Transterrestrial Musings

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There are cruise missles and there are also the 220 MPH torpedos (that China and Iran are reputed to have) that can be developed and manufactured cheaply to take out aircraft carriers. Either one of these can be modified to carry a small nuke (say 1-3 kilotonne range).

There are also the electromagnetic rail guns that are supposed to deliver a punch comparable in kinetic energy to that of a Tomahawk cruise missle.

Posted by Kurt9 at January 17, 2007 03:37 PM

Just after the last Arab Isreali war, Scientific American, the journal of politicalized science, published an article on how the tank was obsolete due to PGMs. They were right about the MBT being obsolete, just 30 years too early and for completely different reasons.

I expect that's about the time period left for carriers as well.

Posted by K at January 17, 2007 03:57 PM

Make sure you read the comments as well as the link.

Space capabilities? To replace an aircraft carrier's ability to sustain dozens of aircraft over a target region? How will you protect a Tarawa class troop carrier from space? Or deploy helicopters from space?

Switch to UAV fighter aircraft (robotic F-35 equivalents) and a modern CV could double (or more) its air power capacity. Just stockpile the spares below deck.

= = =

In the coming decades, conventional war with a remotely equal military adversary is very, very unlikely simply because there are no remotely equal adversaries for the United States to engage. Therefore ALMOST EVERY future US military mission will be a variation of a counter-insurgency / nation building mission profile.

"Warheads on foreheads" is what the airpower only folks like to dream about but those will be the wrong tools for many of the jobs that need doing.

Posted by Bill White at January 17, 2007 04:15 PM

Bill, why don't you post this over at some other thread, at some other web site, where someone suggested protecting troop carriers from space? And by the way, work on your reading comprehension.

Posted by Rand Simberg at January 17, 2007 05:30 PM

The navy's expertise will be needed when we start building starship class battlestarships.

Also, many of the weapons that you mention would still have a hard time to take down the USS Missouri Battleship. with its multiple inches of deck armor it would still be difficult to take down.

there is such a thing as combined arms and for the different missions different ships have their uses.

The Navy will be around fo rsome time...

Posted by TonyZ at January 17, 2007 05:46 PM

The navy's expertise will be needed when we start building starship class battlestarships.

Also, many of the weapons that you mention would still have a hard time to take down the USS Missouri Battleship. with its multiple inches of deck armor it would still be difficult to take down.

there is such a thing as combined arms and for the different missions different ships have their uses.

The Navy will be around fo rsome time...

Posted by TonyZ at January 17, 2007 05:46 PM

The idea that cruise missiles will make carriers obsolete is an old one. It's fallacious because it assumes something that can be attacked must be obsolete. In reality carriers can be attacked, but they can also be defended. As long as US defensive technology stays ahead of "red force" offensive technology, carriers will be defensible.

If anything makes carriers obsolete, it will be economics. A carrier air strike costs about 10x as much as a land-based air strike. If it becomes possible to launch a rapid strike (space strike) from the continental US for less than the cost of a carrier air strike, carriers will become much less attractive. (Political factors, like overflight and basing, may also favor space forces.)

Posted by Edward Wright at January 17, 2007 05:53 PM

> Space capabilities? To replace an aircraft carrier's ability to sustain
> dozens of aircraft over a target region?

Except for surveillance missions, you generally don't *want* to sustain an aircraft over a target region. You want to get in, hit the target, and get out.

The figure of merit is ordnance on target, not hours spent over the target.

> How will you protect a Tarawa class troop carrier from space?

By destroying enemy aircraft on the ground. There's more to force protection than waiting to be attacked.

Also, for some missions, space transports may eliminate the need for Tarawa-class ships.

> Switch to UAV fighter aircraft (robotic F-35 equivalents) and a modern CV
> could double (or more) its air power capacity. Just stockpile the spares
> below deck.

There's limited space below decks, and a robotic F-35 would take up just as much space as a piloted F-35. It would have a much higher loss rate (like all UAVs) and less combat capability, however. Don't believe everything you see on tv.

Posted by Edward Wright at January 17, 2007 06:19 PM

Rand, you might find this interesting.

it is a simular topic.
http://tinyurl.com/26h3pr

Posted by Harley at January 17, 2007 06:41 PM

Carriers will be around for a long time after Dr Barnett is worm food.

However, our carriers may become more vulnerable given some of the political decisions we've made.

For one with the F14 (and it's AIM54 missile system) gone the CBG has no long range protection against cruise missile launching aircraft. There is talk of modifying the Patriot SAM to be fired from aircraft, first the F15 but possibly the F18 later, and if this is done it could possibly be of some use in filling the gap. There is also active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar which reportedly can kill cruise missiles with a hard lock.

