NATO’s Biggest Air Exercise Ever Kicks Off, Led by Germany

NATO’s Biggest Air Exercise Ever Kicks Off, Led by Germany

June 12, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

The OCCASUS alliance, composed of the Eastern nations of Murinus, Plumbeus, Griseus, and Cinereus, have invaded Germany, and are “trying to push north to the Baltic Sea,” the German military, or Bundeswehr, said in a release. To do so, the alliance is relying on a mix of sabotage operations and special forces supported from by airpower. In response, NATO has triggered Article V, calling for the collective defense of Germany.

All of this is fictional. But it is the premise of Air Defender 23, a massive air exercise led by Germany and taking place across Europe that kicked off June 12. All told, 25 nations are participating in the nearly two-week exercise.

The exercise has been years in the planning—well before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022. But the need for NATO to bolster its military might is clear to its members, whose defense ministers will gather later this week in Brussels. Germany has pledged a dramatic change in defense policy and increased spending. NATO has reinforced its eastern flank. Air Defender will test out the alliance’s ability to defend itself with airpower.

All told, some 10,000 personnel and 250 aircraft from NATO nations and Japan are participating. Nearly 100 aircraft of those aircraft are American, almost all from the Air National Guard.

According to the ANG, Air Defender is “NATO’s largest airpower exercise since its inception.”

More than 40 Guard units are participating. Their aircraft include F-35s, F-15s, F-16s, A-10s, MQ-9s, C-130s, KC-135s, C-17s, and KC-46s. Active-Duty F-16s from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, will also join in. European air forces are bringing fighters and other aircraft such as Eurofighters, Tornados, Gripens, and American-made export model F-16s and F-18s.

Because the exercise focuses on a threat from the east and a combined response, aircraft are also operating from forward locations in the Czech Republic and the eastern flank countries of Estonia and Latvia.

The German and U.S. militaries say the exercise encompasses far more than aircraft flying together, but real-world simulated combat, as officials previously detailed to Air & Space Forces Magazine. The scale is large enough that some portions of German airspace will close to civilian aircraft temporarily.

But airpower isn’t the only factor in Air Defender as “the conflict in the imagined scenario is far more complex, also encompassing the political, economic and media levels,” the Bundeswehr says. “The core of the large-scale exercise is to test the military’s ability to react and act in the air in a resilient manner and to be able to protect the population from medium-range missiles, for example.”

“I would be pretty surprised if any world leader was not taking note of what this shows, in terms of the spirit of this alliance, which means the strength of this alliance,” Amy Gutmann, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, told reporters. “That includes Mr. Putin.”

House Bill Pumps Brakes On USAF’s Tanker Plans

House Bill Pumps Brakes On USAF’s Tanker Plans

June 12, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Skeptical of the Air Force’s future tanker plans, members of the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee are one step closer to gaining added oversight, but there’s a long road ahead.

The full HASC meets June 23 to vote on amendments and their version of the National Defense Authorization bill, after which the measure must also clear the full House, the Senate, and a conference process to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions. But the subcommittee markup is a key first step, and such provisions often survive in final legislation. 

Four provisions address the Air Force’s tanker fleet and the KC-46, KC-135, the so-called “bridge tanker” to replace the KC-135s, and the new Next-Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS). The Air Force shook up its tanker plans earlier this year, introducing the new NGAS concept in January, promising an analysis of alternatives in the fall, years earlier than previously planned. USAF officials have said they want to field NGAS aircraft just over a decade from now.  

That plan de-emphasized a “KC-Y” interim tanker to bridge the gap between the KC-46 and NGAS, reducing to 75 tankers the number of tankers USAF would buy. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall also indicated less interest in a new program, rather than simply adding more KC-46s. 

But some lawmakers have pushed back, frustrated with KC-46 maker Boeing’s performance on that tanker contract. They want a new competition, and Lockheed Martin and Airbus have teamed up on an alternative called LMXT. 

A similar effort failed last year, but this time lawmakers took a different approach. In one provision, lawmakers voted to prohibit the Air Force from issuing an acquisition strategy for the bridge tanker until it submits a business case analysis and “validated requirements from the Joint Staff for the contract competition.”

