The Foe is Inside the U.S. Acquisition OODA Loop

[Dan Moore]

Today's Wall Street Journal reports, "U.S. Cancels Textron Helicopter Deal" -- a $6.2B Army contract that was supposed to produce 512 aircraft. Reportedly, estimated costs for each helicopter had risen to $14.5M from $8.6M and development costs had doubled to $942M.

That could mean friendly ground forces needing air-ground integration at the platoon and police levels in Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to "get nothing and like it," in the words of Ted Knight's character in Caddyshack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zrpx4NAtsFQ

This didn't and doesn't have to be the case. Starting in October 2005, a regional solution involving a collaborative effort between the U.S. and Jordanian governments could have provided friendly ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan with a couple of aircraft per platoon and police unit at a cost of less than $1.5M per aircraft.

Interested readers can go to the "Forum" section of the Boyd Conference 2008 website and they will find a topic titled: Expanding U.S. Tactical Aviation's "Approved Belief." At the bottom of the topic they will find a 2005 report they can download about the Jordanian "Seeker" aircraft.

We can only wonder how long U.S. Taxpayers, Voters, Congressmen, Industry, Federal Officials, and the "Chiefs" of Aviation for the U.S. Armed Forces can afford to allow our foes to operate inside the U.S. acquisition OODA loop -- producing a growing strategic mismatch between the time and costs of procuring, operating, and sustaining small ground units:

Foes -- years and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Friends -- decades and billions of dollars.

Repeat as needed.

Warm regards,

Dan Moore

Tucson, AZ

[Rob Paterson]

I think it would be a help if the group could list up the "ideal" sets of equipment that the 3 branches really need - my bet is that this could become compelling because it would be so concrete

[Chet Richards]

A historical note: In the mid-1980s at Lockheed, we were working on CAS designs about the size of an F-5, with a 4 bbl version of the GAU-8, armor, redundancy, and rough field capability. Biggest advantage over the A-10 would have been lower visual signature and exceptional maneuvering below 350 kts. We also looked at turboprop designs and even versions of cropdusters, which would also have been lethal (although not, perhaps, to GAU-8 standards) and highly survivable. We could have bought roughly 10 of the most expensive of these for the cost of an F-22.

Needless to say, the AF was not interested, and the Army saw the project as a threat to armed helos. Absent any customer involvement, Lockheed let the project lapse.

For those who aren't familiar, Dan Moore has done some of the most innovative work ever on providing responsive fire support to maneuvering (i.e., no discernible front line) forces. The fact that we don't listen to folks like him tells you how serious we are about the types of conflicts we will likely be involved with in the future.

[Rob Paterson]

Isn't this a part of a general problem now - the "Complex" is interested only in itself and not in the utility of what it does. Look at fighter aircraft - the F16 can still cope with any existing or foreseeable threat - but extending the production line is not a help to the "complex" - with the new fighter - existing valuable tools such as the A10 will be prejudiced. I am no expert but my bet is that anyone can come up with examples in all branches