Commander-in-Chief
to be Trump is back at it again. He has taken plunge
into the Pentagon procurement wars and the heads of
Boeing and Lockheed—along with generals and admirals in tow—have visited
his Florida estate to
kiss the ring and pitch their wares. Now he's tweeted that he
is having Boeing price out a “comparable” F/A-18 Super Hornet to the F-35
because of the latter’s cost and developmental overruns.
Twitter from Trump:
Based
on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have
asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!
The only problem is that
there is no
Super Hornet comparable to the F-35, and there never will be. First
off, there is a short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) variant of the
F-35, something the Super Hornet family cannot offer.
Additionally, Boeing has quietly played with the idea of a very stealthy Hornetadaptation, most likely an
unmanned one, but it didn’t seem to go anywhere. Even if the F-35 program were
cancelled—which has become nearly unthinkable—major force structure investments
in other platforms would be necessary to have the proper capabilities mix.
Otherwise there will be a massive capabilities gap left behind by
the already 20+ year old Joint Strike Fighter program
For instance, if the F-35
were no more, the USAF would have to
put the F-22 back into production, purchase more F-16s
and possibly F-15s. Heavier investments in advanced
Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAVs) and long-range
strike, namely the B-21 Raider, would also need to go
along with it. This is precisely the force structure I have pushed for many
years.
Likewise for the Navy (which is the service that
Trump might be talking about exclusively here) more Super Hornets and Growlers
would be a relevant choice, but they would need to be paired with substantial
investment into fast-tracking navalized UCAVs into the inventory and larger
purchases of standoff munitions—something I have proposed for many years.
The Marine Corps is a
different animal altogether. Their rapidly
aging legacy Hornet fleet could be, and should have
been, replaced with Super Hornets. Instead they opted to hold out for an all
F-35 force made up mainly of B models and a smaller number of C models.
Cancel the F-35 and the aged AV-8B Harrier would continue to serve indefinitely
as the only short-takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) tactical jet alternative
to the F-35B.
BOEING
Super Hornet
Advanced.
The Marines AV-8Bs can
continue to fly for a couple more decades with the help of the UK’s GR7/9
Harrier fleet, bought for parts by the USMC for pennies on the dollar. Still, axing the
F-35B and keeping the A and C model would be foolish. The A and C models pay
for the F-35B’s STOVL capabilities in a compromised
design (you can read all about this odd situation here). By eliminating the type
and keeping the others, the US armed forces will never benefit from this design
sacrifice. In fact, the F-35B is the most relevant of all F-35 variants, at
least to the US.
It is tough to tell from a
tweet what exactly Trump is talking about here, and maybe it's just a bargaining
ploy. But if the President-elect has been informed that the Super Hornet
alone, even in its most advanced conceptual configuration, is capable of
replacing the F-35, he is sorely and alarmingly wrong. The situation is
far more complex than that, but with the right overall high-low capability mix
strategy, a more flexible, affordable and capable air
combat capability can be had without the F-35, or at least with far fewer of
them than the 2500 or so that the US currently plans on buying.
LOCKHEED
F-35B hovering.
Contact the author
Tyler@thedrive.com
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