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US Air
Force: We're in ‘danger’ of falling behind China and Russia by 2025
By Kris Osborn | Warrior
Maven
The U.S. Air Force will fall behind
Russia and China by 2025 unless the service quickly embarks upon a sizeable
expansion of its fighting technologies, weapons arsenal and major attack
platforms - to include new bombers, fighters, drones, rescue helicopters and
more, senior service leaders suggest.
Following a
detailed analysis, which likely included a close examination of threats,
mission requirements and dangerous emerging technologies, the service has laid
out a detailed request to grow the service from 312 operational squadrons up to
386. The largest needed increases, according to the Air Force plan, include 22
new ISR Command and Control squadrons, 7 more fighter squadrons and 5 more
bomber squadrons.
“The National Defense strategy tells us tells us we need to be able to defend
the homeland, provide nuclear deterrence and win wars against major powers
while countering rogue nations,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said
recently at an Air Force Association convention. “We need to create dilemmas
for our adversary."
By stating that
the Air Force “needs” 386 squadrons to meet the expected threat by 2025 to
2030, Wilson did appear to be indicating, if in an indirect way, that the U.S.
Air Force is in serious danger of falling behind Russia and China - should the
service not expand.
An Air Force
report cites Wilson explaining it this way - the analysis supporting the 386
squadrons needed to support the National Defense Strategy is based on estimates
of the expected threat by 2025 to 2030. At the end of the Cold War, the Air
Force had 401 operational squadrons. By any cursory estimation, it does not
take much to notice an uptick in mission demands for the Air Force, coming on
the heels of more than 15-years of counterinsurgency air support missions in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Pentagon
has sent F-35-armed Theater Security Packages to the Pacific and moved F-22s
closer to the Russian border. Meanwhile, the F-35 has launched its first
attacks in history and there is an incessant, ubiquitous refrain that there is
consistently just not enough ISR to meet current mission demands.
“The Air Force
is too small for what the nation expects of us,” Wilson said.
Other details
of the Air Force requested expansion plan include:
-- 5 More Bomber squadrons
-- 9 More Combat Search and
Rescue squadrons—
22 More Command and Control -
ISR squadrons
-- 14 More Tanker squadrons
7 More Fighter Squadrons
-- 7 More Space Squadrons
Interestingly,
the Air Force request, according to Wilson, does not ask specifically for a
numerical increase in cyber squadrons, although Wilson did say much more would
be asked of the current cyber force. The Air Force is also not requesting an
increase in ICBMs, in part because the service is already well underway with a
program to build 400 new Ground-Based Strategic Deterrence ground-launched
nuclear missiles.
Meanwhile,
statements from former senior Air Force leaders, Congressional analysts,
observers and critics may go even further when it comes to voicing serious
concerns about the service’s ability to meet anticipated threats -- calling the
current situation “dangerous.” “The USAF is a geriatric force—it has bombers,
tankers, and trainer aircraft over 50 years old; helicopters over 40; and
fighters over 30—it has a 2000+ pilot shortage,” Ret. Lt. Gen. David Deptula,
Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told Warrior in an
interview.
To underscore his point, Deptula cited a recent independent
bipartisan Commission on the National Defense Strategy as stating: “America’s military
superiority—the hard-power backbone of its global influence and national
security—has eroded to a dangerous degree.”
Going back as
far as the Gulf War, Kosovo and of course Operation Iraqi Freedom, the U.S. Air
Force had few challenges when it comes to achieving and maintaining “air
supremacy.” This kind of supremacy, however, is no longer assured, a scenario
which continues to inspire the Air Force to prepare for a major, “high-end”
fight involving air-to-air combat and attacks against modern air defenses.
F-15, B-2 and Reaper Upgrades
In response to
this self-identified massive force deficiency, the Air Force is trying to move
quickly to upgrade its current fleet to keep pace with emerging threats. The
F-15, Reaper drone and B-2 upgrades are all visible examples of how the service
is attempting to modernize decades-old weapons systems. These initiatives,
which upon examination do appear both substantial and impactful, may
nonetheless have limitations and ultimately fall short of addressing all the
expected challenges posed by technologically sophisticated enemies.
The Air Force,
for instance, is immersed in an aggressive program to upgrade its F-15 such
that it can fly into the 2040s. This includes new weapons integration,
exponential jumps forward in computer processing speed and new Active
Electronically Scanned Array Radar.
While these
changes will massively increase the 1980s aircraft’s detection range, attack
envelope and sensor processing, a Congressional Commission (U.S.-China Economic
& Security Review) from several years ago found that the much more recently
built Chinese J-10 has closed the gap with the F-15 and appears to present a
substantial, if not equivalent threat. This, Air Force and Boeing weapons
developers say, is an unambiguous driver of current F-15 modernization. Just
how much it can sustain a superiority gap, it seems apparent, is an open
question.
Alongside
aggressive modernization, the Air Force is concurrently pursuing “Full Scale
Fatigue Tests” to see how much longer F-15 airframes, avionics and weapons
systems can extend service life, former Air Force spokeswoman Emily Grabowski
told Warrior Maven last year. As for new F-15 weapons integration, Air Force
weapons engineers are planning to add the AIM-9X air-to-air missile and
emerging Small Diameter Bomb II, she added.
