SASC Chair McCain Strong on UCLASS

Word is out today of a letter Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain sent to the Secretary of Defense outlining his desire to see the Navy develop UCLASS for action in contested environments.  Here is the money quote from the letter: "“Developing a new carrier-based unmanned aircraft that is primarily an ISR platform and unable to operate effectively in medium- to high -level threat environments would be operationally and strategically misguided.”

The support of the SASC Chair for a stealthy(enough) penetrator means that both the HASC Seapower Chair Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA) and Senator McCain (R-AZ) are firmly in the camp of those ( like me) who believe the Navy's professed preference for an ISR privileged UCLASS is the wrong choice (see here, here , here, here).

Of additional interest is McCain's advocacy in the letter of the Navy continuing to make use of the UCAS-D X-47B for testing and concept development.  McCain cited the fact that after April, there would be no unmanned vehicles operating from carriers for several years.

This is a great first step.  The carrier airwing MUST continue to evolve if the Navy is going to stay in the power projection business.  Three additional enhancements to the airwing are required:

• The return of organic refueling capability--not just for the carrier air wing, but also for refueling of transiting land based vehicles.
• The return of a sea control aircraft capable of extended ASW and ASUW missions (a la the S-3B).
• And of considerable importance--a large, likely unmanned "truck" capable of carrying multiple, small, long range, weaponized UAV's.   This vehicle would fly to less dense portions of an adversary strike/reconnaissance complex and disgorge its payload, which would form up with other similarly launched groups of vehicles to create a swarming mass of dozens or scores of vehicles to saturate an opponent's air defenses, in advance of other, larger, less stealthy but more powerful weapons time to arrive shortly after.  

Bryan McGrath