Carrier (1999)

by Clancy, Tom - Nf

  U.S. defense planners immediately noticed that sea-based nuclear-capable aircraft and cruise missiles were not counted or monitored under the INF accord—which meant that the existing fleet of A-6’s and F/A-18’s could immediately provide an interim replacement for the lost nuclear missile fleet. As good as that was, it wasn’t good enough. What the nuclear planners really wanted was a carrier aircraft that would hold even the “hardest” targets in the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries “at risk,” and that would do it with impunity.

  The Navy was thus directed by the Department of Defense (DoD) to develop such an aircraft. The DoD wanted an aircraft that could replace a variety of attack bombers, including the A-6 Intruder, F-111 Aardvark, and even newer aircraft like the F-117A Nighthawk and F-15E Strike Eagle. The program would be developed in total secrecy, and would take advantage of the new technology of passive electromagnetic stealth, much like the F-117 Nighthawk and the B-2A Spirit. It would carry a two-man crew, have the same levels of stealth as the B-2A, and carry a new generation of precision munitions (some possibly with nuclear warheads) guided by the new NAVISTAR Global Positioning System (GPS). Plans had the first units being assigned to the Navy and Marine Corps, with the Air Force getting their A-12’s later in the production run.

  The Navy had problems with the A-12 from the very start. First, thanks to its lack of interest in the Have Blue program, the Navy knew very little about stealth—a problem that was magnified by the strange rules of “Black” programs, which required them to almost reinvent the technology from scratch. USAF contractors were not allowed to transfer their experience with the F-117 and B-2 programs to the Navy and to potential contractors for the A-12. Even companies like Lockheed and Northrop, who already had stealth experience, were restricted from transferring their corporate knowledge to their own teams developing A-12 proposals. Furthermore, the Navy program management lacked experience in taking a small “Black” research project and turning it into a large, multi-billion-dollar production program. From the beginning, progress was slow and costs were high.

  The winning entry in the A-12 competition came from the General Dynamics/McDonnell Douglas team, utilizing a strange-looking design that had been under development by General Dynamics since 1975. Because of its triangular flying-wing shape, it was quickly nicknamed “the flying Dorito.” Designated the A-12 Avenger II (after the famous World War II torpedo bomber), it was designed to carry up to 10,000 lb/4,535 kg of ordnance in internal weapons bays. It also would have had enough unrefueled range to hit targets in Eastern Europe if launched from a carrier in the Mediterranean Sea. Unfortunately, the A-12 would never make it off the shop floor, much less onto a carrier deck.

  From the start of the A-12 engineering and development effort, there were disagreements between the Navy program managers and the contractor team over a number of issues. The plane was too heavy, for one thing, and there were difficulties creating the composite layups that made up the A-12’s structure. Costs escalated rapidly. While the Navy has never officially acknowledged this, it appears that every other major Naval aircraft program was either canceled or restructured in order to siphon money to the troubled A-12. What is known is that during the time when the A-12 was suffering its most serious developmental problems, the upgraded versions of the F-14 Tomcat fighter and A-6 attack bomber were canceled outright, and several other programs took severe budget hits. The situation reached the critical point in 1990, when the A-12 and a number of other major aircraft programs were publicly reviewed in light of the recent fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. By this time the Avenger program was a year late and perhaps a billion dollars over budget. Even so, in his major aircraft program review presentation to Congress, then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney declared the A-12 to be a “model” program.

  Nine months later, he radically changed his tune. Though what the DoD and Navy were thinking at this time remains something of a mystery, the pending commitment of an additional half-billion dollars to the A-12 program certainly had much to do with the decision. Whatever the reason, Secretary Cheney ordered the program canceled in January of 1991, just as the Desert Storm air campaign was getting under way. So sudden was this action that several thousand General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas employees were simply told to put down their work and go home. All told, the Navy had spent something like $3.8 billion, and did not have a single plane to show for it.46 Even worse was the total wrecking of the Navy’s aircraft acquisition plan, which had seen so many other new aircraft programs canceled to support the A-12.47

  A depiction of the proposed A-12 Avenger stealth attack bomber. This aircraft program was canceled in 1991 as a result of cost overruns and technical/ management problems.

