View Full Version : US Air Force to recompete aerial tanker program?
They must have gotten fed up with all the problems with the Boeing KC-46. Remember, the Airbus KC-45 was the USAF's original choice but Boeing won when the contract was re-competed after a protest. And the European tanker has been successfully flying missions around the world for years with various air forces.
Or maybe this is just to light a fire under Boeing's butt.
"The US Air Force is set to reopen a bidding war between Boeing and arch-rival Airbus over the replacement of its ageing fleet of refuelling aircraft essential to Washington's ability to project power beyond its borders.
In a tortuous and scandal-riven procurement process, during which two contracts were scrapped, Boeing finally snagged a $35-billion (30-billion-euro) deal in 2011 to develop and supply 179 KC-46 refuellers by 2029.
Even though the project was plagued by cost overruns and delays, Boeing looked set to walk away with the next phase of the project to replace the Air Force's fleet -- without which a large proportion of its capacity would be grounded."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-reopen-boeing-airbus-bidding-050729747.html
I would like to see everything made in America for the military, and that includes planes. HOWEVER, Boeing Unions and the company itself have overstayed their welcome in my mind. I think Ford could have built a tanker and had it flying in less time, and we could have called it "The Superduty".
Interesting. Our 'local' AFB (Seymour-Johnson) has a squadron of KC-46As that are pretty new. They still have a squadron with KC-135s, too.
Diamondback
08-12-21, 12:49
I would like to see everything made in America for the military, and that includes planes. HOWEVER, Boeing Unions and the company itself have overstayed their welcome in my mind. I think Ford could have built a tanker and had it flying in less time, and we could have called it "The Superduty".
Between IAM and the McDonnell Crime Family, and now the potheads at Jeppesen in Denver trying to be the tail wagging the dog... the only thing that I can see which will get things turned around is a forced reorg under new management, either Chapter 11 or Nationalization.
Oh BTW, the amount of technology transfer they've done to hostile regimes (McDonnell even set up lines in China to build airliners for their market back in the DC-9 days) and the degree to which their Beijing subsidiary is compromised by the CCP... I'm surprised in their quest for quick cash they haven't handed over the B-52 or Minuteman III TDP's yet. I was tempted to say I wouldn't be surprised if they already had 'em anyway, but if they did they wouldn't still be building modernized and updated knockoffs of the old Tu-16 Badger, which was roughly equivalent to a B-47.
Grand58742
08-12-21, 13:02
I would like to see everything made in America for the military, and that includes planes. HOWEVER, Boeing Unions and the company itself have overstayed their welcome in my mind. I think Ford could have built a tanker and had it flying in less time, and we could have called it "The Superduty".
I'm with you for the most part, but Boeing has really been screwing up lately in a lot of areas. Not only are the unions not helping it, Boeing is now a manufacturing and engineering company being run by accountants. You think of the problems they've had just in the last two years with the 737 Max, the Starliner debacle and the SLS delays/overbudget along with this and I'm not sure how the company survives much longer without (more) government intervention.
The problem arises that most US manufacturers got out of the heavy aircraft industry a while back. McDonnell-Douglas (now part of Boeing) hasn't done anything since the DC-10, Lockheed hasn't built something that large since the L-1011, Northrop never really has been in that game... so overseas is the only choice and the only choice overseas is Airbus.
Boeing pretty much is putting themselves out of business for the most part. A significant lack of innovation and constant design flaws are really making the future bleak.
Interesting. Our 'local' AFB (Seymour-Johnson) has a squadron of KC-46As that are pretty new. They still have a squadron with KC-135s, too.
That’s funny you bring up Seymour-Johnson. I lived in Goldsboro in the 80s. I miss NC BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and hush puppies.
Sorry for the thread jack.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Diamondback
08-12-21, 13:22
The problem arises that most US manufacturers got out of the heavy aircraft industry a while back. McDonnell-Douglas (now OWNERS of Boeing) hasn't done anything since the DC-10, Lockheed hasn't built something that large since the L-1011, Northrop never really has been in that game... so overseas is the only choice and the only choice overseas is Airbus.
