A-12 Avenger Scenario(s)

[quellish]

Perhaps the A-12 Avenger II could have found success within the USAF as a successor to the F-117A Nighthawk,

Why replace something with the RCS of a ball bearing with something that has the RCS of wrecking ball?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Would that be so terrible?

For the aviation industries in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany, yes.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Why replace something with the RCS of a ball bearing with something that has the RCS of wrecking ball?

The USAF was supposed to buy the A-12, but even had it come to fruition I can't see it happening.

 

[apparition13]

Why replace something with the RCS of a ball bearing with something that has the RCS of wrecking ball?

The Northrop design? Because that's been much of the discussion.

 

[Scott Kenny]

For the aviation industries in the UK, Italy, Spain and Germany, yes.

This was assuming that they got appropriate workshare and/or industrial offsets.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Perhaps the A-12 Avenger II could have found success within the USAF as a successor to the F-117A Nighthawk,

It was going to replace the F-111. The F-117 was going to be replaced by what became F-35.

This was probably just a general idea before the USAF realized the Navy didn't understand how RCS worked though.

 

[Scott Kenny]

It was going to replace the F-111. The F-117 was going to be replaced by what became F-35.

This was probably just a general idea before the USAF realized the Navy didn't understand how RCS worked though.

Oh, the Navy knew how RCS worked, they just didn't understand how to manipulate it.

 

[Hydroman]

Oh, the Navy knew how RCS worked, they just didn't understand how to manipulate it.

You are correct SK, they knew RCS and how it worked but were stuck in the low altitude, down-on-deck mission rut since they wanted a direct A-6 replacement. Northrop always stated to the USN with our ATA during the proposal phase that you will have the advantage from medium to high altitudes plus a flying on the deck is not feasible, they didn't listen and behold, no airplane.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

I think the USAF was always lukewarm about the ATA, and once they learned the A-12 the Navy wanted was going to be optimized for low altitude they probably lost any interest they had. As far as I know the Air Force's buy-in was really just about ensuring the Navy would commit to NATF.

I'm not sure if it's technically correct to say low altitude penetration wasn't feasible. I think more accurate to say you simply lose most of the advantages of a VLO design down there. The sort of threats you face would be at such short ranges where the minimal radar signature doesn't make the huge difference it would in other conditions. Vehicles like the ZSU-23-4 Shilka or 2S6M Tunguska could probably still throw up a great deal of fire in the likely flight path without a clear lock. And despite features to to reduce IR signature I wouldn't want to be the one to bet my life to those if a dozen different models of IR guided SAM are being launched after you. In that context how much of an improvement would the A-12 be over something like the upgraded A-6F Intruder II?

 

[Cancerman]

You are correct SK, they knew RCS and how it worked but were stuck in the low altitude, down-on-deck mission rut since they wanted a direct A-6 replacement. Northrop always stated to the USN with our ATA during the proposal phase that you will have the advantage from medium to high altitudes plus a flying on the deck is not feasible, they didn't listen and behold, no airplane.

That and the fixed price contract. They also seemed scared of our design for some reason. They changed requirements almost daily.

 

[apparition13]

I don't think NATF would survive. The NATF's demise was, as I understand it, entirely independent of the demise of the ATA, and included the following reasons:

I'm coming back to this because I finally found the numbers. A (or the, depending on the source) publicly stated reason by the navy was that the change in yearly production raised the per unit cost too high for them to afford the NATF. The original rate was 72 ATF and 48 NATF per year, or 120 airframes total - 12 per month. That got lowered to 48 ATF and 36 NATF, or 84 per year, 7 per month, which raised the unit flyaway price. The actual rate never exceeded 24 ATF per year.

 

[jsport]

That and the fixed price contract. They also seemed scared of our design for some reason. They changed requirements almost daily.

engineer on the project said requirements creep was unmanageable. The customer could not decide what they wanted. Sounded like Aquila RPV. someone on the program basically said the Army wanted a RPV so heavy it could barely launch.

 

[Scott Kenny]

One thing the A-12 program did well was give us a good definition of a LO strike aircraft weapons bay size.

I expect that the main weapons bays of the F/A-XX are going to be the same size as the main bays of the A-12: 2 bays, each able to hold a GBU-15 and an AGM-84 (or AGM-88E). Plus a couple of AAMs in side bays.

If the USAF was smart, they'd make the NGAD bays about that big as well.

 

[Ainen]

You are correct SK, they knew RCS and how it worked but were stuck in the low altitude, down-on-deck mission rut since they wanted a direct A-6 replacement. Northrop always stated to the USN with our ATA during the proposal phase that you will have the advantage from medium to high altitudes plus a flying on the deck is not feasible, they didn't listen and behold, no airplane.

Well, not too unsensible for ca.1990 navy.

This was to be a long-range attack aircraft, with main roles set in naval warfare and deep penetration(inherited from A-6).

Major emerging threat- Soviet carriers and their AWACS(Soviet navy turning largely symmetric opponent by the year 2000), against which you can defend. They emit from downwards.

Against surface ships and rapidly evolving big SAMs (with their band mix and stupid power levels), stealth wasn't exactly the most promising bet.

 

[quellish]

One thing the A-12 program did well was give us a good definition of a LO strike aircraft weapons bay size.

There was absolutely nothing the A-12 program did well.

The Navy was trying to put a paint locker and a goat locker on an aircraft, and hiding the money along the way. Northrop and Grumman were wise to get out before they got sucked in further.

The weapons bay sizes killed the aircraft.

 

[yeetmahboi]

Against surface ships and rapidly evolving big SAMs (with their band mix and stupid power levels), stealth wasn't exactly the most promising bet.

I know that you guys built the Felon but that doesn't mean the Felon is the way forward...

Seriously, it's either VLO and subsonic, and LO for supersonic, or Mach 6 cruise. And I doubt a mini Lancer would be palatable.

 

[Ainen]

I know that you guys built the Felon but that doesn't mean the Felon is the way forward...

How is it related?

Like, felon can maaaaybe very roughly compared to F/A-XX (at least per expectations, which may or may not reflect reality) with caveat that comparing aircraft with 20 years in-between is tricky.
But A-12 was just an entirely different aircraft in every single part imaginable. One can say it's almost entirely opposite.

 

[yeetmahboi]

It's in the quote, man...

stealth wasn't exactly the most promising bet.

 

[Ainen]

It's in the quote, man...

Ah, i see. No, it wasn't meant #999th stealth rebuke. Only specific situation and logic.

For A-12 it means: from 1990 navy point of view, for a navy deep penetrating aircraft(with rather secondary a2a function - both as part of OaB and for self-defense) meant to operate in 2000s onwards, betting solely on platform stealth is unreasonable. Stealth protects from that it can defend against(AWACS, tactical fighters, shorads), together with LOS stealth. Strike against priority targets is done from stand-off. Bay is sized to fit in existing and future anti-ship cruise missiles.