Also in the provision is a requirement for a business case analysis and analysis of alternatives for NGAS “based on a more realistic timeline.” Some legislators appear skeptical that NGAS will be ready by the mid-2030s—and a delay would presumably expand the needs of the bridge tanker program. Lockheed officials have argued the 2035 timeframe is “a very, very aggressive target.” 

A second provision in the markup would prohibit the Air Force from buying more than 179 KC-46s unless its top acquisition executive provides “validated needs of the Air Force” and cost estimates for sustaining additional KC-46s.  

None of these efforts would affect current plans for the KC-46 fleet, which has held fast at 179 aircraft, but rather on any effort to expand KC-46 purchases.

The third tanker provision touches on the KC-46’s planned Remote Vision System 2.0, an upgrade for the troubled vision system developed for boom operators to view the refueling boom remotely, rather than with a direct line of sight. Lawmakers want to prohibit RVS 2.0 from being introduced into the KC-46 production line or retrofitted onto any already-built KC-46s until the Secretary of the Air Force confirms that it fixes the problems with the current system and resolves the outstanding Category I deficiencies.  

A final provision would prohibit the Air Force from reducing the number of KC-135s in the Air Force Guard and Reserve. This would tie the hands of Air Force planners, who had more than 220 KC-135s in the Guard and Reserve as of last Sept. 30. By ensuring the Air Force can’t retire those aircraft, House lawmakers are pulling from an established play list for guarding against cuts to the Air National Guard.

Air Force Women Want One Thing: ‘Make Us More Lethal’ 

Air Force Women Want One Thing: ‘Make Us More Lethal’ 

June 11, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Members of Air Force Special Operations Command face plenty of challenges and discomfort. “They’re on the ground, they’re living in cots, they’re flying the aircraft, they’re on missions anywhere from 16 to 18 hours long,” Lt. Col. Meghan O’Rourke, AFSOC’s mobility requirements branch chief and an MC-130 combat systems operator. “It’s a demanding schedule for my air commandos out there.” 

O’Rourke was among four women Airmen, all members of Air Force teams focused on cutting through factors that limit women’s mission effectiveness to join an AFA Warfighters in Action online video discussion June 9. “I don’t want them worrying about their families back home,” O’Rourke said. “I don’t want them worrying about personal hygiene or anything like that. I want those barriers tackled. These are leadership issues, these aren’t women’s issues. These are leadership issues. I want those tackled so that they can do their job as well as they possibly can.” 

The Department of the Air Force’s Women’s Initiatives Team leads department-wide efforts to remove those barriers. But at the major command level, “Athena” teams—named for the mythical Greek goddess Athena, the goddess of war—have formed to take on issues at the operational level.

The first Athena team appeared in 2019 at Air Combat Command, Maj. Sharon Arana said, led by Col. Rebecca Lange to focus on ACC-specific issues. From there, the idea spread “like wildfire” to other major commands, each with a slightly different name: AFSOC’s is Dagger Athena, ACC’s is Sword Athena, and ARC (Air Reserve Component) Athena represents both the Guard and Reserve, among others. 

The focus, Arana said: “Make us more lethal and ready to do our jobs and execute our mission.”  

With more than one-fifth of Active-Duty Airmen being women, the Air Force can ill afford not to address these issues, Athena team members said. That’s especially true as the service pursues concepts like Agile Combat Employment (ACE), where small teams of Airmen may need to operate from remote or austere bases for weeks at a time. In such scenarios, leaders will have to account for different needs to ensure their Airmen are positioned to perform. 

“For us at the Sword Athena level, we just look at, ‘Hey, how do we make this weapon system of the Airman more lethal?’” said CMSgt. Diana M. Scaramouche, the senior enlisted leader of the personnel division at ACC. “Take care of the basic physiological needs: toilet paper, pads, and tampons; female fitment equipment for the officer flyers, as well as the enlisted side. How do we come together to make sure that we’re all taken care of. And I think it makes us even more lethal. Because when you look at China, I don’t think they’re considering that.” 

Female fitment is crucial, because without gear designed for women, whether that’s body armor to support for basic human necessities, they can’t expect to be at their best.

“If we talk about tactical dehydration, we know that happens male and female. So tactical dehydration is when you don’t drink maybe five to eight hours prior to step,” said SMSgt. Rebecca Schatzman, a squadron enlisted leader and C-17 loadmaster. “So when you get in the aircraft, your cognitive response goes way down. Your pass-out rate goes way up. That is not what we need in the next fight. We talk about equipment and resources—we know that there’s equipment out there, bladder relief devices, female flight suits … any kind of female equipment, we need those resources.” 

