I was thinking that he is calling both projects as failures because of some technical failures which would have overcome easily . But despite that , what's your opinion about light combat vehicle ? It looks promising .plus this guy is not a fan of multi purpose stuff like F-18 super hornet ..he did miss a lot of stuff but his numbers about airforce readiness is something I would like to confirm .
Well, the guy is funny to the fact that he did not mentioned the offset of each balance, basically, he just point to a system and point to its inherit flaw, and does not mention at all, how this flaw has been and was mediated.
I finally fork put 36 minutes of my time and watch the video as a whole. All I can say is,
HE GOT IT ALL WRONG.
I have already touched on the Army part. So I am not going to talk about it anymore. I would like to address the issue he talked about Special Force expansion, well, SF is always going to be unconventional unit, whether or not you are fighting a pitched battle or counter-insurgency. However that does not mean SF unit are going to deploy alone as always as part of asymmetric warfare, during WW2, we all know the Ranger (Which is part of USSOCOM) were deployed to land in Normandy, and go into the beach as first wave at Omaha and Point Du Hoc, where they fight side-by-side with the 1st Infantry and the 28th. A lot of battle subsequently would seen SF unit fight along side Normal unit, (Such as Battle of Lang Vei, Khe Sahn or Siege of Baghdad International Airport with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.) He seems to forget or may even be, not knowing that Counter-Terrorism and Asymmetric Warfare is only one part of their training and job description, they can also be deploy ahead or with conventional unit and tasked with either scout/ISTAR party or even disruption/direct action behind enemy line.
LCS and DDG-1000 - LCS were NEVER used as a role of a Frigate, it's quite clear when you know they are not going to get Mk41 VLS. So what can they do to screen air threats? Using the 3 in gun? LCS was supposed to be a resurrection of brown water navy, which mean enemy costal patrol, direct fire support mission, interdiction and rapid deployment. Frigate is a class that US Navy does not need, because they operate and will procurer an obscene amount of destroyer (82 in total) and Those are all classed as Air Warfare Destroyer, which mean they can be dual use as Anti-Air and Anti-Sub, And the cruiser role is then anti-surface vessel, which together with support ship, submarine, and aircraft carrier, it formed an independent taskforce.
Although there is indeed talks to bring FFG back into US Navy, while the project is of merit, however, it is not really that urgent as the current DDG force is more than enough to piggy back the duty as we speak. Which mean FFG-X can wait until all the current DDG that are planned to finish first, thus not need to strain the US Navy Budget. On the other hand, if they do revive FFG-X, the Navy is highly likely use it to couple with the LCS they would have done building and form a loitering force.
DDG-1000 is a technological advance warship, with technology that no one can match, not even with current US Navy, and we all know, there are not a single Nation in this world can run against the USN head on. So why exactly we need to build a lot of them, if they are even more advance than US Navy? To build more than a few to test their capability is enough, they are of no deployable value, that's because they are so very advanced, which mean they are indeed used as testbed for integrating new weapon system on the existing Warship. That is because they are so advance, the Navy realise they don't actually need that because in term of Naval Development, there are none in the world that can challenge the current US Navy, we still see AEGIS system reign supreme, Carrier borne aircraft and interception, target acquisition system are a match if not better than most navy. Even Stealth technology, I mean we can all agree, most ship of the navy have on-par or sub-oar than current DDG-51 which bring the question, why do we need a 15000 tons ship appear to be a fishing trawler on radar?
The problem of DDG-1000 blown out of budget is because they cut the number from 32 to 3, not the other way around (ie they are over budget, then USN cannot afford more than 3) if we look at the procurement cost vs R&D cost. Each ship with contract assign made up to 2.8 to 3 billions per ship and getting lower as each ship ordered, which is not exactly that far ahead than a AB flight 2 , which cost 1.8B per ship. On the other hand, the whole project cost 22 billions, which mean 12 of those are R&D cost, which if you build 15 Zumwalt instead of 3, per ship cost with R&D would be similar to a AB Flight 3 (approximately 2.3 B per) or even a AB flight 2A (Which is 1.9B per)
Then F-18 and Multipurpose Fighter.
While he is correct, F-18 did not perform as great than a dedicated platform, it does not have the range and the payload than Vietnam War era counterpart, but the question is, do we REALLY need to?
The Vietnam War and modern war are fought quite differently, back then it was about tactical capability, which mean when an F-4 or F-105 above you to do CAS, they drop bomb and stay there for a period of time until they ran out of bombs, or fuel or both. Problem is, today we don't do that anymore, in a CAS role, we talked about Precision or Surgical Strike, I don't need you to drop 10 bombs and try to hit and miss my target, I want you to drop 1 bomb and bomb the stuff that my designator pointed to, because the other 9 bombs does not work for me, it just hit somewhere else I don't want, and cost unnecessary destruction. If I want you to shoot something, I want you to shoot that straight up. That is the essence of CAS today.
Which mean today CAS aircraft do not need to have a huge bombload, nor fuel that can loiter, I call you in, you come in, you make your initial run, you bomb, and you get out of there. Also, Aerial Refuelling can offset fuel depletion. Which the video did not mention that point at all, even tho as fact, US have global Aerial Tanker coverage with 100 + Aerial Tanker.
And then about F-35. While he did not actually go after the capability (Well, he did, he said it is inadequate, but did not say why) He talked about money, well, it's 2 trillions over 20 years for service work done with F-35, did he know how much the USAF currently pay for service over their F-15, F-16, A-10, F-22? It's roughly that, because we know a third of the AF budget goes into maintaining those aircraft. Which mean a third of 180 billions budget each year. Granted, it was for all aircraft, not just for fighter. but still, that's 60 billions a year.
And then the armoured procurement. What he talked about M113 is BS, because M113 was replaced by Stryker, and it take on a similar role to M113 and act as command post, armoured medical transport, fire support role, you can even run a 105mm gun on a Stryker and use it as a MGS. Stryker is the vehicle he keep yakking about to replace M113. But maybe he wanted a tracked vehicle to replace M113? I don't know.
Bradley and Stryker form a very mobile brigade, you can work your way thru a battlefield pretty quick, and with the TOW on Bradley and MGS support, you can actually withstand an armoured attack, although it is not very recommended. But in all, I don't see the US Army need another IFV/APC because if they were, they are going to have to replace Bradley, not M113.
About Airborne tank, US Airborne force is not like Russia (the guy is from Russia) or China, US Airborne force is a manoeuvre force, which act like a semi-Special force, you insert them and use them as Light Infantry, hence all PIR are designated as Light Infantry. Then if this is the case, why do we need armour support? The core of Airborne Force were mobility, which mean they need to be highly mobile, and that included their supporting element, that is why each Airborne BCT, you will fine 2 Battalion of Attack helicopter instead of 1. Because gunship is quicker than Tank. And there are nothing a tank can do cannot be replicate with hand held AT weapon with an Apache... So Basically airborne tank is not a concept US army would have. Although he is spot on about the M1A3 replacement.
And finally, I would want to say, he keep talking about money and why this is not a such a good idea to put a lot of money in this or that 9like LCS or Ford or F-35) Money is only an issue when you cannot afford it, but if you can, that would NOT be a problem, and unlike China and Russia, those country were playing the catch up, which mean they don't need extra money to spend on maintaining the gap, and believe me, making current tech in number in order to catch up is always going to be cheaper than try to put yourself over the edge, and if US military can afford it, I don't see that as a problem
Well, if this guy can make money off these BS, I will probably start my own YouTube Channel soon, well, at least I know my stuff...
