry is considering the prospective means of long -fired defeat in the future, there are several ways to achieve financial efficiency. The practical conduct of aerodynamic tests will reduce the cost of introducing new weapons on a wide range of platforms.
The choice of weapons that can carry different platforms allows you to get savings from scale (in addition to the operational advantages that give such extended concepts of combined use). Finally, the further application of the long -term procurement program will not only allow the US Armed Forces to buy more weapons more effectively, but also become a signal of trust for their invaluable partners in the industry. There is a tendency to call rivalry with a modern Cold War.
However, the challenges facing the United States have changed since 1991. Opponents of the United States have developed the opportunity to strike beyond visibility, which was made possible by advanced targeting through nodes and networks. These opportunities should bring US aircraft and ships beyond the reach of most weapons, which is delivered from the air, which will complicate a large air attack.
The DF-21 and DF-26 ballistic missiles are armed with the missile troops of the People's Liberation Army of China. These missiles are designed for the delivery of nuclear or ordinary ammunition for maritime and ground purposes, using high -speed ballistic trajectories at high speeds. The naval forces of the People's Liberation Army were also invested in increasing their own capacity, receiving numerous anti-ship winged missiles and landscapes of the "Earth-Air" classes.
It is expected that by 2025, the number of Naval forces of China will exceed 400 combat units. Russia has also developed a series of winged missiles in the Caliber Class Systems Family. President Vladimir Putin's regime retains a powerful air defense and is currently deploying winged and ballistic air base missiles to keep the US Navy. The aircraft carrier's air wing is undoubtedly the center of gravity for the current and future Navy.
However, fighters are limited by the weight of long -range weapons. The extra weight reduces the flight range and the time of the fighter in the air. The greater the weight of the fighter, the more fuel and the more refueling he needs. The tankers are vulnerable to attacks and the Navy cannot assume that the logistics of the fighting theater will remain intact.
Although the MQ-25 Stingray will give an aircraft carrier an additional (and vulnerable) possibility of organic refueling and thus increase its lethal power, this program is still in the development stage (however, it should be said that it is rapidly developing). Fighters will remain indispensable for carrying out anti -ship missiles and tasks of control over the sea.
However, the presence of a diversified portfolio of lesions helps to manage the risks, and the P-8A has integral benefits that will give commanders more opportunities. P-8A Poseidon is a paramilitary Boeing 737 that performs a variety of tasks. Its three main competencies are the ability to p-8A collect intelligence data, as well as to distribute them numerous networks leads to two remarkable results.
It can provide the target and information about the surrounding sea routes for fighters or a ship, which will then strike at the target. In addition, the P-8A can find, fix, track, target, strike, and generally assess the condition of the enemy unit. Thus, the P-8A has a flexible chain of lesion that many naval units are not present. It can perform the "primary" and "secondary" tasks of the lesions or both of them together.
By striking distant goals with P-8A, the Navy receives a clear advantage of distributed choice. The shock group commander can attack the aircraft carrier unit, and the P-8A provides data for the goal on the horizon. Or, the commander can send his airplane to fight other threats by instructing P-8A independently to neutralize a specific threat from a long distance.
With a large number of options for choosing the decision -making space of the commander increases, which leads to an invaluable increase in the potential of maneuvering. Although General Joe Danford meant a much wider picture of hostilities that covers cyber and information spheres, as he claims, the rapid management of decision-making space is of paramount importance, given the speed of modern war.
The P-8A can carry five ammunition in the internal compartments, as well as four winged and two central suspensions. It is theoretically possible to double two rockets on one winged suspension with a connecting pylon, which gives eight possible wing suspensions (of course, depending on the weight category and flight tests).
Although the Navy has not yet conducted a full technical and economic justification for combining different weight categories on P-8A suspensions, there is a potential for studying options such as loading weapons weighing more than 1300 kg on the central suspension of the aircraft. Studying the expansion of transportation and use of weapons can open a way for more lethal weapons that the Navy can use for all their forces.
Depending on the results of such a study, the P-8A will be able to follow the example of an aircraft carrier with an increase in the Arsenal of the Far Fire. This is not only because the total number of strokes (and the angles of their application, which complicates the calculation of risks by the enemy), but also because it is a reasonable business solution for the Great Navy.
As we make sure, more of the same weapons are usually a more profitable purchase than several types of weapons purchased in smaller quantities. P-8A can also carry a large amount of fuel. As a rule, the aircraft is able to be in the air for 10 hours and has the ability to refuel in the air. In this respect, the Navy will win because the P-8A is the property of the Navy.
The placement of such potential exclusively in the Navy (at least for the case) gives the military commanders the confidence that the means they want to use will remain at their disposal before and after the mission is completed without the risk of redistribution of tasks. In addition, P-8A aircraft is a huge number, which increases the superiority of the Navy in distributed maritime operations and, therefore, in the distributed selection of lesions.