Secondly our attack submarine force has been allowed to shrink considerably since the cold war. This makes it much easier for a cruise missile carrying enemy sub to get within launch range of the CBG, as a Chinese sub recently demonstrated.

The carrier is as valuable an asset as it has every been, but we've recently not been giving it the protection that such a valuable asset deserves.

Posted by Cecil Trotter at January 17, 2007 06:53 PM

No other country has the will or the wealth to maintain a real carrier fleet. The USA will not really need carriers as we will go isolationist by the time the War on Terror is over, fed up with the ingrates around the world trying to profit politically or economically while we fight the common foe.

In the future there will be lots of wars that nobody will notice because the West isn't involved. The US will depend upon magnetic rail guns with amazing range and large unmained vehicles remotely piloted from video game player like pilots sitting in nearby subs or AWACs. Space won't come into warfare in general because of the cost.

That's my guess anyway. Not that I want things to go that way.

Posted by rjschwarz at January 17, 2007 07:25 PM

What a lame interview. Barnett makes an assertion, but where's his evidence to back it up?

The cruise missile threat is NOT greater now than it was 20 years ago. In fact, it is significantly reduced, which explains why the Navy has adopted policies like not replacing the F-14 or its Phoenix missiles. The USN no longer faces a supersonic bomber equipped with a supersonic missile (the Backfire and its missiles). Yeah, China has cruise missiles, but its missiles are fewer and less capable than the ones that the Soviets used to threaten carriers with, and overall US air defense is better. That does not mean that the threat is zero, but if the threat to the carriers is less today than it was during the Cold War, why would that make carriers obsolete?

There's also a lot of weird comments in there, like "nobody" is building carriers--yeah, except for the British, the French, the Italians, the Indians... even Japan is rumored to be interested in a carrier. Spain has a carrier, as does Thailand. The problem is that big carriers are expensive, so only the United States can afford the biggest ones.

Posted by Bill Dorr at January 17, 2007 07:57 PM

Except for surveillance missions, you generally don't *want* to sustain an aircraft over a target region. You want to get in, hit the target, and get out.

Um. Right now in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ability to loiter over a target area is of extreme importance. In and out missions are important only if there are lots of targets or the targets have significant air defenses. At least this is what is being written at Strategy Page.

Posted by ech at January 17, 2007 09:02 PM

Not to mention the capabilities that an air craft carrier provides in a peaceful capacity as well. Look how valuable they became during the tsunami event.

Posted by Josh Reiter at January 17, 2007 10:13 PM

I'm not even reading the other comments, because they are WRONG!

We thought that all wars would be waged through the air 60 years ago, thats why whatsisface, was designated AS THE STRATEGIC GENERAL of all american forces. (started with an L) Later, we believed that airial bombardment would be a long didstance goal, so we maintained faith in the navy's ability to "project" power (which is true, but the design was EXCLUSIVELY naval) Later, we realized that war is ultimately won on the ground, and the need to hold property, thats why the army grew, and shrunk and grew and shrunk and grew in the face of naval and AF arrogance.

NOW!? What do we see? That unless we want to destroy entire nations (which OUR nation won't tolerate, though others don't give one flying EFF about) we expanded the Marines, cuz they are mobile, discerning and affective.

The Ground forces are NOT dispensible, nor is the immediate joint strike aspects of the navy, in support of the Marines and the Army, NOR is the high volume aspects of the AF, or their Violent and continuous support.

AIR, LAND and SEE are not mutually exclusive, they are mutually required based on the current method of warfare.

We can count on air warfare if we are willing to destroy entire nations and society without discretion, but that is NOT THE NATURE OF THE US!!! We only kill those who deserve killing.

To think otherwise is to create a US form of Naziistic destruction built on personal cowardice, rather than broad hatred.

I don't EVER want to see this again, but I will.

The US loses lives, because we respect the lives of those who are NOT our enemy's yet who live in the MIDST of our enemy's. We can turn any nation into rubble from border to border, without effort, but that isn't our goal. WE! protect the good, despite the bad, and we kill our enemies, and empower the good.

This entire concept is ridiculous and arrogant ivory tower retard manipulation.

Posted by Wickedpinto at January 17, 2007 10:50 PM

Also we aren't alone with space capability's. How long before the others think that a ballistic is desined for them rather than an other?

Posted by Wickedpinto at January 17, 2007 10:51 PM

> Later, we believed that airial bombardment would be a long didstance goal

"Six months ago I culdn't spell pilut, and now I are one!"

I hope this fellow is drunk, because I'd hate to think anyone could write like this while sober.

Posted by at January 17, 2007 11:07 PM

The aircraft carrier will become obsolete when manned fighterplanes become obsolete. And no one expects that development within the next twenty years. And as Bill Dorr correctly noted, any other Navy which can manage it is desperate to deploy their own aircraft carriers even if they are small ones.