In recent years, the Air Force has started testing out new technology for bladder relief, and ACC’s Sword Athena team is working to make sure that equipment can get to everyone who needs it. 

“So there’s the funding aspect, in order for them to be accessible, and where does that come from?” Arana said. “How do you coordinate this as well? How does a unit determine how many of each kit to fund and to carry? One of our initiatives at Sword Athena is to stand up a cross functional team, and the attempt is to collect all of the requirements for female fitment writ large, but it’s driven because of female bladder relief.” 

While getting such equipment does require funding, the Air Force should weigh the cost against the risk it runs by not giving female Airmen what they need to be successful, the panelists said. 

“I will quote [National Guard chief Gen. Daniel Hokanson] on this one—at ARC Athena, he stated that ‘Women are not little men,’” Schatzman said. “That’s one big piece, and it kind of sums it up as a whole, when we talk about equipment and specialized equipment. It really shouldn’t be specialized equipment. It should just be equipment. There is no one-size-fits-all.” 

For years, the Air Force—along with other parts of the military—designed equipment based on men and their body types, from uniform cuts to the dimensions of cockpits. 

But as the demographics of the force continue to change, so too are the baseline design requirements. Just next week, O’Rourke noted, the Air Force Uniform Office is traveling to Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., for design and fit testing for some changes to the Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP) uniform. Specifically, the office is recruiting 200 female Airmen and 100 male Airmen to take part, O’Rourke said. 

“That’s just one example where we’ve got a lot of data out there from the decades that we’ve been fighting of what the male body looks like, but now, how do we incorporate all the different female types and sizes and movement abilities?” she said. “I know the Air Force office is looking at this very, very deeply at this point to make sure we’re tackling some of these problems and getting that data that frankly is just lacking right now.” 

Fitment is just one area that Athena teams are tackling—panelists also highlighted issues with child care, health care, and recruiting that they’re looking into. 

New GAO Report: Strategic Missiles At or Below Cost, But Sentinel Faces Year Delay

New GAO Report: Strategic Missiles At or Below Cost, But Sentinel Faces Year Delay

June 9, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

The cost of the nuclear AGM-181 Long-Range Stand Off missile has come down slightly and the program is on track, but several technologies it relies on are still considered immature, the Government Accountability Office found in a report.

Meanwhile, the GAO also assessed the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile as being on cost with all its critical technologies expected to be ready on time—yet still a year behind schedule.

The developments are noted in GAO’s 2023 Weapon Systems Annual Assessments, released June 8, which report to Congress on the status of programs across the services. The LRSO and the Sentinel—USAF’s two strategic nuclear missile modernization programs—are among 14 Air Force programs included in the report.

The GAO report’s data is current as of March, so some information may be out of date.   

The LRSO, which will succeed the AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile and will be deployed on the B-52 bomber, saw a slight programmatic cost decrease since last year’s report; total predicted costs have declined from $15.1 billion in development and procurement costs to $14.9 billion, a difference of about one percent. The projected unit cost of LRSO has also come down, from an expected $13.9 million per missile to $13.75 million apiece, across an estimated purchase of 1,087 weapons.

However, GAO noted that the Air Force’s cost estimates for the nuclear missile and those of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) differ, and OSD “found procurement could cost $1.9 billion more than the Air Force estimate.”

The difference is the result of OSD using data from previous nuclear missile programs, while the Air Force used “proposed data, purchase order, and actual cost data from parts of recently-built LRSO missiles,” GAO said, apparently finding the Air Force’s numbers more convincing.

At the critical design review in February-March, OSD’s numbers were used, but the program has asked OSD to conduct another estimate in 2023, based on data from test LRSO missiles.

The GAO assessed the missile’s design as “stable.” The program started out in 2021 with what the GAO deemed “immature technologies,” and since then, two are considered mature, three are approaching maturity and one—nuclear hardness—is still considered immature. The greatest amount of immaturity in the program has to do with the nuclear warhead technologies and not the vehicle. The Department of Energy doesn’t expect to mature those elements until 2025, GAO reported. That imposes risk on the program, because starting development without demonstrating critical technologies means there could be costly work later on.

