Military « Quotulatiousness

March 2, 2012

At least one politician thinks we should keep the Victoria class submarines

Filed under: Cancon, Military — Tags: Navy, RCN, Submarines — Nicholas @ 11:41

In the National Post, Senator Pamela Wallin offers a counter-argument to John Ivison’s suggestion that the submarine fleet is a net drain on Canada’s military resources (linked from this post):

I’m with Vice-Admiral Maddison, who said, “For a G8 nation, a NATO country like Canada, a country that continues to lead internationally and aspires to lead even more, I would consider that [cancellation of the program] to be a critical loss of a fundamental capability and a very difficult one to regenerate at a future date.” Submarines provide Canada the ability to add to our knowledge of what’s happening at sea, a way of moving around without being noticed and, if fighting breaks out, a unique strike capability in support of Canadian or allied forces.

Most importantly, Canada has the longest coastline in the world. We need to be able patrol it and to guard our three enormous ocean approaches — quietly and unseen. As well, 90% of the world’s trade moves on ships. Canada is heavily reliant on maritime trade, especially through sensitive narrow waterways like the Straits of Hormuz and Malacca. Some of that trade is threatened by piracy, a growing concern for all trading nations, especially off Africa’s east coast where pirates now range all the way east to India. These are not the charmingly rakish pirates that Hollywood portrays — they are brutal, ruthless criminals. Canada, as a maritime nation, needs to know what’s going on in all domains, including underwater, and to be able to fight back.

HMCS Victoria near Bangor. (Image from Wikimedia).

In spite of the tone of my comments in the earlier post (generally agreeing with Ivison’s criticisms), I’m pro-RCN and very much pro-submarine as part of our navy. But what we need are submarines that can perform the duties required, and ever since we acquired the Victoria class, they’ve signally failed to do this. Anyone who’s ever watched a WWII film or newsreel knows that submarines fire torpedoes — except the Victoria class, which still do not have effective torpedo armament. We bought these submarines in 1998. HMCS Victoria has been in commission since 2000 and we’re only just getting around to test-firing a torpedo later this year? This is insane.

Of course, it’s not fair to blame the RCN for all the problems: the government of the day bought the subs on the cheap and then didn’t fully fund the necessary repairs to bring the boats back into operation in a timely fashion (but the military may not have done proper due diligence before recommending the purchase, either). Today’s government may cut funding as part of the austerity budget we’re rumoured to be facing soon. If so, we can expect fewer days when any of our submarines are in the water, operational, and fully crewed.

Comments (1)

Privateers? In our Maritimes? It’s more likely than you think

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, USA — Tags: Navy, Piracy, Ships, WarOf1812 — Nicholas @ 11:05

Pirates and Privateers is a half hour documentary airing Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 12 Noon on CBC Land and Sea, that explores the rough-and-tumble history of piracy and privateering in the Maritimes.

Comments Off

March 1, 2012

American involvement in Afghanistan: the pessimistic view

Filed under: Asia, Military, Religion, USA — Tags: Afghanistan, AlQaeda, Army, BarackObama, GeorgeWBush, Islam, September11, Taliban — Nicholas @ 11:07

Steve Chapman recounts the arguments against staying the course in Afghanistan:

When Afghans erupted in rage over the careless burning of Korans at Bagram Airbase, the upheaval was not just about Muslim holy books. It was also about the grossly dysfunctional relationship between us and them — a product of the huge cultural gulf, our outsized ambitions and the irritant of our presence.

Afghanistan is a medieval country that we can barely begin to understand. Yet we presume that with all our money, technology, weaponry and wisdom, we can mold it like soft clay.

Things don’t work so well in practice. Only one out of every 10 Afghans who sign up to join the army or national police can read and write. The military’s desertion rate, an American general acknowledged last year, approaches a staggering 30 percent.

Many if not most Afghans have never heard of the 9/11 attacks. Even the deputy chairman of the government’s High Peace Council told The Wall Street Journal he doesn’t believe al-Qaida destroyed the World Trade Center.

So what can we expect ordinary people to think when they see the country overrun with armed foreigners who sometimes kill and injure innocent civilians? Or when they hear that those infidels are burning Korans?

The war in Afghanistan is now the longest in American history, and if hawks have their way, we’ll be there for years to come. Alas, we have demonstrated the force of two things we already knew: Some mistakes can’t be undone no matter how you try, and every guest eventually wears out his welcome.