FIFY! Even deposed Commercial Airplanes president Ron Woodard said "McD-D bought Boeing with Boeing's own f---ing money."
Of interest on the road to the 737 MAX debacle... https://leehamnews.com/2021/02/02/the-737-max-a-tragedy-60-years-in-the-making/
Adrenaline_6
08-12-21, 13:27
This is what happens when your policy is "Buy American" no matter what. I get picking it over a comparable product with comparable price point, but blindly following that mantra is actually detrimental to the companies involved and countries who strictly follow it. The threat of losing business over lack of innovation and competitive pricing keeps companies honest and at the leading edge. Lack of that and they will fail eventually due to one, the other, or both.
Whiskey_Bravo
08-12-21, 13:29
I would like to see everything made in America for the military, and that includes planes. HOWEVER, Boeing Unions and the company itself have overstayed their welcome in my mind. I think Ford could have built a tanker and had it flying in less time, and we could have called it "The Superduty".
That is something i could get behind.
That’s funny you bring up Seymour-Johnson. I lived in Goldsboro in the 80s. I miss NC BBQ pulled pork sandwiches and hush puppies.
Sorry for the thread jack.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My mom was from Goldsboro, her family is generational in Wayne County. Our family has a family cemetery there, my parents, aunt's, uncle's, all buried there. I remember when SJAFB had B-52s.
This is what happens when your policy is "Buy American" no matter what. I get picking it over a comparable product with comparable price point, but blindly following that mantra is actually detrimental to the companies involved and countries who strictly follow it. The threat of losing business over lack of innovation and competitive pricing keeps companies honest and at the leading edge. Lack of that and they will fail eventually due to one, the other, or both.
What you need to do is foster a local market that has more than one big company. And that sometimes means you end up buying stuff you don't really need. That sounds different than I mean it. If a country wants to have a vibrant airplane manufacturing industry, then it needs to buy airplanes. If the market contracts to the point that you can only support one manufacturer, then you have lost because one manufacturer has no incentive to be better. Or you open up a critical market to foreign competitors. But then your local country's market is no longer vibrant. So, you make sure that you can buy enough airplanes to keep the market vibrant enough to support at least two players.
IIRC, Airbus had proposed their tanker in partnership with a US company, and it would have been built in US factories. Is that "Buy American" enough? Even if a good portion of the profits flows to Europe?
These are all questions we need to figure out and answer as a country. I am all for having and sticking to a budget, and not spending more than you have to. But if you want to maintain a strategic market to supply you with needed aircraft, you need to help the market stay viable.
Grand58742
08-12-21, 14:34
What you need to do is foster a local market that has more than one big company. And that sometimes means you end up buying stuff you don't really need. That sounds different than I mean it. If a country wants to have a vibrant airplane manufacturing industry, then it needs to buy airplanes. If the market contracts to the point that you can only support one manufacturer, then you have lost because one manufacturer has no incentive to be better. Or you open up a critical market to foreign competitors. But then your local country's market is no longer vibrant. So, you make sure that you can buy enough airplanes to keep the market vibrant enough to support at least two players.
IIRC, Airbus had proposed their tanker in partnership with a US company, and it would have been built in US factories. Is that "Buy American" enough? Even if a good portion of the profits flows to Europe?
These are all questions we need to figure out and answer as a country. I am all for having and sticking to a budget, and not spending more than you have to. But if you want to maintain a strategic market to supply you with needed aircraft, you need to help the market stay viable.
I don't think too many people (save those politicians with Boeing contributing to their "reelection" funds) would have an issue with Has to be Made in America versus Designed Overseas, but Built in America. Yeah, I would like for things to be designed locally as well as the production, but we've used foreign designed (and sometimes produced) weapons for a long time. Hell, we paid royalties to Mauser for the M1903 design until WWI.
I seriously doubt the workers care whether their paycheck is issued from Boeing or Airbus.