For Su-57 stealth means: from 2001 VKS point of view, penetrating aircraft against NATO (tactical fighter force 20 times larger) in 2020s is unreasonable; it is a fighter first. Stealth protects aircraft against enemy aircraft against friendly fire in favourable circumstances(DEF-CA), preventing bluefor from achieving penetration of IADNs or over neutral waters. Penetrative strike from stand-off. Bay is sized to fit in cruise missiles, and those are part of platform.

 

[yeetmahboi]

betting solely on platform stealth is unreasonable. Stealth protects from that it can defend against(AWACS, tactical fighters, shorads), together with LOS stealth.

The USAF got F-117, refined their tactics and accurately grasp the growing obsolescence of low altitude attack. The Navy didn't.

Stealth is far more than just the platform. It is about tactics. Stealth aircrafts fly in ways that present their stealthiest angles. The higher the altitude, the bigger the gaps between the RCS spikes grow. That way they have much more allowance in how they can fly, etc.

 

[Ainen]

The USAF got F-117, refined their tactics and accurately grasp the growing obsolescence of low altitude attack. The Navy didn't.

F-117 (or F-35 for the matter) to bomb a Luyang-III with advanced altitude tactics?

Or get to attack Chengdu aircraft factories.

Or, say, get a shot at Murmansk boomers - standard A-6 mission profile, by the way.

Count me sceptical. Air force things are air force things(or, for the matter, navy light attack). A-12 had a different primary mission set.

 

[yeetmahboi]

Or, say, get a shot at Murmansk boomers - standard A-6 mission profile, by the way.

Predates stealth.

Feel free use F-117 (or F-35 for the matter) to bomb a Luyang-III with advanced altitude tactics

Using a LGB to kill ships has been USN tactics for like... forever.
JASSM is standoff, carried on external hardpoints and attack at range.

Or get to attack Chengdu aircraft factories.

A B-21 would do that with JDAMs or nukes. Or a B-52 force armed with LRSO. Munitions release at high altitude for both.

 

[yeetmahboi]

Air force things are air force things(or, for the matter, navy light attack). A-12 had a different primary mission set.

A-12 was a joint program. It would have replaced the F-111, a low altitude high speed bomber.

Nowadays the Beagle does that mission, bar the low alt part.

 

[Ainen]

Predates stealth.

Murmansk is still there. It was just an example anyway - a type of very heavily defended target of absolute strategic value.

Using a LGB to kill ships has been USN tactics for like... forever.

Bombing an intact air defense destroyer with LGBs seems to be a very USAF idea indeed.

Performing final search/identification of PLAN SAG while engaged by overhead CAP will add some pleasure.

JASSM is standoff, carried on external hardpoints and attack at range.

Which will work now, because this isn't Soviet Union anymore, and there's no denial zone anymore. Though this isn't "high altitude stealth".
But, if we add some complexity (distance) and...

A B-21 would do that with JDAMs or nukes. Or a B-52 force armed with LRSO. Munitions release at high altitude for both.

A-3/5/6(after it de facto replaced a-5)/12/ A/F-X were there precisely to do it without USAF strategic bombers. Carriers are meant to bring concentrated firepower closer, producing higher sortie bursts with more flexibility than otherwise possible.

Lack of them significantly cuts value of US carrier fleet, which is arguably still the single largest investment in modern military world. Can US with its current flat spending to relegate it to secondary roles?

Chengdu is also a notional type of target - very far inland, involves deep penetration even before LACM release.

A-12 was a joint program. It would have replaced the F-111, a low altitude high speed bomber.

Nowadays the Beagle does that mission, bar the low alt part.

In pen missions f-15e/ex does exactly a low altitude flight.

 

[yeetmahboi]

Murmansk is still there. It was just an example anyway - a type of very heavily defended target of absolute strategic value.

But the A-6 is no more.

Bombing an intact air defense destroyer with LGBs seems to be a very USAF idea indeed.

Performing final search/identification of PLAN SAG while engaged by overhead CAP will add some pleasure.

PLAN's SAG locked inside the 1IC? And, yeah, overhead CAP. All the more reason for altitude!

Chengdu is also a notional type of target - very far inland, involves deep penetration even before LACM release.

The USAF looked at deep penetration and various ways to accomplish that mission before. They arrived at a high altitude subsonic bomber.

In pen missions f-15e/ex does exactly a low altitude flight.

It's 2025. They serve as flying rails for standoff duties, augmenting the strikers armed with direct attack weapons, and carrying those themselves when the AIDS is smashed and everywhere is a free fire zone. And for that they fly up high where they can get the best energy state.

 

[Scott Kenny]

There was absolutely nothing the A-12 program did well.

The Navy was trying to put a paint locker and a goat locker on an aircraft, and hiding the money along the way. Northrop and Grumman were wise to get out before they got sucked in further.

The weapons bay sizes killed the aircraft.

If demanding that the bays be capable of holding 2x GBU-15s and 2x Harpoons or SLAMs or HARMs kills the aircraft, that says more about the engineers than it does about the requirements...

 

[Ainen]

But the A-6 is no more.

PLAN's SAG locked inside the 1IC? And, yeah, overhead CAP. All the more reason for altitude!

The USAF looked at deep penetration and various ways to accomplish that mission before. They arrived at a high altitude subsonic bomber.

It's 2025. They serve as flying rails for standoff duties, augmenting the strikers armed with direct attack weapons, and carrying those themselves when the AIDS is smashed and everywhere is a free fire zone. And for that they fly up high where they can get the best energy state.

Sorry in advance for common quote, inconvenient place!

(1)Yes, but for US navy it's a type of mission which directly determines value of its carriers. The further they can reach into "world island", the more value added they are. The deeper they can strike while still being safe, the more value they are. etc etc.

(2)altitude bombing attempt against AD SAG with CAP is called Formosa Turkey shot - or, more likely, it's called "pretending to do a mission". You can't win this fight this way against a peer opponent, air defense destroyers will win in 100% of rolls; you can claim to have sunk 999 their ships, though, you just had to retreat against superior numbers. Which is sensible air force way of thinking, it just doesn't work for naval warfare.
Naval strike aircraft used lower altitudes not because it's fun. They did it to have chances to execute the mission against (by design) superior opponent, even at cost.
Whole underlying logic is different - when air force logic is being applied to naval theaters, typically underperformance happens. Luftwaffe demonstrated it many times, wasting its superiority in everything, over and over again. Wrong degree of commitment, wrong basic underlying concepts under operational plans, (often) wrong target priority order.
Compare 1942 in Mediterranean/Barents Sea and in Indian Ocean/Pacific.

