Mirage Followup: Pakistani Prospects

Anonymous questioned my analysis on the prospects of Pakistan getting the 62 Mirage 2000s from United Arab Emirates. Rumor says that UAE wants to swap the Mirages in exchange for new-built Rafaels from Dassault. I said that Pakistan is not likely to be a recipient of these planes. Anonymous disagrees, because Pakistan is the largest operator of Mirage IIIs and Vs in the world today, thus a long-term relationship with Dassault and in need of replacements. In addition, Pakistan is looking for advanced systems to arm its future JF-17s, such as RC-400 radars and MICA missiles.

Yes, Anon, Pakistan would absolutely love to have 62 Mirage 2Ks. However, as an analyst, we always need to separate wishful thinking from analysis based on facts. I will be upfront myself and admit my personal bias to see a Taiwanese Air Force strong enough to deter the PLA Nanjing military district. Even taking that into account, though, Taiwan still remains the most likely candidate for these Mirage 2Ks, eventually.

The most important factor to understand here, is the business imperative of the Dassault corporation. Dassault has been searching for an export customer for the Rafale. Without an export customer, Dassault will have to shutter the Rafale production line, at least temporarily. Having to restart the production line would raise the Rafale unit cost dramatically, further hurting its export prospects. Despite all the hype of the armed UAVs, the end of the Rafale may mean the end of high-performance fighter airplanes for Dassault [either manned or unmanned], with the attendant loss of the engineers and the craftsmen. Without the human capital, it will take Dassault a generation to rebuild its in-house capability to design and build airplanes capable of high-Angle-of-Attack maneuvers. Therefore, getting a Rafale export, and thus keeping the line warm, is synonymous with Dassault surviving in the fighter business.

Therefore, Dassault absolutely does not want to endanger its Rafale sales prospects. According to Wiki, the Rafale is in the running in India. Brazil has also supposedly chosen the Rafale. With this stock of Mirage 2Ks, Dassault may now offer the Mirages as temporary stand-ins to India and Brazil, while they waited on the Rafales.

With the business consideration, Dassault is unlikely to offer Mirages to Pakistan, at least for now. Dassault needs India's MMRCA order. A sale to Pakistan right now will shut Dassault out of the Indian market. Pakistan may get Mirages later, after MMRCA award, but by then, JF-17 production will be in full-swing in Pakistan. A Mirage 2K acqusition will be competing for funding against a more indigenous JF-17 production program. Egypt is also discussing a co-production deal with Pakistan for the JF-17s, which elevates the political importance of the JF-17 program. If JF-17 is fighting for funding against Mirage 2Ks, JF-17 will probably come out ahead. Pakistan may well buy RC-400s and MICAs, but that does not translate into Mirages.

Based on the business case, Dassault is unlikely to offer the UAE Mirages to Pakistan. Based on the timing and politics, Pakistan is unlikely to seek Mirages. Therefore, Pakistan is not a prospect for the UAE Mirages.

NCADE = A-AAM?

USAF's Chief of Staff, Gen Schwartz, has signalled his support for the air-launched missile defense concepts. This is good for missile defense. Additionally, the USAF will have an option to improve its air-to-air capability.

As I have talked about before, the USAF needs new air-to-air missiles to make up for F-35's inferior capabilities. Raytheon's NCADE and Lockheed's ALHTK will nicely address the shortfalls.

NCADE will give the AIM-120 an infrared seeker option. This will address the seeker diversity problem USAF and USN faces. NCADE's booster stage will also extend the range or improve AIM-120's kinematics. Even if NCADE does not pan out, Raytheon can quickly leverage its results into AIM-120 improvements.

ALHTK will introduce new missiles into USAF inventory, if NCADE doesn't pan out. PAC-3's radar seeker operates on a different band from AIM-120, so that will complicate threat jamming efforts. THAAD's IR seeker will address seeker diversity.

If air-launched missile defense progresses beyond the study stage, hopefully BAE will bring on its Meteor in the competition.

May the best missile win!

New MRAP-like Capability Gaps

Paul McLeary of Aviation Week asked a question: What is our next MRAP-like capability gap? In other words, a capability gap that the US military has been underfunding, but which would be catastrophic in our next war?