In Afghanistan, we originally failed to make the needed commitment to destroy the enemy, because President George W. Bush was distracted by his eagerness to invade Iraq. As a result, the Taliban survived and eventually mounted a major comeback. Barack Obama decided to pour in troops and funds, but by that time, Afghan patience was nearing exhaustion.

Comments Off

February 29, 2012

The US Navy’s mirror-image cost problems with aircraft carriers

Filed under: Economics, Environment, Military, Technology — Tags: Budget, Carriers, Navy, Salvage — Nicholas @ 09:51

Strategy Page talks about the ever-rising cost of building aircraft carriers:

The first of the new Ford class aircraft carriers keeps getting more expensive. The price for the first one has gone up $161 million in the last ten months. The USS Gerald R Ford (CVN 78) was originally supposed to cost $8 billion, plus $5 billion for R&D (research and development of new technology and features unique to this class of ships). Now it appears that the cost of the Ford will not be $13 billion, but closer to $15 billion. The second and third ships of the class will cost less (construction plus some additional R&D). Thus the first three ships of the Ford class will cost a total of about $40 billion.

The current Nimitz-class carriers cost about half as much as the Fords. Both classes also require an air wing (48-50 fighters, plus airborne early-warning planes, electronic warfare aircraft, and anti-submarine helicopters), which costs another $3.5 billion. Three years ago, the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), the last of the Nimitz class carriers, successfully completed its sea trails and was accepted by the U.S. Navy. The Bush was ready for its first deployment in 2010.

At those costs, it should be no surprise that few other navies operate carriers at all, and none operate the size of carrier that the US Navy does. Build costs are rising rapidly, and although the Ford class will carry significantly fewer crew members, they’ll still be very expensive to operate.

The costs don’t end there, however, as all warships have limited lifespans. Disposal of the retired ships is another area where costs are headed ever higher:

Last year, the U.S. Navy decided to go back to the breakers (where ships are broken up for scrap). Four retired aircraft carriers (USS Constellation, USS Forrestal, USS Independence and USS Saratoga) were to be scrapped instead of sunk, or simply allowed to rust away while tied up. These ships were taken out of service between 1993 and 2003 and have been waiting since then while a decision was made on their disposition. But there are seven carriers waiting to be scrapped and the navy has an economic disaster on its hands. Keeping carriers in reserve costs $100,000 a year, but it can cost over a billion dollars to scrap one of them.

Since the 1990s, sending warships to the scrap yard has not been considered a viable alternative. It’s all about pollution, bad press and cost. The largest warship to be scrapped, the 45,000 ton carrier USS Coral Sea, took until 2000 (seven years) to be broken up. Thus the process is not only expensive, it takes a long time. Then the navy discovered that the cost of scrapping the carrier USS Enterprise would be close to a billion dollars. This was largely the result of lots more environmental and safety regulations. With so many navy ships (especially nuclear subs) being broken up in the 1990s, and all these new regulations arriving, the cost of disposing of these ships skyrocketed. This was especially true with carriers.

[. . .]

It gets worse. With the really vast number of single hull tankers being scrapped and large numbers of old, smaller-capacity container ships laid up and likely to be offered for scrap fairly soon, the market for difficult-to-scrap naval ships is going to shrivel, and the price for scrap steel will drop. Efforts to get the navy include the costs of disposal in the budget for lifetime costs has never caught on, and now it’s obvious why not. The real nightmare begins in 2013, when the first nuclear powered carrier (the 93,000 ton USS Enterprise) is to be decommissioned. The cost of dismantling this ship (and disposing of radioactive components) will be close to $2 billion.

Comments Off

Is it time to abandon the RCN’s submarine experiment?

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Military — Tags: Navy, RCN, Submarines — Nicholas @ 00:05

John Ivison recounts the ill-fated story of the Royal Canadian Navy’s current submarines in the National Post:

The Liberal government bought four second-hand subs for $750-million from the British in 1998 and renamed them the Victoria class — HMCS Victoria, HMCS Windsor, HMCS Chicoutimi and HMCS Corner Brook.

Since then, billions more have been spent trying to “Canadianize” the subs, including thousands of dollars blown trying to stop pigeons roosting in them, such is the length of time they have been in dry-dock. At various times over the past 10 years, the whole fleet has been out of commission.