(3)And USN(as well as VKS, since you mentioned them) arrived to proxy weapon carrier with penetrating munition. It's just a more sensible, safer, if a less ambitious way(no need to mourn over something you're going to lose anyways).
Apart from that, USAF itself prefers to use JASSM/LRASM for most harmful missions.

"AIDS being smashed and everywhere is a free fire zone" is a rather optimistic concept, sort of Kantai Kessen done to a blind hyppo doing things we planned for him. I frankly don't know who gave USAF boldness to aim for it as a basic scenario.
USN and USMC went through WW2, however - they do have institutional memory of how things can go left.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

A-12 was a joint program. It would have replaced the F-111, a low altitude high speed bomber.

Nowadays the Beagle does that mission, bar the low alt part.

The Navy promised to use the atf. The air force promised to use the ax. Both services had their fingers crossed behind their backs.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

What happens if the USN A-12 Avenger enters service and how might that come about?
Could this require a different design?
Does the USN have to change requirements?

What's the effects of having a LO Attack platform entering service in the late 90's to early 2000's?
How does this affect the CALF-JAST-JSF effort?
Or affect the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet?

If the RAF buy into this, does this affect the CVF debate?

Who else would buy into the system?
Japan?
South Korea?
Israel?
Germany?
Crazy notion but might the MN want it over the Rafale?

The Navy would have to choose Northrop's design.

 

[yeetmahboi]

The Navy promised to use the atf. The air force promised to use the ax. Both services had their fingers crossed behind their backs.

The USAF was also really big on switching out their inventory of supersonic bombers for stealthy, subsonic one.
Sure, maybe USAF wouldn't have bite. They rather have that money goes toward more ATBs, maybe.

(1)Yes, but for US navy it's a type of mission which directly determines value of its carriers. The further they can reach into "world island", the more value added they are. The deeper they can strike while still being safe, the more value they are. etc etc.

Which all call for VLO, high altitude strikers.
The low alt attack profile was a knee jerk reaction towards how legacy supersonic strikers performed in Vietnam. They were designed before awareness of the lethality and effectiveness of SAMs when reinforced with a competent fighter fleet was widely known.
This is not only my position but also the USAF which evaluated a high speed B-2 that would've attacked low on the deck versus what we see today.
Now, which crafts are the premier strikers for the USN? F-35C, a high/medium altitude strike fighter. And before that, X-47B.

altitude bombing attempt against AD SAG with CAP is called Formosa Turkey shot - or, more likely, it's called "pretending to do a mission". You can't win this fight this way against a peer opponent, air defense destroyers will win in 100% of rolls

So you're proposing that the USN fly at sea level, on a silky flat background of rolling waves, against an opponent with carrier capable look down AWACS? What? Or just don't bomb at all? Which is what the USN IS doing; their spearhead against a SAG is the SSNs!

Whole underlying logic is different - when air force logic is being applied to naval theaters, typically underperformance happens. Luftwaffe demonstrated it many times, wasting its superiority in everything, over and over again. Wrong degree of commitment, wrong basic underlying concepts under operational plans, (often) wrong target priority order.

AF logic? Skipper was a Navy weapon.

(3)And USN(as well as VKS, since you mentioned them) arrived to proxy weapon carrier with penetrating munition. It's just a more sensible, safer, if a less ambitious way(no need to mourn over something you're going to lose anyways).
Apart from that, USAF itself prefers to use JASSM/LRASM for most harmful missions.

So the F-117 strikes on Iraq didn't happened? Nor Serbia?

"AIDS being smashed and everywhere is a free fire zone" is a rather optimistic concept, sort of Kantai Kessen done to a blind hyppo doing things we planned for him. I frankly don't know who gave USAF boldness to aim for it as a basic scenario.

ISIS insurgents have DShKs and a large reservoir of MANPADs at their disposal. That didn't stop unstealthy F-16s or Beagles loaded with ordnances from attacking them over the skies of what-the-heck-stan. Ok, HAVE GLASS does improve RO in the relevant aspects but that just further reinforce their usability after successful DEAD.

USN and USMC went through WW2, however - they do have institutional memory of how things can go left.

The USMC gave us Guadalcanal. I'm not even touching that in the slightest.

 

[Ainen]

Which all call for VLO, high altitude strikers.

Against peer fleet and air defenses? 1980s stealth wasn't seen as a sure bet against even 1980s teen series SAMs.
Also, 1990s USAF would've still 99% relied on low level pen/stand off against high threat adversaries. F-117 was small, silver bullet type fleet. B-2 was in the future, ATF was further still in the future, and anything later is completely 2000s and on. Even main weapon to replace low-level tactics(in safe world) - JDAM - was still far into the future.

This is not only my position but also the USAF which evaluated a high speed B-2 that would've attacked low on the deck versus what we see today.

The hardest opponent we see B-2 was used against is Serbia (supressed and unable to stop even teen fighters, stealth or not) and Yemen.
I am personally lik 95% sure no one will seriously use B-2 as it is for penetration missions into China or Russia nowadays. Even if it's still fully effective 20 years later(which is ?), it's a fleet of dozen aircraft. Count in availability, add on accident, lose a couple in combat, and reliable B-2 capability is lost.
B-21 is another thing; by late 2020s it's likely to be tried. Not because it's incredible (which it probably is, but it's a bit secondary), but because you can lose one(or 50) and it isn't the end of things. But still, we're yet to see if it's seriously to fly in with JDAMs, or something longer-ranged(replicators, CCAs and all the AI targeting).
Which was just not available for 1990s planning.

So you're proposing that the USN fly at sea level, on a silky flat background of rolling waves, against an opponent with carrier capable look down AWACS? What? Or just don't bomb at all? Which is what the USN IS doing; their spearhead against a SAG is the SSNs!

If it comes to CSG combat in 1990s - yes, that would have been the way (as the air force way would've been low altitude clusuters, too - stealth would've reached them in high numbers no later than ca.2000 anyways).
If in 2020s - stand in networked unmanned, launched from stand off. Yes, i don't believe in stand-in anti-ship against peep operational combatants. Maybe somewhat dated frigates(054a) can be quicksink-ed, but losing a bomber several times the cost of the frigate on such a mission will likely be cold shower.

SSNs are entirely different capability in their ability to cover battlespace(exchange information, etc). One SSN is one point. CSG is a footprint easily visible on a 1:26'000'000 map.

