Written and produced by SF Team: J.Hawk, Daniel Deiss, Edwin Watson
While the phrase “system of systems” has entered relatively common usage some years ago as a reflection of the need to field systems and assets with complementary capabilities that will operate as part of a synergistic whole in their respective domain of warfare, in the realm of aerospace combat the United States is moving in the direction of the “swarm” as the key organizing principle of its combat paradigm. The US Air Force Future Operating Concept which attempts to envision USAF operations in the year 2035 places “interconnectedness” high on the list of buzzwords, and promotes such goals as “Global Integrated Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance” and “Global Precision Strike”, all being controlled from “Multi-Domain Operations Centers” whose ability to manage a wide variety of interconnected systems and assets would guarantee getting inside the adversary’s “Observe, Orient, Decide, Act” (OODA) Loop, a long-standing Holy Grail among US airmen ever since USAF Colonel John Boyd formulated the concept as a result of his Korean War experiences.
Advances in communications, sensors, and artificial intelligence have meant that munitions have progressed greatly beyond being little more than bullets, launched at a specific target and then guided to it by either its on-board sensors perceiving some aspect of the electromagnetic spectrum emanated by the target, or by an autopilot navigating it and its lethal payload to its destination.
The swarm approach apparently became attractive to the US military following the cruise missile strikes against targets in Syria, during which the slow-moving trickle of subsonic, non-maneuverable, but very expensive Tomahawk SLCMs was combed out of the sky by a variety of modern air defense systems. Evidently even the current sophisticated Tomahawk mission planning software is incapable of delivering the “time on target” response necessary to overcome local air defenses. On the other hand, an AI-enhanced swarm of smaller, cheaper munitions might succeed where the by now dated Tomahawk had failed.
In response, the US military had embraced the “swarm” idea with a vengeance, hoping that interconnectedness and AI will deliver the sort of technological overmatch of any and all adversaries that currently does not exist.
US Air Force and the US Navy have been enormously resistant to the idea of heavy unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) for much of the last decade. Many earlier experiments involving flying wing-style UCAVs such as the X-47 have failed to result in a deployed combat system. This hesitancy was driven by two factors. The first was the “fighter mafia” that rules the USAF and the naval aviation component of the USN, which is jealously guarding its elite status and which is not interested in “fighter jocks” being displaced by a bunch of kids with video game consoles controlling UCAVs. The second was the belief that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter would live up to Lockheed-Martin propaganda and be that technological “silver bullet” in both air-to-air and air-to-ground applications, thanks to its stealth, advanced sensors, and the ability to share tactical information in real time. In actuality, however, the incredibly protracted F-35 development allowed for countermeasures to be developed, and secondly the fighter itself was found to have enough shortcomings to practically relegate it to a “niche” weapon system, a sort of second-generation F-117, rather than a workhorse to replace the vast fleet of F-16 fighters in US and allied use.
With the F-35’s flaws now in plain view, the UCAV has been given a second lease on life as a means of rescuing the most expensive combat aircraft program in history from failure. Remarkably enough, the first air force to recognize these problems was Australia’s, which launched the “loyal wingman” project for which Boeing, a competitor to Lockheed Martin, is already building prototypes. The US equivalent is the considerably more ambitious Skyborg which is still in the conceptual stage, but which also is pursuing the same aim that is close to being achieved in Russia with the Su-57—Okhotnik UCAV combination. While the information about Skyborg is still scarce, once operational it will be procured in large numbers to ensure each F-35 could take at least one into combat by its side.
USAF’s swarm principle is unlikely to stop there, and will also extend into munitions. The service awarded several contracts in the past couple of years to further the development of stand-off munitions that would be cheaper, longer-ranged, equipped with sensors, and interlinked, in order to facilitate their cooperation while in flight.
The US “space swarm” so far is the least developed of the three, but its rudiments are already visible. The SpaceX Starlink constellation of small satellites that was advertised as a means of providing the entire world with access to wireless internet has also been revealed to have direct military applications. The US Air Force has acknowledged it will rely on it for broadband access for its combat aircraft. Moreover, if combined with powerful enough signal processing capabilities, Starlink offers the prospect of a global aircraft detection system, possibly even capable of tracking large moving objects on the surface of the planet, such as aircraft carriers. It’s difficult to imagine USAF and USSF would forgot attempting to develop a technology which was demonstrated for the first time with the downing of the F-117 over Serbia in 1999.
Given the US military’s interest in reusable space-launch vehicles and developing the ability to surge launches whenever needed, it’s doubtful the Starlink will remain the only US application of the swarm concept in space. G_5 (A) – Done. Sooner or later they will be supplemented by combat vehicles, likely based on the X-37 unmanned and reusable space shuttle that has logged an impressive number of hours in space, and whose payloads and activities remain a closely guarded secret. The recent tests of an anti-drone combat laser aboard a US warship suggest that such a weapon could eventually be deployed aboard X-37-derived combat spacecraft. While the small size of the X-37 means accommodating necessary power supplies to make the lasers effective would be a daunting task indeed, the absence of an atmosphere in low Earth orbit and the fragility of most satellites mean that a space-borne laser would be a more effective anti-satellite than anti-missile weapon.
The dream of interconnected aerospace swarms extending from the Earth’s surface into low Earth orbit and beyond will encounter major obstacles along the way, to the point that perhaps it will remain yet another US utopian technological project aiming at obtaining permanent military supremacy.
The first is the existence of the US Space Force, which will fight tooth and nail for organizational turf and control over space-capable assets. Ironically, the establishment of the USSF may undermine the drive toward integrated aerospace operations the same way as the creation of the US Air Force as an independent service led to the promotion of the idea of airpower winning wars entirely on its own, without collaboration with other services. While strategic airpower was a favorite among the US Army Air Corps leadership in part because, in the absence of a large land theater of operations against Germany, the bombers were the only means of bringing the war to Germany, the subordination to the Army meant tactical air could not be ignored. Once that independence from the Army was won, time and again tactical air support capabilities had to be engineered into various combat aircraft only after they became operational. One still remembers “not a pound for air to ground” that accompanied the creation of the F-15 Eagle.
By the same token, the creation of the USSF means the existence of an organization about as interested in watching USAF develop its space capabilities, which it seems very interested in doing, as USAF is in the US Army having its own fixed-wing combat aircraft. And just as USAF prioritized air superiority and strategic warfare over tactical air support, so is the USSF liable to lose sight of the fact the most important aspect of its mission is the support of combat operations in the atmosphere and on the Earth’s surface.
The sheer complexity of the goal of building a global swarm of swarms that links all the aerial and space platforms and munitions will also be a major challenge. It should be noted that many of the problems of the F-35 are actually software-based, for example the failed ALIS centralized maintenance monitoring system which USAF finally gave up on and decided to commission an entirely different system. Since US software development do not appear to be on a part with US military’s ambitions, there is no guarantee the US military will be able to achieve its end objective.
This is not the first time the US military has bet on a technological advance to provide a “game changer” that would give it an irresistible advantage. The Norden bombsight, the nuclear weapon, guided munitions, were all supposed to deliver a similar objective. None of them really delivered what they promised because other powers responded in kind, and the technological capabilities themselves fell short of what was advertised.
I find these South-Front-reports very strange. They always seem like a mixture of advertisement for USA-gadgets (“impressive” stuff), and good advice how to make the USA-military more effective (“there is no guarantee the US military will be able to achieve its end objective.”).
These reports completely lack overview. No background is given, no explanations, no expositions. That seems a common theme about any kind of texts these days, commonly called “hands-on approach” (a cheap excuse for delivering just some random facts), but is obviously ridiculous in the case of military means, since most of us don’t have such means at hand.
I have read some common books on the subject, and have some general understanding. But the unstructured presentation (here just wading in the usual morass of acronyms, which seems rather typical for the USA-thinking in general — only words, no meaning) doesn’t give me anything (okay, “swarms” are in, but that wasn’t new to me; “great promise”, but also “great difficulty” — who had thought so??). Perhaps aiming at a USA-army insider? E.g., “One still remembers “not a pound for air to ground” that accompanied the creation of the F-15 Eagle.” — I don’t remember that.
The delivery of these reports is also very drab; and often, like in these cases, the volume is so low that I can hardly understand what is said. So better reading the text (the images seem anyway mostly “symbolic”, that is, fake).
At the South-Front page, it seems there is a good number of weapon-fanboys, who appreciate anything about some “new weapons”.
excellent article, bang on the nose. The US always seem to fail due to a toxic combination of in house politics and armed forces competing interests a fundamental lack of cutting edge knowledge and the fact that other people end up taking these ideas and making a better job of adopting them or producing countering tech. The obvious problem with having one centralised multi connected platform is all you have to do is hit the heart of the system and it all fails. I doubt the ability of the US to make it work anyway.
From the text:
“Since US software development do not appear to be on a part with US military’s ambitions, there is no guarantee the US military will be able to achieve its end objective.”
“a fundamental lack of cutting edge knowledge ”
In other words – USAns do not have knowledge necessary for those things. Th way their education system is working, they will never catch up with Russia, China, even Europe. As long as they rely on Google Maps and Microsoft technology, they are doomed. Cutting edge knowledge? I would say they lack basic knowledge in mathematics and physics, and it seems they are sliding into dark age.
” I doubt the ability of the US to make it work anyway.” – Amen
and the fact that other people end up taking these ideas and making a better job of adopting them or producing countering tech. “
you are not alone in doubting the US capabilities anon mouse….
i guess the yale/harward intersectional lgbtqitpp “educated” green haired harpies and their cucked feminist “allies men” will conseptiualize and build these weapons? Or do they plan to let the Chinese mit students build them?
There is a famous Brazilian writer, publisher, philosopher, Huberto Rhoden, who was a friend of Einstein who wrote a very interesting book about the Sermon of the Mountain who is very prescient about these time, where weapons and war, conflicts and almost total destruction of the planet is going full throttle. At the end of the book he writes about the solution.
The book is not translated to English, but I am sure that there are plenty of Portuguese speaking people through out the world, who can read it.
Martin Claret is the publishing house. Email address: editorial@martinclaret.com.br
Perhaps if people write to them a translation could be arranged.
Gratitude for your site and the writers.
Anyone who has ever messed about with model airplanes will know that by scaling up a model, its range increases. There are no small aircraft that can fly as far and as fast as large aircraft.
There are no small sailing boats that can sail as fast as a larger but identical sailing boat. There are no small electric cars that can travel as far and as fast as larger electric cars. The list goes on.
In view of this, it seems to me that this swarming concept is as dead in the water as the fake stealth nonsense. Just another way to get more money into the MIC.
The military money pit throwing their weight around but in the end having nothing to show for it.
“Fell short” is a good description of the Norden bomb sight.
Short, over, left, right; German civilians used to joke that it was vital to know what the Americans were aiming at, because standing right on that target was the safest place to be.
Of course the truth was that they weren’t worried about the accuracy or otherwise of the bomb sight. Their real purpose was to bomb the hell out of the civilian populace with plausible deniability. Plus ca change…
@Tom Welsh
If they had the luck to catch a fine clear sky over Europe, with light AAA interdiction (over Münster mid 1944 they hit a wall of fire where the Forts rained down from like confetti, Stars & Stripes had a top story about it > 60 went down) and almost no enemy fighters to worry about (in the deep strikes in 43 they could expect around 300 enemy fighters to hit them), they could hit their targets well (for instance Regensburg- and Augsburg-factories), but in no way better than the Germans or the British under the same conditions. The late Lotfe-devices (real marvels of engineering) where significantly more capable under certain conditions – like moving targets.