The history of Canada’s submarine fleet would be laughable, were it not so tragic. People in government at the time remember the surprise expressed by Liberal ministers that the Defence department accepted the British military’s statement of quality assurance, without doing their own due diligence. That the buyer should have been more wary quickly became apparent.

The Chicoutimi caught fire on her maiden voyage from Faslane in Scotland in October 2004, with the death of one sailor and smoke-inhalation injuries to nine others. The sub has been in dry-dock ever since and is scheduled to return to service in 2013, although some stories have suggested 2016 is more realistic and others that she may never again be operational.

I blogged about HMCS Chicoutimi at the old blog, when it was expected that she’d be back in service in 2010.

Last year, HMCS Corner Brook had what some wag at the Department of National Defence characterized as a “fender bender”:

Some fender. The CBC reported on the extent of the damage:

The Canadian navy admitted that the submarine crashed off British Columbia in June, but it never described the extent of damage or released a photograph.

“I was gobsmacked. I had no idea that this level of damage had occurred,” said Senator Colin Kenny, the former head of the Senate defence committee. “That may explain why the navy took it out of the water at night.”

[. . .]

Some familiar with the submarine say its pressure hull, the area in which the sailors are housed, may be heavily damaged and that would mean the sub will never go to sea again.

“Canada needs a submarine fleet, and to have this boat not be available would be tragic,” Kenny said

The RCN claimed that there was no cover-up and that they have been completely above-board and “transparent” about the incident. It’s an odd definition of “transparency” that requires you to submit a formal Access to Information request to get the report — and the photos of the damage to the hull were censored from the report anyway.

Back in 2004, it was reported that our submarines were without torpedo armament, but that they would be “fully armed” by 2006. The CBC report mentioned in passing that eight years later, they’re still lacking torpedoes:

The navy said HMCS Windsor is to undergo trials “in the coming months” and is also expected to be back in operation later in 2012.

Not one submarine is capable of firing a torpedo, however the navy said Tuesday that a test firing of a torpedo from HMCS Victoria is planned for the coming weeks and the submarine is supposed to be operational this year.

Back to John Ivison:

In all this time, the fleet has hardly been crucial to our defence. According to people familiar with its role, it has spent time at sea monitoring fishing fleets and acting as “prey” for U.S. forces, who don’t have diesel-electric subs of their own and like to use ours for hunting practice.

Peter MacKay, the Defence Minister, recently lamented the decision to buy the British diesel-electric subs, which are not capable of diving below ice in the Arctic. “In an ideal world, I know nuclear subs are what’s needed under deep water, deep ice,” he mused.

That we do not live in an ideal world was quickly made apparent by Government House Leader Peter Van Loan, who all but disowned the fleet in a response to a question in the House. “There is no plan to replace the diesel-electric fleet purchased by the Liberals,” he said.

But if there is no plan to replace the fleet, is there a plan to scrap it?

[. . .]

The Navy defines “full operational capability” as having a weapons-ready sub on each coast. It has yet to put one sub to sea that meets that standard, a decade after the first one was received.

The hope is that two boats will be fully operational within two years, with a “swing boat” available to take over when one goes for refit. That may prove wildly optimistic. Submarines may be a useful addition to our battery of defences — but only if they work. And not at any cost.

These subs have proven themselves to be lemons, they are already past mid-life and the odds are against us having even three boats with operational capacity at any one time.

Comments Off

February 28, 2012

February 27, 2012

BBC: Could Britain still defend the Falkland Islands?

Filed under: Americas, Britain, Military — Tags: AirForce, Argentina, Army, FalklandIslands, Navy, RoyalMarines — Nicholas @ 11:09

The BBC has a then-and-now summary of the military balance in the south Atlantic in 1982 and today:

1982: On the eve of the invasion, there were about 70 Royal Marines stationed on the islands — twice the usual number due to a changeover. They were, in theory, backed up by about 120 local reservists, although only a small proportion reported for duty. HMS Endurance, an Antarctic ice patrol vessel, was the only ship based in the South Atlantic at the time. And there were no fighter jets — none of the island’s airstrips were long enough. The only planes that could land before the war came from Argentina. Supplying the Falklands by sea from Britain took two weeks.