Also, it was totally doable to hide against 1990s Soviet AEW in low altitude clutter at reasonable ranges; Ukraine proves that many times(2010s Russian/international electronics, heavy A-50M > 1990s Soviet electronics, CATOBAR Yak-44 or Heli Ka-31).
It's still possible to do the same at extended (stand off launch) ranges against modern AEW (for aircraft and munitions respectively) - processing may have changed, but radars ultimately are restricted by physics underneath them.

AF logic? Skipper was a Navy weapon.

1980s one, with average Hi threat being 1970s AD combatant(in a world where majority of ships of most nations still didn't have SAMs at all, and could be reasonably sunk by ww-2 level attack). For ca. 1985 Soviet Union, neither long range escort nor VTOL capabilities are up yet. We're talking about hypothetical late 1990s/2000s platform(much higher than real Soviet Union ca. 1991), which is a very different threat. In some ways less, in many - more advanced, and far more numbers-heavy than modern(2025) Russia.
Or, since we're also comparing situation to nowadays, to late 2020s China. Long range escort is basic PLANAF skill set(very long one may come by 2030), carrier capability is already here, basic PLAN AD combatants are 2010s state-of-the-art ships.

So the F-117 strikes on Iraq didn't happened? Nor Serbia?

So did tomahawks and JASSMs. When US had to strike Damascus past Hmeimim defences with unknown ROE - only munitions flew in.

ISIS insurgents have DShKs and a large reservoir of MANPADs at their disposal.

(1)no, ISIS never had a large reservoir of MANPADs.
(2)By flying a bit higher you're absolutely safe from all of them.
Until Iran started speading 358 around(which is 2020s) in the region, even piston/turboprop drones were absolutely invulnerable. For obvious reasons, ISIS doesn't get Iranian weapons.

The USMC gave us Guadalcanal. I'm not even touching that in the slightest.

Exactly, as they lived through Wake. USN had to live through tragic and bloody 1941-42. US Army has an even longer history of experiencing setbacks.
It's USAF that was born only after WW2, and has to compensate with ridiculous swords and has this cavalier attitude of nothing ever going wrong.

 

[LEG]

"What happens if the USN A-12 Avenger enters service and how might that come about?"

The USN has to be serious about funding the program, from the start, as a Navy only effort. And specifically has to FIRE with prejudice the Navy Lawyer, Margaret Olsen, who advised the withholding of key weight overages in the MDD/GD estimates as a 'chinning bar' which would be used to force the companies to accept lower post-development service costs. Along with the flat out lie that Northrop was still in the competition, this forced the MDD/GD team to effectively bid against themselves, without knowing it, and creating the long term certainty of default which the Government is not allowed to do because the cost of a failed competition which you caused to be underbid is a deficiency which will only have to be made up as you rerole the dice on a followon effort.

You should probably also remove John Lehman from office as SecNav as he deliberately slow rolled the program, hoping to 'await further notice' from the results of the ATF and ATB programs before committing the Navy to stealth airpower, so he could build his Big Fleet.

Unknown to him, this led the entire concept formulation and development to be done, essentially, at business expense which is ALSO a breaking of the fundamental DFAR on 'buying in' (investing own-funds without contract to develop technology studies) as an act which often leads nowhere, eats the bottom line on extant programs and leads to starting in the hole as promises are made on technologies which might prove risky, solely on the basis of getting back the money spent on initial analysis of those capabilities (from within industry), in the hopes of integrating them. If internal carriage, stealth and multi-sensor integration are all big risks but promoted as TRL4-5-6 (partly developed) the sticker shock of bringing them together can lead to cancellation of a perfectly good system which is simply costed beyond reasonable fleet buy.

At a fundamental level, this means dividing up the program into airframe, stealth, avionics and flying qualities/carrier suitability testing phases with go-nogo restrictors on things like the flying wing and <.0001m2 RCS pushing secondary reductions in the 'why a tailless wing on a carrier?' configuration. One of the alternate designs was a supersonic, agile and fully empennaged airframe, lookign like a cross between the F-14 and F-111. If you cannot afford naval VLO and/or you cannot make it compatible with a marine corrosion environment, it's time to consider alternatives, like cheap standoff munitions and reduced rather than very low observables in the .1 to 1m2 range.

Basically, you're looking for realistic funding plans verify the major technology baselines as high risk areas before committing to what amounts to concurrent design and manufacturing preparation. Realistically, this is not a 1990s serviced airframe but a 2000s design which means further cost incrementation via the A-6F/G and F-14D ST21 are almost a given.

_If you are committed to that_, then you need to back out of the NATF program and concentrate on cost effective upgrades to the extant force, termination of the short range hornet program early on, and full pre-production testbed and FSED flight test expansion of funding for your new jet. This also means having a MENS/COEA as both cost driver and doctrinal stand to arrangement to integrate a given X number of jets into the airwing.

"Could this require a different design?"

The A-12 is being lied about at some rather fundamental levels. As described, it has too many optimizations for high altitude flight not to be stealthy and is too slow and lacking in performance at these levels, to be survivable if caught. At 1,308 square feet of wing area, it certainly has the lift to reach decent heights but needs engines in the F414 or F100 class (16-18,000lbf, per side) to be reasonably energy maneuvering SEP capable in the 20-30,000ft band.

And such performance incrementation is indicated here-

https://preview.redd.it/3vxhahsnbpz61.jpg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=666a37b9bba8ff5d520ea677a71759ce0339f043

https://preview.redd.it/md44ngsnbpz61.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c37ceb89af03d9296b5806b81df77a5dca8f8f66

In both the presence of a large RAM 'stealth bra' described in _The Five Billion Dollar Misunderstanding_ by Stevenson as being fitted to the leading edge of the wing and the much large (higher mass flow) intakes of a new engine which supposedly did a great deal to raise speeds and climb rates at all levels. All of which would indicate a different kind of airframe from that of the mockup.

Since GD had a decent VLO office and had run tests on the Model 100/Cold Pigeon which had a notable kink in the trailing edge, it is hard to explain why this was not adopted for the A-12. One can only say that multiple officers have stated that one of the type's major failings was its large emphasis upon VLO and the weight/costs involved which, at the time, correspond to the call-back (over a Fourth of July weekend) in1986 by the head of the F-22 SPO with a 'scrap everything, clean sheet, we have a new design threshold' imperative which took the Lockheed design from an F/A-18/Su-27 hybrid to upside down F-117 it is today.

Something changed in the mid 1980s which made VLO possible without swoopy curves and perfect planform alignment and whatever material or system (active cancellation) effect it was, it completely altered the F-22 program. So why not the A-12?

"Does the USN have to change requirements?"

I would suggest not. One of the great achievements of the A-12 program was the stated desire to carry 16 Mk.82 (7ft long), 8 Mk.83 (10ft long) or 4 Mk.84 class munitions (12ft long) as well as paired self defense weapons. This ability to carry multiples of heavyweight munitions would rapidly become important with the arrival of the JDAM and dedicated munitions like the GAM-36/37 and GBU-28. Today it is crucial to the internal carriage of systems like PL-17 and AIM-174B as well as nascent hypersonic munitions like HALO and HACM.

