ORAC
1st Jul 2002, 22:13
The future of FOAS and UK ACCS look like becoming increasingly intertwined:
JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY - JULY 03, 2002
Growing UK concern over FOAS inertia
NICK COOK JDW Aerospace Consultant
London
A growing number of UK industry officials are privately voicing concern that the Future Offensive Air System (FOAS), a multi-billion dollar replacement for the UK Royal Air Force's (RAF's) Tornado GR 4 strike aircraft, is becoming "paralysed by analysis" within the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
A decade ago, FOAS - then the Future Offensive Aircraft (FOA) - was touted as a potential successor project to the Eurofighter Typhoon, but it has since been re-oriented to reflect post-Cold War requirements for a 'force mix' of manned and unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) and cruise missiles. The biggest single element of FOAS is now seen as an elaborate command and control system acting as the 'glue' that will bind all the elements together.
At a recent conference on Future Offensive Air Capability at the Royal United Services Institute in London, Gp Capt Tim Anderson, Deputy Director Equipment Capability (Deep Strike) 2 in the MoD, acknowledged that the task of evaluating FOAS in the current security climate was "very complex". Officials also attested to the challenge of devising a system in a climate of "resource constraints" that must be as effective against terrorist-type asymmetric threats as it has to be against more traditional threats.
Industry critics highlight the fact that the FOAS in-service date of 2017 remains unaltered from targets devised a decade ago and that the programme has barely moved forward in that time. In the past two years, the MoD has acknowledged that there will be no new aircraft programme at the heart of the FOAS mission and that core capability will be met instead by variants of the Eurofighter Typhoon and the US/UK Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
The MoD confirmed last year that an 'incremental acquisition' path to the provision of a full FOAS capability is the most likely course of action. Outside Typhoon and JSF, the key candidate elements are variants of the RAF's MBDA Storm Shadow conventionally armed stand-off missile (CASOM) and the Royal Navy's Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile. It is understood that the MoD has given recent approval to a go-ahead for risk-reduction work to begin next year on enhanced variants of Storm Shadow. It has done this, supposedly, by breaking the work out of the FOAS Integrated Project Team (IPT) and placing it within the responsibility of CASOM capability managers.
FOAS will be the linchpin of the 'manoeuvrist' doctrine that stemmed from lessons learned during the 1990-91 Gulf War and cemented by the recent campaign in Afghanistan. Such an approach, Gp Capt Anderson said, demanded "knowledge and decision superiority" among a range of other characteristics for the weapon systems underpinning it. However, he also admitted that a network-centric warfare architecture that the USA is implementing rapidly following its Afghanistan experience "will almost certainly be wholly unaffordable for the UK." Instead, the UK is likely to adopt a less capable 'network-enabled' model for its future intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance weapons and systems.
Industry critics, who have an agenda to move FOAS out of its 'concept' stage and into 'assessment', where company-led risk-reduction work can begin, are largely uncritical of work undertaken by the FOAS IPT. The inertia, they say, is stemming from higher level indecision over the shape of the UK's armed forces in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA and severe underfunding for projects like FOAS in future years. There are also a number of technological 'unknowns' affecting the procurement, such as the utility of unmanned air vehicles and their UCAV counterparts, both of which are likely to play major roles in FOAS. "The (FOAS) IPT will continue to discuss the force-mix, but from a capability point of view we must watch evolving policy and concepts," an MoD official said.
Because FOAS was still in its concept phase it was entirely correct that it should remain in operations analysis for the time-being, an MoD spokesman said last week. Early last year, the MoD postponed an 'initial gate' decision that would have seen FOAS transition to the assessment phase.
The delay was prompted by a need to align FOAS more closely with a continuing 'capability gap analysis' within the UK MoD. The spokesman said that FOAS' initial gate was now slated for 2003.
JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY - JULY 03, 2002
Growing UK concern over FOAS inertia
NICK COOK JDW Aerospace Consultant
London
A growing number of UK industry officials are privately voicing concern that the Future Offensive Air System (FOAS), a multi-billion dollar replacement for the UK Royal Air Force's (RAF's) Tornado GR 4 strike aircraft, is becoming "paralysed by analysis" within the Ministry of Defence (MoD).
A decade ago, FOAS - then the Future Offensive Aircraft (FOA) - was touted as a potential successor project to the Eurofighter Typhoon, but it has since been re-oriented to reflect post-Cold War requirements for a 'force mix' of manned and unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) and cruise missiles. The biggest single element of FOAS is now seen as an elaborate command and control system acting as the 'glue' that will bind all the elements together.
At a recent conference on Future Offensive Air Capability at the Royal United Services Institute in London, Gp Capt Tim Anderson, Deputy Director Equipment Capability (Deep Strike) 2 in the MoD, acknowledged that the task of evaluating FOAS in the current security climate was "very complex". Officials also attested to the challenge of devising a system in a climate of "resource constraints" that must be as effective against terrorist-type asymmetric threats as it has to be against more traditional threats.
Industry critics highlight the fact that the FOAS in-service date of 2017 remains unaltered from targets devised a decade ago and that the programme has barely moved forward in that time. In the past two years, the MoD has acknowledged that there will be no new aircraft programme at the heart of the FOAS mission and that core capability will be met instead by variants of the Eurofighter Typhoon and the US/UK Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
The MoD confirmed last year that an 'incremental acquisition' path to the provision of a full FOAS capability is the most likely course of action. Outside Typhoon and JSF, the key candidate elements are variants of the RAF's MBDA Storm Shadow conventionally armed stand-off missile (CASOM) and the Royal Navy's Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile. It is understood that the MoD has given recent approval to a go-ahead for risk-reduction work to begin next year on enhanced variants of Storm Shadow. It has done this, supposedly, by breaking the work out of the FOAS Integrated Project Team (IPT) and placing it within the responsibility of CASOM capability managers.
FOAS will be the linchpin of the 'manoeuvrist' doctrine that stemmed from lessons learned during the 1990-91 Gulf War and cemented by the recent campaign in Afghanistan. Such an approach, Gp Capt Anderson said, demanded "knowledge and decision superiority" among a range of other characteristics for the weapon systems underpinning it. However, he also admitted that a network-centric warfare architecture that the USA is implementing rapidly following its Afghanistan experience "will almost certainly be wholly unaffordable for the UK." Instead, the UK is likely to adopt a less capable 'network-enabled' model for its future intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance weapons and systems.
Industry critics, who have an agenda to move FOAS out of its 'concept' stage and into 'assessment', where company-led risk-reduction work can begin, are largely uncritical of work undertaken by the FOAS IPT. The inertia, they say, is stemming from higher level indecision over the shape of the UK's armed forces in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA and severe underfunding for projects like FOAS in future years. There are also a number of technological 'unknowns' affecting the procurement, such as the utility of unmanned air vehicles and their UCAV counterparts, both of which are likely to play major roles in FOAS. "The (FOAS) IPT will continue to discuss the force-mix, but from a capability point of view we must watch evolving policy and concepts," an MoD official said.
Because FOAS was still in its concept phase it was entirely correct that it should remain in operations analysis for the time-being, an MoD spokesman said last week. Early last year, the MoD postponed an 'initial gate' decision that would have seen FOAS transition to the assessment phase.
The delay was prompted by a need to align FOAS more closely with a continuing 'capability gap analysis' within the UK MoD. The spokesman said that FOAS' initial gate was now slated for 2003.