2012: The major difference is the construction of RAF Mount Pleasant, a modern air base housing four Eurofighter Typhoon strike fighters, a Hercules transport plane and VC-10 tanker plane. There are also Rapier missile batteries in several locations. The British garrison numbers 1,200, including 100 infantrymen, with 200 reservists in the Falkland Islands Defence Force. The Royal Navy has a patrol vessel, an auxiliary support ship, and frigate or state-of-the-art destroyer. It’s reported that a British nuclear-powered submarine is in the South Atlantic, but the Ministry of Defence will not discuss operational matters. “It’s quite a considerable deterrent force,” says Peter Felstead, editor of Jane’s Defence Weekly. Military experts believe the islands are now virtually impregnable. Any sign of Argentine invasion and the islands could be quickly reinforced by air.

Just as we established the last time this was up for discussion, Argentina doesn’t have the military forces for a stand-up fight, but if they can take the RAF base in a surprise attack by special forces, Britain probably can’t recapture the islands.

Comments Off

February 23, 2012

Canada considers delaying F-35 aircraft order

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Technology — Tags: Aircraft, AirForce, F-18, F-35, RCAF — Nicholas @ 11:38

In the Globe & Mail, Steven Chase on the Canadian government’s uncomfortable position on the RCAF’s next generation fighter aircraft:

The Canadian government is investigating whether it can squeeze more life out of its aging CF-18 fighters as it takes stock of decisions by cash-strapped allies to delay or trim orders for the replacement F-35 Lightning jet.

The Harper government must now decide whether there’s a benefit to postponing part of Canada’s order of 65 jets so that its Lightning fighter bombers are built in the same years as the bulk of orders placed by other countries — when the production cost is lower.

[. . .]

The Canadian government had planned to start taking delivery of new F-35 fighter bombers in 2016 or 2017 and has publicly described 2020 as the retirement date for most of its fleet of CF-18 Hornets.

A government official with knowledge of the file said the military is now assessing whether 2020 is the absolute maximum life expectancy for the Hornets or whether there’s a little bit more flying time left in the jets — planes purchased between 1984 and 1988.

Canada has already retrofitted the CF-18s in order to make them last until 2020.

Comments Off

February 19, 2012

While cutting back the troops, the MoD bureaucrats get big bonus payments

Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, Military — Tags: AirForce, Army, Navy — Nicholas @ 10:28

C. Northcote Parkinson formulated the law that bears his name. He documented the phenomenon (PDF) of more and more bureaucrats supporting fewer and fewer ships and sailors back in 1955:

The accompanying table is derived from Admiralty statistics for 1914 and 1928. The criticism voiced at the time centered on the comparison between the sharp fall in numbers of those available for fighting and the sharp rise in those available only for administration, the creation, it was said, of “a magnificent Navy on land.” But that comparison is not to the present purpose. What we have to note is that the 2,000 Admiralty officials of 1914 had become the 3,569 of 1928; and that this growth was unrelated to any possible increase in their work. The Navy during that period had diminished, in point of fact, by a third in men and two-thirds in ships. Nor, from 1922 onwards, was its strength even expected to increase, for its total of ships (unlike its total of officials) was limited by the Washington Naval Agreement of that year. Yet in these circumstances we had a 78.45 percent increase in Admiralty officials over a period of fourteen years; an average increase of 5.6 percent a year on the earlier total. In fact, as we shall see, the rate of increase was not as regular as that. All we have to consider, at this stage, is the percentage rise over a given period.

His law is still operative, as shown recently in healthy bonus payments to bureaucrats in the British Ministry of Defence at the same time that the troops are under a pay freeze and reduction in force:

One senior civil servant was awarded an £85,831 bonus on top of their six-figure salary — at the same time as members of the armed forces have been subject to a two-year pay freeze and 20,000 are to be made redundant.

The bonuses have been paid since April last year and have seen more than 55,000 officials awarded extra payments for their performance — out of a payroll of 83,000.

The ministry expects to pay more in bonuses in the current financial year than the last, even thought it is attempting to drastically reduce the number of civil servants as part of cuts to Government expenditure.

