U.S. Decides Against Selling F-16’s to Taiwan

Thanks for your support!

 

Just a thought... Does anyone think Taiwan really NEEDS those F-16C/Ds? The intent to purchase has two underlying factors: 1) Demonstrate to the world that the US still backs the freedom and democracy of the ONLY Chinese government througout history that ever achieved such a level of maturity, and 2) Replace the outdated F-5s to maintain inventory levels.

With his carelessness towards the Taiwanese and prehaps his FEAR of PRC retaliation, Obama shot down the first reason. And, Senators Cornyn and Menendez are likely just trying to "look good" in front of their constituents by presenting their bill. However, there might be a whole lot more going on behind the scenes in the way of supporting Taiwan than we all know about...

As for the second reason, AIDC (in Taichung) can ramp up production of the latest model F-CK-1 (IDF), that had its roll out only a month ago (where I encountered President Ma and his generals), as a suitable replacement for the F-5s, thus negating this justification for the sale of F-16s.

So you see, Taiwan doesn't REALLY need them. It's just a bunch of political rhetoric.
Thanks for letting me test the waters here on this thread. Carry on.

Over and out.

 

Uav's..especially newer swarm technology....Yanks already committed at sea to
replacing Hornets in carrier wings. The 35 may be the last manned fighter anyway. given a lifespan of 20 odd years...I make that 2040..The end...

 

Not so Urgh, the UAV's will be an adjunct and are not intended to replace manned aircraft in most missions. What they are attempting to do right now is transition UAV's into the fleet.

Heres a quote from a recent Navy Times article on the subject:

"The bulk of unmanned and autonomous flights will be for surveillance, reconnaissance and tanking purposes — missions that can last for several monotonous hours, said Norman Friedman, author of “Unmanned Combat Air Systems: A New Kind of Carrier Aviation.”"

UAV's also have a number of weaknesses that will prevent them (in the forseeable future) from replacing manned aircraft in many situations. Presently, while we are fighting low intensity wars against technologically primative adversarys it won't always be that way.

The two main methods of operating the UAV's are a remotely piloted mode where you have a human operator in a remote location, this requires a communictions link that can be jammed, disrupted or in the case of a satellite (since we're talking China) destroyed.

From the Telegraph, Mon 03 Oct 2011

WikiLeaks: US vs China in battle of the anti-satellite space weapons

It was a conference call from the Air Force General, Kevin Chilton, the head of US Strategic Command, and Marine General James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
They told him the conditions were “ripe” to launch what can now be disclosed was a secret test of America’s anti-satellite weapons, Washington’s first such strike in space for 23 years. That night, the US navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruiser, USS Lake Erie, scored a direct hit on an American spy satellite, known as USA 193. The missile used, a highly sophisticated SM-3, took about three minutes to climb 150 miles above the Earth, where it flew past the satellite before turning back and destroying the target at an impact speed of 22,000mph.

The strike came about a year after the Chinese government had launched its own satellithe attack, which started a secret “space war”, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. For months the two super powers had been engaged in a private and increasingly acrimonious row over China’s use of weapons in space – an international taboo since President Ronald Reagan abandoned the “star wars” programme in the 1980s.

The clash began on Jan 11, 2007, when Beijing shocked the world – including George W Bush’s White House – by destroying a Chinese weather satellite with a ballistic missile.

The strike, 530 miles above the Earth, dramatically demonstrated China’s new ability to destroy the satellites of enemy nations. The threat was obvious. Without navigation or spy satellites, much of America’s military would be vulnerable.

WikiLeaks: US vs China in battle of the anti-satellite space weapons - Telegraph

The next method of operation is to load a pre-programmed mission into the aircraft and let the computer fly the mission. This method relies on the onboard navigation system being able to access the GPS system to help it navigate. The GPS satellites can be knocked out as in the first scenario or in the case of the US vs a foreign country the US can just black-out that portion of the system to deny GPS access to a particular area. This happened during the Russia-Georgia war. (The US prevented the Russians from being able to use precision guided munitions using sattelite targeting by blacking out the GPS system).
This method of operation is very valuable for hitting stationary targets but, not at all for hitting targets of oppotunity or mobile targets.

