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Operating and recapitalization costs for front-line fighters are up in the stratosphere, even as a wide variety of conflicts around the world fit counterinsurgency profiles requiring affordable, persistent surveillance and rapid fire support. UAVs are filling an important niche, and their success is triggering major bureaucratic showdowns in response - but they remain expensive, are much more crash-prone than manned aircraft, and offer a limited field of view.
Under the circumstances, it isn't surprising that some nations are turning back to simpler aircraft whose speed, view, and weapons carriage are purpose-built to offer dependable counter-insurgency surveillance and fire support at lower cost. America's A-10 "Warthog" widely outclasses much more expensive aircraft, for instance, and has become the key manned fighter of the global war on terror. Even as nations like Columbia purchase dual role trainer/COIN Super Tucano planes, and Iraq holds an aircraft competition for modified trainer/COIN aircraft of its own.
Trends becomes more surprising, and interesting, when private security firms look at their options, see a solution's logic, and step on board.
See DID's coverage of just such a recent development - and why it matters in ways that go beyond just an aircraft purchase.
Not that there's ever anything entirely new under the sun, of course. Back in the 1960s, Carl Gustaf von Rosen and his remarkable private "Biafran Air Force" wrote a chapter in military history that outshines anything modern thriller writers can dream up. The difference is that the rapid extension of security firms' global role since the late 1980s, and the nature of the current war, can make them trend setters in ways von Rosen never could have been.
This makes a lot of sense to me. It's overdue, if anything.
Thanks for the links.
Good post, Joe.
I think that you can take this trend to far in the direction of simplicity, but it has always seemed to me that you could create low intensity conflict prop planes and armored cars with high quality 'off the shelf' electronics for about 1/20th of what a modern fighter jet or MBT goes for.
The problem is that at least in the USA, the economics of that are not nearly as good as they might be. The limiting factor in US expenditures is increasingly the cost of retaining qualified personnel. Even if there is a force advantage in a larger fleet of cheaper lower performance vehicles, the personnel cost in maintaining such a fleet would be beyond the peace time budgets of developed countries. For the USA, short of an existential non-nuclear war, low cost as a practical matter means something along the lines of the F-16 or A-10. (I'm a big believer in the A-10 and wish that we could find a way to put that airframe back in production.)
For nations like China, India, and Brazil (and the smaller developing nations) a fleet of cheap, rugged vehicles with off the commercial electronics adapted to military roles and money invested in smart munitions seems to me definately the way to go.
As an aside as to why such nations should care, it's almost inconcievable to me that any of the three developing regional/world powers I mentioned above is going to go through the next 50 years without at least one major regional war (in China's case, probably internal). Certainly there is nothing in the history of those three countries which suggests they can both develop economically and stay at peace with thier neighbors. I foresee major 'gap' problems causing violent tensions as the capitalist economies or the large nations outstrip those of less developed tyrannies and command economies around them. (Chavez, Morales, Shwe, Jong-Il, and Musharraf, I'm looking right at you.) And that's to say nothing of China's likely eventual involved in quasi-colonial wars in Africa if it maintains its current political course there.
The only way this works is if you have overwhelming air superiority and your enemy has no effective anti-aircraft capability. These arguments started in January 1904. About a month after Orville and Wilbur made their famous flight. Of course it is not just aircraft the this can be seen. Most weapons systems suffer from these trade-off arguments.
I do not think the Biafrans had overwhelming air superiority.
The key to this excercise is surprise and very brave pilots.
I can see even powered hang gliders having some effect if used correctly.
I know little about Darfur but I would think there would have been better cover in Biafra that there is in Darfur.
Air Superiority usually does not exist, often there is no air combat capacity in any meaningful way whatever.
Which of course was unlikely to be the case. The Tamil Tigers used improvised civilian planes as well to attack the Sri Lankans. We'll probably see more of this.