Comments Off

February 17, 2012

Colby Cosh on the current drama around the Falkland Islands

Filed under: Americas, Britain, History, Military — Tags: Argentina, Army, Diplomacy, FalklandIslands, Navy, Twitter — Nicholas @ 09:22

The last time Colby Cosh discussed the Falkland Islands, we had a bit of a discussion on Twitter, with my pessimism about Britain’s strategic situation finally persuading him to say “You’ve convinced me to worry about this a little more than I would’ve” (summary in this post). He’s now posted a new article at Maclean’s, which I think accurately captures the situation in the south Atlantic:

Argentina, the world press tells us, intends to rename its top soccer league the “Cruiser General Belgrano First Division”, in honour of the Argentine ship sunk by the Royal Navy during the 1982 Falklands War. Far be it from any outsider to prescribe how a country honours its war dead, but honour is not what the move is about: it’s part of a continuing, exhausting barrage of Falklands agitprop from Argentina’s Kirchner government. Kirchner is scrambling to keep Argentine economic growth rolling, barracking businesses and workers in the classic caudillo manner as inflation outpaces the dubious official statistics. She has tried, with some success, to close off Southern Hemisphere ports to boats flying the maritime flag of the Falklands and to weld traditionally UK-friendly neighbours into a regional bloc against “colonialism”. Tensions are high and the Falkland Islanders are feeling besieged.

Britain is passing through a phase of relative strategic vulnerability when it comes to the Falklands. The islands are garrisoned much more strongly than they were in 1982 and the RAF has a proper airfield. But the UK has sold off its Harrier fleet, and its naval force-projection capacity is a little threadbare; public austerity has forced the Royal Navy to wait until 2016 for a new Nimitz-sized aircraft-carrier class to come into play. General Sir Michael Jackson, often considered the top UK commentator on military affairs (how many General Sirs are there?), recently summed up the situation by suggesting that the Falklands could be defended—but if Argentina captured them in a coup de main, as it did in ’82, its soldiers could probably not now be driven off. From a game-theoretic standpoint, the situation is a nightmare.

Update, 21 February: Brendan O’Neill explains that in the modern celebrity-fuelled world, the Penn really is mightier than the sword:

Easily the most extraordinary thing about Sean Penn’s recent comments on the Falkland Islands is the impact that they made. The tidal wave of furious commentary has tended to focus on Penn’s undoubted combination of daftness and arrogance, with enraged British hacks asking ‘where does Mr Madonna get off holding a press conference to pontificate about the serious affairs of the South Atlantic?’. That is indeed a good question. But a better and more pressing one is this: how on earth did the musings of one muppet make such a massive impact, intensifying the stand-off between Argentina and Britain, generating acres of newsprint, and even provoking a huge protest in the Falkland Islands themselves under the banner ‘Falk You, Sean’?

[. . .]

The Penn affair confirms the extraordinary and terrifying power of celebrity today. It shows that in our celeb-obsessed era, the famous and allegedly fabulous are no longer used simply to advertise booze or to titillate the readers of gossip columns — they have become actual tools of global politics. (In both senses of the word ‘tool’ — ‘a device used to carry out a particular function’ and ‘one who lacks the mental capacity to know he is being used’.) Indeed, Kirchner’s use of Penn in her war of words with Britain shows that she is a sussed and wily leader — she recognises that, today, a comment from a celeb is a far more effective political manoeuvre than readying a warship or making a stern speech at the United Nations. Her message is basically: ‘I’ll see your Prince William and raise you Sean Penn…’

Comments Off

February 16, 2012

The economics of the military-industrial complex

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Government, Military, Technology, USA, Weapons — Tags: AirForce, Army, Congress, Corruption, CronyCapitalism, MilitaryProcurement, Navy — Nicholas @ 08:57

Eisenhower was right: the military-industrial complex has the US government tight within its grip, and there’s no easy fix. Strategy Page has a useful overview:

For decades the U.S. Armed Forces has been having problems with rapidly growing (much greater than inflation) costs of weapons. Congress passes laws to try and cope and the laws are ignored. One example is the laws calling for accurate life-cycle costs (for development, manufacturer, and maintenance of weapons over their entire service life). A recent study found out that, despite laws calling for accuracy and consistency in these numbers, most manufacturers manipulated the data to make their systems look less expensive than they actually were. The Department of Defense is increasingly taking extreme measures in the face of this corruption and cancelling more and more very expensive systems. But the manufacturers continue to use smoke and mirrors to get new projects started and failed ones funded.

New weapons get approved because of another form of procurement corruption, the Low Ball Bid. Last year the U.S. Air Force demanded that defense contractors stop low balling, which in practice means submitting unrealistically low bids for new weapons (to make it easier for Congress to get things started) and then coming back for more and more money as “unforeseen problems” appear and costs keep escalating and delivery is delayed. Currently, procurement projects are about a third over budget and most items are late as well. Procurement of weapons and major equipment make up about a third of the defense budget. While this is expected to decline over the next decade, as defense budgets shrink, the problem also extends to upgrades and refurbishment of existing equipment.

