"Readiness is key, the No. 1 priority ... modernization, is key to future readiness." — General Mark MilleyIt is the question of the day for Pentagon military planners. And it just happens to be for all the marbles.Could the US and its allies wage an asymmetric war — effective warfare between opposing forces which differ greatly in military power — against the People's Republic of China?Sooner, rather than later, the West may have to face that reality.All it would take is a blockade of Taiwan, leaving the ball in America's court.Do you send in the carrier groups, the B-1s, the B-2s, the B-52s, the Marines and the Asian allies, to meet the hand played by China's Xi Jinping, and raise the stakes?One day, we may be faced with yet another Cuban crisis. One that could end the world. Don't think it's possible? Give your head a shake.And just imagine what an impact that would have on world stock markets. It would be devastating if such a standoff actually occurred.China, and its warmonger leader, Xi Jinping, has made it clear, they want to retake Taiwan by 2027, along with the completion of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) modernization.And the Pentagon is taking that threat seriously. As they should.But, at least now, we have an inkling of how allied forces would fare, in such a future conflict in the Indo-Pacific, thanks to a new report from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.A series of war games run by the Mitchell Institute showed that when used by the US Air Force in large numbers, Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs) — autonomous drones meant to supplement the manned fleet —compelled China to expend large numbers of missiles, created beneficial chaos in the battlespace, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported.And overall, they were a cost-imposing factor on the adversary, participants said.Retired Col. Mark A. Gunzinger, retired Maj. Gen. Lawrence A. Stutzriem, and Bill Sweetman summarized the wargames’ findings in a paper, “The Need for Collaborative Combat Aircraft for Disruptive Air Warfare.”.Given that the air force fleet is the smallest and oldest it’s ever been and there is a growing mismatch between “the supply and demand for Air Force airpower,” Gunzinger said, an injection of low-cost CCA drones in large numbers to match or overwhelm China’s air assets makes the USAF potentially dominant.The drones will pair with the F-35 and the secretive Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Fighter.Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said the service is planning to field 200 NGAD fighters and 1,000 CCAs, a “nominal quantity” officials said will serve as a first tranche.He also suggested an arrangement for the high-tech team — each fighter flying with a pair of autonomous wingmen.“One way to think of CCAs is as remotely controlled versions of the targeting pods, electronic warfare pods or weapons now carried under the wings of our crewed aircraft,” Kendall said at a warfare symposium last year and reported by Breaking Defence.In the war games, three separate “Blue” teams were free to ask for CCAs ranging from “exquisite,” US$40 million-plus autonomous aircraft with capabilities near that of a crewed fifth-generation fighter — 2,000-mile range, six missiles onboard, very-low observable stealth, onboard radars and infrared trackers and runway independent — to more basic craft, under US$15 million apiece, with far fewer weapons, Air & Space reported.The result: teams scarcely used “exquisite” CCAs in the early days of a fight because of the risk of losing them.Curtis Wilson, senior director of emergent missions at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, participated in the games and said if a CCA “only needs to last 30 minutes, the cost goes way down” relative to an aircraft expected to serve for decades, Air & Space reported..He also noted that the artificial intelligence needed for such aircraft can be more generic than would be needed for high-end “exquisite” systems.Wilson recommended that CCAs be generically designed to take advantage of existing ground support equipment, rather than “bespoke” aircraft requiring significant specialized maintenance.General Atomics is just one of five contractors that have been selected to design and build CCAs by the Air Force.Independently, all the teams involved in the Mitchell war games chose to use large numbers of moderately-capable, moderately-priced mid-range CCAs, Air & Space reported.These autonomous airplanes sharply reduced the risk to crewed aircraft by soaking up adversary missiles and China was forced to “honour” each one as a threat that could not be ignored, Gunzinger said.Their deployment across a wide range of austere air bases, some launched from aircraft or islands with no runways, also compelled China to meter its use of ballistic missiles against well-established operating bases, Air & Space reported.Moreover, Blue threats “attacking early from every axis” vastly complicated China’s defence problem, Stutzriem said and forced China to maintain a high pace of defensive operations around the clock.