Breaking Augustine’s law

Since halfway through WW2 the West, led by the US, has harnessed its wealth, scientific and engineering ingenuity, and industrial power to achieve a dominance in air combat unmatched in any other sphere of military competition. In a multitude of theatres from Korea in the 1950s to Afghanistan today, Western pilots flying fighters from the F-86 to the F-15 have been progressively more dominant, with kill rates over their (primarily Russian-sourced) opponents increasing from around five to one in Korea to 80 to nil in the Beka’a Valley (1982) and Iraq (1991).

Simulations against sophisticated hypothetical opponents indicate that the F-22 and the F-35, operating as elements of advanced air combat systems, will continue to generate those kinds of kill ratios. The question, though, is whether the West can afford enough aircraft to meet concurrent threats.

The problem is the time and expense involved in designing, building, testing, and introducing strike/fighters has constantly increased, to the extent that the process may no longer be financially sustainable.

In WW1 frontline fighters were brought into service in about six months and cost some $46,000 in today’s currency. The outstanding fighter of World War 2, the P-51 Mustang, took 18 months and cost $614,000, while the Korean War’s F-86 Sabre came in at three years and $2 million. Perhaps most remarkably, in a four-and-a-half year period in the late-1950s, the US introduced six supersonic fighters at an indicative unit cost of $16 million. Moreover, they were built in very large numbers (for example, 5,200 F-4s), and some are still operational.

Contrast that with today’s F-22, which took more than 15 years from concept to squadron service, and for which the prohibitive unit cost of $200+ million saw the planned production run reduced from 750 to 195. Presently the F-35 is following the same self-defeating time/cost downward spiral.

The F-22 and F-35 are exceptional weapons systems and their unsurpassed ability to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR)/ strike/fighter missions will underwrite the West’s future combat capability.

Unfortunately, however, the ceiling of time/cost acceptability seems to have been breached.

Thus, severe production cuts have been made as officials belatedly try to apply some financial commonsense.

And fewer numbers means that even with supercruise and information superiority, fewer fights can be reached in a given time and fewer combat losses can be absorbed.

It is noteworthy that there are no long-term plans for successors to the West’s existing strike/fighter fleets of F-22s, F-35s, F-15s, Eurofighters, Rafales, and the like (although the USAF is arguing the case for a ‘next generation’ manned heavy bomber).

It is at this stage that unmanned aerial systems (UASs) enter the equation.

Since WWI, the Western way of war has been defined by a continually improving ability to fight with superior information, enhanced precision and from greater distances. When that model has been ignored, as in socalled ‘counter-insurgency’ operations in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Western forces have lost. When it has been observed, as in air/special force operations in the Middle East and Central Europe, they have won.

UASs almost certainly represent the next iteration of that successful strategic/technological model. They are already the weapon of first choice for ISR and are already making a major contribution to strike. It is reasonable to suggest the most challenging mission, air combat, will follow in the next 20 years – as long as adequate resources are provided. In the main, those resources will have to come from manned platform programs, a philosophical shift that will worry the pilots who command air forces.

Many respected commentators believe UASs are the future of air power and thus the West’s most important military advantage. If so, a design/production/operational model that breaks the unsustainable position manned platforms have been allowed to reach must be developed.

Because networked systems rather than the platforms themselves are now the key to air combat, perhaps role and platform simplicity, as opposed to the enormous complexity of fifth generation ISR/strike/fighters, might be a good start.

The F-35 is following the same selfdefeating time/cost downward spiral.