What you need to do is foster a local market that has more than one big company. And that sometimes means you end up buying stuff you don't really need. That sounds different than I mean it. If a country wants to have a vibrant airplane manufacturing industry, then it needs to buy airplanes.
We (the US) buy more airliners than anywhere else in the world but the flop of the L1011 led Lockheed to bailing on the civilian market and leaving only McDonnell Douglas and Boeing to play. Once Boeing bought up McD there was no incentive to compete because the “buy American” mantra gets us into situations like this.
Fortunately on the commercial side Airbus has superior products at every level. Their MRTT and A100 are selling well around the world.
IIRC, Airbus had proposed their tanker in partnership with a US company, and it would have been built in US factories.
Northrop Grumman. After Boeing’s whining and the ‘adjustment’ of the RFP Northrop backed out of the arrangement claiming it was catered to favor Boeing. Airbus then planned to open a domestic US line to produce the tanker.
Fortunately in the end the Alabama line of Airbus opened anyway just producing airliners instead of tankers/MRTTs.
We (the US) buy more airliners than anywhere else in the world but the flop of the L1011 led Lockheed to bailing on the civilian market and leaving only McDonnell Douglas and Boeing to play. Once Boeing bought up McD there was no incentive to compete because the “buy American” mantra gets us into situations like this.
Fortunately on the commercial side Airbus has superior products at every level. Their MRTT and A100 are selling well around the world.
At the moment. But we are talking military aircraft, not airliners. I know there is technical overlap (tankers, for example, are usually built on an airliner base -- KC-135 on 707, KC-10 on DC10, etc), but I am specifically referring to the market for large military aircraft.
Northrop Grumman. After Boeing’s whining and the ‘adjustment’ of the RFP Northrop backed out of the arrangement claiming it was catered to favor Boeing. Airbus then planned to open a domestic US line to produce the tanker.
Fortunately in the end the Alabama line of Airbus opened anyway just producing airliners instead of tankers/MRTTs.
But with design outside the US, if relations sour with Europe, do we want our [major] military planes to be dependent on outside the country design services?
Diamondback
08-12-21, 14:54
I don't think too many people (save those politicians with Boeing contributing to their "reelection" funds) would have an issue with Has to be Made in America versus Designed Overseas, but Built in America. Yeah, I would like for things to be designed locally as well as the production, but we've used foreign designed (and sometimes produced) weapons for a long time. Hell, we paid royalties to Mauser for the M1903 design until WWI.
And the Norwegians before them when we had Springfield building Krag-Jorgensens. We also have both Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin license-building modified Israeli designs for the supermajority of our tareting pod needs, and many of our PGM's are similarly Israeli-origin license-builds. Heck, a lot of the engineering for the WWII Liberty Ships came from British designs, as did the Merlin engine, and the gun in the Abrams is licensed from Rheinmetall in Germany... if I listed every license-build of a foreign weapons system the US has adopted, we'd be here all day.
Our military has contracted for all sorts of stuff to be made overseas. It's never a big deal until it's made into a big deal.
I would love to have all of our AC designed and built in the US. But with so many peer-level competitors that can underbid it's hard to do.
McDonnell Douglas originally wasn't going to bid on the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35), but decided to at the last minute. IIRC, the company's future kind of depended on winning that contract. They didn't, and that probably contributed to the Boeing merger decision.
The C-130 continues to be future-proof, it seems. It's survived attempts to replace it (the YC-14/YC-15 STOL program) and Germany and France recently bought a few for their SpecOps missions.
Diamondback
08-12-21, 15:29
McDonnell Douglas originally wasn't going to bid on the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35), but decided to at the last minute. IIRC, the company's future kind of depended on winning that contract. They didn't, and that probably contributed to the Boeing merger decision.
The C-130 continues to be future-proof, it seems. It's survived attempts to replace it (the YC-14/YC-15 STOL program) and Germany and France recently bought a few for their SpecOps missions.
Actually, McDonnell was sole-source on the original JAST demonstrator program (X-32 ASTOVL) that led to a competition when Lockheed threw a fit about not having a chance to compete. Then the McDonnell design got dumped in favor of Boeing's "Monica" (so dubbed for its gaping-mouth intake, like a certain Clinton intern) which was an utter flaming bag of crap... frankly, we got the least-worst of two bad choices with F-35.
