New toys
MBDA, the European defense contractor (part of their MIC, in other words) just announced a new variant on the venerable Exocet anti-ship missile. Sounds like a winner on paper.
“It features a doubled range in the class of 120km with a new turbojet engine, to regain the stand-off distance in anti-submarine warfare,” Pierre-Marie Bealleau, head of business development for deep strike missiles at MBDA, said.
Belleau added that the SM40 was designed solely to equip Naval Group-made submarines, which indicates that the two systems will share the same customer range established by the French shipbuilder globally.
The improved model incorporates J-band seeking (that’s microwaves in the 10-20GHz range – higher frequency usually means higher precision) and improved algorithms “for high density environments” which probably means better ability to distinguish the wheat from the chaff in a crowded combat zone.
While the new submarine-launched variant is tailored to defeat highly protected combat vessels and stealth targets, Belleau noted that it also features a land attack capability, “to defeat ship at harbor, for instance.”
Similarly to its predecessor, the SM40 also uses the same launch method: a propelled and guided underwater vehicle. The missile is housed in the vehicle and is ejected once it breaks the water surface at a low altitude. Defense News
Sounds like a nasty piece of work; let’s hope its users stay on our side. Sometimes they don’t, though.
Worth noting – the announcement was timed to coincide with marking the production of the 4,000th Exocet off the line – that is a LOT of missiles, even over its 40 year run. Might remember the original ones caused the Brits a bit of grief in the Falklands, and an Iraqi Exocet is what hit the USS Stark.
Moving onto the domestic front, the news is not as good. In the era of billion dollar aircraft, someone is finally asking if we can afford a battle fleet of zillion buckadingdong planes with unobtanium armor – and the answer isn’t good.
Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall made deeply concerning pronouncements about the state of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative, as well as the Next Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS) effort, at the Airlift/Tanker Association’s (ATA) annual symposium last Friday. The Air Force’s sixth-generation combat jet program, also referred to as the NGAD or Penetrating Counter-Air (PCA) ‘platform,’ and its Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone program, sit under the larger NGAD umbrella.
Kendall said during a keynote address at the ATA gathering. “We are actually looking hard at the combination of the Next Generation Air Dominance platform, the Increment Two uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft, and the Next Generation Aerial Refueling System, all in an Agile Combat Employment context.”
Buzzword Bingo, anyone?
“These three potential new designs and platforms are all tied together, both operationally and from an affordability perspective. We are working through a sprint of about four months of effort to determine the best combination of capabilities to pursue at various investment levels,” Kendall continued in his keynote. “The variable that concerns me most as we go through this analysis and produce a range of alternatives is going to be [the availability of adequate resources.] … to pursue any combination of those new designs.”
“Right now, given our commitments, our resources, and strategic priorities, it’s hard for me to see how we can afford any combination of those new designs,” Kendall added bluntly.The War Zone
‘WAY more detail in the article – but essentially he sees cuts from 1000 drones to 100, trying to cost-reduce projected $300,000,000 planes significantly… we can dream ’em up, we can build ’em, but can we AFFORD to? Worth going through in detail.
One of the all time great science fiction writers, Arthur C. Clark, penned a story called “Superiority” about using high-tech in a war. It’s the first story, only a few pages, in the free anthology here.
Take a few minutes and tell me if it sounds familiar…
Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Air Force, WTF?
All those captured NATO weapons from the Ukraine and Afghanistan are going to show up in surprising places too.
I was an Infantry dude.
This stuff is way above and lost upon me.
In 20 years it’s all going to be drones and lasers.
I see a RF battlefield.
It will be like hunting Canadian Geese.
Go old-fashioned, pull the plug and do sh*t manually. Map/compass and iron sights don’t emit or need power.
So much for the “experts”, real and fictional.
As the joke goes, experts have predicted nine out of the last three recessions. I would add that the experts caused all three.
Jezz-us…the costs.
In my day, a Tomcat cost $30M and our CH-46’s were about $1M new. That’s walking around money now.
Given the state of recruiting and retention, who’s gonna operate and maintain all this stuff we can’t afford?
Cyborgs loyal only to the deep state nanny AI program. What could go wrong?
Hey, you said it…
I’d be more worried about the Chicoms and Ivan’s and Iranians getting their hands on the new Exocet’s designs than the missiles falling into the wrong hands
Begin rant/
WTF is wrong with these dumbass USAF Pentagon “brass-assholes”?!?! All they had to do was create the F-22 Raptor version 2.0; not part the Red Sea & re-invent gravity!
The F-22 is an amazing jet, we just don’t have enough of them (screw you W. Bush, Obama, Robert Gates & your crew for the canx otherwise we’d have double now) so now we are shorthanded air superiority fighters prepping for a long range high end fight in the Pacific (plus Russia & MidEast too at this rate).
But nooooo, these idiots burned thru billions to research a “6th generation” optionally manned magic doo-hicky that we can’t afford per airframe (insert shock face here) because they added the kitchen sink, the dog park and sauna with it too.
I freaking knew it, I hoped & prayed they had learned something after the F-35 mess but here we are again…
I really want Trump to go thru the HQ AF & procurement centers with a portable guillotine & really clean house.
The American tax payer and US troops deserve better than this lot we got leading these efforts.
Billy Mitchell weeps…
/End rant
No one was ever prosecuted for the destruction of the f22 tooling needed to resume production.
Identify that culprit and you found a CCP puppet.
It seems to me there were some complaints about the Exocet some time back…but I can’t remember if it was a problem with the missile or because the French were using it…
Jeez, F & SF is still around? I was once an avid reader, but I haven’t read it in decades, since it started going more to the F side. I remember that particular story, but I didn’t read it in 1951.
All our rivals are experimenting and building cheap drones to replace manned aircraft in a wide range of operational missions.
Only we end up building drones that more expensive than manned aircraft. I heard rumors we were working on an AI-controlled swarm of cheap small drones that could overwhelm any target. Turns out we are trying to build drone superiority fighters.