The most intractable problem is the decades old contractor practice of deliberately making an unreasonably low estimate of cost when proposing a design. The military goes along with this, in the interest of getting Congress to approve the money. Since Congress has a short memory the military does not take much heat for this never ending “low ball” planning process.

Comments Off

February 15, 2012

More speculation that Canada might be reconsidering the F-35 fighter purchase

Filed under: Australia, Cancon, Military, Technology — Tags: F-35, Iran, Israel, NATO, StephenHarper, UAV — Nicholas @ 10:53

In the National Post, John Ivison reports on a new tender for UAVs and wonders if it may herald a reconsideration of the government’s announced F-35 purchase.

Sources said the Department of National Defence is preparing to tender a contract for around six remotely piloted vehicles such as the MQ-9 Reaper, which the U.S. Defence Department estimates cost around $30-million each. A spokesman for DND dismissed the suggestion that armed drones could replace the F-35s, or augment a reduced number of aircraft, as speculation.

The Canadian military has previously leased drones from Israel and the CU-170 Herons flew reconnaissance missions in Afghanistan. But the Herons were never armed and a move to fit munitions on to any unmanned aircraft would inevitably draw criticism from opposition parties. When the idea was raised two years ago, then New Democrat defence critic Jack Harris dismissed it as “morally repugnant” and “robot warfare.”

In 2009, it was mentioned that Canada had been using Heron UAVs for about a year (long enough that Australian troops were in Canada to train on the equipment at that time). Of course, you can’t (currently or in the near future) completely replace manned fighters with UAVs, but UAV capabilities have grown substantially and they can now accomplish many missions that used to require manned aircraft. (See the comments on this article for some useful discussion on that topic.)

The F-35 should be (once all the development and manufacturing issues have been worked out) a very impressive combat aircraft. Here’s a graphic showing the kind of armament the F-35 will be able to use. The problem for Canada and other countries intending to purchase the F-35 is that costs are rising uncomfortably fast:

However, delays and cost overruns to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 strike fighter jet are causing headaches in many NATO capitals. Peter MacKay, the Defence Minister, admitted Tuesday that “the program has not been without problems in timelines and cost estimates.”

He said the government remains committed to giving the air force “the best opportunity for mission success” but refused to confirm that the government still intends to buy 65 F-35s.

In Question Period, the Prime Minister said that there is a budget for the F35s and “the government will operate within that budget.”

The problem for the Tories is that the cost of the planes is likely to rise considerably from the estimated $75-million per plane. Buying 65 jets would burst the $9-billion budget allocated for the F-35 purchase.

The U.S. Defence Department estimates the cost of each F-35 at $195-million this year. The Pentagon said Monday it intends to reduce spending on the F-35s next year and delay future spending because of the soaring costs and technological problems.

Some countries are opting to buy some F/A-18F Super Hornets as a stopgap until the F-35 is mature (Australia, for example, ordered 24 aircraft at a reported cost of A$6.6 billion).

No story about military equipment purchases is complete without considering the fact that the government thinks of it as an economic development program nearly as much as a military purchase. In spite of the remarkably poor economic justification, it has political benefits that easily dazzle parliamentarians and local newspaper editors (in the regions that benefit from the spending, anyway).

The Harper government has argued consistently one reason to stay in the F-35 program is the industrial benefits that have accrued to some Canadian companies. However, one industry insider said more work would likely flow from an order for a less expensive jet from Boeing or Saab. The government is set to unveil a comprehensive review of the Canadian aerospace industry, led by former Industry Minister David Emerson. If his review were to encompass the F-35 purchase, it could provide the Tories with the perfect cover to cancel a program that is turning into a political millstone.

Also in the National Post, Matt Gurney points out that it’s not just the NATO allies getting concerned about the F-35 program:

Ottawa is said to be considering equipping the Air Force with armed drones as part of an effort to replace the aging CF-18 fighter jets. The original plan was to replace them with 65 F-35s, but that problem has been beset by cost overruns and production delays. While the Harper government has remained resolutely behind the F-35 purchase, news has emerged out of Washington that the United States is beginning to cancel or delay orders for the advanced stealth fighter jets. This is a game-changer — it’s one thing for Italy or Israel to get cold feet, but if America pulls the plug on the program, the entire calculus of the F-35′s economics could change rapidly. And not in Canada’s favour.

