The U.S. Air Force is short hundreds of fighter jets. To make up the gap, the Pentagon has come up with a wild concept: stuff hundreds of missiles into Cold War-era heavy bombers.
Pentagon Wants a Plane Packed With Hundreds of Missiles to Beat Putin’s Air Force
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/10/pentagon-wants-a-plane-packed-with-hundreds-of-missiles-to-beat-putin-s-air-force.html
The next time America’s high-tech jet fighters fly into battle against a major foe, they might have some serious backup—heavy bombers, newly modified to haul potentially hundreds of missiles and fire them at the fighters’ command.
The upgraded bombers have picked up a cool new name: “arsenal planes.”
That’s right, the next global air war could involve the U.S. military newest, smallest warplanes—its “fifth-generation” stealth fighters — working in teams with the military’s Cold War-era heavy bombers, its oldest and largest warplanes.
It’s an unprecedented and seemingly unlikely combination born of budgetary and strategic desperation. But for all its counter-intuitiveness, the fighter-bomber pairing—which could bring to bear overwhelming firepower—might be just the thing that the U.S. Air Force needs to stay ahead of the rapidly-modernizing Russian and Chinese air arms.
You see, the Pentagon is short hundreds of fighter planes. And in the most likely air-war scenarios over Eastern Europe or the Western Pacific, Russian or Chinese fighters would outnumber American planes, placing the U.S. pilots with their lightly-armed aircraft at a major disadvantage.
Enter the arsenal planes. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter revealed the bomber-fighter teaming concept in a Feb. 2 speech in Washington, D.C. previewing the Pentagon’s budget proposal for 2017. The arsenal-plane concept, Carter said, “takes one of our oldest aircraft platform and turns it into a flying launch pad for all sorts of different conventional payloads.”
“In practice,” Carter continued, “the arsenal plane will function as a very large airborne magazine, networked to fifth generation aircraft that act as forward sensor and targeting nodes, essentially combining different systems already in our inventory to create whole new capabilities.”
Carter left vague the identity of the arsenal-plane “platform,” but a Pentagon official confirmed to Aviation Week, a trade magazine, that it could be the eight-engine B-52 bomber, built in the 1960s, or the 1980s-vintage, swing-wing B-1 bomber—or both.
In the arsenal plane concept, fast stealth fighters including twin-engine F-22s and smaller, single-engine F-35s would fly into battle in their hardest-to-detect configuration, keeping their weapons tucked inside internal weapons bays in order to minimize reflectivity on radar. When they spot a target, they would dial up a munition from a much-slower bomber flying a safe distance from the aerial front line.
There’s a logic to this proposed teamwork.
Loading weapons strictly internally limits how many the fighter can carry. The F-22’s standard loadout is four air-to-air missiles and two 1,000-pound bombs. The F-35 can haul just two air-to-air missiles and two 2,000-pound bombs internally. By contrast, many Russian and Chinese fighters, while not stealthy, routinely carry 10 or more missiles and bombs under their fuselages and wings.
And owing to the Pentagon’s budget-driven decision to end F-22 production in 2012 after Lockheed Martin had built just 195 copies—half what the Air Force said it needed—plus repeated delays and cost overruns on Lockheed’s F-35 development, the Pentagon doesn’t have nearly the number of dogfighters it originally counted on.
Carter’s arsenal plane is a band-aid on this wound. But as far as band-aids go, it could be a pretty effective one. Since the F-22s and F-35s would fly ahead, evading detection while spotting targets, the B-52s and B-1s wouldn’t need to be stealthy. All they would need to do is carry lots of weapons ... and launch them when the fighter pilots say so.
That scheme plays to the bombers’ strengths. A B-52 or B-1—the Air Force possesses more than 130 of the bombers—can carry no less than 35 tons of munitions, nearly 10 times the F-22 and F-35’s internal payloads.
But there’s a problem. The Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, which Carter established while serving as deputy defense secretary in 2012 and which is developing the arsenal-plane concept, hasn’t said exactly how the fighters and bombers would combine their efforts.
Generally speaking, a warplane detects a target with its sensors and a router-like digital “bus” inside the plane codes the target’s location in the computer “brain” of the plane’s own munition. The pilot launches the weapon and it streaks toward the target it just memorized. The process requires a hard-wired connection.
But the arsenal plane wouldn’t have any such connection. Its communication with the stealth fighters would be strictly remote—a subtle, coded radio signal that the military calls a “datalink.” “The technology that is needed for one aircraft to feed another aircraft the type of information required for an accurate firing solution is difficult,” Brian Laslie, an Air Force historian and author of The Air Force Way of War, told The Daily Beast via email.
