Planning weapons for the next war(s)

Popular Mechanics has a cover story on Pentagon budgets, weapons programs, and the internal political conflicts between the “Long Warriors” (focused on the War on Terror and the budgets and systems needed to support that) and the folks who expect the next conflict (or deterrance of same) to be against China, which would call for a much more traditional Cold War-style military.

The result is a lot of debate over some very keen-sounding weapons systems that may, or may not, be of any use by the time they get deployed.

The attack would come quickly, and it would be awful. Cruising far offshore, the U.S. Navy’s DD(X) destroyer launches 20 artillery shells in less than a minute. As the satellite-guided weapons fall back to Earth at 830 mph, computer algorithms alter their flight paths so that the 250-pound projectiles all strike the same patch of ground at the same time, reducing everything in the vicinity to rubble and dust. If more firepower is needed, the destroyer can unleash another 580 artillery rounds, as well as 80 Tomahawk missiles. And when the attack is over, the ship simply vanishes. On a radar screen, the DD(X)’s stealthy hull makes the 14,000-ton vessel look like just another fishing boat, casting its nets into the sea.

Just one thing is missing from this scenario: an enemy. “The DD(X) is the most revolutionary surface warship in decades,” says John Pike, director of defense think tank GlobalSecurity.org. “But I have yet to have anybody explain to me–point to a place on the map-and say what they propose to do with it.”

One result is that arguments get made for how a given weapons system can be used in either sort of theater — such arguments usually being a stretch (or, worse, leading to mid-course design revisions that leave the system not much good for any of its roles). Usually these arguments are made to justify the Big Ticket items, like the DD(X) or F-22 Raptor, which may not have an obvious application in the War on Terror.

If sending a $60 million single-engine JSF to take out Chinese radar seems excessive, using a $250 million dual-engine jet to disrupt the signals of improvised roadside explosives seems downright ridiculous-especially when Humvee-mounted jammers that cost $10,000 already do the job. Yet, this capability is one of the justifications that Lockheed officials now use for the fleet of F-22 Raptors they’re building for the Air Force at a cost of $4 billion a year. Designed to tangle with Soviet MiGs, the jet has been searching for a mission for 15 years. Retired Marine Maj. Gen. Tom Wilkerson, a former F/A-18 pilot, thinks the Raptor and the JSF are “overkill of the highest magnitude. Our fighter pilots already kick anybody’s ass. And nobody is building anything that can keep up.”

Though, of course, that sort of attitude can be dangerous, too. “Oh, our weapons systems are so good, we don’t need to develop anything new” is, history points out, a great way to tragically discover how wrong you can be. And while everyone’s talking now about the Long War, weapon systems decisions have have impacts for decades (as an example, the B-52).

Still, given a choice between getting behind a sexy new fighter, ICBM upgrade, or destroyer, vs. innovatoins in radios and body armor and Humvees, folks in the corporate world (defense or not) know what’s going to look better on a resume. Is that fighting the last war? Or getting ready for the next one?

(via GeekPress)