And these munitions would be needed because systems like the Kh-80/90 series were on the towards

Having said this, the nature of the flying wing without global, very high -dbsm, RCS reductions, is one of overly complicated platform design which is going to be difficult to bring aboard as both a flying airframe without no lateral stabilization and a 70ft wingspan one.

If it is necessary to modify the trailing edge to gain VLO at the cost of trailing edge stiffness and/or control effectivness withiin a differential movement scheme for sideslip and yaw control, then signature may compromise carrier suitability. The Rafale solves this problem by installing saw tooth boundaries at the back of a fairly conventional wing which stop surface wave returns from the straight TE but how much this kind of attenuation will effect particularly non fire control band radars is unknowable. Similarly internal saw tooths, built into a dielectric (flight) control system may also not prove sufficient in reducing direct path returns. But it is possible that the 'Stealth Bra' would do this, given it is an active leading edge cancellation system.

"What's the effects of having a LO Attack platform entering service in the late 90's to early 2000's?"

Standardization of the Carrier airwings around two jets per deck. Both optimized towards very long range strike and both likely small enough to be stowed entirely below decks when not in active flight operations.

The F-14D Super Tomcat 21 will become the universal fighter with AIM-152 AAAM as the normative LRM and the wings qualified to HARM/AARGM and AIM-9X/AIM-120. With the latter adoping an active, anti-missile, role. And a new, digital, AESA completely replacing the dated APG-71 hardware baselines which are, in fact, still those of the AWG-9, completely with analogue front end.

Some airwings will standardize on the A-6F/G and ST-21 and some on the A-12 and ST-21. With GTW surge taken up by USMC airframes. The lead decks will be door kickers and all airframes will be using standoff glide/boosted/cruise munitions as standard. Probably based on Tacit Rainbow or ITALD class munitions at first and supersonic MALD later (30,000 dollars each).

With munitions like (ATC/ATR capable) SLAM-ER and eventually MMTD-as-SDB being adopted, fleet wide, the doctrinal threshold for penetration will change from securing the far side of the mission area with TARCAP/BARCAP presence to maintain safe BRLs of some 40-90nm standoff, short of the target.

"How does this affect the CALF-JAST-JSF effort?"

The USAF wants the F-22 and is willing to multi-role it as a function of followon B/C models. They adopt an early form of the F-35 'baked right in' RAM system (which in fact does exist, on the last 40 or so airframes) as the production standard and improve from there, across models and blocks instead of 'spirals' which took a decade to fit AIM-9X and still hasn't managed to integrate an HMDS or IRST.

They will probably adopt a stretched version by the C or E model to allow for AMRAAM in the side bays or go for a SACM level (Cuda/Peregrine) mini-missile which is essentially half-RAAM. The former gives them the option for a bulged weapons bay for strike payloads, the latter means you can actually close off the side bays and increase internal fuel to provide for a genuine 800nm radius, half at supercruise.

The alternative is to shut down Lockheed altogether and go with the generally superior YF-23 option with it's inherently longer weapons bay/s.

With this as your program of record throughout the later 90s and mid 2010s (no YF-22 crash) it becomes impossible, fiscally, to think of a followon to the F-16/18 before 2020 as the Tacair Trainwreck is simply not allowed to happen. At that point, UCAVs should be the obvious superior choice, as indeed they were in 2003 when we cancelled the J-UCAS, 'there but for hubris and manned force union shop rules'.

All services make fleet size and per-year build rate trades to keep the joint programs healthy and the utility of these programs in places like SWAPR is such that the emphasis upon 'lightweight' fighters goes away as we discover we don't need as much permission to base-in tankers to support 350nm radius teen series jets. By 2010, the outcomes of the DARPS UDS/UOS pretty much highlight the superiority of the UCAV with geared turbine in all roles requiring micro-munitions (JCM, LOCAAS/LOCATM and below) as effectively cruise missiles with landing gear in missions like TEL hunting and specifically as the counter to the rising threat of ASCM/ASBM.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Chinese A2AD becomes obvious and there is no money for a CSA to give one third of the airwing a survivable LO tanker. So again, _for awhile_, the combat range of the A-12 and F-14E becomes quite popular as a sortie generator.

If 9-11 happens, J-UCAS is not cancelled because, with the A-12 and F-22 firmly in production, the superiority of the UCAV as a GWOT hang-time bomber is just too obvious to ignore. The question then being how many are acquired of the VLO model as companions/lead scouts for the manned stealths and how many of a more affordable day-CAS/OBAS equivalent when RFLO is not as advantageous.

"Or affect the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet?"

Never built. As good riddance to bad trash. The first but sadly not the last fighter acquired despite having utterly failed OPEVAL, across multiple KPPs.

"If the RAF buy into this, does this affect the CVF debate?"

The UK needs to stop pretending they are a major power and not a nuclear armed microstate, like Israel. When your total size is roughly that of Montana and you have chosen to import a low function, high fertility, high crime rate, permanent welfare class, rather than encourage your own to have more kids or take in the multiple refugees of Communist Eastern Europe, then you have bigger problems than pretending to be something you are not, and have not been since 1956, at least.

If the RN wanted an effective OOTW platform then they should have bought into more Albion/Bulwark/Ocean class ships with micro-crewing like a civilian container ship and upload capable military TEU systems which missionized the vessel towards a command and control, hospital or LIMITED (by the range of Merlin helicopter lift and lack of a well deck) special operations capabilities. This would have allowed for a much more realistic multirole airdefense and ASW/Strike configured escort group, at least twice the size of today's Type 45 and Type 26 classes.

The problem with a carrier is that it is simply to high value, even with a stealth airwing to be brought in close. And the 460nm range of the F-35B is actually closer to 250nm when carrying useful external loads. It is not survivable on it's own. And without the added costs of a CATOBAR AEW&C plus Tankers plus ASW, it is a one trick pony for a threat which doesn't exist. You are not going to be hit by Bettys and Nells in the Gulf of Siam.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/M112006-crop-scaled.jpg

It will be hidden coastal and inland ASCM/ASBM which ICD you from 400-800nm (or more, DF-26B is a 2,500nm ranged weapon) batteries and against that threat a handful of fighters is not going to suffice while, again, the lack of proper CATOBAR facilities robs you of the secondary mission airframes which could (Outlaw Viking, A-47 UCAS-N, etc.).