As for the F-35, the US Navy has recently said it will operated mixed of F-35C F/A-18 E/F squadrons in it's carrier air wings thru the mid 2030's.

 

My information is from the UK MOD. in their document placed in UK House of Commons library. On UK uav future. It mentions your hornets as an aside. We are currenly in a debate over here to save manned RAF flight in this country. I'll post the doc up big and needs reading by Brits for sure. There is an admittance of aiming towards no manned flight aircraft in the RAF by mid century. Aiming for 2045 I believe, and following your example. Makes for illuminating reading.

 

http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/F9335CB2-73FC-4761-A428-DB7DF4BEC02C/0/20110505JDN_211_UAS_v2U.pdf

The RAF are moving out of Creech in Nevada next year. Forming an additIonal sqn at RAF Waddington. Both the RAF and MOD are calling for a debate and public awareness campaign as to the future of manned flight in the UK RAF. Some folk have been asleep at the wheel. I can assure you whilst talking to higher echelons in RAF and Mod this IS the future. Britain relies currently on PFI contracts to pay for its equipment. Either that or Emergency Operational Requirements which do not come out of the defence budget. We do not own our new transport fleet, and the DSEI is about to be sold off allowing ALL kit maintanance including wide bodied arcraft to be owned and serviced by civilians alone. The UAV path is the preffered path of the politicians. In all areas of flight. The only thing standing in the way of France and UK joint project is the civil aviation authority and EU export regulations. We are following the US lead. If its a surprise to the USA friends on here, then you need to get on top of what is currently being planned. Your own DOD docs are on line and free to search. They are big in some cases but thats the whole idea, they are hiding much you are not needing to see.

 

But the offending paragraph USMC.

In due course, the
USN seeks to integrate unmanned air vehicles to a carrier wing by
2018 with a
view to replacing Super Hornets from 2025.

 

The UK is investing in its own swarm technology via BAE. The real reason the redundancies were announced this week for Hawk and Eurofighter sales of the future..Which even in the intended market of India are being outfought in the exchequers there for uav operations. We here have got rid of Nimrod. Harrier. Under the SDR of 2010. The politicians think no one is reading it. We are indeed reading it. And so are Rusi and UK defence professionals. Aberporth in Wales is now known as Britians first unmanned airport. Civil aviation authority have caved in to politicians and
granted a whole extra landmass swathe of land to fly uav's over as a par to the previous areas allowed. The UK is going for it big time...RAF int ops admit in own documents out of RAF Digby and Molesworth your own int video site. The pilot will
be a thing of the past. Its being written into UK policy and most in UK like states are going to sleep walk into it. The bandwidth of course matters...Skynet takes care of ours as does it some of yours, intelsat and Paradigm are both commercial but to the case of Britain, only users of the bandwidth without it being apportioned to either of our millitaries...It not the end of the world, its just rocket science, but it galls me when I see a Chinese sat launched as with this weeks one and hear our media's trunk out China is intending on militarising space...Your having a laugh...

 

Good reading Urgh my friend, read the article you linked to.

It read to me like most of the issues were more concept/looking at potential options, than written in stone, but I'll take your word that Britain has decided they'll take this path. As for the US it's not a done deal. The reason I'm familiar with the subject is because this is one issue that's often debated by officers in Marine Corps Gazette. They write articles and rebuttals on the capabilities, best emloyment, countermeasures and force structure for these assets (and just about every other aspect of the current state of warfare and potential future conflicts) within the Navy and Marine Corps.

Some pitfalls that will not make the UAV the end all and be all that some proponents seem to ignore. 1) China and it's ability to kill our satellites if we go to war with them. 2) Cost savings-they're already predicting that the size and cost of future generations of UAV's will equal that of manned aircraft and the support requirement in terms of personnel is quite substantial so you don't really gain a cost savings in personnel. 3) High attrition rate-UAV's have quite a bit higher rate of loss as compared to manned aircraft. 4) More susceptable to countermeasures than manned aircraft and UAV's are just as susceptable to anti-aircraft weapons as conventional manned aircraft. This is also one of the UAV's strength's, in areas where extensive AA defenses are in place you risk just the aircraft and not aircraft and pilot.