However, Dave Deptula—a retired Air Force general who oversaw bomber operations during the 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan—praised the arsenal-plane idea in an email to The Daily Beast. “What we previously labeled as ‘bombers’ can play dramatically broader roles than they ever did in the past,” Deptula wrote. “To capture this potential, however, requires innovative thought, and shedding anachronistic concepts that aircraft can only perform singular functions and missions.”
And Deptula insisted the technical hurdles are surmountable. “Today we can incorporate sensors, processing capacity and avionics in a single aircraft at an affordable cost to an unprecedented degree.”
Laslie urged caution. “This is a little unusual and something (almost) entirely new,” he wrote about the arsenal plane. But with too few fighters carrying too few weapons—and rapidly-arming foes—the Pentagon seems willing to risk something unusual and new. Slow, decidedly non-stealthy heavy bombers backing up speedy stealthy fighters a fraction their size.
Intelligence officials: ISIL determined to strike U.S. this year
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/02/09/islamic-state-world-threats-senate-testimony/80079254/#
WASHINGTON — The Islamic State militant group will "almost certainly" remain a threat to the U.S. homeland and seek to launch or inspire attacks on American soil in 2016, [/b] a top U.S. intelligence official warned Tuesday.
Attacks in the United States by the group, also known as ISIL, "will probably continue to involve those who draw inspiration from the group's highly sophisticated media without direct guidance from ISIL leadership," James Clapper, director of national intelligence, testified in a rare public hearing on Capitol Hill about intelligence threats facing the nation.
Testifying with Clapper were the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Marine Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart; CIA Director John Brennan; FBI Director James Comey; and Navy Adm. Michael Rogers, who heads the National Security Agency.
Clapper called the Islamic State the "pre-eminent terrorist threat." It can "direct and inspire attacks against a wide range of targets around the world." [/b] In a world where violent extremists are active in 40 countries, "ISIL is using the collapse of government authority to expand," he said.
Stewart said the Islamic State will probably conduct additional attacks in Europe and then attempt the same in the U.S. He said U.S. intelligence agencies believe ISIL leaders will be "increasingly involved in directing attacks rather than just encouraging lone attackers," according to the Associated Press.
The leaders also listed other threats facing the nation.
Al-Qaeda, which spawned the Islamic State, remains an enemy. The United States will face disparate threats from conflicts spurred by fights over scarce resources caused by climate change and global warming, and drug traffickers selling lethal heroin produced largely in China.
In addition, the nation's cyber infrastructure remains vulnerable to attack by terrorists such as ISIL, as well as by states such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, Clapper said.
[...] In general, the United States is facing a more violent world with a greater variety of threats than it has in 50 years, Clapper said.
‘We don’t have the gear': How the Pentagon is struggling with electronic warfare
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/02/09/we-dont-have-the-gear-how-the-pentagon-is-struggling-with-electronic-warfare/
In the future, many of the most effective weapons used against the U.S. military are likely to be unseen: electromagnetic waves that disrupt radios or jam global positioning systems, paralyzing units.
This realm of fighting is called electronic warfare, and since the 9/11 attacks it’s been relegated to a lower priority than fighting insurgent groups with precision guided munitions and drones. Now, defense officials say they’re worried that the U.S. military’s ability to counter and wage electronic warfare has atrophied and is lagging behind countries such as Russia and China.
“We don’t have the gear,” Col. Jeffrey Church, the head of the Army’s electronic warfare division, said in a recent interview. “We’re working on getting it, [but] we’re talking years down the road, when our adversaries are doing this right now.”
One place where the United States’ adversaries have displayed their proficiency in electronic warfare is in eastern Ukraine, where the Pentagon has watched Russian forces with a wary eye, gleaning what they can from the country’s reinvigorated military.
“The Russians have worked hard in recent years” in electronic warfare, Gen. Ben Hodges, the commanding general for the Army’s forces in Europe, said during a recent interview. “What they’ve done in east Ukraine and in Crimea has allowed us to study the challenge.”
One Ukrainian special-forces colonel fighting outside of the war-torn city of Donetsk said his men were targeted by an artillery strike after Russian-backed forces located his troops solely by his radio transmissions. The colonel, who for security reasons would identify himself only by his first name, Andrei, said in a recent interview that the radio they had was an American-brand Harris radio. The radio was capable of encrypted communication, but since its output was so much more powerful than the smaller handheld radios the regular Ukrainian troops often carry, the Russian-backed separatists were able to locate the American radio and attack its broadcast site with artillery.