I came up with 3 gaps, one for each of the departments, 'cuz I'm joint in my heart :)

1.) AAM seeker diversity: AIM-120 desperately needs an infrared seeker alternative. Or a hyperspectral sensor.
2.) Corvettes/Frigates/PCs for Navy: they need more smaller ships. that one will come up when we intervene in a coastal situation again. Galrahn is talking about this one right now.
2.) An airborne-capable tank would be nice.

One of the commenters said cyber, but that's kind of getting enough attention as it is. An MRAP like capability gap is usually very conventional and un-sexy. That's why we get "surprised" when it happens.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

Edited for tags and removal of signature

The USAF's Acquisition Crisis and AAMs

Whew! The election is finally over with. Let's hope Obama is more of a Clinton-style triangulator instead of a Carter-ish indecisive vision guy as Todd Zywicki said here.

Regardless, Stephen Trimble yesterday highlighted some great comments from a fighter jock here, that generated a lot of comments. One of the interesting points is the low probability of kill ratio of the AIM-120 against a jamming target. If the USAF is going up against any semi-near-peer competitor, it will not have superiority. Sure, the F-22 is great. But the key to making the F-22, and its Beyond-Visual-Range tactic, work, is the AIM-120. If the F-22 supercruises into the fight, fires the AMRAAMs, and get out of Dodge, he survives. But his target will survive, too, if the missiles fail to lock onto the target due to jamming. And what's that called, if neither side gets a kill? Parity, not Superiority.

This, coupled with the USAF fiscal death spiral that ELP and others have been documenting, means that the USAF needs to change its acquisition strategy right now. If it keeps going down the current path, it will run out of money, people, and fighters. The USAF will get a smaller and smaller slice of the budget pie, along with the rest of the DoD, because that is the American budgetary future. The USAF cannot out-compete the AARP. The USAF is also getting less retention. And it is prematurely retiring its F-teens to bank on the unproven F-35. The USAF will become operationally irrelevant if it keeps going as it is.

The USAF keeps saying that the F-22s (with AMRAAM) will secure the skies and allow the F-35s to do their job, but it doesn't have enough F-22s, and will never get more. The F-35s (and some legacy F-teens) will have to take on air-to-air missions. We know that AMRAAM, as is, doesn't work in a jamming environment. The USAF has to immediately embark on an AMRAAM replacement program right now. Being that even missile programs take more than 4 years to go from the lab to the flightline, the more the USAF wastes its time, the more time it gives semi-near-peers to become peers. The new Advanced AAM Program [doesn't that sound familiar? :] has a simple goal, Give the F-35 a decisive advantage over the current 4.5th Gen fighters (Eurofighter, Su-35+, et al). The corollary effect will give the F-teens and F-22 superiority over everybody else.

In the mean time, the USAF can get some cheap fixes: Put a Sidewinder seeker and an RF homing seeker on the AMRAAM for seeker diveristy in the inventory. Integrate and buy the Meteor to improve the kill ratio and foster cross-Atlantic solidarity. Try the datalink to improve jamming resistance. Or have the AMRAAM talk to other AMRAAMs in its volley to sift through the noise.

Unfortunately, the USAF has been peddling the F-35 as its savior for too long now. Politically, it cannot admit otherwise and change course, without killing many officer careers. The Obama administration seems unlikely to rock the USAF boat, because its focus, and its expertise, is on COIN and the ground fight. The Obama administration may not have the intellectual and political capital to fight the USAF.

If Dr. Gates stays on as DefSec, he might be able to turn the USAF around, due to his USAF background as a missileer and his distance from the F-35 game. However, he is planning on leaving, and there are other people that want the job. All in all, the future looks bleak for the
USAF.

On the other hand, the USN faces a similar issue with its underpowered F-18. The USN Tomcat association has long lobbied for an AIM-54 Phoenix replacement. The USN aviation budget is in much less trouble due to its volume buy of the F-18E/F, and is in a better position to advocate a new AAAM program. If the USN succeeds in deploying the AAAM, you can be sure that the USAF will jump on board.

It is a sad day when the USAF has to depend on the USN to rescue it from air-to-air irrelevance. However, this analysis is yet another piece of vindication for Inter-Service Rivalry and support for duplication in Roles and Missions.

Sorry for the html. Has to use email submission.

Edit: fixed the html.

Edit 2: I saw the Joint Dual Role Air Dominance Missile. I hope that the Air to Air requirements are sufficiently robust, and that the ARM/AGM requirements take a back seat, as they should be. However, with an in-service date beyond 2020, it is clear that the USN and USAF needs an interim solution, as I've outlined above.