While not exactly on topic - it brought to mind this article from Defense Tech article that slightly advocates moving away from the Key West agreement, in particular a (modernized) OV-10. It could always be fit in under the scout/evacuation provisions that Army aircraft do now.
In part, to give the Army a prop drive fixed wing plane that's not as fragile as a helicopter, packs quite a bit more punch than drones do (now). Especially if the Air Force takes away the precious, precious drones.
Celebrim at #3 does have a point about cost though - not unbearable. I think the Army has 7000 helicopters, 4000 of which are more than 30 years old, with an old plan to cut the number by maybe a 1000? 500 OV-10s could go a long way. Well, in the 10 years it would take to field them.
The limiting factor in US expenditures is increasingly the cost of retaining qualified personnel. Even if there is a force advantage in a larger fleet of cheaper lower performance vehicles, the personnel cost in maintaining such a fleet would be beyond the peace time budgets of developed countries.
That's an important point. Ideally we'd get cheaper vehicles that also have cheap simple maintenance.
An example where that worked was the WWII jeep. We made lots and lots of them cheap, and we kept them running cheap. They were very good at getting soldiers places provided they didn't get hit. They very well fit the need at the time.
People talk about the kalashnikov that way compared to US firearms. It's supposed to be very rugged and easy to maintain, far better than most of our weapons in that respect. It's definitely the firearm of choice for poorly-trained soldiers and irregulars.
That's a separate concern for us. If we use equipment that's hard to maintain, we can bear that cost easier than anybody else. So gear that gets captured by some enemy isn't worth much to them -- they lack the specialised training etc to keep it in repair. If instead we make cheap realiable equipment then it won't just be us using it, everybody will buy it or buy copies, and we'll be facing it from our enemies, and if they capture some of our stuff they can use it.
Is it worth it for us to give up the advantages of complex expensive high-maintenance equipment? We'd still have the advantages of better leadership, better training, sometimes superior numbers and sometimes air superiority. But training and leadership don't provide jobs back home, and so they aren't as good at providing funding.
Actually, Dave, you're on topic. The OV-10 Bronco is another example of the kind of plane we're talking about here, and the argument for its use is similar: doesn't cost $15-20k per flight hour, replaced for $5-7 million instead of $50-90 million, adds guns, better visibility, less propensity to crash, and the ability to be operate by 3rd world allies as well, in exchange for a certain level of risk.
The US military-industrial complex, at the behest of the US Air Force which has consistently neglected many of the priorities formerly handled by the Army, has priced itself entirely out of this market. But the USA's T-6 trainer has been modified to the AT-6B (competing in for Iraq's order), South Korea has built the WO-1 (just sold to Turkey, competing in Iraq), and Brazil's Super Tucano continues to lead the field.
The demand is there, competitors are emerging, and these are the sorts of aerospace projects a Tier 2 or even Tier 3 nation can undertake. You'll see more of this stuff around the world, flown by governments and private firms alike. The only question is whether the USAF and NATO continue on their present course, or wake up and begin fielding affordably capable alternatives.
As for an armored car that can replace a main battle tank, MRAP class vehicles like the Cougar, RG-31, RG-33, MaxxPro, Golan, et. al. cost between $450,000-650,000 base, instead of $6-8 million for an M1 Abrams. So Celebrim, what you wanted exists right now. There's also the M1117 Guardian ASV used by military police, which has a bit less mine protection but is the very definition of an armored car.
The USA has found, however, via incidents like Objective Peach in Iraq, that sometimes there is just no substitute for a tank. None of this stuff - not MRAP, nor the Stryker, nor the so-called "Future Combat Systems," will substitute for tanks. But the MRAP and M1117 vehicles do replace Hummers, which become a ridiculous concept on a non-linear battlefield, and these cheaper vehicles provide protected vehicles for urban warfare and road patrols at 1/10 a tank's cost.