Wasn't Boeing's entry the X-32?
Diamondback
08-12-21, 15:33
Wasn't Boeing's entry the X-32?
McD-D had the X-32 designation assigned first, then after the merger it got handed down to Monica.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/jast.htm
But with design outside the US, if relations sour with Europe, do we want our [major] military planes to be dependent on outside the country design services?
I see what you're saying, but since we're already buying most of our military guns from SIG and FN, not to mention exporting the F-35.
The KC-46 has been a big disappointment so far, but the capabilities look good on paper. There were good reasons to go with the remote control boom option, but that technology hasn't matured enough to be reliable. I've worked with the Aussie Airbus tanker deployed and it's an exceptionally capable aircraft. The question with the -46 is figuring out if it just needs additional maturity to get the design issues worked out, like plenty of other military hardware has, or if it's lost cause and we should move on.
The USAF seems like its out of patience with Boeing, after several years and billions of dollars spent trying to fix all the KC-46's issues. You wouldn't think that a 1980's vintage 767 airframe with refueling gear attached would be that big an issue for industry, but who knew?
Grand58742
08-12-21, 20:56
You wouldn't think that a 1980's vintage 767 airframe with refueling gear attached would be that big an issue for industry, but who knew?
Look at the trouble of the 60s era 737. Yeah, it was the programming, but seriously, how could you screw something up that bad?
Never mind... the same company that helped put man on the moon can't even reach the ISS because of... programming.
Diamondback
08-12-21, 21:16
Look at the trouble of the 60s era 737. Yeah, it was the programming, but seriously, how could you screw something up that bad?
Never mind... the same company that helped put man on the moon can't even reach the ISS because of... programming.
Actually, the problem with MAX was more trying to make a not-737 behave identically to a 737 for a common type-rating, combined with poor pilot training--there have been a number of MCAS FAIL incidents domestically where the pilots have cut the computer and manually flown the plane to its destination with nobody in back noticing.
This looks more like Bitesdung retaliating for "you didn't give me enough money"... admittedly, there is a problem with the larger 767's packing a boom because of limited ground clearance in the rotate for takeoff, it's actually pretty common to have the bumper under the tailcone make contact IIRC.
Sole source contracts result in sole source suppliers over time.
So you are stuck with a single domestic platform, a 767. Proven airframe, should be easy to adapt to refuel role. But no, lets not do that, lets The_Pentagon_Wars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars) and make it overly complex.
crusader377
08-12-21, 22:20
Personally, I think the airforce missed a huge opportunity with COVID last year when the bulk of commercial airliners were mothballed. The USAF could have taken 2 or 3 airframes and bought up large numbers and hire companies like IAI to do a low cost conversion to refueling tankers. It could have been done for a fraction of the cost of the KC-46 program while freeing up funds for aircraft like the F-35 and B-21.
IMO, there is no reason why the KC-46 is such a messed up program. It is not a ground breaking aircraft.
After spending 16 years flying KC-10's, I am a little biased. I felt the Capability of the -46 was only marginally better than the -135 and the Airbus version was more desirable.
Politics reigns of course. I too want the US product and for strategic purposes I think it wise. But when Boeing stopped being ran by engineers and started being ran by accountants, the whole corporation has gone downhill.
Diamondback
08-12-21, 23:14
After spending 16 years flying KC-10's, I am a little biased. I felt the Capability of the -46 was only marginally better than the -135 and the Airbus version was more desirable.
Politics reigns of course. I too want the US product and for strategic purposes I think it wise. But when Boeing stopped being ran by engineers and started being ran by accountants, the whole corporation has gone downhill.
777 or 747 tanker probably woulda been a more capable platform, and 747 was designed for tanker conversion from square one--they even demonstrated by fitting the prototype with an unplumbed boom and having it link up with a Blackbird.