From Defense news:

U.S. Starts Long Road To Replace F/A-18

The U.S. Navy's technical bureaucracy is getting a preflight inspection, preparing for a nearly quarter-century journey that eventually will lead to a replacement for the mainstay of today's strike fighter force, the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet.

Work is underway to create an initial capabilities document (ICD) that will define the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) aircraft, often referred to as using "sixth-generation" aviation technology.
The effort is "extremely at the beginning of the beginning," Navy Undersecretary Bob Work cautioned recently, and is the first step in developing the new plane.
No deadline has been set to complete the ICD, Navy officials said, but once it is approved, the next step will be to conduct an analysis of alternatives (AoA) for what kind of aircraft will fit the bill.
The analysis, which could take up to three years, will look at a mix of "potential unmanned, manned or optionally manned platforms," Rear Adm. Mike Manazir, head of naval aviation programs, said June 1.
There is no definition now of what the carrier-based NGAD aircraft will be. According to the Pentagon's 30-year aviation plan recently sent to Congress, options for replacing the Super Hornet include "F-35 aircraft or developing a new manned or unmanned platform or a combination of both."
The F-35 Lightning II is now in development, and the Navy intends its carrier air wings to operate a mix of F-35C and F/A-18 E/F squadrons into the mid-2030s. The NGAD is slated to enter service in 2035, Manazir said, about the time when the Es and Fs will need replacement.
No date has been set to begin the NGAD AoA, said Capt. Cate Mueller, spokesperson for the Navy's acquisition directorate.
But Manazir noted the Navy would like the AoA to be completed in time to be included in the fiscal 2014 defense planning. At that time, he said, "We would start on an acquisition path to whatever solution comes out of the AoA."
Manazir cautioned against assumptions that the NGAD will be an unmanned aircraft.
"They're leaping to a conclusion, saying the future of aviation is unmanned so obviously your next-generation aircraft is going to be unmanned. Not necessarily," he bristled. "We're trying to push back very hard against that persistent conclusion."
The admiral also noted that the term "sixth generation," although prevalent in aviation writings, is not used by the Navy.
"We have no definition of that. Somebody will throw out 'sixth generation' because it's more than fifth generation. I can tell you that we have no definition for sixth generation.
"I won't tell you that the NGAD is a sixth-generation aircraft," he said. "It's just what we're going to replace the F/A-18 E/F with.
Two-Tiered UCLASS
The NGAD AoA will use data derived from tests of the X-47B Unmanned Combat Aircraft System-Demonstration (UCAS-D), an effort by the Navy and prime contractor Northrop Grumman to field two carrier-based concept and technology demonstrators. The first X-47B made its first flight in early February, and the Navy and Northrop hope to begin ship-based testing next year.
The UCAS-D development effort will lead to the Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) program to develop an operational aircraft, which the Navy envisions reaching carrier decks in 2018.
UCLASS also is in its early stages. A Broad Area Announcement soliciting concept proposals was issued in late March.
The early versions of the UCLASS are "not going to be real high-end," Manazir said.
They will primarily perform intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, but will have some strike capability, he said.
"Five-hundred-pound to 1,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munitions, that class of weapon," he said. "You might see anywhere from four to six of the UCLASS, a squadron of them, operating off an aircraft carrier in 2018. That's the goal."
From 2018 to 2020 or so, Manazir said, "We'll be figuring how to integrate unmanned aviation on a carrier. We have to be able to fly it, flight it, operate it."
As the concept of operations evolves, he said, a UCLASS "Generation II" will appear in the mid-2020s.
"What you're going to see is a different kind of UCLASS that has more capability, more survivability, more persistence, more strike and ISR. It'll be a more evolved platform that's working into the air wing. And the air wing mix will depend on what missions the UCLASS II can perform," he said.
To get the UCLASS to the fleet by 2018, the initial airframe will probably not be suitable for development into the UCLASS II.
"It would be a different airframe," Manazir said of the follow-on aircraft, sometimes referred to as an Evolved UCLASS.
But it will use systems from the first UCLASS, such as the navigation and inflight-refueling technologies.
Responses to the Broad Area Announcement were due April 29. The Navy would not confirm which companies responded, but firms known to be pursuing UCLASS efforts are Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop.