Meanwhile, nations who wants tanks these days tend to buy German Leopard 2s that have demobilized from the very shrunken German military (Germany is under 1.5% of GDP spent on defense). They go for fire sale prices... about $1 million each. Clever move actually - they've cut the throats of competitors in France (LeClerc) and Italy (Ariete) and got more or less everyone in Europe buying Leopards - ensuring support contracts, and also that if there's a European tank program for the next generation, it will be led by German firms.
JK: That's not where I'm going.
Let's say that in country Developedville, you have the following costs:
Trained Personnel: $1 million
Smart Munition: $50,000
1 MBT (crew 4): $6 million
1 Armored Car (crew of 4): $400,000
Cost of a MBT weapon system (1 MBT, 4 personnel, 20 smart munitions) = $11 million
Cost of an armored car weapon system (1 MBT, 4 personnel, 20 smart munitions) = $5.4 million
For Developedville, the armored car weapon system just doesn't pay out. Buying MBT's (or whatever is cutting edge in its role) results in a much higher force value than buying less cutting edge tech.
But the numbers in Developingburg might be different.
Trained Personnel: $100,000
Smart Munition: $50,000
1 MBT (crew 4): $6 million
1 Armored Car (crew of 4): $400,000
Cost of a MBT weapon system (1 MBT, 4 personnel, 20 smart munitions) = $7.4 million
Cost of an armored car weapon system (1 MBT, 4 personnel, 20 smart munitions) = $1.8 million
If you are President of Developingburg, the theoretical armored car system is starting to look like a better buy. You can theoretically afford to field a larger army of lower cost stuff, because your personnel costs are cheaper. For the same reasons that Developedville is exporting its manufacturing costs to Developingburg, what constitutes an optimal force structure might be very different regardless of the sort of conflict you might expect to be facing.
You make the argument that the US is not doing this for political reasons. I think that overly simplifies the problem. Not only can we not efficiently field a force of Tier 2 or Tier 3 weapon systems, its possible that we would have a hard time competing economicly with producers of Tier 2 or Tier 3 weapon systems in Develpingburg. If Developingburg has reached the point where they can field a Tier 2 system, thier lower production costs (cheaper labor, even highly skilled labor) make competing with them unattractive.
Of course, as Developingburg succeeds in this, then there problems start to mimic Developedville's problems more and more closely. Affluence will drive labor costs up, and the relative attractiveness of fielding an army of low tech weapon systems down. That isn't to say however that those second line weapons systems don't have a role. In the right situation, there is no substitute for a tank, but in the right situation there is no substitute for a armored car either. The problem is that our Cold War designed force structure had nothing between a front line combat vehicle (tracked IFV's and MBT's) and rear echelon utility vehicles (HUMMERs and larger unarmored transport vehicles).
I'm highly skeptical of an attempt to completely elimenate unarmored vehicles from your force structure. Armored vehicles, even cheap ones, carry increased operational and maintenance costs compared to unarmored ones. But there is definately room for a patrol/scout vehical somewhere between a M1 Abrams and a HUMMER. My personal feeling would take most of the armor of of the HUMMER and stop pretending its something its not, and field a purpose built light cavalry vehical if you want an armored vehical. Trying to turn HUMMERs into light cavalry vehicles results in both high maintenance costs and low force protection/projection.
The question is, "Does the same logic play out in the air?"
For a variaty of reasons, I'm not as convinced. Again, I think that due to our labor costs, economical second line air weapon systems for the USA means something along the lines of F-16's and A-10's. The real question is, given the ease with which the USA grabs air supremacy, and the relative low cost of a large fleet of F-16's and A-10's, why don't we have that planned for our future?
Celebrim,
It is quite possible for the US to deploy a 2nd or 3rd tier system.
Your operation cost analysis is good, and perhaps we should be using this algorithm. However, that is not the current budget decision process. The personnel cost is in a completely different budget pie from the system acquisition budget, which is yet divorced from the "Operation and Maintenance" pie.