  OFFICIAL U.S. NAVY PHOTO

  It did not take long for the fleet to begin suffering the consequences of the A-12 debacle. The Navy tried to make a fresh start with a program called A/FX (Attack/Fighter, Experimental), which was designed to replace the A- 6 and the F-14 fleets, both of which were aging rapidly. A/FX would have made use of the systems developed for the A-12, but would not attempt to achieve the level of stealth planned for the Avenger. Unfortunately, in the tight budget climate of the early 1990’s, there was little support or money for the A/FX program, and it died before a prime contractor team was selected. Another blow to the naval aviation community came at the beginning of the Clinton Administration, when Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, as a cost-cutting measure, decided to prematurely retire the entire fleet of A-6E/ KA-6D Intruder attack/refueling aircraft.51 Within months, the entire medium-attack community was wiped out, leaving the F/A-18 as the Navy’s only strike aircraft, and only a single high-performance Naval aircraft was in development: an evolved/growth version of the Hornet. With nothing else on the horizon, Naval aviation was going to have to bet the farm on a machine called the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

  New Paradigms: The Road Back

  By late 1995, naval aviation had hit rock bottom. Military analysts were beginning to believe that the Navy had forgotten how to develop and buy new weapons and aircraft. In fact, many were questioning if the Navy should let the USAF buy their aircraft, since they seemed so much better at it. The real doomsayers were projecting the end of naval aviation as we know it sometime in the early 21st century, when the existing aircraft would wear out and have to be retired. But these people did not know the true character of naval aviation leadership. Though the Navy’s aviation problems were deadly serious, in 1996 naval aviation took the first steps toward putting itself back on a healthy course.

  Even before he became Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Jay Johnson was already working toward this goal. He started by appointing two of his most trusted officers, Rear Admirals Dennis McGinn and “Carlos” Johnson (no relation to the CNO), to key leadership positions as the heads of NAVAIR and the Naval Aviation Office in the Pentagon known as N88. Soon they started to shake things up. They began to promote a new vision for naval aviation, in direct support of the Navy’s “Forward from the Sea” doctrine, and to develop a realistic long-range plan for upgrading Naval aviation and developing new capabilities. The two men also saw the need to put a few good naval aviators in key positions within the Pentagon so that the procurement program problems of the past would not be repeated. They knew that people with real talent would need to be in some of the key staff jobs to help get new ideas into naval aviation.

  As a consequence of this kind of thinking, the Navy Strike Warfare Directorate (N880—the group that defines future specifications and capabilities for new naval aircraft and weapons systems) came under the inspired leadership of a talented F/A-18 Hornet driver, Captain Chuck Nash. While he probably could have gone on to command his own CVW, he chose the good of the service over his own ambitions, and took charge of N880 in the Pentagon.

  It was Chuck Nash who really started to shake things up for naval aviation in 1996. Under his leadership, support from the fleet was focused on the new Super Hornet, in an effort to ensure that there w
ould be at least one new airframe to anchor the carrier air wings of the early 21st century.Storm air campaign was the A-6E Intruder. It could operate at night, deliver LGBs and other PGMs, and had enough fuel capacity to minimize the impact upon the limited tanker resources of the Allied coalition.

  At the same time, Nash increased Navy support for other developmental aircraft programs like the V-22 Osprey and Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), as well as a new Common Support Aircraft (CSA) to replace the S-3 Viking, E-2 Hawkeye, and C-2 Greyhound airframes.