A “system-level prototype” of LRSO was tested in 2022, and the GAO said test flights of LRSO vehicles have taken place. While the Energy Department told GAO there’s a risk of an 18-month delay in warhead development, the program office will use surrogate warheads to mitigate any delays, the audit agency said.

“The Air Force plans to demonstrate missile-critical manufacturing processes on a pilot production line prior to the production decision in 2027,” GAO said. “Our prior work found this testing provides decision makers confidence that the contractor can meet quality, cost, and schedule goals.

Responding to the GAO, the program office said “LRSO development is on track for on-time fielding.”

The next big milestone for LRSO will be the low-rate production decision in mid-2027. Operational testing is slated to be complete by the end of calendar 2028 and the go-ahead for full-rate production is planned for early 2029. The Air Force won’t reveal the planned initial operational capability date due to classification, GAO said.

Sentinel

The Sentinel program, while still on cost, is seeing about a year’s delay, the GAO said. According to the program timeline accompanying the new report’s entry on Sentinel, initial operational capability is now expected between April and June 2030, about a year later than previous estimates, and skating close to the no-fail IOC of September 2030 required by U.S. Strategic Command.

“Sentinel is behind schedule due to staffing shortfalls, delays with clearance processing, and classified information technology infrastructure challenges,” the GAO said. “Additionally, the program is experiencing supply chain disruptions, leading to further schedule delays.”

In fact, the program’s master schedule contains “many deficiencies” and can’t be used to effectively manage the program, the GAO said, adding that contractor Northrop Grumman is reviewing the schedule and discussing how it may be changed.

The GAO also chalked up some delay to cybersecurity risk reduction activities. Cybersecurity requirements have been delayed pending the maturation of program requirements and “architecture models,” the GAO said, “resulting in schedule delays and cost growth.”

The program, which GAO called “complex,” will replace the Minuteman III ICBM as well as missile silos and the command-and-control system undergirding it. All that is estimated to cost $85.1 billion, including development, manufacture, and construction, the GAO said, noting that this estimate—dated January 2023—is exactly the same as the baseline estimate in September 2020.

The GAO said that of Sentinel’s 18 critical technologies, three are mature, 14 are approaching maturity and just one is immature, but the program expects to get all of those up to maturity before production begins in 2026.

The program has “successfully completed developmental tests of the new rocket motor and other missile components,” GAO said.

Although the digital approach taken to Sentinel’s design has been highly lauded by members of Congress and the DOD—praising the fact that it evaluated millions of alternatives before settling on an optimum configuration—GAO said the digital engineering environment for the program remains incomplete.

The environment “enables the digital integration of program’s data, tools, and model-based systems engineering activities to accelerate design and analysis,” but the fact that it’s still incomplete “is adding risk to Sentinel’s schedule, including major milestones such as system-level critical design review and first flight, both planned for fiscal year 2024.” The GAO said the digital environment was expected to reach IOC by the second quarter of fiscal 2023.

Critical design review is set for April-June 2024, with low-rate production expected exactly two years later. Operational testing will conclude in the fall of 2029, with IOC in mid-2030, and full-rate production later that year. The Air Force plans to buy 659 Sentinels, accounting for silo-deployed missiles and test units.  

The program office pointed out to GAO that “Sentinel is a total system replacement of the intercontinental ballistic missile system’s 400 missiles, 450 silos, and more than 600 facilities over a 31,900 square-mile landmass. … Sentinel is one of the top priorities within the Department of Defense, and the program has the attention and focus of the department’s senior leadership.”

GAO Notes Risks to Space Force Satellite Programs

GAO Notes Risks to Space Force Satellite Programs

June 9, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

In its annual review of significant Pentagon weapons programs, the Government Accountability Office found issues with two high-profile Space Force programs: one the service sees as a model of its path forward and another that may end up being a product of the past.

Among other programs, GAO assessed the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), which is based on a vision of hundreds of small satellites going up in low-Earth orbit every few years with new capabilities in “tranches.” The office also looked at the Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR), a group of four planned highly capable missile warning satellites.

The PWSA, while one program, will have several roles. Some satellites are part of the so-called Transport Layer for communications, while others are part of the Tracking Layer to observe missiles and other objects.

The GAO reviewed each layer separately in its report, since different technologies and contractors are used. The SDA wants the program to be modular and open to new technologies and refreshed small satellites every two years. SDA officials acknowledge their model is not typically how the U.S. government designs weapons programs.