This shouldn't have been rocket science, it should have been as simple as just taking the off-the-shelf Japanese KC-767 and adding the USAF-specific mission and comms gear... hell, just take surplus airliners and have IAI Bedek do the conversion since their tanker package is multirole platform. (EDIT: Other than IAI not doing Flying Boom systems, anyway.)
ThirdWatcher
08-13-21, 06:40
I don’t know anything about the USAF or Boeing but it was a red flag (to me) when the USAF complained (and it made the news) when they took delivery of a new tanker from Boeing and there was garbage inside that hadn’t been policed up. FWIW, I’d cancel the purchase of a new pickup truck if the dealer couldn’t do any better than that.
It would be fairly short sighted to think the EU will always be our friends. Sourcing this from them would be a pretty huge strategic mistake. Boeing needs a wake-up call and leadership change.
Pistols and rifles are easy. Airplanes, not so much.
It would be fairly short sighted to think the EU will always be our friends. Sourcing this from them would be a pretty huge strategic mistake. Boeing needs a wake-up call and leadership change.
Too late. It's a global economy. Boeing is in bed with the Chicoms. Airbus and Boeing get their materials and have supply and manufacturing chains all over the planet. It's one big MESS. If there is another WW, Ford and GM will have to start making parts.
That said being a heavy jet driver with thousands of hours in both, Airbus makes a better plane. Boeing USED to be 100 times better. Not anymore. Airbus has really upped their game while Boeing just relied on their name.
Too late. It's a global economy. Boeing is in bed with the Chicoms. Airbus and Boeing get their materials and have supply and manufacturing chains all over the planet. It's one big MESS. If there is another WW, Ford and GM will have to start making parts.
That said being a heavy jet driver with thousands of hours in both, Airbus makes a better plane. Boeing USED to be 100 times better. Not anymore. Airbus has really upped their game while Boeing just relied on their name.
Understand all of that, parts supply is one thing, the manufacture is another. You could always shift a China supply chain to the US or elsewhere. Kind of hard to teach someone how to design and build an entire Airplane safely is my main point. Even domestic Airbus production would be more risk than I'd want to accept. There are a lot of supply chain changes going on right now as a result of the chip shortage.
If Airbus can do it, Boeing should be able to with the right leadership and accountability.
Understand all of that, parts supply is one thing, the manufacture is another.
You DO know that Airbus has a massive manufacturing line right here in The USA and makes planes HERE? there is no doubt that any plane made for The USAF would be built on a line here in the USA. Look at the A321 line.
Boeing has gotten too big. Imho, they need to be AT&T'd.
crusader377
08-13-21, 12:42
It would be fairly short sighted to think the EU will always be our friends. Sourcing this from them would be a pretty huge strategic mistake. Boeing needs a wake-up call and leadership change.
Pistols and rifles are easy. Airplanes, not so much.
The thing is, there has been a great deal defense products that we have sourced from Europe for over 50 years. For example, both the 105mm tank gun used on the M60 and early M1s and the current 120mm tank gun on the current M1 tank are European designs. The 105mm is British and the 120mm is a German design.
Even further back, the extremely successful P-51 Mustang was a merger of American and British technology. The P-51A with the Allison engine was an OK fighter but once the U.S. got manufacturing rights of the Rolls Royce Merlin and license built it by Packard, is when the P-51 became a war winner.
Buying a foreign aircraft design is not bad as long as the U.S. has the ability to manufacture the aircraft in the U.S.
The U.S. Navy's new frigate is a European design, but it is being build in a U.S. Shipyard and has U.S. systems on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation-class_frigate
Well, the Army has failed miserably in trying to procure a scout helicopter to replace the old OH-58 Kiowa (three attempts, I think?). The new Bell and Sikorsky designs might prove to be the answer, or better yet, some sort of drone.