 

To continue....

I think it a bit premature to state that UAV's will replace the F/A-18 in carrier based squadrons since the first carrier test for the X-47B is in scheduled for 2013! Also, as the article states, it is fairly certain that carriers will operate mixed manned/unmanned aircraft squadrons, what the mix will be is anyones guess and will really depend on the development of the technology over the next decade or so. The F-35's follow on aircraft is as yet undetermined. It could be manned or unmanned.

 

This thread has diverged into a VERY GOOD discussion of UAVs vs Manned Aircraft.
I'm enjoying the chat, but is there any chance you guys would like to generate a new thread on a website dealing with modern military technology and not WW2?
Or, doesn't it matter that you are WAY OFF the topic here?

 

He is right you know.

 

More intell.....From Navy-Times

Analysts say UAV progress won’t kill aviation

By Joshua Stewart - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Sep 12, 2011 8:19:04 EDT

When an F/A-18D Hornet made a “hands-free” landing on the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower in July, it was a big step for unmanned flight, but not the beginning of the end of naval aviation, analysts say.The Hornet was modified to “emulate” Northrop Grumman’s X-47B unmanned air combat system, allowing it to mimic its autonomous flight capabilities.
The aircraft and shipwere outfitted with special software and equipment that allowed the carrier to giveprecise directions, allowing for the precision maneuvers required for a carrier landing.
After the aircraft got into position July 2, an operator on the carrier selected a pre-programmed approach on a computer monitor. The plane automatically touched down on Ike’s flight deck, and the tailhook snagged the arresting cable. The landing and several other approaches were repeated throughout the day.
Besides the new technology, it looked exactly the same as any other flight.
While unmanned planes will allow for different types of missions, there are still feats only pilots can master that will keep people busy in cockpits, analysts said. But there will be significant changes.
Once unmanned aircraft have mastered midair refueling — a task the Navy hasn’t attempted yet — a new set of capabilities will sit in the hangar.
“Pound for pound, you’re going to get a longer range and more payload on an [unmanned aerial vehicle] compared to a command aircraft, and that’s going to be important in the years ahead,” said Nate Hughes, director of military analysis for Stratfor, a global intelligence company. “These days, the human in the cockpit is the limiting factor.”
There are certain jobs where carrier-based unmanned aircraft will have an advantage. For example, Hughes said, they’ll be useful if the fleet sees an increase in operations involving China in the Pacific, where missions tend to take longer than elsewhere.
The bulk of unmanned and autonomous flights will be for surveillance, reconnaissance and tanking purposes — missions that can last for several monotonous hours, said Norman Friedman, author of “Unmanned Combat Air Systems: A New Kind of Carrier Aviation.”
“Eventually they run out of oil pressure or something breaks, but it will outlast a pilot,” he said.
There are financial implications, too.
“It’s a cruise missile you can retrieve. If you think of it that way, you only fly it when you need it. You cut down on your gas, your numbers, your manning and your spares,” he said.
[h=3]Savings vs. capabilities[/h]Autonomous flight means that costs associated with training flights, including fuel, maintenance, logistics and payroll, will be reduced. By Friedman’s estimates, it could create as much as 66 percent in aviation-related savings, making carriers a more fiscally attractive ship.
However, the aircraft itself likely will cost the same as a manned fighter, he said.
“If I spend most of my dough on the airframes and not on the maintenance and flying all the time and stuff, I save a lot of money,” he said.
Additionally, there are per-unit savings created by the lack of ejection seats, life support and other systems aviators need to do their job, Hughes said.
But analysts said that no matter the advances in autonomous and unmanned flight, the Navy has no plans to send aviators packing.
“That’s not even a goal. The Navy’s goal is to seamlessly integrate unmanned systems into the fleet,” said Capt. Jaime Engdahl, X-47B program manager, in a July teleconference.
There will always be a need for well-trained pilots, analysts said.
“There are times when you really want a person there, so when something goes sour, you have judgment. You want probably a few manned fighters,” Friedman said.
And unmanned flight brings a new set of vulnerabilities that a pilot doesn’t have to worry about, said Eric Wertheim, editor of Combat Fleets of the World.
“This highlights the importance of cyberwarfare — both offensive and defensive — whenever we think or talk about the employment of unmanned vehicles, whether in the air, on sea, land or under the oceans. You can bet our potential adversaries are looking into this, so we need to be able to meet this challenge,” he said.
The Navy has contended with this problem with the MQ-8B Fire Scout. In one test at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., the data link between the unmanned helicopter and ground controllers went down, essentially leaving the UAV without an operator as it soared into restricted airspace over Washington, D.C., before a connection and control were re-established.
A Pentagon report released in June said that the data link problems with the Fire Scout were so common that they made it impractical to use the UAV for some types of missions, a claim the Navy and developer dispute based on more recent flights.
[h=3]Finding the right mix[/h]Autonomous aircraft are built around manned systems, with no special accommodations for equipment, protocols or handling while onboard the carrier.
The big unknown, analysts said, is how much of a presence such aircraft shouldhave in the fleet.
“The question is, what is the balance moving forward in the carrier air wing? And that’s going to be as much as a budget and institutional decision as it will be about what the UAVs bring to the table,” Hughes said.
That balance will depend, in part, on the politics of aviation and fiscal demands.
“Somebody once said that UAVs don’t sit on promotion boards. Their point is that there’s certainly broad agreement that there’s value in unmanned systems, that’s undeniable at this point,” Hughes said. “But you have fiscal austerity, and you have pilots who are long-standing aviators.”

