Bill or Carter has been reading too much
Dale Brown, or taking drugs......
Carter Touts ‘Arsenal Plane,’ Surrenders on A-10
"The new U.S. defense budget to be published Feb. 9 will include initial development of an “arsenal plane” that would operate in conjunction with Lockheed Martin F-22s and F-35s and “act as a very large magazine,” according to Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
Based on “one of our oldest platforms,” the concept has been developed by the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), which Carter stood up in 2012 to accomplish “rapid innovation by building on what we have.”
Carter was speaking in Washington at an event where he previewed the fiscal 2017 budget, confirming that the $582.7 billion topline will conform to last fall’s bipartisan budget agreement but also saying that the new plan will be a “major inflection point” in terms of long-term re-equipment of the force.
Carter did not identify the “arsenal plane” platform. According to a source familiar with the studies, the SCO is looking at using either the B-52 or B-1B in that role. “It’s still conceptual and no program has been established. It’s indicative of the kinds of things they are thinking about that could give them an advantage in precision strike. It could end up being both bombers.”
The Pentagon will retain “more fourth-generation fighter/attack aircraft” under the new budget, Carter said. The plan includes a total surrender to those in Congress and the military who criticized the Air Force’s earlier plans, announced two years ago, to retire the entire force of A-10 Warthog close-air-support aircraft. A-10 retirement has been kicked out to 2022, and Carter referred to the aircraft’s “devastating” effect against Islamic State forces. Funding for that campaign will also include $1.8 billion for more than 45,000 replacement precision-guided bombs and laser-guided rockets.
Funding also will be included for development of other SCO initiatives, including the ImageNav optical scene-matching precision-guidance system for the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb and other weapons, intended to provide high precision if GPS is jammed or unavailable, and a “swarming autonomous vehicle” program based on commercial technology and 3D printing. In tests last year in Alaska, Carter said, the vehicles were successfully deployed from fighter aircraft at Mach 0.9. A third SCO project – adapting the hypervelocity projectile developed for the Navy’s railgun program to land- and sea-based powder guns – had a key test about a month ago, Carter said, with a firing from an Army M109 Paladin gun.
In accordance with Carter’s advice to Navy leadership late last year, the budget will reduce the number of Littoral Combat Ships and boost undersea and antisubmarine warfare, with nine Virginia-class submarines over the Future Years Defense Plan – more of them equipped with the Virginia Payload Module, increasing weapon capacity from 12 to 40 Tomahawk cruise missiles – and new funding for torpedoes and unmanned underwater vehicles.
Operationally, the fiscal 2017 budget more than quadruples funding for the European Reassurance Initiative, to $3.4 billion. “By the end of 2017, we will be able to rapidly field a highly capable combined-arms ground force” in Europe, Carter said."