Britain cannot crew her carriers. Cannot afford the 138 F-35Bs needed to give them a full deckload plus rotating spares. If Britain feels a need to be offensively projecting power, they need a 5,000nm stealth HALE UCAV and a bunch of cheap nuclear subs, possibly unmanned in a mixed SSN/UUV fleet configuration, to launch super and hypersonic missiles along the lines of the CVS.401.

Again, why you would want to do this when you have been jettisoned by the U.S. and are not a member of the EU is hard to say.

You are not, best case, in any way, capable of taking on Russia or China and the billions which Starmer et al have given as anti-biotics to the dying whale that is Ukraine have completely scuttled the UK defense sector, for at least a decade. You will be lucky to maintain GCAP as an export option with Japan and Spain.

Who else would buy into the system?
Japan?
South Korea?
Israel?
Germany?
Crazy notion but might the MN want it over the Rafale?

Stealth is a door kicker force. An FPA (Force Protection Asset) and a high value, deep strike, capability for in-extremis intervention in something like another Pakistan/India war where the nuclear threshold had been breached.

It should not have been exported. It should not have been proliferated.

It has more power as a bogeyman than an asset which countries by a tech sample of so they can then turn around and produce their own versions of as FCAS and GCAP.

This applies especially to France where Macron himself ran his hands down the side of an F-35 or F-22 then went to a special wash location and had the residue of the skins scrubbed off as a sample.

NATO should not profit from selling second generation U.S. ideas 'cheaper and easier' when they cannot even meet their threshold payment levels for maintaining the Alliance. And while we are there, Europe is a culture grouping of some 800 million people. Nearly all of whom are richer than the average U.S. middle class family. Even at 1% funding thresholds, a unified European armed forces, operating under EU combined command and control, should be able to DWARF the technological and capacity levels of the U.S.. Not least because they are already there and have limited, out of area, requirements.

The only reason Europe did not have stealth out of the Lampyridae effort was because everyone wanted to vamp the U.S. rather than cooperate with the Germans.

Would the A-12 have a relevant role in a high density, European, threat environment? Not without a lot of escorts as roll back.

Naval Strike gets to choose where and when it goes feet dry and it has an entire constellation of supporting assets as AEW, EW, and Tanking, built into the airwing constellation.

Unless you buy into the full package, you are not getting in and out, certainly not without standoff ordnance like multiple Storm Shadow or KEDP-350.

I would not sell boot laces to Israel, given their hubris in selling on anything we give them to the likes of China (J-10, Patriot, both resulting in their ambassador being called to carpet on and forced to apologize for, in the Oval Office) and they have the added problem of literally being unable to secure their airbases against guided missile strikes while, in daylight, you would have the option of flying through the MPAD/SHORAD/AAA (IIR/EOCG/57mm) threat envelope. Or trying to fly over the contrail band, using the built in suppressor system which is incredibly caustic. The IDFAF have seemingly abandoned subsonic cruise for high supersonic/hypersonic weapons options and these also appear to be too large for even the cavernous weapons bays of the A-12 to internally carry.

South Korea is Israel writ large, with nuclear weapons, inside 200nm though the nature of the peninsula actually favors a low-slow penetrator, able to reach NK targets with their version of the KEPD. If winning the war means preemption and/or pull back (ROKAF to Hokkaido) then the system could theoretically be useful, through to the 2040 period. But not more so than the Korean's own efforts to create GLCM/GLBM as mobile TEL platforms, able to play whackamole with a nuclear threat until PGS could put a single Trident onto Pyongyang.

Germany with the Avenger II could theoretically backstop Poland in a rush to defend Ukraine as Russia crossed the Dnieper, took Kiev and moved on Lvov. However; this would only last until Orezhnik brought multiple micro-MRIV PBV clusters down onto both German airbases and the Polish Aegis Ashore.

At that point, the USAF tanking and potentially nuclear umbrella comes into play as a 'We told ya so!' response to an emergency declared NATOization of a Ukrainian rump. This rapidly goes nuclear behind Iskander and Kh-102 and the world roasts though, again, if you are so stupid as to stick with B61 as a free fall munition rather than a MAKO-as-SRAM-3 the A-12 may give you the penetration which an F-35 (radius) or Tornado (radius plus signature) cannot, from a sufficiently wide set of dispersal fields to be survivable for 1-2 strikes.

One of the many mysteries of the A-12 is how it miraculously regained top end and cruise speeds, climb rate and particularly SEROC, after shifting to the 'fat wing' version. This almost demands a PW7000 or GE F414 level core upgrade and would have made the A-12 a 520-550 knot penetrator at low level and Mach .9 capable through the tropopause. Just as importantly, it (reportedly) pushed the combat radius back towards 1,000nm which should have been the baseline for an A-6 replacement.

Unfortunately, technology and operating theater shifts do catch up with even stealth and combinations of Chinese SOSUS systems, hooked into the telecomms cable network. WZ-8 supersonic drone and WZ-9 radar HALE plus Luditance SBR (either independently or in some kind of PCLS, bistatic, mode), along with the 80+ Yaogan IMINT satellites which China has (along with five active launch sites, able to rapidly insert replacements into any orbital track), have more or less turned the SCS into a gold fish bowl with 10-20 minute refresh cycles. Which China can saturate with 35-50 million dollar ASBMs from any of three generations: 800nm DF-21D, 1,300nm DF-17 and 2,500nm DF-26. Even before turning to subs, bombers and surface combatants with 200-300nm YJ-18, 250nm YJ-12 and 800nm YJ-21.

Best case, we stay in the far littorals and survive a few days, until the SM-3/SM-6 run out. Worst case, it doesn't matter because Chine uses air landed forces to avoid the Seelowe problems of predictable invasion force build up, seizing Kaohsiung and Taoyuan IAs as APODs to bring in huge numbers of airlanded forces (40,000 men, vs. 10,000 Marines) and then trundles off down the road to Keelung or Kaohsiung harbors to accept the first of several ROROs which, civilian registered under legitimate sail plans, pull into the SPOD. All within 2-4hrs.

This happening behind a wall of J-20s and tactical ballistic missiles as long range MRL strikes to flatten the ROCAF and HiMADS systems gives them absolute air supremacy before we can kick the marines out of Naha and the 7th fleet CSG out of Yokosuka.

At which point, China essentially pulls a Russia and says: 'Anything entering the operational exclusion area will be nuked.' As the 2-3 CSGs of the PLAN pull into the Black Ditch to provide a solid air defense corridor for Chinese heavy lift Y-20s to continually bring in more and more assets.

It's all fate d'accompli from that point. And flying subsonic intruders, even from 900nm out is not going to give you the DPI per day to make it safe for that carrier to come closer (or the fleet trains to sustain air operations until the Surge Force gets there, 1-2 weeks out, from San Diego...).