“SDA faces challenges with integrating a complex system of multiple vendors and segments into a proliferated constellation of hundreds of satellites, intended to be enhanced every two years,” the GAO report states.

According to the GAO, the Tracking Layer plans to be tested in March 2026 prior to operations. The SDA plans for the Transport Layer are slightly ahead of schedule for the Tracking Layer, which is “intended to be an incremental evolution from the Tranche 0 Tracking Layer,” the GAO wrote. But Tranche 0 is not yet fully up—the second Tranche 0 launch is planned for this month, after the first one in April. The SDA plans to test Tranche 1 Transport Layer in September 2024, the GAO said. The GAO report was released June 8 but is only current as of January 2023.

Growing pains are not a new concern for the PWSA. In comments to the GAO, the program office said it is “delivering resilient, responsive, threat-driven space-based capabilities to the warfighter.”

Importantly, it added that the SDA “values schedule and speed.”

In April, the SDA said the first parts of Tranche 1 would be fielded by the end of 2024.

SDA’s model is seen as the way of the future, in some form or another, for the USSF. Department of the Air Force leaders say they would rather invest in increased numbers of cheaper satellites rather than fewer ones that cost hundreds of millions of dollars with long timelines and lengthy requirements. 

That issue is precisely one noted by GAO for another program, the Next-Gen OPIR satellites—a group of highly capable and highly expensive missile warning spacecraft designed to track objects such as hypersonic missiles.

GAO estimated the cost of the program to be just over $6 billion and stated it had much work to do to meet a 2025 launch timeline. According to the GAO, there are “several high-risk” parts of the program.

Last year, GAO estimated the cost of Next Gen-OPIR to be $5.6 billion, roughly 9 percent less than this year’s figure. It will also probably be late, the GAO added.

“Our review of this program indicates that delivery of both payloads and the first launch are likely to be delayed,” the GAO wrote. The primary payloads are infrared sensors.

The Space Force has public concerns of its own. In its fiscal 2024 budget, which could be changed by Congress, the USSF cut one of the original three planned geosynchronous orbit satellites. There are also two highly elliptical orbit satellites as part of the program, which provide polar coverage.

Testifying before Congress in March, Chief of Space Operations Gen. B. Chance Saltzman said OPIR still had a critical, “no-fail” mission the service planned to deliver. But long-term, Saltzman added, “GEO satellites are too much of a target.”

“The architecture that we really need is one that’s survivable in a contested domain,” he added.

PHOTOS: US Flexes ‘Overwhelming Power’ in Middle East with B-1 Mission

PHOTOS: US Flexes ‘Overwhelming Power’ in Middle East with B-1 Mission

June 9, 2023 | By Chris Gordon

U.S. Air Force B-1 Lancer bombers fired advanced munitions in a live-fire exercise in the Middle East, the latest display of American muscle in the region.

Two B-1s took off from RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom on June 7 and released precision munitions—JDAM guided bombs and an AGM-158 JASSM cruise missile—the next day at ranges in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. has stepped up its air and sea operations in the area amid Iran’s aggressive posture and thawing relations with Saudi Arabia.

“These bomber missions represent the U.S.’s commitment to our partners and showcase our ability to deliver overwhelming power at a moment’s notice,” Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, the Air Forces Central (AFCENT) commander, said in a June 8 statement. “Today was a demonstration of that capability and the strength of our partnerships.”

Five partner nations joined the effort, according to the command. Bomber Task Force missions are often escorted by allied fighters, and Israel released a photo of its participation.

The mission comes as America is conducting a separate military exercise in Saudi Arabia, Eagle Resolve.

Last fall, the Biden administration said it would reevaluate America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia as the kingdom moved to keep oil prices high after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. But since then, Iranian-backed militias have launched deadly attacks on American facilities, harassed vessels in the Arabian Gulf, and Washington has sought to improve relations with Riyadh.

“It is a strategic relationship,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Asharq News during a visit to Saudi Arabia.  “I think what we’re seeing is an increasing convergence in our partnership to advance in issues of mutual interest to Saudi Arabia, to the United States, and, for that matter, to countries in the region and beyond.”

Air Forces Central’s A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, which can carry Small Diameter Bombs and other precision-guided munitions, have flown missions over the Arabian Sea, as have Navy anti-ship P-8 Poseidons.