Remember "Future Combat Systems"? The ginormous project to come up with an entirely new set of vehicles, drones, unmanned ground vehicles, communications, etc. that would be the Army's future warfighting apparatus? Doomed by a combination of impractical requirements, immature technology, and budget-busting costs. One of the vehicles proposed was an Abrams tank replacement (the "Mounted Combat System", or some such). It dispensed with heavy armor in the expectation that it would survive mainly by avoiding being hit rather than being able to absorb punishment. It would accomplish this through superior situational awareness and making use of the new recon/intel systems that would be available by then.
Iraq and Afghanistan proved the continuing usefulness of heavy armor, and the "Mounted Combat System" began to look a little questionable. The whole system started to look like a dead end and was mercifully terminated. I think the "Spider" intelligent munition was one of the spinouts, but little else.
crusader377
08-13-21, 19:50
Well, the Army has failed miserably in trying to procure a scout helicopter to replace the old OH-58 Kiowa (three attempts, I think?). The new Bell and Sikorsky designs might prove to be the answer, or better yet, some sort of drone.
Remember "Future Combat Systems"? The ginormous project to come up with an entirely new set of vehicles, drones, unmanned ground vehicles, communications, etc. that would be the Army's future warfighting apparatus? Doomed by a combination of impractical requirements, immature technology, and budget-busting costs. One of the vehicles proposed was an Abrams tank replacement (the "Mounted Combat System", or some such). It dispensed with heavy armor in the expectation that it would survive mainly by avoiding being hit rather than being able to absorb punishment. It would accomplish this through superior situational awareness and making use of the new recon/intel systems that would be available by then.
Iraq and Afghanistan proved the continuing usefulness of heavy armor, and the "Mounted Combat System" began to look a little questionable. The whole system started to look like a dead end and was mercifully terminated. I think the "Spider" intelligent munition was one of the spinouts, but little else.
"Future Combat Systems" was a dud. If memory serves the the bulk of the program was designed to be build around the C-130 which limited the weight to around 20 tons. The problem is there is no way to replicate the capability of a 35 ton Bradley or a 70 ton M1 in a 20 ton vehicle. Something has to give. Also even with superior situational awareness, the world is full of low cost AT weapons like RPGs that can simply kill light vehicles fairly easily. Also with light guided AT weapons and even unguided direct fire weapons, even if you increased mobility by 50%, it is not that much harder to target a 60mph vehicle, than a 40 mph vehicle.
Diamondback
08-13-21, 19:53
"Future Combat Systems" was a dud. If memory serves the the bulk of the program was designed to be build around the C-130 which limited the weight to around 20 tons. The problem is there is no way to replicate the capability of a 35 ton Bradley or a 70 ton M1 in a 20 ton vehicle. Something has to give. Also even with superior situational awareness, the world is full of low cost AT weapons like RPGs that can simply kill light vehicles fairly easily. Also with light guided AT weapons and even unguided direct fire weapons, even if you increased mobility by 50%, it is not that much harder to target a 60mph vehicle, than a 40 mph vehicle.
Sounds like the answer is less a 20-ton AFV (the so-called "mini-M113" concept) and more a 40-50-ton tactical airlifter as close to C-130 footprint as possible, at least closer to C-130 than C-17.
The other problem, and I say this as somebody who WAS a big fan of the concept at the time, is your "Network Centric Warfare" capability is only as good as your ability to keep the world's best hackers out. Ideally I'd want multiple separate isolated networks, each platoon picking their own random cipher keys and changing 'em daily with only the LT and First Shirt having an air-gapped connection up to Company. Similarly the Company net air-gapped from Battalion, and so on...
Reading the reports on FCS's demise, it seemed that the Army was operating under the assumption that a very large vertical lift aircraft (akin to a vertical takeoff C-130) would be available at some future point to be a prime airlifter for all this gear.
For anyone interested and with some time to kill:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA582405.pdf
Diamondback
08-13-21, 22:13
Reading the reports on FCS's demise, it seemed that the Army was operating under the assumption that a very large vertical lift aircraft (akin to a vertical takeoff C-130) would be available at some future point to be a prime airlifter for all this gear.
Hence the Clancyism of "Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics." :) Ask the Germans how effective King Tigers and the Maus prototypes were without the logistics capability to get to the fight and keep moving through it... Unless we're playing on home court, we need to start with what Tac Airlift can do and work backward from that.