Any direct comparison of the cost effectiveness of an aircraft carrier by comparing it's alpha strike offensive power to that of missiles or long range bombers is always going to go badly for a carrier. But anything other than such a limited comparison will show the carrier a winner. A carriers mobility, staying power, and combat flexibility make it much more usefull than air assets stuck on a fixed base which is isolated in the middle of an ocean such as Diego Garcia or Guam.

As for the recent changes of the Air Wings of American carriers, F-18 Super Hornets may not be as good a bomber as an A-6 or as good a fighter plane as the F-14 but the F-18s do increase the proportion of fighterplanes in a carrier's Air Wing. And that's a very good thing.

At the start of WWII the aircraft complement of American aircraft carriers was only about 1/3 fighter planes. By the end of the war the complement was about 90% fighter planes. The capacity of those late war fighters to carry bombs and function as dual role aircraft was part of the reason for the change, but the major reason was wartime experience with enemy air attack and the kamikaze in particular. Before the war it was assumed the offensive power of the carrier could destroy the enemy first so the number of defensive fighter aircraft was of secondary concern.

Weirdly enough, the post WWII super carriers reverted to the pre WWII scheme of bomber heavy Air Wings, all because the Navy was competing with the Air Force for money in the new age of nuclear warfare. The whole point of the supercarrier was that it was large enough so it could operate a bomber large enough to carry a nuclear bomb (such as the A-3 Skywarrior). So the recent addition of F-18 fighter heavy Air Wings on aircraft carriers is a correction badly overdue.

Posted by Brad at January 18, 2007 02:31 AM

In reality carriers can be attacked, but they can also be defended. As long as US defensive technology stays ahead of "red force" offensive technology, carriers will be defensible.

Just not against Chinese or Australian submarines. =)

Posted by Adrasteia at January 18, 2007 02:56 AM

"There's limited space below decks, and a robotic F-35 would take up just as much space as a piloted F-35. It would have a much higher loss rate (like all UAVs) and less combat capability, however. Don't believe everything you see on tv."

But isn't the US planning on using the F-35s for ground strike missions against rogue african nations? How many next generation predator UAV pallets can we fit in their place?

I have serious doubts that China or any other major military power will get into a conflict with the US. Unless they update the ASAT weapon that they tested today, I couldn't see them lasting more than 35 minutes.

Posted by Adrasteia at January 18, 2007 03:08 AM

Every time I see some military expert confidently announce that such-and-so major weapons system is obsolete, I'm reminded of the British planners who stopped all warplane development in the late 1950s, because they thought manned warplanes would no longer be either necessary or useful in warfare, and the American planners who designed and built the F-4 Phantom II with an all-missile armament, and no gun. Hey, man, those decisions really worked out well, didn't they...? Even the main battle tank is worth keeping around as long as there's a reasonable chance of running into one of the battle situations where it's useful.

My view is that Barnett got things half wrong and half right. He's wrong in saying that the aircraft carrier is obsolete, and emphatically wrong in saying we could safely reduce our submarine fleet. But he's right in saying that we should be building many cheap ships rather than a few expensive ones.

Posted by wolfwalker at January 18, 2007 04:16 AM

"I'm not even reading the other comments, because they are WRONG!

We thought that all wars would be waged through the air 60 years ago, thats why whatsisface, was designated AS THE STRATEGIC GENERAL of all american forces. (started with an L)"

Man, the quality of debate on this blog is outstanding! I wish everybody in the world was as articulate as the posters here...

Posted by Bill Dorr at January 18, 2007 06:54 AM

"whatisface" would be General Curtis LeMay. I have a friend who discussed needlepoint with him at an Air Force Association meeting. I just can't picture LeMay doing needlepoint...

Posted by Cecil Trotter at January 18, 2007 07:17 AM

In practical terms, even the rock and the club aren't obsolete.

Posted by McGehee at January 18, 2007 07:52 AM

I think the carrier will remain a part of the naval picture indefinitely. However, you could certainly argue that the details may change. With more work being done by missiles and drones, there may be less of a call for supercarriers, when you can get the job done with pocket carriers instead. The pocket carriers are going to be a lot more economical, because you can have a yard building them in a fairly steady stream, instead of one supercarrier in a generation.

Also, I wonder if you won't see a kind of undersea SDI go into operation, with supercav-itating (filter, grr) interceptors to take out those supercav-itating torpedoes, possibly launched by drone ships or subs operating as pickets on the outskirts of a carrier battle group.

Posted by Jon Acheson at January 18, 2007 08:11 AM

I'm sorry, but I'm unable to take Dr. Bennett seriously with comments like this:

Well, I wouldn’t get rid of carriers, because they’re so cool, and because they’re so versatile, and they last for almost ever. I would have fewer submarines...

This is just after he commented that the age of the carriers may be over because of land based cruise missiles. This guy seems to be missing some logic in his analysis. If the military were to conclude carriers were obsolete because of land based cruise missiles, then the best way to project power in the face of such a threat would be a submarine. Submarines are also cool, versatile, and last forever, but they lack the ability to deter aggressor nations via a show of force. They only work best, when nobody knows they are there.

As for land base cruise missiles being a threat to Carriers? I don't buy it. The same topic came up in 1991, when the talk was that Iran would use Chinese silkworm missiles to block the Straight of Hormuz. What opened the straight? Oh yeah, a US CVBG.

For the lovers of F-14, I'm no fan of the F/A-18, but what really killed the Phoenix missile was the SM-2ER and SM-3s loaded on the Aegis Cruisers and Destroyers.

Posted by Leland at January 18, 2007 08:57 AM

> But isn't the US planning on using the F-35s for ground strike missions against rogue african nations?

Of course not. We aren't currently at war with African nations. IThe US will use the F-35s against whoever we go to war with in the future, and no one can predict that with any certainty today.

> How many next generation predator UAV pallets can we fit in their place?

Not enough to give the same combat power as manned aircraft.

> I have serious doubts that China or any other major military power will get into a conflict with the
> US. Unless they update the ASAT weapon that they tested today, I couldn't see them lasting
> more than 35 minutes.

What makes you think they don't plan to update their weapon systems over the next few decades?

And if they develop military spaceplanes while the United States is spending all its money on Apollo II -- checkmate.

Posted by Edward Wright at January 18, 2007 10:28 AM

I remember seeing a comment after the Indonesian tsunami to the efeect of "The Americans sent a carrier,a warship instead of something that could really help!"
The response was "What else in the world is there that can turn out 18,000 meals a day,de-salinate thousands of gallons of water,put out enough power to light a small city & provide helicopter rescue to a fully-equipped hospital?"

Posted by Frantic Freddie at January 18, 2007 10:38 AM

> But anything other than such a limited comparison will show the carrier a winner. A carriers
> mobility, staying power, and combat flexibility make it much more usefull than air assets
> stuck on a fixed base which is isolated in the middle of an ocean such as Diego Garcia or Guam.

Forget Guam and Diego. Space forces could be based in the continental United States. Deploying a carrier takes days or weeks. A military spaceplane based in Wyoming could hit a target anywhere on Earth, in less than an hour. A carrier can stay on station for months. Wyoming will stay on station forever, and Wyoming is a lot easier to resupply than a carrier. Plus, it's easier to make a night landing in Wyoming than on a carrier.

Posted by at January 18, 2007 10:46 AM

Posted by Edward Wright at January 18, 2007 10:46 AM

I think Frantic Freddie hits a major point. Carriers assist in fighting that part of the war that is not just killing the enemy.

Posted by Leland at January 18, 2007 12:24 PM

I think Frantic Freddie hits a major point. Carriers assist in fighting that part of the war that is not just killing the enemy.

Exactly!

And since NO ONE can defeat the US military in any traditional or conventional sense, future victories will be defined in terms of counter insurgency and nation building.

= = =

This thread also reminds me of Joe Haldeman's novel "Forever Peace" and the robotic "soldier boys" operated from CONUS by jacked in virtual reality operators.

Posted by Bill White at January 18, 2007 12:33 PM

Edward,

Quick-reaction orbital and sub-orbital space forces may prove attractive for certain missions, but it will be a minimum of 20 years before any such things exist and they won't usefully replace carrier capability even when they are finally built.

Carriers will continue to be useful because they are movable and can stay on station for months on end. Their aircraft can do long-loiter missions and maintain a high sortie rate. I can't see how space-based or space-traversing forces are ever likely to be able to do any of these things.

Plus, we have over a dozen supercarriers operational right now.

Now to threats:

Cruise missiles are, as noted by others, less a threat now than during the Cold War. Current missile and CIWS defenses are good. Future defenses (lasers, railguns) will be better and can be retrofitted to the Nimitzes and successors.

Supercav1tating torpedoes have no range. A submarine might get off a lucky shot if prepositioned in ambush, but no submarine, including our own boats, is quiet enough to escape detection if it has to steam fast enough to chase down a carrier in order to get off a shot. Carriers conducting flight ops steam at ca. 35 knots.

This is not to say that carriers cannot be improved. I believe two major improvements need to be made.

1. Crew protection. It has been over 60 years since we fought an enemy that could actually lay a glove on a U.S. carrier. The carnage among deck crews of that era was horrendous. The Oriskany, Forrestal and Enterprise disasters of the 60's give an idea of what happens to a supercarrier's deck crew should something like a cruise missile actually get thru battle group defenses. It ain't pretty.

I see no reason why carrier crews should routinely operate with less personal protection than Eric the Red's flagship afforded his crew. At least the Vikings had a row of shields along the gunwales between the rowers and any unfriendlies. All the carrier deck crew have are their brightly colored jerseys. Ridiculous.

Future carriers should have their flight decks split. The exposed upper deck should be for aircraft recovery only. Crew working topside should be inside squat, armored, tracked tugs with magnets in their tracks to hold them to the metal deck. All they need to do is move recovered aircraft to the elevators. As my proposed future carrier would be much wider than current designs, for reasons to be explained shortly, it should be possible to support at least two parallel sets of arresting gear to allow short-interval staggered recoveries on alternating sides of the ship.

Launch ops should be conducted from an enclosed deck below the upper deck. The entire launch area should be essentially an armored box. This deck should be split, longitudinally, into two or more lanes, each with a catapult. Arming and positioning aircraft for launch should be automated to the greatest possible degree. No human crew should be present in a launch lane during actual launch except a human crew in the case of crewed aircraft. Fore and aft doors for each lane would open briefly to provide wind across the deck for launch, then close quickly to allow the next aircraft to be positioned. Armor between lanes and blowout valves in the doors would prevent damage from any possible launch- or ordnance-related disaster from halting flight ops except in the affected lane. Launch ops could also be conducted in any climate or weather.

2. To accommodate these significant architectural changes, the conventional hull of the Nimitzes needs to be replaced with something else. My proposed design would need to be much beamier than current carriers to allow for an equal number of catapults (four) in the suggested line-abreast orientation. A SWATH substructure is an obvious alternative. In addition to fitting the flight deck layouts proposed better than current monohulls, a SWATH layout supports the increased topside weight of my proposed design without any side overhangs thus avoiding any roll instability penalty for the armored box split flight deck layout. SWATH designs are also known to be much less "active" in heavy seas, making both launch and recovery operations easier for crews and less harrowing for pilots. As the Sea Shadow project showed, a SWATH design is also an organically much stealthier design from the get-go than is almost any kind of monohull.

An alternative to SWATH shipforms is a scaled up surface-effect design. In this case, the majority of the engine power would be used to establish and maintain the air cushion under the ship and relatively less would go toward providing forward motion. Drive fans would be located in tunnels running the length of the ship and outboard of the flight deck box.

One advantage of this air-cushion alternative is that speeds above 100 knots should be possible. Perhaps even 200 knots. In such a case, the threat of supercav1tating torpedoes also disappears. This would also allow relatively gentle catapult shots compared to current practice - perhaps even unassisted launches and tailhook-free recoveries. Extending the catapults for most of the interior length of the launch lanes, instead of just the 300 or so feet of current designs, would amplify this effect and could apply to either a SWATH or surface-effect design.

If a cenral launch lane was made especially wide - 250 feet, say -, it might even be possible to operate B-1's, B-2's, B-52's and C-17's from such a ship. Jointness of the third kind I think that would be.

Admittedly, we're talking about damned big ships here. I'm figuring at least 2,000 ft. in length and at least 500 ft. abeam for either alternative. With a vastly reduced crew complement and vastly increased usable internal volume, such a hypercarrier could easily carry 250 or more aircraft of current or projected types - less for the Air Force big plane-capable alternative - concomitant fuel stores, ordnance supplies and enough engine power to drive the ship and also power electric catapults and any of a variety of what are likely to be electricity-greedy defensive weapons (e.g., railguns, lasers, phased microwave arrays, etc.)

Another use for ample available volume is to fill enough of it with syntactic foam to make the whole thing literally unsinkable short of being nuked or otherwise blasted to smithereens.

The surface-effect version would be fast enough to deploy across the Pacific in 48 hours or less. We might be able to do with one per ocean, plus a spare.

Posted by Dick Eagleson at January 18, 2007 12:56 PM

All a spaceplane could do is zoom by and perhaps drop a weapon or two. If that's the mission, why not just send a missile? That could be adequate for a deep strike or reconnaissance mission, but that's only a small part of airpower missions. Look at where UAVs are being used primarily and you should note that the biggest use is long duration reconnaissance with the occassional weapon release. Look at how airpower from fighters to bombers are being used and you should note that it's providing support to ground forces. That involves some pretty long duration loitering with as many bombs as you can carry in order to answer a frantic call for air support. The notion that you can do that with a space plane from Wyoming or anywhere is an absurd fantasy. Some people need to quit reading so much science fiction and take a long hard look at military reality.

As for carriers, they'll likely be useful even as we evolve away from manned combat planes to UCAVs. The Navy is already working on being able to land a UCAV on a carrier. Since the UCAV could potentially (but not necessarily) be smaller than the equivalent manned vehicle, the carrier could potentially be able to carry more of them. At that point, C2 and bandwidth may become significant issues.

Posted by Larry J at January 18, 2007 01:27 PM

> Quick-reaction orbital and sub-orbital space forces may prove attractive
> for certain missions, but it will be a minimum of 20 years before any such things exist

They told Billy Mitchell the same thing, about airplanes. It will be at least 20 years before the US has such capabilities, if VSEers have their way. But suppose other nations decide not to wait 20 years? Are we willing to gamble the future of the United States on that chance?

> Carriers will continue to be useful because they are movable and can
> stay on station for months on end.

A spaceplane is infinitely more movable than a carrier, and their base is always on station. It doesn't need to be relieved after a few months.

> Their aircraft can do long-loiter missions and maintain a high sortie rate.

There's no reason to think spaceplanes won't be able to maintain high sortie rates, once someone bothers to develop them.

> Cruise missiles are, as noted by others, less a threat now than during
> the Cold War. Current missile and CIWS defenses are good. Future defenses
> (lasers, railguns) will be better and can be retrofitted to the Nimitzes
> and successors.

Current defenses offer no protection from space-to-surface missiles. The MiG-105, operating in hunter-killer pairs, could have disabled a carrier with a single shot. Future systems like lasers and railguns may provide some defense against attack from space, but for how long? If spaceplanes can take their shot, go home, refuel, and come back again, how long can a carrier hold out until it runs out of fuel and ammo? And what about the tankers and ammo ships the carrier depends on? Are they going to have the same defenses?

Posted by Edward Wright at January 18, 2007 02:13 PM

> All a spaceplane could do is zoom by and perhaps drop a weapon
> or two. If that's the mission, why not just send a missile?

Missiles are less reliable, less flexible, and less accurate than pilots.

Missiles are too expensive.

Missiles cannot provide sustained sortie rates.

Missiles are subject to treaty limitations.

Take your pick.

"All a spaceplane could do is zoom by and perhaps drop a weapon or two." Have you been on the receiving end of such a weapon?

> Look at where UAVs are being used primarily and you should note that the
> biggest use is long duration reconnaissance with the occassional weapon release.

Yes, the value of UAVs is greatly overstated in the media. The fantasy is not spaceplanes (which we could have built 20 years ago) but your UCAV. Until we have artificial intelligence like Star Trek's "Commander Data," UAVs will not begin to approach the capabilities of piloted vehicles. And we won't have that kind of AI in the next 20 years.

Posted by Edward Wright at January 18, 2007 02:34 PM

You must not know very much about UAV/UCAV technology. It doesn't depend on AI at all. Today's high end UAVs like the Global Hawk already just need to be told where to fly and they can handle the entire mission from takeoff to landing with nothing more than good autopilot technology driven by GPS. They use humans to operate the sensor payload and intrepret the data. UCAVs will operate the same way (they're already being tested). The vehicle pretty well flies itself while humans in the loop (via satellite) control weapons release.

Persistance over target is far more valuable to warfighters than sci-fi fantasies of space planes zooming by at the speed of heat. That's why Aurora, if it ever existed, would've had very little operational utility. Firefights can last for hours and likewise the need for air support. Sometimes, targets are real elusive and you have to wait for them to poke their heads up. Sometimes, you just need to have some major firepower cruising of flying offshore to make a point. You aren't going to do any of that from any silly space plane delusion.

Back in the 1950s, major British and Canadian political officials believed that missiles made manned aircraft obsolete. As a result, they killed some very good aircraft under development (the British TSR2 and the Canadian Avro Arrow

Posted by Larry J at January 18, 2007 02:58 PM

> You must not know very much about UAV/UCAV technology. It doesn't depend
> on AI at all. Today's high end UAVs like the Global Hawk already just need
> to be told where to fly and they can handle the entire mission from takeoff to landing

I know quite a bit about UAVs and UCAVs, Larry.

I also know what AI means. You say UAVs don't depend on artificial intelligence -- then you proceed to describe artificial intelligence!

UAVs are intelligent enough to do all the things you say -- WITH a very high failure rate.

Piloted aircraft are far more reliable than UAVs. Not by percentages, but by orders of magnitude. That will continue to be true until someone invents a computer with the same functional intelligence as a fighter pilot.

That kind of super-smart AI exists only on Star Trek and viewgraph proposals. It ain't gonna happen any time soon.

> Persistance over target is far more valuable to warfighters than sci-fi fantasies
> of space planes zooming by at the speed of heat. That's why Aurora, if it
> ever existed, would've had very little operational utility.

First of all, Aurora never existed.

Second, the supposed Aurora was not a spaceplane but a high-speed atmospheric cruiser. The only reason for a hypersonic vehicle to cruise atmospherically is your requirement -- loitering. That is why Aurora would have limited utility and one reason why it never existed.

Third, the limited utility of Aurora says nothing about the utility of a completely different type of vehicle. (Also, arguments based on mythical aircraft are inherently suspect.)

Fourth, I never met a fighter pilot who wanted to loiter over a target and get shot at after dropping his bombs.

Fifth, you shouldn't believe everything you see on teevee. :-)

> Back in the 1950s, major British and Canadian political officials believed
> that missiles made manned aircraft obsolete. As a result, they killed some
> very good aircraft under development

And yet, you're using the exact same arguments today to make the exact same point. In the 1950's, they called them missiles. Now you call them UCAVs. "Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat them."

I notice you didn't address my point that a MiG-105 could have taken out a carrier with a single shot, without ever coming with reach of carrier defenses.

In the 1960's, the development of such a system would have stretched the limits of US and Soviet technology. Today, the technology is available in many countries. If the United States does not develop it, some other nation will. Then the carriers will go to the bottom of the sea -- UCAVs or no UCAVs.

Posted by Edward Wright at January 18, 2007 04:19 PM

I got to agree with the naysayers who say US carriers are too centralized. If the enemy can't touch them, then they're enough. But once carriers start sinking, a dozen or so of them aren't going to be very much. And in my mind, the fundamental problem here is that a multi-billion dollar carrier can be sunk by a few million dollars of missile or torpedo.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at January 19, 2007 04:39 AM

An autopilot, no matter how sophistiated, is not artifical intelligence. It simply is a means to control the vehicle and navigate. Your point is absurd to the point of being stupid.

Try looking at real military utility, not science fiction wet dreams about space planes. A manned space plane that could drop weapons would cost far more than a ballistic missile and wouldn't accomplish anything the missile couldn't do.

UAVs and UCAVs allow for long duration loiter time. For example, a Global Hawk can stay on station for 24 hours or more, something a manned vehicle like a U-2 can't do. Armed vehicles like the Predator have proven quite useful in not only identifying targets but in taking them out, all without loss of US military personnel.

Manned vehicles still have their place. That's why the military is developing planes like the F-22 and F-35. The combination of a good weapon load, reasonable endurance, and stealth make them far more suitable to actual military missions that any stupid space plane.

Posted by Larry J at January 19, 2007 07:05 AM

I ran into a fun post at Brian Dunbar's site:

The Navy has approved the name "Gerald R. Ford" for a future CV. When part of a battle group, this carrier will be accompanied by Ford E-scorts

Wow! A two-fer on the filter list! Blog-spot and E-scorts

http://space4commerce.blog-spot.com/2007/01/gerald-r-ford-arriving.html

Posted by Bill White at January 19, 2007 07:10 PM

> A manned space plane that could drop weapons would cost far more than a ballistic missile
> and wouldn't accomplish anything the missile couldn't do.

That's the silliest statement this side of Brian Dempsey. An intercontinental ballistic missile is comparable in size and cost to a spaceplane but can only be used once. A space plane could be used hundreds or thousands of times.

The idea that a pilot can't do anything a guided missile can't do is sheer ignorance. It was wrong when missile guys argued it in the 50's, and it's wrong today. No matter what you hear on the Military Channel or the evening news.

> UAVs and UCAVs allow for long duration loiter time. For example, a Global Hawk can stay
> on station for 24 hours or more, something a manned vehicle like a U-2 can't do

Proteus is a manned vehicle that can stay on station for 24 hours. It was designed to carry the Global Hawk recon package, too.

Which is irrelevant because the U-2 and Global Hawk are not space vehicles, Larry. I don't know where you get the idea that space vehicles can't remain on station. We already have space systems that stay on station for years. They're called satellites.

> Armed vehicles like the Predator have proven quite useful in not only identifying targets but
> in taking them out, all without loss of US military personnel.

Yes, UAVs have proven valuable in certain niche situations. They have not replaced piloted vehicles by any means, nor will they any time in the foreseeable future. That's why there are still pilots flying in Afghanistan and Iraq. Again, don't believe all the hype you hear by people selling UAVs on television.

> Manned vehicles still have their place.

And that place includes 98% of all combat missions.

> That's why the military is developing planes like the F-22
> and F-35. The combination of a good weapon load, reasonable endurance, and stealth
> make them far more suitable to actual military missions that any stupid space plane.

