Several recent diaries have focused on the A-10, the F-35, and CAS (Close Air Support). They've also focused on the controversies surrounding the two aircraft.
The most recent diary addressed why the Army will not be given the A-10 fleet, currently operated by the Air Force and in the process of being phased out. This has engendered a certain amount of back and forth over the wisdom of that decision and the suitability of the F-35 to assume the CAS role in the future. The A-10 has strong partisans, while it seems no one loves the F-35. And then there's a certain understandable amount of antipathy towards the military industrial complex and the amount of money it consumes verses other needs.
I don't expect to settle any of these issues definitively, but having run across info on the progress of F-35 CAS developments, I thought I'd add some more fuel to the fire. More below the Orange Omnilepticon.
The source material comes from Air Force Magazine's Daily Report for January 8, 2014, and it seems to be a direct response to allegations about the gun systems for F-35 CAS, among a laundry list of complaints. An excerpt from the first item by John A. Tirpak:
Despite recent media reports that the F-35's GAU-22 25mm gun and electro-optical targeting system (EOTS) don't work—especially for the close air support mission—the two are progressing at the planned schedule, the F-35 System Program Office said Wednesday. While the online Daily Beast said the F-35A won't be able to fire its gun until 2019, the SPO said through spokesman Joseph DellaVedova that the gun was always planned to be operational with the 3F block of software in 2017, and nothing has changed since the development plan was decided in 2005.
..... The GAU-22 external gun pod for the F-35B version—which cannot carry it internally due to the lift-fan mechanism that permits vertical flight—will also be operational in 2017, he said. The Air Force plans to declare initial operational capability with the F-35A in August of 2016 with the 3i software version. Like the Marine Corps with its 2B software, the initial USAF version will have capability for air-to-air missiles and JDAM bombs; the gun will join the mix with the later 3F software.
emphasis added
For more information on the gun, it's a variant of the GAU-12.
As to allegations about the targeting system, Tirpak has more.
...The online Daily Beast quoted unnamed Air Force officials "affiliated with the F-35 program" as saying the F-35's EOTS will be "hopelessly obsolete" and unable to properly facilitate data-sharing between pilots and ground troops when it becomes operational. Joseph DellaVedova, spokesman for the SPO, however, said the F-35 EOTS system has already demonstrated in virtual exercises that it meets requirements for CAS missions, "particularly in contested environments." The F-35 can transmit and receive EOTS and radar images, "still images via Link-16 and Variable Message Format (VMF) data links to and from other entities including joint terminal attack controllers," he said. DellaVedova acknowledged that the F-35's current EOTS was based on "second-generation" electro-optical systems; a "deliberate and informed choice" of the F-35 partners more than a decade ago "to minimize development risk." Currently fielded systems on other aircraft are third generation, and Della Vedova said the Block 4 version of the F-35 will incorporate most of those improved attributes, to include "higher definition video, longer-range target detection and identification, video data link and infrared marker and pointer."
emphasis added
I'd suggest reading both items from Tirpak in full as well as the Daily Beast article; I've excerpted the gist of the Tirpak reports but I don't want to be accused of omitting relevant details. The point is, we are getting stories that conflict greatly; whom to believe? YMMV.
For those who missed previous diaries on this, here they are from most recent to earlier: Air-Minded: the Army & the A-10; F-35 Year End Update; My thoughts on the whole A-10 vs F-35 thing.
For an inside view of how the A-10 and the F-16 came to be (and a look at Pentagon weapons programs from the inside) a big chunk of Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed The Art of War deals with the story of how the Air Force got two aircraft it didn't want - and why they succeeded.
For some additional F-35 news, Lakenheath will be getting F-35s
The Air Force will base the first European F-35As at RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom, officials announced Thursday. The aircraft will arrive in phases beginning in 2020. Eventually a total of 48 F-35As will be based at Lakenheath, assigned to two fighters squadrons with 24 aircraft each, states the Jan. 8 release.
Turkey will be buying more F-35s
Turkey is upping its initial F-35 buy from two airframes to six, the country's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced earlier this week. "It is planned that Turkey will buy 100 F-35 warplanes in the project," Davatoglu said, quoted by Reuters on Jan. 7.
And in non-F-35 news, a historic era is coming to a close:
the end of Mildenhall.
The Defense Department on Thursday announced plans to close RAF Mildenhall, England, and return it, along with 14 other sites across Europe, back to their host nations under the European Infrastructure Consolidation plan. The base is currently home to 15 KC-135 tankers assigned to the 100th Air Refueling Wing, the only permanently assigned aerial refueling unit in Europe. Under the new plan, those tankers and the 352nd Special Operations Wing will move to Germany, while the assigned RC-135 Rivet Joints will move elsewhere within the United Kingdom, according to a Jan. 8 US European Command release.
UPDATED: In CAS news from elsewhere, the RAF is coming to Red Flag. Seems they are going for the multi-role thing too,
with the Typhoon.
...Six Brimstone 2 training rounds were fitted to a single-seat Typhoon at BAE’s Warton site in Lancashire, using a pair of three-missile launchers. The trial marked the conclusion of a £5 million ($7.8 million) feasibility study awarded to BAE earlier this year linked to the precision strike weapon.
“The aircraft was also fitted with two [Raytheon Systems] Paveway IV precision-guided bombs, showing the baseline Phase 3 enhancements air-to-surface configuration,” says BAE. “The trials are helping to pave the way for Brimstone 2 integration for the Royal Air Force by 2018."
They expect Red Flag to be
a real learning experience.
...“Tartan Flag is representative of the challenges that maintaining a swing role squadron have. So in the past the RAF has had fast jets that have conducted single role missions with the Harriers, Jaguars and Tornado GR4s doing the air-ground task and Tornado F3 doing the air-air task.
“With the Typhoon we can do all of that and more and it’s a complex and dynamic challenge to remain good at all of that. One day you'll be sitting QRA and thinking about whether you might have to launch to intercept an unidentified aircraft, the very next day you could be doing a night close air support mission and the day after that you could be leading a strike package or doing air combat against an F-15 Eagle. So that's an awful lot of skills set to maintain and knowledge to retain and we have to work very hard to do that.”
And for those wanting to know what it shoots with, here's
details about the gun.