The Bunker: Hardware Hijinks

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THE PROMISE

Just the (one-way) ticket!

The Defense Department is seeking a new fleet of drones that breaks so many Pentagon practices that it just might work. It wants the drones for a variety of missions, inspired by the utility such aircraft have demonstrated in the wars now roiling Ukraine and the Middle East. “Recent conflicts have highlighted the asymmetric impact low-cost, one-way unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have on the modern battlefield,” the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) says. “The Department of Defense (DoD) must be able to employ low-cost precision effects at extended ranges.”

The drones must be “reliable, affordable, and adaptable,” which are foreign concepts inside the Pentagon (that’s probably why the DIU issued the solicitation instead of one of the military services). The commercially derived drones should be able to fly at least 31 miles, but ideally 186. They should carry a variety of payloads, most likely weapons and sensors, weighing at least 22 pounds (preferably 55 or more). Plus, they have to be capable of operating in “disrupted, disconnected, intermittent, low-bandwidth” environments (like your cell phone with zero bars!). And it wants them fast — proposals from interested suppliers are due before next Tuesday, October 15.

If the Pentagon thinks it has a winner, it may soon issue a drone production contract without additional competition “for use by one or more organizations in the Department of Defense.” The solicitation contained no cost goals beyond “affordable,” or how many it might buy. But it did specify one target: “We strongly recommend all proposals be formatted as presentations no more than 12 slides in length.”

That all but rules out traditional defense contractors.

THE REALITY

What happens when the rubber reaches the salt water

Sure, the Pentagon always says it wants affordable weapons (see previous item). At least until it starts buying them. Then its overly optimistic projections about technology and timing begin breaking down, leading invariably to growing costs and delayed deliveries.

Advocates argue that the new weapon’s new capabilities warrant its increased price and deferred deliveries. But their cumulative impact inexorably forces the U.S. military to cut production rates. That leads to increased costs and fewer weapons. And that sows the seeds for the next generation of hardware because the Pentagon had to skimp on the current one. The Bunker has been hearing this song for close to half a century. It has become muscle-memory music.

The latest evidence isn’t some pie-in-the-sky drone that Pentagon innovators want to buy, but the very foundation of the nation’s nuclear defense. Along with the Air Force’s land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles and bombers, the Navy’s missile-launching submarines are the backbone of U.S. atomic deterrence. Given their survivability, in fact, the subs are the most important part of the nuclear triad (push the envelope a bit and a fair case can be made that they are the only leg needed, despite arguments to the contrary).

Yet, as the current fleet of 14 Ohio-class “boomers” ages out, the Navy and its lead contractor are fumbling to replace them with 12 Columbia-class (PDF) boats costing almost $130 billion. “Our independent analysis calculated likely cost overruns that are more than six times higher than Electric Boat’s estimates and almost five times more than the Navy’s,” the Government Accountability Office said in a September 30 report (PDF). “As a result, the government could be responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional construction costs for the lead submarine,” already at least a year late. These are not minor accounting errors, but colossal miscalculations, by someone. The bottom line will surely be far closer to the GAO’s green-eyeshade estimate than the rosy-colored projections of the Navy and its sub builder.

And it gets worse. “The Columbia-class program faces significant risks with compressed final assembly and test, concurrency, and continued poor construction performance,” the GAO reported (PDF). “Concurrency?” Where have we heard that word before (it means producing a weapon while it is still being designed)? Turns out (PDF) it’s also the biggest problem with the troubled F-35 fighter. 

Ripoff. Rinse. Repeat.

DOGFIGHT! (INSIDE THE PENTAGON!)

A race to build the first 6th-generation fighter

Following the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military largely continued flying on automatic pilot. “We’re in an arms race,” retired Navy admiral Eugene Carroll Jr. told The Bunker in 1997, “with ourselves.” A much younger Bunker was then covering the Pentagon for Time Magazine, and Carroll was the deputy director of the Center for Defense Information. Now The Bunker is at the Center for Defense Information and Admiral Carroll rests at Arlington National Cemetery. Yet that intramural Pentagon arms race continues unabated nearly 30 years after that interview.

The latest and most costly example is the Air Force’s decision to pause development of its Next-Generation Air Dominance (PDF) fighter, a so-called 6th-generation aircraft designed to be piloted into harm’s way, destroy the bad guys, and return both plane and pilot safely home. The service knows its original NGAD design would cost about $300 million a copy and isn’t affordable at that price. It wants to produce a $100 million “bargain” instead.

But those second thoughts aren’t slowing down the U.S. Navy. It is pressing ahead with the F/A-XX, its own 6th-gen platform. The Navy plans to tap Boeing, Lockheed Martin, or Northrop Grumman to build the plane, slated to begin flying in the 2030s. “We expect that 6th-generation platform to be able to have advanced sensors, advanced lethality, advanced range, and being able to integrate with manned and unmanned capabilities together,” Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations, said October 2 (PDF). “We have three companies that have provided proposals for that and we’re actually in source selection right now.”

“Franchetti’s comments indicate a new crewed fighter is still a Navy priority at the very moment when the outlook for the Air Force’s next-generation fighter appears to be in limbo,” Air & Space Forces Magazine reported.

That’s putting it mildly. Here’s a safe Bunker Bet™: The Air Force will eventually scrap its NGAD blueprints, the Navy will follow suit, and Admiral Carroll, at least this time around, won’t have to roll over in his grave.

WHAT WE’RE READING

Here’s what has caught The Bunker’s eye recently

→ Plutonium A-trigger production resumes

The Department of Energy finished work on the first weapons-ready “trigger” for a new generation of U.S. nuclear weapons in 35 years, Howard Altman reported October 4 at The War Zone.

→ Commandeer-in-Chief?

In Defense One October 2, Gregory D. Foster of the National Defense University warned his colleagues in the U.S. military to bulk up their defenses if former President Trump is elected next month.

→ Ducking Beijing…

U.S. defense startups face tough sledding developing cheap and effective weapons without Chinese parts, the Wall Street Journal’s Heather Somerville reported September 30.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Mark Thompson has been covering the Pentagon for more than 45 years.