The SDB II, now nearing operational readiness, is a new
air-dropped weapon able to destroy moving targets in all kinds of weather
conditions at ranges greater than 40-miles, Air Force and Raytheon officials
said. While the Air Force currently uses a laser-guided bomb called the GBU-54
able to destroy moving targets, the new SDB II will be able to do this at
longer ranges and in a wider range of combat conditions. The Air Force
currently operates roughly 400 F-15C, D and E variants – and plans to keep the
aircraft flying into the 2040s. (For Full Warrior F-15 modernization story -CLICK HERE)
The Chinese
5th-generation J-20 and J-31 aircraft are, by many estimations, a serious
threat to the F-35. Of course, while some exact details of the Chinese aircraft
are not available in open-source research, it is widely known that the design
is an unmistakable F-35 “rip off.”
In fact, a
Congressional U.S.-China review as far back as 2014 made specific reference to
a U.S. Defense Science Board report citing Chinese cyber-espionage as being
responsible for stealing a number of U.S. weapons specs - to include the F-35.
All of this being
known, many experts and U.S. military weapons developers, are not hesitant to
say they are confident that the F-35 is the most superior 5th-gen fighter in
the world, alongside the F-22. Also, many experts, observers and weapons
developers are clear that China’s attempts to replicate, match or steal U.S.
5th Gen technical sophistication, may not be at all successful. The current and
future threat posed by Chinese aircraft, however, is said to be extremely
serious by any estimation.
Yet another pressing dilemma often recognized by threat
assessment analysts and senior Air Force developers is, simply put, that
emerging high-tech air defenses will challenge the ability for stealth
platforms to operate over enemy territory. This reality, scholars and service
experts say, forms the principal basis for both the need for a new B-21 stealth
bomber (which reportedly contains undisclosed, massive leaps forward in stealth
technologies) and the current massive overhaul of the B-2. (For Warrior's full
report on the B-21 and future stealth CLICK HERE)
A quick look at B-2 modernization includes the integration of a
new sensor called the Defensive Management System, which can reportedly help
the decades-old bomber identify the locations of enemy air defenses. Other B-2
adjustments, believed to enable the B-2 to function very successfully for
decades to come, include a new, 1,000-times faster computer processor and new
weapons such as much more capable B-61 mod 12 nuclear bomb and Long Range
Standoff weapon nuclear-armed cruise missile. At the same time, despite these
advances, there is a clear consensus that the service needs a larger number of
new B-21 bombers. (For Full Warrior B-2 B-61 mod 12 earth-penetrating nuclear
weapon CLICK HERE)
Future drones
will both incorporate stealth technologies, longer-range miniaturized sensors
and higher levels of autonomy - given that current platforms like the Reaper
will expectedly have trouble operating above advanced air defenses, Deptula and
others have said. Nonetheless, the Air Force does anticipate the Reaper to be
of critical mission value well into future decades, particularly in light of
the Predator retirement. The Reaper is currently getting a universal weapons
interface to expand its weapons envelope as well as new fuel tanks to lengthen
mission time.
Deployment
length is also a major factor when it comes to maxing out the Air Force’s
current ability to meet global demands from Combatant Commanders, according to
a RAND study, called “Is the U.S. Flying Force Large Enough.” The study, as
reported on by Warrior Maven writer Dave Majumdar, examines four potential
scenarios; two Cold War scenarios with Russia or China, a peace enforcement
scenario and a counter-terrorism/counter-insurgency type scenario. “In each of
the four possible futures examined, the 2017 USAF force was unable to meet the
demands for all types of aircraft,” the study summary states.
“No class of aircraft performed
well in all four of the examined futures. Fighter aircraft came closest, and
C3ISR/BM (command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance/battle management) platforms had the biggest shortfalls,
reflecting their small fleets and high demand…..” The RAND STUDY
Based on this
assessment, it appears no accident that the largest needed increase in the air
fleet size, according to the Air Force numbers, is for ISR technology. The RAND
report’s findings also include a wide area of conclusions, percentages and
analytical results. One of great significance, it seems clear, is that
deployments beyond one-year appear to massively over-extend the Air Force.
“When
contingencies were not capped, there were only 14 cases in which the FY17 force
met 80 percent or more of demands and only one case in which 100 percent of
demands were met. The other 18 cases had significant, and at times extreme,
deficiencies,” the findings state.
The extent to
which the Air Force requests will be met remains uncertain, especially given
that both the Army and the Navy also say they are dangerously under-resourced.
At the same time, there is no shortage of very serious concern among Pentagon
war planners that the U.S. may increasingly be insufficiently prepared in the
event of future great power war.
“Unfortunately,
the Air Force has been consistently under-resourced for over 20 years. As a
result, the U.S. Air Force is the oldest, smallest, and least ready in the
entire history of its existence,” Deptula said. “We are no longer facing
near-peers, but peers given the advancements in the Chinese and Russian
military.”
****More Weapons and Technology -WARRIORMAVEN (CLICK HERE)
Source: foxnews.com
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