He also points out that it’s no longer safe to assume that your UAV will perform as expected once your opponent reaches a certain level of technical sophistication:

Last December, Iran announced that it had shot down a U.S. RQ-170 drone over its territory. There was nothing new about that, and nor was it particularly alarming — an advantage of using drones for reconnaissance is that if the enemy does blow one up, you don’t necessarily need to respond with a retaliatory strike, as would be far more likely if a pilot (with a family and an elected representative and a Facebook page) was killed or captured. It also helps avoid a repetition of the awkward Gary Francis Powers incident of the Cold War, where an American spyplane pilot was shot down over the Soviet Union. When America denied the flight had ever occurred, the Soviets displayed a very much alive Powers to the media, humiliating the United States. Having a drone blown out of the sky isn’t nearly as complex. You just build another drone.

After several days, however, it became clear that there was more to the story than we had first been led to believe. Iran hadn’t shot down the drone at all. It had done something much worse — it had hacked the drone, and seized control of it. Iranian ground controllers, having assumed command of the drone, were able to successfully land it in their territory as a prize. Now, one of the most advanced pieces of spy technology in the United States’ military inventory, loaded with all sorts of high-tech monitoring and communications gear, is being reverse-engineered by a hostile regime. Worse: You can be certain that Iran will have no qualms about sharing access with whatever it learns, or perhaps even the drone itself, with Chinese and Russian engineers. Just a small way of saying thanks for all the missiles and UN vetoes Iran’s friends have provided over the years. (Early consideration of sending in U.S. commandos to blow up the drone, or destroying it from afar with an airstrike, were rejected for fear of triggering an all-out war and because U.S. officials hoped that Iran wouldn’t know what to do with the technology — but the Russians and Chinese will likely have no such problems.)

Update: Kelly McParland on the luck of Stephen Harper:

Stephen Harper is one lucky politician.

Here he is, stuck with a bad decision to buy a bunch of fighter planes the country can’t afford and might not need, a decision he has defended so many times there is now no way out save through an admission of error and embarrassing public climbdown. Which, knowing our Prime Minister, we can safely predict would happen just about the time the last polar ice cap melts away.

Then along comes a solution with his name on it, all wrapped up in pretty ribbon and accompanied by a “get out of embarrassment free” pass. Once again you can picture Bob Rae lying awake in bed at night, cursing softly and muttering “How does the *!@*%$-ing son-of-a-#%&% do it?”

Mr. Harper’s gift, which arrived, appropriately enough, on St. Valentines Day, comes in the form of further evidence that other would-be buyers of the F-35 fighter jet are heading for the exits. Italy chopped its order by 30% this week, Britain says it won’t make up its mind until 2015, Turkey has reduced its order by 50% and Australia is having doubts. On Monday the Pentagon said it’s delaying its own purchase of 179 of the planes by five years to save $15 billion and allow yet more time for testing. Let’s repeat that: The U.S., which is building the plane and marketing it like crazy to any ally that will listen, says the plane isn’t ready yet and it can’t afford the thing itself.

Comments (2)

February 14, 2012

Making field-expedient explosives less readily available

Filed under: Military, Technology, USA — Tags: Innovation, Terrorism — Nicholas @ 09:31

Strategy Page has a small item about a recent development in this area:

The United States is trying to get fertilizer manufacturers to produce less explosive products. That’s because terrorists increasingly use ammonium nitrate (a commonly used agricultural fertilizer) for their bombs (by mixing it with fuel oil and setting it off with a detonator). There is now a new form of ammonium nitrate fertilizer that it will not function effectively as an explosive. The Honeywell Corporation found that by adding some modified ammonium sulfate to the ammonium nitrate, you actually improve the fertilizing ability of the mix (by making the treated soil less acidic), and also prevent the fertilizer from being used as an explosive. Actually, you can still use the ammonium sulfate nitrate mix as an explosive, but it requires some creative chemistry to do so, and serves as a technological barrier for most terrorist groups. Although not a fertilizer manufacturer, American conglomerate (it makes a lot of different stuff) Honeywell found this less explosive ammonium nitrate formula while developing fire retardants. New discoveries are often made that way, by accident.