The U.S. Army has a potential tool that would counter the Russians’ techniques, according to Church. Called the Integrated Electronic Warfare system, the three-piece program is meant to be a sort of one-stop shop for the Army’s electronic warfare division. The system is essentially a collection of software, sensors and devices that can be mounted to ground vehicles and drones and carried in troops’ rucksacks and will be able to jam, detect and identify enemy interference. The catch? It isn’t completely funded and has no set year when it will be ready, though one component of the system is slotted to be fielded by the end of 2016, with another due in 2023.
“We’ve been talking about this since 2005,” Church said, referring to one component of the Integrated Electronic Warfare system that was supposed to be ready in 2009 but won’t be in the field until later this year. “There’s these guys that have been looking at really neat pictures of really neat capabilities for years and we still don’t have it.”
[...] Church says the Pentagon brass has acknowledged to him that ideally there would be 3,200 electronic-warfare soldiers spread throughout the Army. Instead, he has 800.
“The joke in the field is that EW [electronic warfare] stands for extra workers,” Church said. “Because they have no gear, we have hardly any equipment to do our job.”
In the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, conventional electronic warfare has been mostly relegated to certain aircraft with the purpose of jamming and defeating enemy air defenses and radar along with gathering signals intelligence. The Navy has the EA-18G Growler, while the Marines last year retired their aging EA-6B Prowler, a jet specifically designed for electronic warfare. With the Prowler gone, the Marines, in the past two years, have been using a system of pods that can be mounted to various aircraft and will soon be able to be attached to ground vehicles and carried by individual Marines — the same capability the Army is seeking.
Two days later, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) introduced a bill that would allow the Pentagon to fund electronic warfare programs more quickly, in hopes of keeping pace with advancing technology and the United States’ adversaries.
Pentagon seeks funding for Libya, Africa military operations
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/09/pentagon-seeks-funding-for-libya-africa-military-operations.html
The Pentagon is seeking $200 million in the 2017 budget for counterterrorism operations in Libya and other portions of North and West Africa, as the Islamic State threat in that region continues to grow.
The new funding provides the first concrete indication of what the U.S. military may do to battle the threat, including expanded drone and surveillance flights, strikes and other operations. And it is the first time that the Pentagon has included a separate increase for operations against the Islamic State in Africa.
There were no details on how the money would be spent. The $200 million is an overall increase the department's war funding, including the ongoing effort in Afghanistan, and the airstrikes and training in Iraq and Syria against the Islamic State. The war funding request is $58.8 billion for 2017, compared to $58.6 billion this year.
The $200 million is likely to cover increased drone operations over Africa, as the military struggles to provide real-time intelligence through 24-hour unmanned aircraft patrols in the coming years. And that budget increase will build on discussions U.S. officials are having now on plans to beef up counterterrorism operations in Libya in the coming weeks and months.
U.S. officials are increasingly worried that Libya could become the next Syria, where the Islamic State flourished amid civil war and spread into Iraq. Both Syria and Libya have vast under-governed areas where militants can set up headquarters, training camps or storage depots.
Army Soldier rescued after parachute caught in power lines
http://www.news-journalonline.com/article/20160208/NEWS/160209583/101040?Title=Army-soldier-gets-tangled-in-power-lines-during-DeLand-parachute-jump&tc=ar
A U.S. Army soldier described by his superiors as a very experienced parachutist was blown off course and got tangled into some power lines Monday near the DeLand Municipal Airport, military officials said.
Carlos Esparza, 33, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was rescued shortly after the 9:03 a.m. incident at Yorketown Street and Ranger Avenue, according to an incident report.
Esparza, who is "very experienced at free fall and high altitude jumps," was stuck on a power line pole a quarter of a mile from the drop zone at the airport, said Sgt. Maj. Tom Clementson of the Fort Bragg Public Affairs Office.
Emergency workers responding to the scene reported that Esparza was dangling about 20 feet off the ground, according to radio communications.
Duke Energy workers were called to the scene to cut the power so DeLand firefighters could use their ladder truck to rescue the parachutist, said DeLand Fire Department Deputy Chief Ron Snowberger.
"We had an individual sky diving this morning and got caught in power lines," Snowberger said. "He wasn't injured."
The report states Esparza was on a training exercise following behind his squad when he drifted into a power pole at 1330 Yorktown St.
He was tangled in the parachute cords and hung from the wires on top of the pole. He was freed from the power pole by firefighters and a Duke Energy employee, the report states.
Clementson said Esparza and 19 others from a unit attached to the 18th Airborne Corps were on a "contracted training" in DeLand.
The unit was conducting its parachute training outside of Fort Bragg because other training activities at the military base that involve live fire, artillery fire or other aerial training did not permit the jumps, Clementson said.
"Whenever this situation occurs, they contract with another airfield or municipality to use their air space or targeted area for jumps," Clementson said. "So, it's not uncommon for our units to be training outside of Fort Bragg."
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