The two B-1s that took off from RAF Fairford are part of a four-bomber task force from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas.

The four Bones have had a busy deployment over the last couple of weeks. 

Two of the planes flew directly toward the Baltics and were met by a Russian fighter in what U.S. officials stressed was a safe interaction. A week later, two planes flew over Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina amid renewed ethnic tensions in the Balkans. B-1s also participated in an Arctic security exercise with America’s European allies in a flight over the North Sea earlier this week.

B-1s began preparing for their latest Middle East mission in CENTCOM as AGM-158 JASSMs were loaded onto the aircraft. The aircraft traded the High North for the Middle East and its 100-degree summer heat, refueling during the mission from KC-10 Extenders, which took off from Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia, and KC-135 Stratotankers from Al Udied.

“These activities reinforced the U.S. commitment to contributing to the security and stability of the Middle East region and demonstrate the increasing complexity, deepening military interoperability, and strength of our shared defense capabilities,” Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Patricks S. Ryder told reporters.

Brown: USAF Must Commit to Industry to Build Up Capacity for Munitions, Spare Parts

Brown: USAF Must Commit to Industry to Build Up Capacity for Munitions, Spare Parts

June 8, 2023 | By John A. Tirpak

After a long period in which munitions were almost an afterthought and sacrificed to pay for other priorities, the Air Force needs to focus on them in order to have the right “package” of capabilities for future conflicts, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said June 7.

“I’ve watched this over probably the last seven or eight years,” Brown said at a Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies event. “It’s an area that we tend to not spend as much focus on and I think we need to. In some cases, because you don’t have a threat right on your doorstep, munitions aren’t high on your priority list. Well, that’s different now.“

The war in Ukraine has highlighted the urgent need to be able to surge production of munitions, Brown said, as has the National Security Strategy and reviews of U.S. military posture in places like the Korean Peninsula, where stockpiles of weapons in particular were scrutinized.

While fielding new platforms like the B-21 bomber is important, munitions are an area “we’ve got to pay attention to to ensure we bring those along,” Brown said.

The Mitchell Institute has published several studies of USAF munitions over the last few years and determined the service needs both longer-range weapons and far more of them if it is to have a chance of prevailing in a conflict in the Pacific, where there would be tens of thousands of potential targets.   

In its fiscal 2024 budget, the Air Force is seeking an increase in multiyear procurement of the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile, the AGM-158 JASSM stealth ground-attack cruise missile, and its marine warfare variant, the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile. All three are in production and have successors in the works.

“I believe that is just a start,” Brown said. “We’ve got to look at multi-year procurements, so that it helps give a predictable demand signal to industry.”

U.S. Air Force Airman 1st Class Jack Buckland, 36th Munitions Squadron munitions maintenance technician, and Senior Airman Mark Keith, 36th Munitions Squadron munitions maintenance crew chief, conduct a visual inspection on a Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, April 24, 2023. U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Spencer Perkins

Indeed, Air Force officials have said in budget discussions there aren’t enough missiles on hand for a no-notice air campaign, and Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William LaPlante has warned that industry has been reluctant to invest in weapons manufacturing facilities and capacity because of uneven funding.

Companies need a clear business case—backed up by action—to convince their stockholders to underwrite more capacity, LaPlante has said.

“It’s not just the primes,” Brown said. “It’s all the [subcontractors] below them.” Without predictability, those companies can’t invest in capacity and workforce—sending a clear signal that weapons will be bought at a steady rate “helps us to be able to surge if we need to,” Brown added.

Likewise, Brown said partners and allies who have U.S.-type aircraft also have to have the munitions that go with them.

“We have to ensure that we have enough munitions on the shelf to support us and our allies and partners, and so that’s something that I think we need to continue to focus on and make sure we have a complete package of capability for our weapon systems,” he said.

New weapons like the B-21 won’t have the desired effect if they aren’t matched with munitions that take best advantage of their capabilities, Brown said.

“That’s an area that I do focus on, to ensure that we’re able to have the complete package,” he said. “And then on top of that, is how we use those bombers.” The Air Force needs to show it can put aircraft and munitions anywhere it needs but must also monitor adversaries like China to see if the message being sent is the one being received, Brown noted.

Similar to the munitions issue, Brown said industry also needs to see stability in spare parts funding so they can feel confident investing in new technologies and parts-making capacity.