This is why we come to the problem today of having "hi-tech" systems requiring "hi-maintenance". The acquisition community had no incentive to lower the maintenance budget. J Thomas's thought is interesting, but I'd rather take the less maintenance requirement of an AK rather than the risk of sharing the weapon of my enemy. :)
Currently, the USAF is set up to handle a 2-tier force structure. Back in the day it was called "High-Low", where we had the F-15s to handle the highest intensity combat (BVR missile carriers), and F-16s to handle the slightly less intense combat of point air defense. F-16s were also more widely deployed among the reserves than the active duty, due to the lower cost of acquisition and operation.
Given that the reserve airmen are "cheaper" than active duty airmen, the Air Guards and Reserves are prime candidates for fielding such a 2nd tier aircraft as a Super Tucano. A Super Tucano fits the Air Guard mission profile of border surveillance and search & rescue. It can also handle point air defense on a low-cost basis. It can give the reserves plenty of flying hours in this high-gas-price age. And when we DO activate the Air Reserve & Guard, it would probably be time when we need their CAS & surveillance expertise in a counter-insurgency or CAS mode.
The bureaucratic case can be made for giving COIN aircrafts to the guard and reserve, should they be inspired enough to run with it. Alas, I don't think it will happen without a Congressional push.
Jimmy
Jimmy, I got that idea from a novel by Algis Budrys, The Falling Torch. Earth was being occupied by almost-entirely-humans, and a spy from the human world at alpha centauri had tried to contact the human insurgents. They were up in the mountains, scrabbling to get enough to eat and killing each other, ignored by the invaders. "No army in history ever did squat chasing irregular troops in broken terrain." Their relation with the people? "You might say the farmers around here pay two sets of taxes." He promptly got captured by the occupation, who all had polished boots and white belts and buttoned-down holsters; their job was mostly to look impressive to the humans, not to fight. He got loose and killed a guard with his bare hands, took the guard's uniform and tried to load the guard's handgun. The slide did a peculiar double-pivot and smashed his finger. He speculated that maybe they intentionally chose a weapon that only a trained man could use.
I don't really think we tried to get that effect, but I might as well list the unintentional advantages when I see them. So for example we've had a very long time to adopt the AK47 design or modify it to fit our needs, and we haven't done it. We aren't going to. Not Invented Here? One way or another it doesn't fit our needs.
If we ever fight another WWII-style war then we'll probably choose the simplest workable designs we can get. Make many millions of them quickly. Sort-of-train the troops quickly and give them the cheap rugged weapons. But that kind of war would have to be forced on us. We wouldn't plan for it ahead of time.
Guys,
I'm sympathetic to this low cost approach. The point I was trying to make is history shows us that the practical matter is there will be an arms race and the weapons systems will advance.
You will not find a bigger supporter of the A-10 than I, but it is a single mission aircraft, close air support. That is one of the reasons I like it. But with out control of the airspace above it, and suppression of threats from the ground, it is a sitting duck to a faster more capable fighter or SAM. Part of this can be addressed by tactics and operational doctrine, but you still have to deal with the real live threat that is in front of you. And it doesn't matter what anyone says, you can't know with certainty what that threat will be.
If your enemy can't counter your weapon systems with something of equal or superior effectiveness then, by all means, use the simple and cheap solution. The problem is you don't know this ahead of time. As General Franks said so well in his book, "The enemy get a vote". And they are probably do something you don't expect.
A lot of this discussion can be boiled down to two questions:
1. What kind of foreign policy do we want?
2. What kind of military is needed to implement that policy as well as meet any potential threats?
In short, if the USA plans on embarking on interventions and small wars like it has done for the past decade, some of these "new" old aircraft and equipment might be a good idea.
Since sophisticated weapon systems take decades to produce results, we can look at what our potential enemies are doing to get an idea what we need to counter. It might even make sense to try to do modular designs. Like, we make a series of aircraft engines of increasing size and power, and we design airframes for a particular size engine. Then the engine design can evolve without needing to change the other plans to fit engine changes. We already have weapon and sensors designed that way, to fit onto whatever platform can handle the weight and shape etc requirements.