To win that, instant-on, fight requires the ability to prosecute a thousand aimpoints, with 4-7 million dollar missiles from 2-3 SSGN submarines, using relays of HALE ELO platforms, AAR capable, and staging out of Malaysia or Australia. Along the lines of an RQ-180. As well as special operations forces on-island.

In a foolishly air-not-missile power dominated U.S. service hierarchy, that shift towards 'cheaper, faster, further' with 400ft of seawater armor, is simply not going to be practical as a real counter to the ICD threat.

Ultimately, you're going to win a modern air war with hypersonic strike platforms that can launch from JBER and recover into Diego or from Darwin, dropping down into Al Udeid. With a Mach 10-15 cruse and flinging HGV like skipped stones over a time zone out from the industrial base which both supports the war and enables the economy. The days of sneakum-reel-gude, slow stealth, at anything like tactical air power distances are over.

They were questionable in the 1929-32 time frame when various Fleet Problems showed that carriers which hugged coastlines to get surprise strikes ended up scoring a couple serious hits before much longer ranging, multi-field capable bombers ran them down and sunk them. They were rendered more questionable in August 1945. Became increasingly unsustainable with the development of the Tsirkon predecessor Kh-80/90. And were utterly extinguished when Orezhnik showed that, Yes Virginia, Santa Clause can come down the chimney at Mach 10 to score precision present hits with 30+ micro MIRVs and they make a right mess of everything.

To the extent that the last Fleet Problem exercise in 2019, just before COVID shut everything down, had the USN 'winning' only by remaining east of Guam as part of a composite missile shield for the islands' long range bomber/CABS strike force.

Without the hang time and absolute radius/altitude advantages of a UCAV and given the enormous costs of naval stealth, the subsonic strike option is simply not practical either in terms of ISR targets generated, DPIs struck per day or operational lag/vulnerability of the deck cycles needed to maintain threat rollback in a 24:7 emergent condition. Even high end supersonics via NGAD may not be enough as there is significant evidence that it is when you are able to instant-on pulse the counter engagement (aimpoints per minute in the first few minutes, as the threat is still bunched up on their airheads) which will dictate first hour victory as opposed to second day loss of Taiwan. Once the threat gets stuck in, among the Taiwanese population, It will be impossible to winkle them out and with control over Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung, the island can be shut down and compartmentalized within just a few tens of hours. It will literally be a single day evolution, long before we could get there with carrier forces. Compared to Ukraine, Taiwan is tiny and all you have to do is cut a few bridges and tunnels through the mountainous east coast to isolate everything else.

Never mind the enormous hit the West's martial reputation is going to take from the looming abandonment of Ukraine and the crushing debt all Western countries now operate under after three plus decades of treating war as a sport rather than an economic exercise to gain tributary benefits.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

GD were lacking in latest stealth knowledge, and assumed the US Government would hand over the Lockheed / Northrop "secret sauce" to them after they won the contract. They didn't.

GD subcontracted the critical A-12 leading edge design to Rockwell's HIDE team in Tulsa. These guys were pretty good at designing radar absorbent structures, and had worked on Ryan drone, Tomahawk and B-1B RCS reduction, but this was all pre-VLO spot treatment stuff reducing RCS by no more than one order of magnitude. Thats a whole long way from "Stealth".

GD had a pretty good grasp of pre-1975 LO material techniques, but like Rockwell didn't appreciate how much they'd been left behind between 1975 and 1985.

 

[zen]

The UK needs to stop pretending they are a major power and not a nuclear armed microstate, like Israel. When your total size is roughly that of Montana and you have chosen to import a low function, high fertility, high crime rate, permanent welfare class, rather than encourage your own to have more kids or take in the multiple refugees of Communist Eastern Europe, then you have bigger problems than pretending to be something you are not, and have not been since 1956, at least.

If the RN wanted an effective OOTW platform then they should have bought into more Albion/Bulwark/Ocean class ships with micro-crewing like a civilian container ship and upload capable military TEU systems which missionized the vessel towards a command and control, hospital or LIMITED (by the range of Merlin helicopter lift and lack of a well deck) special operations capabilities. This would have allowed for a much more realistic multirole airdefense and ASW/Strike configured escort group, at least twice the size of today's Type 45 and Type 26 classes.

The problem with a carrier is that it is simply to high value, even with a stealth airwing to be brought in close. And the 460nm range of the F-35B is actually closer to 250nm when carrying useful external loads. It is not survivable on it's own. And without the added costs of a CATOBAR AEW&C plus Tankers plus ASW, it is a one trick pony for a threat which doesn't exist. You are not going to be hit by Bettys and Nells in the Gulf of Siam.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/M112006-crop-scaled.jpg
It will be hidden coastal and inland ASCM/ASBM which ICD you from 400-800nm (or more, DF-26B is a 2,500nm ranged weapon) batteries and against that threat a handful of fighters is not going to suffice while, again, the lack of proper CATOBAR facilities robs you of the secondary mission airframes which could (Outlaw Viking, A-47 UCAS-N, etc.).

Britain cannot crew her carriers. Cannot afford the 138 F-35Bs needed to give them a full deckload plus rotating spares. If Britain feels a need to be offensively projecting power, they need a 5,000nm stealth HALE UCAV and a bunch of cheap nuclear subs, possibly unmanned in a mixed SSN/UUV fleet configuration, to launch super and hypersonic missiles along the lines of the CVS.401.

Again, why you would want to do this when you have been jettisoned by the U.S. and are not a member of the EU is hard to say.

You are not, best case, in any way, capable of taking on Russia or China and the billions which Starmer et al have given as anti-biotics to the dying whale that is Ukraine have completely scuttled the UK defense sector, for at least a decade. You will be lucky to maintain GCAP as an export option with Japan and Spain.

LEG
While the bulk of your answer to my questions posed some time ago, is quite interesting and informative. The quoted section above seems completely pointless to the topic of this thread. So riven with views on wider issues that be far more political than I think you understand.
But such a debate is controversial even in the average political forum. Let alone here in a thread on alternative history.

 

[Scott Kenny]

GD were lacking in latest stealth knowledge, and assumed the US Government would hand over the Lockheed / Northrop "secret sauce" to them after they won the contract. They didn't.

LockMart and Northrop didn't own what GD/MDD were required by contract to be provided. The government did own it, and the [expletives deleted] USAF played fuck-fuck games about clearing people to receive it for a Navy project.

There was an entire lawsuit about this.

 

[quellish]

LockMart and Northrop didn't own what GD/MDD were required by contract to be provided. The government did own it, and the [expletives deleted] USAF played fuck-fuck games about clearing people to receive it for a Navy project.

There was an entire lawsuit about this.