  To shore up the existing force of carrier aircraft, he helped start a program to equip the fleet of F-14 Tomcat interceptors with the same AAQ-14 LANTIRN targeting pod used on the USAF F-15E Strike Eagle. LANTIRN pods allow Tomcats to carry out precision strikes with LGBs and other weapons ashore, a completely new mission for them. In order to arm the Tomcats, the Navy was directed to procure a stock of highly accurate Paveway III-SERIES LGBs, as well as the deadly BLU-109/I-2000 penetrating warheads. Nash’s office also began to contract for modifications to existing precision weapons like the AGM-84E SLAM, so that their range, lethality, and service lives might be further extended.

  Finally, N880 took a leadership position with the other services on a new generation of precision-strike weapons. These would be guided to their targets by GPS navigation systems, and then given final guidance by a new family of self-locking, all-weather seeker systems.

  By the time he retired in early 1998, Chuck Nash had done more for Naval aviation as a captain than most admirals. As a result of the programs inspired by the likes of Jay Johnson, Dennis McGinn, “Carlos” Johnson, Chuck Nash, and many others, there is now real hope and drive in naval aviation. A new air wing structure has been defined, and plans for aircraft procurement are now clear for the next quarter century.

  Today the climate in the fleet and naval aviation program offices is very different. Much like their counterparts at NAVSEA, the leaders at the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) are now looking toward the future rather than back toward the past. Their goal is to produce the aircraft and weapons that will fly off the new generation of carriers that are due in the middle of the second decade of the next century. For the first time in a generation, Naval aviation leaders are not content to run programs and buy updated versions of old aircraft and weapons. Naval aviation’s vision is now on the cutting edge of weapons technology.

  To this end, a new aircraft, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, is being tested and headed into the fleet, while existing aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat, EA-6B Prowler, and S-3B Viking have been modified to take on new roles and missions. These will help maintain the credibility of naval aviation until the new aircraft types arrive in a few years. New weapons, with greater precision and utility than those used in Desert Storm, are on their way as well. The sea services, along with the other branches of the U.S. military, are in the early stages of developing the replacement for today’s aircraft through the new JSF program. There are even visionary studies for the first generation of Unmanned Aerial Combat Vehicles (UCAVs), which will likely be seen in ten to twenty years. What a difference just a few years make!

  An F-14 Tomcat delivering a GBU-24 Paveway III laser-guided bomb during tests. The addition of new air-to-ground strike systems have turned the Tomcat into a potent fighter bomber.

  RAYTHEON STRIKE SYSTEMS

  The Plan: Naval Aviation in the 21st Century

  The plan for naval aviation as it heads into the 21st century is designed to take carrier aviation from the current post-Cold War CVW structure to one that reflects the perceived needs of the Navy in 2015. To do this, NAVAIR has put together a three-stage program of procurement and reorganization that relies heavily on the success of the past—and that learns from the mistakes that were made. Back in the early 1970’s, the so-called “CV Air Wing” organization was created to reduce the number of carriers and air groups in the fleet. This type of CVW was an all-purpose unit, with capabilities in antiair warfare (AAW), antisubmarine warfare (ASW), antisurface warfare (ASUW), and land attack. Its structure is laid out below:

  Aircraft parked on the busy flight deck of the USS George Washington (CVN-73). Efficient deck handling of aircraft can make or break the daily air tasking order of a battle group.

  JOHN D. GRESHAM

  As the table shows, the “CV” air wing had a primary emphasis on defense against air and submarine attack. It could also dish out a great deal of punishment against enemy naval forces, though its ability to strike land targets was more limited. It was this air wing structure that John Lehman tried to flesh out with his aircraft procurement plan in the 1980’s. But because of the fallout from the A-12 fiasco, the aircraft necessary to fill out sixteen such units were never purchased, and the fleet made frequent draws on Marine F/A-18 Hornet and EA-6B Prowler squadrons in order to sustain the heavy deployment schedule of the late Cold War years.