Modularity gives an efficiency loss -- the most efficient designs are highly coadapted, with everything sort of mixed together, where the same part has multiple functions and a change required for one function makes a ripple of changes in the others -- but if it cuts 10 years off the development time that might more than make up for it.
Regarding complex weapon systems, our slow development system is potentially deadly to us. If another nation gets inside our decades-long OODA loop what then?
One of the big advantages of simple systems is that they don't take as long to design and test. That will be critical.
And then, what about things that get destroyed without destroying their users? Drones are a case in point, and mine-resistant vehicles. Look at that picture of the Cougar MRAP destroyed with its crew all alive. Those guys are going to need another Cougar. If the war in iraq heats up, that same crew might need 10 or more Cougars a year. When you have to treat your armor like supplies and not capital equipment, then Celebrim's operating cost formula looks real different.
I don't want to argue too much for cheap equipment, but I strongly want to argue for fast development cycles. And cheap is real good if you're going to lose it anyway.
Andy, maybe we have to make our military planning in terms of existential threats. Maybe we have to be able to beat china in some particular circumstance. We probably have to be able to beat china if the fighting is in alaska or california, at least. Is there anywhere we have to beat the russians? Etc. If we get into a war with china or russia or india or somebody big, it won't be because we chose that foreign policy, it will be because we can't get out of it. So we have to plan for that possibility or maybe lose that war.
Then we'll choose to fight third world nations with whatever we have handy.
A new A-10 variant has just rolled out.
So, retire the A-10 in favor of other platforms? Maybe not so much. This technology resembles the tight digital situation hookups that later block F-16s and the F-22 have. This is A Good Thing.
My #17 "in favor of other platforms" was intended to refer to the attempts to take the relatively inexpensive A-10 out of service and replace it with the relatively expensive F-35. Obviously, putting that kind of suite in a Super Tucano is equally possible.
"Obviously, putting that kind of suite in a Super Tucano is equally possible."
Yes, but this is again another reason why the US is 'stuck' with high performance platforms in thier weapon systems.
If you put cutting edge avionics in an A-10 and the same package in a Super Tucano, the relative cost between the two platforms decreases.
Say the X airframe costs $10 million, and the avionics package another $5 million, and Y airframe costs $2.5 million dollars and you want to put the same package in it.
It might make since to buy 40 cheap Y airframes instead of 10 expensive X airframes, but when you buy advanced avionics for both it gets real questionable if you are saving money by buying 20 Y weapon systems rather than 10 X weapon systems if the X airframe has signficantly higher performance characteristics.
Let's say you are building an air superiority aircraft on the 'cheap'. Right now, I think the biggest factors in air dominance are radar, munitions, payload, and speed - likely in that order. If the cost of the radar/stealth package + the cost of the munitions are the overriding terms, it's probably sensible to pay the small incremental cost for the larger payload and higher speed aircraft. Afterall, you need a comparitively 'big' aircraft to carry the large, heavy, advanced radar you need. If that wasn't true, then you could have a perfectly good air superiority aircraft along the lines of the F-4.
I don't know for a fact, but I'd be surprised if the targeting pods, digital commlinks and situation displays cost $5 million a pop. I wouldn't be astonished, mind you, but I'd bet the Israelis could do it for a lot less than that.
As far as I know, I wasn't talking about radar or stealth gear. It's targeting, IFF, a situation display, and a hard-to-jam standardized communications link. And the ability to drop JDAMs and wind-compensating munitions, either of which counts as a separate line item.
I think the numbers are a lot higher when you talk about wide-aspect phased-array multitarget radar, etc., etc. -- that is to say, when you try to drop everything an F-22 has in a Super Tucano (or an OV-10).
I wouldn't.
Your point is well taken that the fancier the avionics and other technology, the smaller the difference in total $ spent.