More P-8A, involved in the theater of war, means increased distribution of operations, which, for its part, means more geographical risk zones for US opponents. We find ourselves in the battle space under the slogan "More - it means better. " The P-8A works on the base of the Tactical Open Mission Software software, which makes it easy to add additional weapons to the aircraft.
As the software is improved, developers can develop and integrate applications for operators that will be used on P-8A to plan missions and work together. The interface also allows P-8A to use different types of weapons from different defense companies. Raytheon produces a light torpedo MK-54, and McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) is AGM-84 Harpoon. More recently, the P-8A has expanded its lethal range thanks to a long-range test of AGM-158C Long Range Anti-Ship Miss Martin.
The PMA-242 Program has recently mentioned the study of the combat potential of equipping the P-8A with an advanced anti-radar control missile of increased range AGM-88G production of Northrop Grumman. All these weapons will integrate or be integrated into the P-8A through open mission software architecture. Although such integration is related to financial costs, the process itself is quite simple.
The use of the same basic software also provides a simplified, familiar architecture for the operator, regardless of the type of weapon. The Navy needs a long-range weapon, and its installation on multi-purpose planes with long flight duration, such as P-8A, can significantly increase the mortality rate of the aircraft carrier. In this regard, we believe that the Ministry of Defense can use several directions to increase mortality while reducing costs.
The development and creation of weapons prototypes may be value, but often not taken into account the factor of weapons tests - including all sorts of mechanical tests necessary for demonstration of aerodynamic stability and release characteristics. There is now a change in the concept aimed at transferring more tests to the virtual sphere. Supercomputers can radically change the methods of work of the Ministry of Defense, and, most importantly, they already exist.
For example, High Performing Computing Modernization Program is a company that uses supercomputers to carry out various types of flight tests through virtual modeling. The platform that is at the middle stage of its life cycle is more difficult to involve the budget for research and development to finance flight tests, unless they are provided from the outside (and even then the aircraft for testing and flight staff are limited, and therefore can become a stumbling block).
The Supercomputer will allow programmers and companies to direct money for weapons and software development research, not to jet fuel and appropriate maintenance of aircraft that provide physical tests. This will become even more relevant when the Ministry of the Navy and Defense will expand the list of their long-range ammunition. A long -range anti -ship is an attractive weapon because it can carry many different aircraft. The Air Force also adopted this rocket.
This allows the Ministry of Defense to divide the purchase costs between agencies and programs and to a large extent to use the scale effect. Niche, small -scale weapons can be convincing in its capabilities, but limit the purchasing power of all agencies. In addition, the same weapon allows you to hone the ways of its use on different platforms, in different agencies and in different partners. In addition to "stock purchases", weapons have been purchased for several years.
Many years of purchases allow the Ministry of Defense to bypass some risks related to the annual contracts (for example, an annual increase in various costs) for certain procurement programs. Although the expected percentage of cost savings is variable, it can be from 5 to 10%. This is quite a lot, because the order is potentially calculated by hundreds of millions of dollars on a number of platforms.
Equally important is that further benefits of using this tool will help to strengthen the confidence of partners of the US industry. If industrialists know that the salary fund for the next year is nothing threatening, they feel the influx of energy that the industry can invest in the production of weapons, not in the hedge rates on a change in the production line, if next year there is no money next year.
The United States is constantly saying that they want to have a stronger industrial base - but it is a two -way street. If investments in Chinese and Russian weapons are demonstrative for the development of marine war, then the next conflict will unfold at vast ocean distances. The arrows will never meet face-to-face. There will be no (again, eternal and sign) "transplants from the cabin into an inverted cab" with an increase in escalation.
Only hypersonic weapons output, after which there will be either bursts or explosions. The Navy understands the importance of long-range weapons, as evidenced by the fact that far accurate weapons are first in the list of imperatives of the head of naval operations. We believe that the use of these weapons on the P-8A, and then on other multi-purpose aircraft in tandem with a ticket of the aircraft carrier will give the senior commanders many opportunities.
They will be able to use aircraft to help others in the purpose of strikes or act at the same time as a sensor and shooter, completely closing the lesion chain. This gives the commander more space to make decisions and, accordingly, greater freedom of maneuver. However, this option is difficult to sell without multi -purpose aircraft carrying truckers. We have offered some ideas that can help streamline fire at a great distance for several platforms in the future.
Although the conflicts in which we participated were on the open sea, our forces are undoubtedly common - and united! Accordingly, the Ministry of Defense has the right to influence how the US armed forces collectively fire in long distance. And for this, a smart first step would be to turn to the Navy's navigation plan. Senior Lieutenant Josh Minkus Porter and Senior Lieutenant Jonathan "DAC" GUsselin are instructors in weapons and tactics P-8A in the US Navy.