If I was gonna do VLVL, I'd probably start by cutting the rear third off one C-130J, the front third off another, grafting the two together and adding a tilt mechanism to the wings like the old XC-142. Bell had proposed a "V-44" quad-tiltrotor, this would be that on steroids.
From the document:
"The Army VTOL aircraft would have to be large enough to carry an FCS over operationally significant distances. One of the favorite design concepts to emerge was
the very large tilt-rotor conceptually similar to the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) V-22. Two- and four-rotor designs were considered. Such an aircraft would have to have
unprecedented vertical-lift capability, and this requirement became even more challenging as the weight of the FCS started to increase in the 2004–2009 period.
Eventually, the Army needed an aircraft with an ability to vertically lift roughly 30 tons. In contrast, the USMC V-22 Osprey can vertically lift only 5 tons.
Since no such aircraft existed at the time of the AAN/Objective Force wargames, the early design requirement was to keep the vehicle within USAF C-130 size and
weight constraints (e.g., no more than roughly 20 tons). The C-130 requirement was the surrogate for an eventual heavy-lift VTOL aircraft that would, presumably, be
built at some point in the future by the Army or with another service as a joint program. This meant that the deployment of a single FCS-class vehicle would require the allocation of a single VTOL aircraft sortie during aerial assault operations."
crusader377
08-14-21, 14:32
From the document:
"The Army VTOL aircraft would have to be large enough to carry an FCS over operationally significant distances. One of the favorite design concepts to emerge was
the very large tilt-rotor conceptually similar to the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) V-22. Two- and four-rotor designs were considered. Such an aircraft would have to have
unprecedented vertical-lift capability, and this requirement became even more challenging as the weight of the FCS started to increase in the 2004–2009 period.
Eventually, the Army needed an aircraft with an ability to vertically lift roughly 30 tons. In contrast, the USMC V-22 Osprey can vertically lift only 5 tons.
Since no such aircraft existed at the time of the AAN/Objective Force wargames, the early design requirement was to keep the vehicle within USAF C-130 size and
weight constraints (e.g., no more than roughly 20 tons). The C-130 requirement was the surrogate for an eventual heavy-lift VTOL aircraft that would, presumably, be
built at some point in the future by the Army or with another service as a joint program. This meant that the deployment of a single FCS-class vehicle would require the allocation of a single VTOL aircraft sortie during aerial assault operations."
The huge problem with VL VTOL is it only really works if you have completely benign airspace and zero surface to air threat.
During my gun line time with an M198 battery, everyone wanted to due air assault raids in training because it is exciting. However by the time you sling loaded an M198 on a Chinook with full gun crew, you only had the weight to carry 4 or 5 155mm rounds and once you landed you had zero mobility.
Furthermore a Chinook sling loading a 16000 lb gun has zero maneuverability and in reality a single Stinger team would easily decimate the Chinooks carrying a 155mm Platoon on an air assault raid.
Diamondback
08-14-21, 15:03
The huge problem with VL VTOL is it only really works if you have completely benign airspace and zero surface to air threat.
During my gun line time with an M198 battery, everyone wanted to due air assault raids in training because it is exciting. However by the time you sling loaded an M198 on a Chinook with full gun crew, you only had the weight to carry 4 or 5 155mm rounds and once you landed you had zero mobility.
Furthermore a Chinook sling loading a 16000 lb gun has zero maneuverability and in reality a single Stinger team would easily decimate the Chinooks carrying a 155mm Platoon on an air assault raid.
For that kind of work LAPES with a high-speed level-flight entry-egress makes more sense. Drop the gear just to keep the 130's belly off the ground, drop the ramp, pop the chute and Out You Go... main time I see an advantage for VTOL is in the extraction phase when the ammo and fuel are already gone.
The problem with regards to FCS is that even C-130's wouldn't have worked with the larger vehicles. The Army "assumed" that something adequate would be available in the future. And, hopefully, paid for (at least partially) with USAF funding.
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