Thanks, Larry. I'll tell all the PhDs and former astronauts working on spaceplanes for the Air Force that they're stupid. I'm sure they will immediately change their minds and apply for work at McDonald's. :-)

Posted by Edward Wright at January 19, 2007 07:26 PM

> An autopilot, no matter how sophistiated, is not artifical intelligence

I suggest you do a little research Larry. To try to replicate pilot capabilities, the Air Force is working on an "adaptive guidance system" that uses artificial neural nets trained from actual pilots.

Posted by Edward Wright at January 19, 2007 07:35 PM

Yeah, and the ones in low earth orbit are only within the line of sight of any particular point on the Earth's surface for a few minutes each day and the ones that can "loiter" over an area are all the way out at geosynch and only then near the equator (unless you're stupid enough to think that you can station a satellite over a non-equatorial point, especially in a low earth orbit reachable by any fictional space plane.)

Some Ph.Ds are working on space plane ideas. Some of them also worked on fully reusable space plane ideas even after the point where the rocket equation proved their designs were hopeless. Ph.Ds have their fantasies, too, and as long as they can get funding to pursue their fantasies, they will.

Face it, your space plane fantasies are absurd from a military utility perspective. Deep interdiction missions are wonderful when you can mount them but they do very little to support the warfighters on the ground. It's nonsense like this that makes the other services distrust the Air Force. You can't win wars without boots on the ground, and you can't effectively support those boots with something that flashes overhead and is gone, not to be able to return for hours or days. Talk to some Marines and soldiers, or read some history so you don't come across as such as idiot about military matters.

I suggest you do a little research Larry. To try to replicate pilot capabilities, the Air Force is working on an "adaptive guidance system" that uses artificial neural nets trained from actual pilots.

And none of them are close to being operational yet, are they? Current and foreseeable future UAVs and UCAVs will use very sophisticated autopilots. Eventually, some of them may use some form of AI but it isn't required to make them work.

In a related matter, a number of years ago the Air Force was working on a very advanced flight control technology that would allow a plane to rapidly reconfigure the controls after damage. It was inspired by the incident where an Israeli pilot managed to land an F-15 after a midair collision that took off almost all of his right wing. The study called for the flight control system to evaluate the remaining control surfaces and actuators and reprogram itself to allow the pilot to fly the plane with the normal stick, rudder, and throttle. The flight control system would intrepret those pilot inputs and move the remaining controls. I don't know the current status of that project or what the final results were. Perhaps it was abandoned or perhaps that technology has made its way into newer planes like the F-22.

Posted by Larry J at January 20, 2007 06:09 PM

> Some of them also worked on fully reusable space plane ideas even after the point where the rocket
> equation proved their designs were hopeless.

Anyone who understands the rocket equation knows that isn't true.

> You can't win wars without boots on the ground

Are we back to that again? Do you think World War II ended because the US put boots on Japanese soil?

I thought we had finished with that silly argument.

> Talk to some Marines and soldiers, or read some history so you don't come across as such as idiot about military matters.

It gets really tiresome, listening to you and Brian claim that anyone who disagrees with you is an idiot with no real knowledge or experience.

Somehow, i think spaceplane supporters like Brig. General Richard Zilmer (USMC). Lt. General Emil Bedard (USMC), and Col. Jack Wassink (USMC-ret) have talked to more Marines than you have, Larry.

In fact, I'd wager that the Generals command more Marines than you've ever spoken to.

I'll also wager that they've read more military history than you have.

When General Zilmer testifies before Congress that the Marines need spaceplane capability, that carries a certain amount of weight. More than your ranting on the Internet.

> Current and foreseeable future UAVs and UCAVs will use very sophisticated autopilots.

Current UAVs have loss rates that are orders of magnitude higher than piloted aircraft. If you call that sophisticated, then they're sophisticated.

That does not mean they have the same combat capabilities as piloted airplanes or that they will replace piloted airplanes, except for certain highly specialized missions. No matter what aerospace marketing departments claim on teevee.

Posted by Edward Wright at January 20, 2007 08:03 PM

Significant space capability renders any ground or water assets (maybe not air assets) rather difficult to keep.

Why? Look up Project Thor, colloquially called "Rods from God". Basically, this involves smart bombs falling from orbit - they don't have to have any explosive payload. In fact, the concept was for a rod made of something like tungsten (because of the high melting point) about a metre long and maybe 3cm wide, with guidance fins like a smart bomb. Long and thin makes this less likely to melt en route.

Why no explosive payload? Simple. When you have 100kg of metal falling on you at orbital velocity, who needs explosives?

Of course, this thing would have a hard time hitting something moving at aeroplane speeds, but a tank probably wouldn't be much of a problem.

Taking high ground is a basic military tactic - space is the ultimate high ground.

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