  After the end of the Cold War, the following air wing organization was created, and is in use today around the fleet:

  This CVW structure reflects a number of realities, most importantly the fact that there will only be eleven CVWs (ten active-duty and one reserve) for twelve carriers, greatly reducing the number of new aircraft required to sustain carrier aviation into the 21st century. Also, this 1990’s CVW has a new orientation: to project precision-striking power onto targets ashore. Both the F-14’s and F/A-18’s are equipped with precision-targeting and reconnaissance systems, as well as a wide variety of Desert Storm-era PGMs. All of these systems give the new CVWs much more punch than before, and while the number of fighter/attack aircraft has been greatly reduced, this new air wing actually can strike twice the number of precision targets that a Cold War CVW could hit. It will acquire even greater power when the new generation of GPS-guided PGMs arrives over the next few years.

  The next big move will occur in the early years of the 21 st century. Starting somewhere around 2001, the Navy will commission its first combat squadron of F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, replacing the F-14 Tomcat squadron in CVWs. The Navy will then be able to rapidly retire the elderly F-14As, some of which will be over three decades old when they head to the boneyard. During this same period, the SH-60B/F and HH-60G fleet will be remanufactured into a common variant known as the SH-60R. The surviving H-60 airframes will then be consolidated into a single version that can be used either on carriers or escorts. The Navy will also buy a number of CH-60 airframes, which will take over from the old UH-46 Sea Knight in the Vertical Replenishment (VERTREP) mission aboard supply ships, as well as the special operations/combat search and rescue (SO/CSAR) mission of the HH-60G.

  Despite all these changes, the dominant airframe of this air wing will continue to be late-model F/A-18C Hornets, which will soldier on well into the 21st century. With these changes, the typical CVW of 2001 to 2015 will probably look like this:

  Again, the key attribute of this CVW will be striking power against land-based precision targets. However, with a new generation of self-designating, GPS/INS-guided PGMs, it will be able to dish out truly devastating damage to targets afloat or ashore, and in almost any kind of weather.

  The final step in the CVW modernization plan is shown below, and will begin to appear around 2011:

  This is an air wing that is almost entirely composed of aircraft that now exist only on paper. Even so, it has several clear advantages over earlier CVW structures, including the fact that this projected CVW has just four basic airframes: the JSF, F/A-18E/F, the CSA, and H-60. This means lower operating and maintenance costs as well as a simpler logistics chain. It will also have the Navy’s first true stealth strike fighter (the JSF), a new EW/ SEAD aircraft (the proposed EF-18F Electric Hornet), as well as new sea control, ESM, and AEW aircraft based upon the new CSA airframe. This likely will be what will go aboard the new CVX when it is commissioned around 2015. Once all eleven CVWs have their first squadron of JSFs, the Super Hornets will begin to be retired, and eventually there will be four JSF squadrons aboard each carrier with ten aircraft each.<
br />
  None of this will come cheaply or overnight. Just maintaining the existing fleet of aircraft is expensive, and buying something like two thousand new F/A-18E/F Super Hornets, JSFs, CSA derivatives, and any other major airframe that comes along will cost between $20 and $30 billion. And that’s without even beginning to address the spare parts, engines, weapons, and other necessities that these aircraft will consume in their operational lifetimes. Meanwhile, naval aviators will continue to fly the aircraft they’ve flown for most of their careers. The designs of not a few of these aircraft, in fact, date from before many of the men and women who fly them were born.

  Northrop Grumman F-14 Tomcat: King of the Air Wing

  You always know when you see an F-14 Tomcat that it is a fighter. It is a big, noisy, powerful brute of an airplane that lacks any pretense of stealth or subtlety. For over two decades, the F-14 Tomcat has been the king of American carrier flight decks, yet only recently has it realized its full combat potential. It is also one of the most difficult and dangerous of Naval aircraft. As the plane that Tom Cruise “piloted” in the movie Top Gun, it has become the symbol of naval aviation in American popular culture. More tellingly, to date the Tomcat has a perfect air-to-air combat record. Now in the twilight of its career, the F-14 is being asked to buy time for the rest of naval aviation to get its collective act together.