When the story broke about the Joint Strike Fighter’s shortcomings as a dogfighter, the reaction among JSF advocates was swift and predictable. Most objected that the F-35’s poor performance is perfectly acceptable and even expected because that jet was never supposed to do air-to-air combat anyway. That claim does not hold up well to scrutiny and…
By Dan WardA major overhaul is coming in software for missile warning
Space Systems Command’s FORGE program is the first, major missile-warning software modernization effort in 20 years.
Tight budgets have a way of encouraging critical thinking and forcing a willingness to make painful but well-grounded tradeoffs. The Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, and the Army Chief of Staff, General Raymond Odierno, wrote a November letter about the weaknesses of our current missile defense approach to then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. This letter, recently leaked…
By Matthew Leatherman
ROSSLYN, VA: Surprise! The pilots who run the Air Force don’t share Navy Secretary Ray Mabus’s view of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which Mabus two weeks ago said “should be, and almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly.” “I would disagree…
By Richard Whittle
PENTAGON: Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh. Marine Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford. National Guard Bureau Chief Army Gen. Frank Grass. Gen. Hawk Carlisle, head of Air Force Air Combat Command. That’s a lot of stars and command authority gathered in one place and they all came together at…
By Colin Clark
UPDATED: Sen. McCain SASC Spox Rejects Air Force Rationale For Retiring A-10 ORLANDO: Sequestration. Base closures. Readiness. Modernization. ISIL. Russia. The list of challenges faced by Air Force leaders is long. But none may be more intractable or politically difficult than retiring the A-10 “Warthog” close air support fleet. The Air Force has never really wanted to…
By Colin Clark
ORLANDO: More than half-way into his tenure as Air Force Chief of staff, Gen. Mark Welsh has shifted focus from the service’s airmen to its weapons, declaring today that “we must modernize the Air Force. This isn’t optional. We must do it. And It will be painful because we will have to make hard choices.” Welsh’s speech…
By Colin Clark
WASHINGTON: Even unmanned aircraft need people to make them fly. Today, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced stopgap measures to shore up overworked drone squadrons. At the same press conference, the service’s Chief of Staff pledged to plug another personnel gap, the shortage of skilled maintainers for the manned F-35 — but, Gen. Mark…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
New Army mounted system won’t play favorites when it comes to C5ISR, EW and A-PNT
The CMOSS Mounted Form Factor will facilitate tech insertion for new capabilities while co-existing with the Mounted Family of Computer Systems.
NATIONAL HARBOR: Talk about a radioactive issue. Top officials in Air Force, Navy, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense keep talking about how there is no higher priority than the nation’s nuclear deterrent. It’s so crucial, they all say, that someone else should pay for it. “No capability we maintain is more important.…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
PENTAGON: The grander the title, the blander the content. That’s normally a safe rule in Washington. But if analyzed closely, this afternoon’s “State of the Air Force” briefing by service Secretary Deborah Lee James and Chief of Staff Mark Welsh, plus the accompanying pamphlet A Call To the Future, actually do articulate a remarkably clear…
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Congress usually does not like it when the military decides to retire a weapon system. A fleet of planes like the A-10 or the U-2, or ships like Ticonderoga cruisers or, for that matter, a military base are all centers of jobs. And Congress doesn’t like it when someone messes around with existing jobs. When…
By Jordan Thomas
CAPITOL HILL: Aside from Sen. Kelly Ayotte, the reaction from Capitol Hill to the Air Force plan for retiring the ugly and beloved A-10 has been relatively muted and may remain so. Why would Congress, beloved for going slightly nuts whenever the military tries to retire a ship, aircraft squadron, or anything else that means jobs…
By Colin Clark
AFA WINTER, ORLANDO, FLA.: The Air Force has launched a major effort to craft a new strategy and new efforts to better plan how it will spend its money, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said today. “The question for us now is, what is next? Is it strategic agility, cyber-centric operations, blended…
By Colin ClarkPENTAGON: In her first press conference as Air Force Secretary, Deborah Lee James had the sad duty of detailing the biggest cheating scandal in the history of Global Strike Command, involving 34 of the 190 officers who man the nuclear missile silos at Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base. James said she met with Defense Secretary…
By Colin Clark
In this article, one of the Air Force’s own, longtime Breaking Defense contributor Lt. Col. Dan Ward, runs the numbers on his service’s plan to scrap the beloved A-10 Warthog and – now that Congress has thoroughly rejected the idea – suggests an alternative: a modest trim to the massive F-35 program might just save…
By Dan Ward