“There is a need to break from the mindset that the CCA always operates in support of crewed aircraft,” Gunzinger said. “CCAs that are appropriately designed to have the right mission systems and the right degree of autonomy, can also be used as lead forces to disrupt the enemy’s operations.”.Still, when CCAs were used co-operatively with crewed aircraft such as the F-35 or the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, “it made the fighters better” at accomplishing their missions.Robert Winkler, vice-president of corporate development and national security programs at Kratos Defence and a war game participant, said CCAs added considerably to crewed fighter survivability.Participants from industry, the US Air Force and other experts in the war games “unanimously agree” that the CCAs must be “additive and complementary” to crewed aircraft programs already in the pipeline and not a substitute for them, Air & Space reported..“They’re not going to reduce the Air Force’s requirements for F-35s, NGAD, and B-21s and other critical modernized systems,” Gunzinger said.Interestingly, when employed, CCAs don’t need to be “co-located with fighter units or bomber units,” Gunzinger said.They could be crated up and pre-positioned at austere fields, ready for use when needed. Sitting in protected storage units, ready to go.The report's authors also recommended that the USAF: Treat CCAs as force multipliers and not substitutes for crewed systems; adapt current munitions to fit on small CCAs; persuade Congress of the practical benefits of CCAs and not to “cannibalize” other programs to pay for them.To put it simply, it won't work if the USAF, under budgetary pressure, robs Peter to pay Paul, so to speak.And one more thing, the capabilities of these drones must be chosen carefully, with an eye to cost.“As the capabilities increase, so will your costs,” Gunzinger said.Stealth and high-end sensors “all add up to more cost, just like other aircraft, so the secret sauce is developing CCA forces” with the right mix of capabilities.
"Readiness is key, the No. 1 priority ... modernization, is key to future readiness." — General Mark MilleyIt is the question of the day for Pentagon military planners. And it just happens to be for all the marbles.Could the US and its allies wage an asymmetric war — effective warfare between opposing forces which differ greatly in military power — against the People's Republic of China?Sooner, rather than later, the West may have to face that reality.All it would take is a blockade of Taiwan, leaving the ball in America's court.Do you send in the carrier groups, the B-1s, the B-2s, the B-52s, the Marines and the Asian allies, to meet the hand played by China's Xi Jinping, and raise the stakes?One day, we may be faced with yet another Cuban crisis. One that could end the world. Don't think it's possible? Give your head a shake.And just imagine what an impact that would have on world stock markets. It would be devastating if such a standoff actually occurred.China, and its warmonger leader, Xi Jinping, has made it clear, they want to retake Taiwan by 2027, along with the completion of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) modernization.And the Pentagon is taking that threat seriously. As they should.But, at least now, we have an inkling of how allied forces would fare, in such a future conflict in the Indo-Pacific, thanks to a new report from AFA’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.A series of war games run by the Mitchell Institute showed that when used by the US Air Force in large numbers, Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCAs) — autonomous drones meant to supplement the manned fleet —compelled China to expend large numbers of missiles, created beneficial chaos in the battlespace, Air & Space Forces Magazine reported.And overall, they were a cost-imposing factor on the adversary, participants said.Retired Col. Mark A. Gunzinger, retired Maj. Gen. Lawrence A. Stutzriem, and Bill Sweetman summarized the wargames’ findings in a paper, “The Need for Collaborative Combat Aircraft for Disruptive Air Warfare.”.Given that the air force fleet is the smallest and oldest it’s ever been and there is a growing mismatch between “the supply and demand for Air Force airpower,” Gunzinger said, an injection of low-cost CCA drones in large numbers to match or overwhelm China’s air assets makes the USAF potentially dominant.The drones will pair with the F-35 and the secretive Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Fighter.Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said the service is planning to field 200 NGAD fighters and 1,000 CCAs, a “nominal quantity” officials said will serve as a first tranche.He also suggested an arrangement for the high-tech team — each fighter flying with a pair of autonomous wingmen.“One way to think of CCAs is as remotely controlled versions of the targeting pods, electronic warfare pods or weapons now carried under the wings of our crewed aircraft,” Kendall said at a warfare symposium last year and reported by Breaking Defence.In the war games, three separate “Blue” teams were free to ask for CCAs ranging from “exquisite,” US$40 million-plus autonomous aircraft with capabilities near that of a crewed fifth-generation fighter — 2,000-mile range, six missiles onboard, very-low observable stealth, onboard radars and infrared trackers and runway independent — to more basic craft, under US$15 million apiece, with far fewer weapons, Air & Space reported.The result: teams scarcely used “exquisite” CCAs in the early days of a fight because of the risk of losing them.Curtis Wilson, senior director of emergent missions at General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, participated in the games and said if a CCA “only needs to last 30 minutes, the cost goes way down” relative to an aircraft expected to serve for decades, Air & Space reported..He also noted that the artificial intelligence needed for such aircraft can be more generic than would be needed for high-end “exquisite” systems.Wilson recommended that CCAs be generically designed to take advantage of existing ground support equipment, rather than “bespoke” aircraft requiring significant specialized maintenance.General Atomics is just one of five contractors that have been selected to design and build CCAs by the Air Force.Independently, all the teams involved in the Mitchell war games chose to use large numbers of moderately-capable, moderately-priced mid-range CCAs, Air & Space reported.These autonomous airplanes sharply reduced the risk to crewed aircraft by soaking up adversary missiles and China was forced to “honour” each one as a threat that could not be ignored, Gunzinger said.Their deployment across a wide range of austere air bases, some launched from aircraft or islands with no runways, also compelled China to meter its use of ballistic missiles against well-established operating bases, Air & Space reported.Moreover, Blue threats “attacking early from every axis” vastly complicated China’s defence problem, Stutzriem said and forced China to maintain a high pace of defensive operations around the clock.“There is a need to break from the mindset that the CCA always operates in support of crewed aircraft,” Gunzinger said. “CCAs that are appropriately designed to have the right mission systems and the right degree of autonomy, can also be used as lead forces to disrupt the enemy’s operations.”.Still, when CCAs were used co-operatively with crewed aircraft such as the F-35 or the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, “it made the fighters better” at accomplishing their missions.Robert Winkler, vice-president of corporate development and national security programs at Kratos Defence and a war game participant, said CCAs added considerably to crewed fighter survivability.Participants from industry, the US Air Force and other experts in the war games “unanimously agree” that the CCAs must be “additive and complementary” to crewed aircraft programs already in the pipeline and not a substitute for them, Air & Space reported..“They’re not going to reduce the Air Force’s requirements for F-35s, NGAD, and B-21s and other critical modernized systems,” Gunzinger said.Interestingly, when employed, CCAs don’t need to be “co-located with fighter units or bomber units,” Gunzinger said.They could be crated up and pre-positioned at austere fields, ready for use when needed. Sitting in protected storage units, ready to go.The report's authors also recommended that the USAF: Treat CCAs as force multipliers and not substitutes for crewed systems; adapt current munitions to fit on small CCAs; persuade Congress of the practical benefits of CCAs and not to “cannibalize” other programs to pay for them.To put it simply, it won't work if the USAF, under budgetary pressure, robs Peter to pay Paul, so to speak.And one more thing, the capabilities of these drones must be chosen carefully, with an eye to cost.“As the capabilities increase, so will your costs,” Gunzinger said.Stealth and high-end sensors “all add up to more cost, just like other aircraft, so the secret sauce is developing CCA forces” with the right mix of capabilities.
