Cartwright's Testimony Is a Guinness Moment

I love everything about this Wired article about Jammers written by David Axe. This is the meat.

In the early days of the Afghanistan conflict, the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines cobbled together a makeshift armada of jamming planes — Air Force EC-130H Compass Calls and Navy and Marine EA-6B Prowlers — capable of zeroing out the Taliban’s communications. That armada subsequently shifted to Iraq, then back to Afghanistan as the Iraq war winds down. Last week, the small Compass Call detachment at Bagram airbase, in Afghanistan, marked its 2,000th Afghanistan mission. “There are only 14 of these aircraft in the Air Force,” Maj. James Bands said. “So it’s taken four years of constant flying at about 2,000-3,000 hours on one aircraft a year, in order to accomplish this.”

Everyone loves EW. They love the flexibility, capability, and opportunities that EW enables for the warfighter. Davids article also brought up an issue I missed last week while on vacation, the testimony of U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. John Bennett has an article on the testimony in Defense News.

Cartwright, appearing before the panel for a confirmation hearing as part of his nomination for a second stint as vice chairman, said the Joint Staff and Air Force had just concluded a study on sizing the F-22 fleet.

He said the study concluded it was more important to focus on fielding fighters for all three services "because of how we deploy." It ultimately endorsed ending the F-22 program at 187 jets and fielding more F-35s and both models of the F-18 fighter.

Cartwright said the latter jet's Growler model, designed for electronic warfare tasks, became a key part of the decision to halt the F-22 program.

That's because the military's war fighting commanders, in conversations with Cartwright, all expressed a desire for more aerial EW capability. And right now, that means more Growlers.

When I first read the article about Cartwright's testimony, my impression is how this just sounds smart. I actually said it out loud, heard the words as I read the Defense News article, and raised my coffee mug in the Guinness moment saying "brilliant!"

When I think about how the Navy should bridge the fighter gap to the Joint Strike Fighter, I can't say I get really excited building more F-18 E/F models. Building more F-18 E/Fs is not a bad idea, and I think they are fantastic aircraft perfect for the times. The issue I have is they basically represent a substitute for the Joint Strike Fighter, and perhaps a substitute that delays more important naval aviation projects like N-UCAS.

But the Growler is different. No one ever has more EW than they need, and the smarter approach to filling a shortfall of X number of carrier fixed wing aircraft is to double the number of Growlers on each carrier. The Growlers cost about $20 million more than a F-18 E/F per unit, but they are highly flexible capabilities that are in high demand at every spectrum of warfare. Purchasing 85 Growlers, which would double national capacity, would be less expensive than buying 120+ F-18 E/F.

The way Cartwrights testimony does a comparison of the Growler and the F-22 reminds me of Stephen Trimble's brilliant observation at Andrews AFB this past February, where he noted a F-18G had splashed a F-22 in a combat exercise at Nellis AFB. Maybe it was a fluke, or maybe there is an unmentioned, potentially unexpected capability of the Growler that beyond traditional EW translates into something important. After all, on half the F-22s, the F-22 will be EW capable beginning in 2011 meaning we consistently want EW on our best planes...

My vote, build more E-2Ds and EA-18Gs instead of more F-18 E/Fs. The capability added from a few additional E-2Ds and more EA-18Gs, particularly when you get those two platforms working together, is better than adding a moderately larger number of F-18 E/Fs. I believe any wargame and/or exercise can consistently prove that. The value added of E-2D and EA-18G capabilities are massive in scope for the future organization of naval power; capabilities that range from protecting fleets from ballistic missiles to protecting troops from IEDs.