Digital engineering, which is now becoming standard for all USAF programs, will help make parts easier and cheaper to make through 3-D printing, Brown said. The key is assessing the quality of printed parts and the confidence in that process to make flight-critical parts, he said.

At the same time, the Air Force aims to reduce the cost of weapon system sustainment through greater use of predictive maintenance, he said, wherein accumulated data on how a part performs in a fleet can save money and aircraft downtime by accurately predicting when it will need replacing.

“I think we have opportunity here,” Brown said. “Our Rapid Sustainment Office is taking a look at this as well, but to use the data to be a little more predictive in not only how we change the parts, but also work the supply chain.”

This Air Force Squadron Is Key to DOD’s Plan For Climate Change

This Air Force Squadron Is Key to DOD’s Plan For Climate Change

June 8, 2023 | By David Roza

For military planners, a change in the weather can impact a host of factors and decisions.

For instance, rising air temperature on Guam, a central hub of military operations in the Pacific, impacts the density of the air, which affects how much runway length a military aircraft needs to take off and how much gas, weapons, and cargo it might be able to carry.

“All of those calculations tie into larger strategies of how long our runways need to be, how many cargo aircraft we need, how much armament can fit on our planes, how powerful our helicopters need to be,” Lt. Col. Bill Danyluk, commander of the 14th Weather Squadron, told Air & Space Forces Magazine.

There are several weather squadrons in the Air Force, many of which provide forecasts so that units can safely operate. Danyluk’s squadron, however, has a mission performed by no other unit in the military: predicting what the climate might be like more than 10 years from now, with calculations that include the effect of human emissions, rather than simply relying on historical climate data.

“The average environment is going to change, and we need to start thinking about that now so we can adapt to those changes without losing combat power,” said Danyluk.

The goal is for the 14th Weather Squadron to be able to answer nuts-and-bolts questions that military planners have about how climate change will impact operations.

“What we’ve seen over the last couple of years is a significant increase in specific questions about climate change,” Danyluk said.

For example, if unit commanders want to plan for operations in northern Alaska in 2035, they would need to start planning years in advance to know what equipment and training regimens to develop so that troops are prepared for that environment. Part of the planning process involves knowing projected temperatures, snowfall amounts, wind, and other data that no current tools in the U.S. military can provide. 

“It takes a long time to develop and field equipment to work in that new environment,” Danyluk said. “That’s why they need to ask for it now and understand how the future climate might be different from what it is today.”

U.S. Air Force Chief Master Sgt. Jeremiah Wickenhauser cuts snow blocks to be used in igloo constriction in Crystal City, Canada. Wickenhasuer attended a five-day field training exercise during the Canadian Air Operations Survival training course. Courtesy photo submitted by Chief Master Sgt. Jeremiah Wickenhauser

The 14th Weather Squadron’s new mission is one of several efforts the Department of Defense and the Air Force is pursuing to be ready for a changing climate. In October, the Air Force released its Climate Action Plan, where it established goals such as cutting emissions, pursuing alternative energy sources, and tying the “security implications of climate change” into its planning, training, operations, acquisition, logistics, and other areas of decision-making.

Though climate projection is a new mission for the 14th, the squadron has experience studying climatology. In fact, Danyluk said the name “Weather Squadron” is a bit misleading because the unit works on climatology, which involves longer-term analysis than weather studies.

“Weather is generally up to 10 days in the future, and then beyond that you are using some form of climatology,” he explained. 

Climatologists often use historical data to predict what might happen in the future, but climate change throws a wrench in the works, potentially making those assessments less reliable. Instead, a new field called climate projection has emerged where climatologists use data such as future emissions concentrations, together with climate models, to project the future state of the climate.

The military has two preexisting methods for making climate assessments—the DOD Climate Assessment Tool (DCAT) is used to assess climate risk specifically for military installations and infrastructure, and the Department of Defense Regional Sea Level (DRSL) database projects sea levels. The 14th Weather Squadron will aim to answer climate questions beyond the scope of those tools.

The squadron, which falls under the 557th Weather Wing based in Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., is located in Asheville, N.C., amid some of America’s leading institutions for climate study. There is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center and the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, which helps the squadron stay abreast of the latest tools and techniques of the trade. 

About half of the squadron’s 64 members are civilians. On the military side, Airmen who join the squadron have typically served at least one operational assignment providing weather expertise for an operational unit commander. That experience shows weather Airmen how operational commanders use climate data.

“The installation commander says ‘I want to know what the normal snowfall amount is here at my base in Utah so I can plan to buy enough salt and enough snowplows,’” Danyluk said. “He’ll ask his weather flight, who will then send the [request for information] over to the 14th Weather Squadron. It is really helpful to have that perspective from the field on how decision makers actually use the data.”

pentagon climate change
Hurricane Michael made landfall as a catastrophic Category 4 close to Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, in the afternoon of Oct. 10. The storm created significant structural damage to the majority of the base and surrounding areas. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Conroy

The squadron provides data to all the services, the intelligence community, and NATO, Danyluk said. Several of the squadron’s civilian members are experts with over a decade of work in climatology. But climate projection requires a new skill set—and involves some uncertainty.

“When you look 10 to 30 years into the future, there is some variability in the projections, because those projections are based on future emissions concentrations,” Danyluk said. “Those come from humans, so it depends on what humans do, and that cannot always be easily projected.”

The 14th will need new resources to take on its new mission. While the unit has an initial “pathfinder” capability to pursue its new climate projection mission, the Air Force is still working out how many and what kinds of new tools or staff the 14th will need to pursue it at a larger scale, Danyluk said.

“The timelines for how soon we can be fully capable depend on when we get the resources, and it also depends on what is defined as fully capable,” he said. 

In the meantime, Airmen are improvising—as they so often do.

“We have tech sergeants and Airmen who are actually writing and manipulating computer code to extract data from our database and provide answers to questions that essentially have never been asked before,” Danyluk said. “As those new questions come in, they have to figure out how to answer them on a regular basis. It is pretty impressive what the individual Airmen are doing.”

Though planners can use the analysis provided by the 14th Weather Squadron to make decisions, Danyluk emphasized that it’s not the squadron’s job to make recommendations. Weather or climate Airmen provide data and analysis, but it is up to the policy-maker to decide how to act on that analysis.

“It’s an exciting time for the 14th and the whole military, because it is providing a new capability,” he said. “The end goal is to make better decisions, make better use of taxpayer money and, at the end of the day, to maintain the core mission of the Department of Defense.”

SECAF’s New Reading List: It’s All About China

SECAF’s New Reading List: It’s All About China

June 8, 2023 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall is fond of saying his top three priorities are “China, China, and China.” When it comes to what he wants Airmen and Guardians to read about, his answer is no different.

The new SECAF Reading List, subtitled “Understanding Our Pacing Challenge,” consists of 19 selections—every one of them focused on China. 

Referencing his own Cold War experience, in which “I learned firsthand the importance of deepening one’s understanding of potential competitors,” Kendall explained the value of knowing one’s adversary. “By closely studying the Soviet Union, we were able to better appreciate motivations, strategic intent, operational methods, and tactics,” Kendall said. “This, in turn, helped us better prepare for and prevent conflict. Our ability to anticipate and counter Soviet actions helped us to deter effectively and ultimately led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.” 

The Soviet Union is a distant memory, but the People’s Republic of China is America’s new pacing threat. “The PRC’s rapid modernization of its military and increasingly assertive behavior in the Indo-Pacific region poses a significant challenge to U.S. national interests, the security of the homeland, and regional stability,” Kendall wrote. “There is no time to lose in responding to this challenge. Studying and better understanding China is a prerequisite to making sound decisions about how to best deter, and, if necessary, defeat our pacing challenge.” 

Shortly after taking the job as Air Force Secretary, Kendall made that very point in an interview with Air & Space Forces Magazine. “I spent the first 20 years of my career in the Cold War working on some of the types of issues that we’re actually confronted with now: a peer competitor who is acting very aggressively to try to defeat us, and responding to that.” 

Kendall’s reading list breaks China down into five categories: history; the contemporary state; military modernization; geopolitical competition; and regional relationships. Authors range from Cold War icon Henry Kissinger, a former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, to renowned China expert David Shambaugh and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Barbara W. Tuchman. 

The full list includes: 

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass have previously published their own “Leadership Libraries.” These selections, featuring books, films, and podcasts, cover a wider range of topics for Airmen to consider. Kendall’s list is the first to focus exclusively on a single competitor.