This won’t be enough to stop the use of ammonium nitrate as bomb-making material, but it raises the bar sufficiently that the very lowest tier of would-be terrorists will be shut out of the game (until they find an alternative source of explosives or ingredients for other explosive mixtures).

Comments Off

Colombia looks to upgrade their submarine fleet

Filed under: Americas, Germany, Military — Tags: Colombia, Navy, Submarines, Venezuela — Nicholas @ 09:23

With relations in a parlous state between Colombia and Venezuela, Colombia is considering upgrading their navy:

Colombia is negotiating with Germany to buy up to six recently retired Type 206A coastal submarines. The 206As are meant to be an inexpensive counter to new Russian Kilo subs being purchased by neighboring Venezuela. Colombia still has two older (1,200 ton) Type 209 subs and nine miniature subs. All are over three decades old, and so are the Type 206As. But the 206As have been better cared for and were updated in the 1990s. Colombia already has sailors with lots of experience on German submarines and the Type 206s can be obtained cheap. Exactly how cheap is currently under negotiation.

[. . .] If there were a war with Venezuela (which has been acting very belligerent over the last few years), the Type 206s would be used to shut down Venezuelan ports and destroy oil facilities. Venezuela also has two 1970s era Type 209 subs, said to be in worse shape than their Colombian counterparts.

Bundesmarine Type 206A submarine U22 in December 2006

Wikipedia says of these submarines:

The Type 206 is a class of diesel-electric submarines (U-boats) developed by Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW). Its design is based on the preceding Type 205 submarine class. These small and agile submarines were built during the Cold War to operate in the shallow Baltic Sea and attack Warsaw Pact shipping if the war turned hot. The pressure hulls were built out of non-magnetic steel to counter the threat of magnetic naval mines and make detection with MAD sensors more difficult. The low emission profile allowed the submarines in exercises to intrude even into well protected opposing forces such as carrier formations with their screen.

[. . .]

A major mid-life modernisation was conducted on twelve of these submarines, the boats concerned now being officially designated Type 206A. The work started in mid-1987 and completed in February 1992, being carried out by Nordseewerke, Emden; this upgrade includes:

The STN Atlas DBQS-21D sonar has been fitted, together with new periscopes, and a new weapon control system (LEWA). The ESM system has been replaced and GPS navigation installed. The rebuilt submarines are armed with new torpedoes (Seeaal), and the propulsion system has been comprehensively refurbished, and improvements have been made to the accommodation.

Comments Off

February 11, 2012

Canada calls for a meeting of other countries buying the F-35 fighter

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Technology — Tags: AirForce, F-35, MilitaryProcurement — Nicholas @ 12:25

Just when you think the Canadian government is going to keep kicking the F-35 can down the road, meekly accepting the repeated delays, they suddenly make headlines:

Washington’s plan to further slow production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is prompting Canada to convene a meeting with seven other international partners as the countries rethink their own orders for the stealthy new fighter jet.

Canada has committed to purchasing as many as 65 of the planes, but delays and shrinking orders threaten to drive up costs each country must bear for what is already the most expensive weapon system in history.

The Pentagon is restructuring the program for the third time in recent years; a move that will delay savings that would come from building more planes faster.

While I strongly doubt the Canadian government will pull out of the F-35 program — it’s been a key part of the Conservative defence plan — it’s a bit of a change to see them making waves about the delays and cost increases. Even if they eventually get some sort of a break on the final pricing, 65 aircraft are going to be too few to meet current needs but there’s little chance of the government increasing the funding to buy more.

Lockheed Martin Corp., the Pentagon’s No. 1 supplier, and U.S. officials who run the $382-billion US weapons program are anxiously preparing for a meeting in Australia in mid-March where the partners — Canada, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Australia, Turkey and the Netherlands — will outline their revamped procurement plans.

But Canada has tentatively scheduled a meeting of the partners at its embassy in Washington before the Australian meeting to get an update on the program and better coordinate their approach.

Each U.S. restructuring has consequences for the partners, which have already chipped in hundreds of millions of dollars for development of the fighter, which was sold as an affordable way to replace a dozen older jets in use around the world.

Canada’s plan to purchase up to 65 of the jets is based on a very specific timetable, and a slower ramp-up in production could force a tough decision between paying more per plane or extending the life of the country’s CF-18s. The government has estimated the jets would cost $16 billion, including maintenance. Others have pegged the cost at up to $30 billion.

Comments Off

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »