USAF Slashes Bomb Funding, Hinting at New Systems or Return to Boom and Bust

June 2, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Air Force slashed its request for most weapons in its fiscal 2022 budget request, while boosting its ask for longer-range, stealthy systems. The budget proposal indicates the service is either shifting away from short-range missiles and bombs or will soon find itself back in the boom-and-bust munitions procurement cycle—or both.

The Air Force’s request for Joint Direct Attack Munitions fell 88 percent, from 16,800 enacted in fiscal 2021 to 1,919 weapons in 2022. The high water mark of JDAM production was 30,872 units in 2019, meaning JDAM production for the Air Force will have fallen more than 93 percent in three years, if Congress goes along.

Most standard USAF munitions were requested at much smaller rates in the 2022 budget. Hellfire missile purchases would be reduced 74 percent; Small Diameter Bomb 1 would drop almost 60 percent; and Sidewinder and AMRAAM dogfight missiles would decline 27 percent and 37 percent, respectively, over enacted 2021 levels.

Maj. Gen. James D. Peccia III, deputy assistant secretary for budget, told reporters at the budget rollout May 28 that the Air Force is “reducing munition procurements as the program approaches warfighter inventory objectives.” The JDAM and SDB 1 “are at, or approaching, healthy inventory levels,” he said, and the money saved by not buying as many of the extant weapons can be plowed back into advanced systems like the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range and hypersonics programs such as the AGM-183 Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, or ARRW. An Air Force spokesperson said the Air Force is “comfortable” at the level of the weapon stockpile.

Along with other shifts in funding, the munitions buy seeks to modernize the fleet “for a high-end conflict in 2030 and beyond,” Peccia said.

The only weapons USAF is asking to increase are the GBU-53 Stormbreaker (formerly the Small Diameter Bomb 2) and the AGM-158 JASSM-ER, which the Pentagon said is a crucial weapon due to its stealth and reach. Procurement of both weapons would be increased about 25 percent.

Air Force Budget Request for Munitions

Weapon Type	2021 Enacted (units)	2022 Requested (units)
JDAM (all variants)	16,800	1,919
AGM-114 Hellfire	4,517	1,176
Small Diameter Bomb 1	2,462	998
Small Diameter Bomb 2	743	985
AGM-158 JASSM-ER	400	525
AIM-9X Sidewinder	331	243
AIM-120 AMRAAM	268	168
AGM-183A ARRW	0	12

Source: USAF budget documents

The Air Force is also working on a successor to the JDAM that would have longer range, reduced signature, and greater maneuvering capability to avoid terminal air defenses, about which the service declined to comment.

The JDAM and other cuts come just a year after Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr., head of Air Force Materiel Command, told Air Force Magazine he was hoping to end the “sine wave” cycle of boom-and-bust weapons procurements, especially as the weapons accounts tend to be bill payers for other parts of the budget.

After the 2021 budget request was revealed, Bunch said USAF was able to “make a dent” in its years-long munitions shortage, and the Air Force was on “a better trajectory” after preferred munitions were no longer being used at a high rate against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

Bunch said he hoped to “level off” at the 2021 production rates, but that USAF was planning to change its weapons focus to “the high-end fight.”

Former head of Air Combat Command retired Gen. James M. Holmes said last year that the Air Force meant to “start slowing down” on JDAM, both to pay for other weapons and focus on threats such as China, which require munitions having greater range and survivability. JDAM and Hellfire are direct-attack weapons with limited range.

The advantage of smoothing out munitions production would be to give Air Force planners and industry alike more predictability about weapons production and lower costs by making smarter decisions about workforce and materials.

A spokeswoman for Boeing, maker of the JDAM, said, “Our contracts with the U.S. Air Force allow for flexibility in annual orders,” but the company declined to offer further comment.

Mark Gunzinger of AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said USAF’s move to increase the production of long-range systems at the expense of short-range ones is “exactly right” and “one of the few things I applaud in the Air Force’s budget.”

The JASSM-ER and other “mid-range standoff weapons are capable of penetrating contested areas and striking high value targets such as Chinese mobile missile launchers,” and in the case of the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile variant of JASSM, Chinese ships as well.

“JDAM and SDBs are great weapons, but they were never designed to survive” in an integrated air defense system, Gunzinger said.

Rather, the Air Force needs “fifth-generation weapons for fifth-generations platforms.” He included on his short list of needed weapons the ARRW, of which the Air Force wants to build 12 in 2022 for $141 million.

That said, the Mitchell Institute’s analysis concludes that “USAF’s planned inventory of JASSM and LRASM could be depleted in a matter of days during a major conflict with China.” Such systems have been “underfilled for years” by the Defense Department, and “it continues to do so, despite the fact that industry cannot quickly surge their production during a crisis.”

Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, builder of the JASSM and LRASM, is building a new plant to handle expanded production of the weapons at its Troy, Alabama, location.

Gunzinger said the Air Force must “balance the range, size, cost, and cost-per-effect of its future weapons. Hypersonic weapons, he noted, have very long range and are highly survivable, “but they are too large to be carried in significant numbers per sortie and they cost too much to buy in large quantities,” and so they may be “little more than niche weapons.”

Michael White, DOD’s lead for hypersonic systems, said in a Center for Strategic and International Studies program June 2 that the Pentagon aims to build hypersonic missiles “at scale,” and this will become more possible when smaller, air-breathing hypersonic weapons become available. The ARRW and its counterparts in the Army and Navy tend to be large systems which can only be carried by bombers, or fired by ships or heavy ground equipment.

The Air Force’s first production numbers released for ARRW, contained in its 2022 budget request, peg the cost of the first tranche of usable missiles at $13.4 million apiece.

A former senior defense official said recent Pentagon wargames showed that the winner in a Pacific conflict will be the side with the largest magazines of hypersonic missiles, and noted there are “thousands of aimpoints” in the theater, requiring the weapons to be affordable.

Based on Gunzinger’s analysis, “there is a sweet spot for munitions that have ranges between 65 miles and out to JASSM-ER’s range,” he said. Such mid-range weapons will “give penetrating aircraft enough standoff to avoid highest-risk point defenses surrounding high-value targets but won’t be so large that they can’t be carried internally by stealth aircraft.” Gunzinger has suggested in previous studies that USAF would find value in modifying some existing weapons with a propulsion pack to extend their range and keep attack aircraft at a greater distance from air defenses.

The Air Force’s budget request for conventional munitions basic research increased from $127.1 million in 2021 to $151.8 million in 2022. The request for applied research on conventional weapons increased from $133.9 million in 2021 to $157.4 million in 2022.

NATO Buys, Operates Kessel Run’s Tanker Planning App

June 2, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

NATO has bought and already used an application known as Jigsaw, which was developed by the Air Force’s in-house software development team, Kessel Run, to handle refueling tanker planning in the Middle East.

The alliance used Jigsaw to plan air-to-air refueling operations during the two-week exercise Ramstein Ambition 21, according to a press release.

“The use of the application during the NATO exercise showcases how far reaching and influential the modernization efforts of Kessel Run have become,” said Col. Brian Beachkofski, commander of Kessel Run, in the press release. “Our efforts to enhance our AOC Weapon Systems, now seem to be positively enhancing the abilities of our allies as well.”

Jigsaw first rolled out in 2017 at the Combined Air Operations Center at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, and NATO purchased the application in late 2020. The program brings together data from current, previous, and planned tanker operations to plan the most effective missions for deployed aircraft. It replaced a previous process in which five or six people would to spend up to eight hours each day drawing tanker plans on a whiteboard. USAF officials told Air Force Magazine in 2018 that they estimate the application has saved 400,000 to 500,000 pounds of fuel each week.

Kessel Run said the program has saved the Pentagon more than $500 million in fuel costs and “has provided the DOD with enhanced combat capabilities through its increased coordination in the planning of refueling missions,” according to the release.

NATO’s Allied Command Transformation also wanted Jigsaw to alleviate its “manpower intensive” refueling planning process. The software will be in use at NATO Air Operations Centers around the world.

“To keep our nations safe in such an unpredictable environment, we need to keep our Alliance strong,” said project lead Lt. Col. Jonathan Clow in the release. “Innovation and experimentation are critical components of NATO’s future defense, security, and deterrence.”

USAF Unfunded Priorities Include More F-15EXs, No Additional F-35As

June 2, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force wants another dozen F-15EXs as part of the $4.2 billion unfunded priorities list it submitted to Congress this week, but the service is not asking for any additional F-35A strike fighters.

The Space Force sent a separate request to the Hill, but it’s not clear what is included on that list or how much it would cost. Last year, the Department of the Air Force sent a $4.2 billion unfunded priorities list to the Hill, which included $3.2 billion for the Air Force and $1 billion for the fledgling Space Force.

The most recent UPL, which highlights priorities not part of the 2022 budget request, includes $1.376 billion for the 12 F-15EXs, plus spares, support equipment, and 24 conformal fuel tanks.

In a notable break from tradition, it does not include any additional F-35As. The 2021 and 2020 unfunded priority lists included a dozen F-35s each. The service, in its budget request released last week, asks to buy 48 F-35s, the same number it requested in 2021, though Congress ended up adding 12 more to last year’s request.

The 2022 unfunded priorities list does include $360 million for F-35 sustainment, which would buy 20 F-135 power modules and fund weapons systems sustainment for “critical F-35 capability.”

The list also includes $825 million for other weapon system sustainment, including for readiness spares, U-2 operations, and EC-37 spare engines. The list includes $377 million to build a command and control framework, including $152 million for Three Dimensional Long-Range Radar, $112 million for Battlefield Airborne Communications Node operations and maintenance, $105 million for a command and mission control center and air operations center integration for the Air National Guard, as well as $9 million for seven MAN Portable TACAN systems.

The list outlines $180 million for aircraft upgrades and technologies, including Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar Systems, Adaptive Engine Transition Program, and Large Common Carriage development.

It also seeks $736 million for military construction and $320 million for facility sustainment, restoration, and modernization, though no specific projects were highlighted.

Spangdahlem F-16s Deploy to Sweden for Arctic Exercise

June 2, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

More than 300 Airmen, along with U.S. Air Force F-16s from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, deployed to Sweden for a large exercise alongside six other nations.

Arctic Challenge Exercise 2021 kicked off June 2 at Kallax Air Base, Sweden, and is scheduled to run for more than two weeks. The Airmen from the 52nd Fighter Wing join personnel and aircraft from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom for the exercise.

The exercise began in 2013 and has rotated between Sweden, Norway, and Finland, according to a 52nd Fighter Wing release.

“The end goal of this exercise is to get good integration both with our Nordic allies and our NATO allies,” said Capt. Scott Pippen, 480th Fighter Squadron lead project officer for ACE21, in the release. “We aim to get our 52nd FW pilots better experience in multiple different mission sets and in a larger scale engagement.”

The exercise will include joint operations and air defense training, including air-to-ground strike and close air support, defensive counter air, and suppression of enemy air defenses, according to the release.

“It has been a good experience working with our American partners so far,” said Swedish air force Maj. Daniel Jannerstad, lead ACE21 planner for the Swedish, in the release. “I would like this to be a good learning opportunity and to fulfill all of the objectives of the exercise according to plan.”

The Air Force is increasing its focus on the Arctic as the region grows in strategic significance. The Department of the Air Force last summer released its first-ever Arctic Strategy.

“Given the Arctic’s vast distances and challenges to surface operations, air and space capabilities have long been essential to gain rapid access and provide all-domain awareness, early warning, satellite command and control, and effective deterrence,” the strategy states. “Offering a solid foundation on which to build and project power across the region, the Department of the Air Force is the most active and invested U.S. military department in the Arctic.”

Here’s What the Air Force is Promising Robins AFB as it Cuts JSTARS

June 1, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force is promising new missions for Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, the longtime home of the E-8C Joint STARS, as the service looks to retire the old aircraft in favor of its Advanced Battle Management System program.

The Air Force’s budget proposal, released May 28, aims to cut the first four of its 16 JSTARS. The Air Force plans to replace the aircraft with ABMS, a push to use emerging technologies and artificial intelligence to connect sensors and shooters for a broader, more advanced look at battle management and command and control.

Robins is home to about 2,000 Active-duty and National Guard members who have flown the JSTARS since 1996. Acting Air Force Secretary John P. Roth, in a Robins press release coinciding with the budget announcement, said newer missions are needed as the country expects to be challenged by China and Russia.

“Those threats require new solutions, which means divesting legacy platforms like the JSTARS,” Roth said. “However, our intent is to capitalize on the existing expertise at Team Robins as we bring on these new missions. These missions will play a vital role in how we achieve decision superiority across all domains.”

If the JSTARS cuts are approved, new missions for Robins will include:

An Air Control Squadron. The base would host a unit that would provide command and control of aircraft in U.S. Central Command, according to the release. This unit, the 727th Expeditionary Air Control Squadron, known as “Kingpin,” had historically operated at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates, and recently moved operations to Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina.
ABMS and Joint All-Domain Command and Control Support. ABMS is in its nascent stages, with its current funding limited by Congress, though the Air Force is hoping to be able to buy its first hardware in late 2022, a communications pod for the KC-46 tanker that will enable the F-22 and F-35 to talk to each other. Robins would host some of that mission. The plan, outlined in the press release, is for existing manpower to transfer to a “classified mission in support of future capabilities” associated with JADC2 and ABMS.
An E-11 Squadron. The E-11A Battlefield Airborne Communication node, a fleet of four modified Bombardier Global Express business jets, has been flown by the 430th Expeditionary Combat Squadron at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan. With the war in Afghanistan drawing to a close, the aircraft would then be based at Robins. The Air Force in its budget request calls for buying another airframe to replace the one that crashed in Afghanistan in January 2020.
A Spectrum Warfare Group. The Air Force would create a group of squadrons, made up of Active-duty Airmen and civilians, to “take advantage of the skills” in the region, such as software and hardware experts, to focus on the electromagnetic spectrum.

“These cutting-edge missions, and the Team Robins Airmen that would execute them, are exactly what the Air Force needs to be ready for the threats we anticipate in the future,” Roth said in the release.

Air Force Not Buying Any New MH-139 Choppers in 2022 After FAA Certification Delay

June 1, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The Air Force did not request to buy any new MH-139A Grey Wolf helicopters in its fiscal 2022 budget, and fielding will be delayed as the service waits to receive Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification.

The Air Force received approval to buy eight of the new helicopters in 2021, but the certification issue prevented the purchases. Previous budget documents called for the purchase of eight more in 2022, before the certification delay.

“The FAA requires the MH-139A to obtain an updated certification, because it is a commercial derivative aircraft with military unique equipment that requires certification,” the service said in a statement. “Technical issues discovered during contractor testing have caused the certification delay. The program office is currently evaluating courses of action and will have a better understanding of the program impact in the coming months.”

The helicopter will replace the aging UH-1Ns, which are used for security at the Air Force’s nuclear missile fields, VIP transport in the Air Force District of Washington and Japan, and survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training.

USAF video.

The Air Force wants to buy 84 of the aircraft and had expected it to reach initial operating capability this year. The service originally wanted to replace the UH-1N as part of the 2007 Common Vertical Lift Support Program, before Air Force Global Strike Command was created, but it has repeatedly been delayed.

In November, the Air Force announced it would base the helicopter’s Formal Training Unit at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 12:58 p.m. on June 7 to correct the status of helicopters expected to be purchased in 2021

U.S. Will Reportedly Hand Over Bagram to Afghan Forces

June 1, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

U.S. forces will reportedly transfer control of Bagram Airfield, the major headquarters of American air operations in Afghanistan, to Afghan forces within about three weeks.

Agence-France Presse reported June 1 that the U.S. military will hand the base over to the Afghan government in about 20 days. Bagram is the biggest installation in the country and has hosted tens of thousands of troops.

Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby, asked about the report during a June 1 briefing, said “clearly” the base will be turned over as part of the withdrawal from Afghanistan but added that “I’m not going to speculate about timing” for operational security reasons.

U.S. Central Command reported June 1 that American forces have completed between 30 percent and 44 percent of the entire withdrawal from Afghanistan, flying out approximately 300 C-17 loads from the country and handing over about 13,000 pieces of equipment to the Defense Logistics Agency for destruction.

Bagram would be the latest in a series of major bases handed over to Afghan forces, including Kandahar Airfield, which also was a key location for USAF operations.

President Joe Biden announced in April that U.S. forces, along with American contractors and NATO allied forces, would completely leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021. Following the withdrawal, U.S. aircraft will continue counter-terrorism strikes in the country from outside of its borders, and the Pentagon is pursuing ways to remotely continue the mission to train, advise, and assist.

B-52s Fly Over All NATO Nations for the Second Time

June 1, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

B-52 aircraft deployed to Europe flew over all NATO nations in a single day, the second time in less than a year that U.S. bombers have flown this show of strength over the continent and North America.

The B-52s, which are deployed to Moron Air Base, Spain, flew over all 30 allied nations May 31, integrating with more than 20 allied militaries across two combatant commands as part of Operation Allied Sky, according to a U.S. European Command release.

The first leg of the mission included a flyover of all NATO nations in Europe, during which bombers conducted aerial refueling and flew with “several” ally aircraft. In the second leg, stateside-based bombers flew with U.S. and Canadian aircraft. The release did not specify how many B-52s participated.

“Bomber missions demonstrate the credibility of our forces to address a global security environment that is more diverse and uncertain than at any other time in our history,” said Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, NATO Allied Air Command and U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa commander, said in the release. “Today’s mission is an awesome demonstration of NATO air superiority and together there is no challenge we cannot tackle.”

In August 2020, six B-52s conducted a similar mission. Four bombers, deployed to RAF Fairford, United Kingdom, flew over all European member nations while two B-52s from Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, flew over the U.S. and Canada.

DOD’s Data-Driven Future: Shared Knowledge, Near Real-Time Answers

June 1, 2021

The impact of data-driven decision making reaches far beyond strategic planning. While data is essential to creating and maintaining a competitive advantage over adversaries, data-driven decision making applies to everything from warfighter responses under battlefield conditions to logistics and maintenance.

Complete, accurate data is crucial to supporting the OODA Loop (Observe – Orient – Decide – Act), which was developed by USAF Colonel John Boyd. However, only timely data is useful — information that arrives too late to support a decision is as good as no information at all. The speed of access to shared resources is the gating factor. To be effective, answers must be generated in seconds, not hours or days. And those answers must be forward deployable to support troops and commanders as events unfold, so security is imperative.

The first two parts of this series discussed how meeting the goals of shared data mandates, including ABMS and JADC2, will require users across the DoD to be able to access authoritative, up-to-the-second data from across all sources. Those articles also covered how data can be secured and compartmentalized, and can also amplify cybersecurity, helping to mitigate threats before they impact the mission. In this final article, Elastic looks at what near real-time answers from comprehensive data can mean for real-world situations.

Start at the Source

Developing an all-encompassing view requires diverse sources, including data from computing systems as well as the information captured from operational technology (OT). The sheer breadth of OT systems providing data — everything from flight line diagnostics to security endpoints, and even including seemingly unrelated systems such as HVAC and badging — can provide a wealth of information relevant to readiness, long-term planning and day-to-day operations.

The Internet of Battlefield Things (IoBT) has a measurable impact on both the quantity and quality of information that can support better, faster decision making; sensors (both stationary and mobile), on-vehicle telemetry, and weapons systems can feed continuous data streams to command and control systems.
Wearables can also provide essential inputs: Location data and personnel health monitoring are two obvious uses, but they can also enable essential tasks such as contact tracing for disease and physical threat prevention.
To ensure overall readiness, the Secretary of Defense has mandated an 85 percent operational level for airframes and vehicles. Reaching that goal requires predictive maintenance, which is data-driven by definition. But identical parts can perform differently in real-world applications due to environment and mission requirements. Today, many predictive maintenance efforts use standard data science practices, which can take weeks or months of analysis. AI-based solutions can deliver accurate results in a fraction of the time.

Comprehensive OT data can also drive inventive new capabilities. A prime example is the Air Force’ Base of the Future initiative. Intended to protect infrastructure and enable resilience, the program encompasses data-driven processes such as improving physical and cyber defense; using emerging technologies, including AI, to promote innovation; monitoring personnel well-being; and ensuring legacy systems can be supported while building a more agile direction for the long term. All of this is dependent on fast, secure data sharing to enable more effective automation and better-informed decisions.

The practical applications of this interconnected web of data are limitless. Transportation commands, for example, can employ machine learning to view an entire fleet’s operations simultaneously, allowing leaders to identify recurring issues while factoring in terrain, vehicle health, and personnel performance. Geofencing can be applied to highlight problems affecting a specific area. Capturing data from as many relevant sources as possible can even lead to the next stage of AI-powered capabilities: prescriptive analytics — in which systems can respond automatically even when dealing with changing conditions.

With Elastic’s machine learning and natural language processing querying capabilities, users can cross-correlate multiple data sets that normally would not interact to determine what’s outside of the realm of normal — mitigating analysis paralysis and driving effective, budget-conscious decisions.

Seamlessly Blend Legacy and Modernized Data Sets

Hybrid environments, composed of both legacy and cloud systems, will be with us for the foreseeable future. There are simply some proprietary systems that can’t be replaced by cloud solutions and some analog capabilities that cannot be superseded by digital ones. The MIL-STD-1553 aircraft communications bus comes to mind. This standard dates from the 1960s, yet nearly every helicopter’s communications system relies on it, along with airframes such as the F-15 and F-16, among others. Even the emerging standard, MIL-STD-1760, will remain analog for operational effectiveness under combat conditions.

Elastic can manage data captured by these essential systems, then correlate it with information from modernized systems. The solution — standardizing and normalizing data formats using an open schema — permits easy access across resources. This means there’s no need to rip-and replace valued systems, but the data can still be used wherever needed.

Empower Users with Near Real-Time Search

The majority of data queries have been limited by two factors: access to shared data and time. Most of us are familiar with the overnight question—it takes all day to figure out what to ask, and the system takes all night to come back with an answer. The “coffee question” can be answered more quickly but leaves plenty of time to say, “I’ll go get a cup of coffee while I wait.”

By presenting answers in just seconds, Elastic empowers users to ask “What if?” questions, veering away from the status quo in search of better solutions. For example, if a cyberattack is detected against an Air Force base, can that same attack be identified elsewhere? Or if an artillery transport truck deviates from its schedule, can it quickly be determined if the issue is an engine failure or a possible threat?

Grant Access … Securely

Maintaining security and privacy is crucial to data-sharing strategies. Not all data needs to be shared, and the effort involved with copying and moving data to centralize it is simply unnecessary. Elastic operationalizes the data lake concept by allowing information to be kept in place and accessed by whomever needs it — but only per the data owner’s policies. This keeps local data local, shares what’s important to the group, and ensures that private or secure information remains so.

Start Today: It’s About Time

Because timeliness is critical, it’s crucial that the most up-to-date data is included in queries. Enterprise search solutions typically index data as it’s requested, which could mean the latest information fails to be considered. That’s why Elastic indexes data as it is ingested, so it is immediately available to be analyzed and queried.

Systems powered by this comprehensive search capability also empower junior operators to understand and identify issues and take appropriate action faster, while freeing up higher-level operators to focus on more complex challenges.

With both personnel and automated systems hungry for information, access to data across the enterprise frees people up to focus on the decisions that only humans should make, especially those involving extreme consequences. Elastic’s search and analysis tools highlight details that could otherwise be obscured, while answers can be as granular as necessary. With answers available in seconds from all relevant sources, faster, smarter decision-making is only a question away.