 

You're right, back to the topic!

 

As a newbie, I certainly didn't mean to spoil the party; am just suggesting you open a new thread to cover your fascinating topic and express your admirable intel in a place where others might find it.
-OR-
We could tie it in by discussing how the Japs might/might not have been better off using a swarm of "guided missile" V-1 technology, instead of Kamikaze attacks, from Formosa, since they didn't have any F-16s available. Whew! That's stretching it, but hey... I'm trying! LOL

Other than that... I'm 'stumped'.

 

Still a bit of topic but ..... I'll get there.

MAD was just that, madness, a lot of it makes no rational sense but the whole was so scary it prevented WW3. US doctrine specifically provided for first use nukes to stop the "soviet tank hordes", they went as far as placing nuclear land mines at choke points, how much of that was bluff (deterrence?) we will never know. Once "tactical" nukes were used escalation is anybody's guess. One must also consider the French, while the "independence" of the British Polaris force is suspect, the French Force de Frappe was not under NATO control and if Soviet tanks approached the Rhine there is a very good chance they would be used.

IMO the best chance for the Taiwan Chinese to stay independent is to go nuclear, the PRC is nowhere close to having reliable ABM technology, (assuming it's actually feasible, some of the Star Wars ABM programmes look increasingly like bluff in hindsight, as a fellow software engineer once stated "10 million lines of code and no real life testing? they must be joking!"). The main reason they haven't done so is that they felt reasonably safe under the US umbrella, if they see that umbrella leaking they may still make the obvious choice. They can't win an attrition war only make it so expensive for the attacker that it will never start, and nukes, as MAD demonstrated for NATO, is a good solution to that.

Last thing the world needs is another "nuclear trigger" hanging around so boosting Taiwan's conventional forces to "deterrence levels" is the the right choice, of course as the technology gap with PRC narrows it will become inreasingly difficult to do so given the population imbalance but in politics it makes sense to concentrate on the now.

 

@TOS -
1) I'm still betting that some tactical nukes are stashed in Taiwan, although I cannot say that this has been confirmed and brought up for public scrutiny.
2) The ROC is developing its missile delivery systems to bring them up to snuff (as a "small scale nuclear deterrent"?), along with their MBD systems, and anti-ship weaponry.
Hsiung Feng III - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And, I am still hunting down the 80-90 F-5s reportedly "held in reserve"; cripes, those birds have to be museum pieces by now! I say, sell 'em off as toys for the wealthy!

 

Hang on...Does this mean we gotta target Taiwan now too...We aint got the engines cap'n...She wont take it... Good post though TOS.

 

I cant remember the topic......