The government did not own Lockheed’s intellectual property.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The government did not own Lockheed’s intellectual property.

The government sure said they owned the necessary IP when they accepted MDDs bid.

 

[quellish]

The government sure said they owned the necessary IP when they accepted MDDs bid.

No, they didn't.

The government never gave any guarantee of access to other programs at contract award or before. It wasn't until the program was clearly in trouble that the Navy attempted to get other DoD components to allow the contractors access to information (which they eventually did get). Information that would not have saved the program at all - the design was fundamentally flawed from the start from a low observables perspective. McDD, for example, almost completely ignored shaping in their concept formulation studies and focused on RAM during that and later stages of the program - RAM which they had little experience with.

In fact, even at the very start of the program McDD argued to the government that McDD had enough relevant stealth experience to be competitive on ATA (they didn't) and did not need any additional "help".

General Dynamics on the the other hand had long experience with stealth. GD was part of the 1970s studies that lead to the XST, from the studies of threats and the required signature levels to counter them up to the early High Stealth Aircraft studies. GD firmly asserted it was not possible to develop an aircraft that would have a radar cross section low enough to counter threat radars in a militarily significant way and advocated a combination of RCS reduction and an emphasis on EW. During the portions of the ATA program leading to contract award they too argued they had enough stealth experience to be competitive.

If the government had told the contractors they would be given the "golden key" to stealth technology...

1. It would have been far too late to have any positive effect
2. McDonnell Douglas Corp v. United States (91-CV-1204, etc.) would have gone very differently

 

[LEG]

LockMart and Northrop didn't own what GD/MDD were required by contract to be provided. The government did own it, and the [expletives deleted] USAF played fuck-fuck games about clearing people to receive it for a Navy project.

There was an entire lawsuit about this.

_The Five Billion Dollar Misunderstanding, The Collapse Of The U.S. Navy's A-12 Stealth Bomber Program_, James P. Stevenson

Page 44
He also attached a copy of the navy's development strategy. The chief argument for delaying the ATA IOC was to incorporate, 'to the maximum extent possible, technologies developed for other programs'. Lehman's belief that the Air Force would surrender it's Stealth Knowledge, was a measure of his naivete...

Page 162-163
But according to Herbert Fenster, even in the assertion that GD had built a manned demonstrator were true, a subject on which he would not engage, it would not make one whit of difference because of the difference between cross and parallel access. According to him, no one on the A-12 had access to any other program.
...
In any case, if Rumpf had reported the failure of the Navy to gain cooperation from the air force on stealth technology, Secretary Lehman said he would have solved the problem. I would have gone right to the Secretary Of Defense (Cheney) be cause there was an unquestioned assumption that we would have full and unimpeded access to all of the B-2 technology.
Lehman believed that sharing the technology was not only a precondition but absolutely essential to development of the A-12 since the airplane was to be a miniature B-2 with all the unstable flight controls and inlets and outlets, that an enormous amount of money could be saved on wind tunnel time and development process, simply by using Air Force Northrop data.

Since the B-2 was a cost-reimbursement contract, the Government owned all these data and was entitled to transfer them to the A-12.

Page 159
As a token, the Air Force briefed the company's A-12 chief engineers on September 13, but the two to three hour briefing had little or no value. There was very little discussion as to problems encountered, materials, methodologies or approaches. Pike Farr testified. "Within two weeks after the initial briefing, I again contacted Captain Jeff Cook (the navy's chief military engineer on the A-12 program) and told him that the we needed far more information than the initial briefing had provided. I also provided another copy of the specific low observability information we needed, as well as a supplemental list. Captain Cook assured me he would work on it. There is no question he was read in on the B-2, he admitted it to me.

Page 337
One of the most damning allegations was Count 9 which alleged that the Government possessed and failed to disclose superior knowledge of thick wing composite part design and manufacture and aircraft weight prediction. Access to this data, which the Government gained through other highly classified programs, would have permitted the contractors to avoid duplicative research and development, avoid designs approaches which had been proven unacceptable in other programs and to better calculate aircraft weight and cost to meet contract performance.

Page 158
By September 1989, the Navy expressly acknowledged the impossibility of achieving the A-12 weight specification and that the Contractors had achieved a min-weight design. This would have been the appropriate time for the Navy to notify the contractors that they were in breach of contract.

...

During the initial design review, the GD-McAir team told the Navy that the half scale Dem Val model showed the need for additional material to reduce the RCS of the inlets. The inlet design showed no problem when tests had been done on the full-scale model but this had been the thin-wing model. When the wing was fattened to provide more internal volume for internal fuel, the changes to the design were enough to make the new design miss the specification in a narrow and less important frequency range.

Page 356-357
Unknown to Chris Bowser, who was cleared to level three, the weight reduction efforts then underway were confined to level four.

...

With regard to concealment issues, I don't know what, if any, legal definition of concealment there might be. What I do know is that the contractors mischaracterized certain information, at least to me. It's clear, with respect to the lightweight RAM and the nose boot, that they had legislated into the status reports, they did not have any solution, only an idea which is improper, if not, you know, outright deception. And then they went about trying to invent a material which would meet the weight goals without degrading performance. And it's clear to me they never got there.

Page 349-350
The governments first witness was Captain Michael Curry, the former A-12 requirements officer,

...

"So my experience in the A-6," Curry said, giving the impression that he was a pilot, "several thousand hours of experience, is a comfortable level of about 250fpm. Anything less than that is beyond my experience level and I don't feel comfortable with that."

...

"The A-12, as you can see, doesn't suffer quite the same problem the A-6 has. He's heading towards the water at 175fpm and by raising the gear, he's at a plus 35fpm positive climb. And bear in mind, he still has all of his gas and all of his bombs inside the airplane because they are carried internal to the airplane and jettisoning his bombs at a push of a button was not a solution at hand."

Currie was testifying that a 35 foot-per-minute rate of climb gave very little margin to the A-12. That a few more pounds could negatively effect it's future SEROC performance. Yet, when pressed, he refused to state a weight number which the USN would find intolerable because the operational advantages that the system presented were 'too great' to be ignored. None of what was on the A-12, as 'avionics' could not be incorporated into an A-6F type upgrade, and indeed, things like IDECM largely mimicked the Avenger's internal SPJ+MWS+TRD setup. Similarly the Nordern APQ-173 radar was the original (Ka band) system designed for the A-12 before the advent of Air to Air requirements and possible onboard stealth support jamming saw that system changed to the Westinghouse APQ-183. The TRAM turret could probably be fitted with the CFF as well.

Only the stealth was absent.


And how about these-

A-12 Tunnel Model, Ventral, Note the apparent change in aspect as sweep angle.

https://preview.redd.it/toeezhsnbpz61.jpg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=aa247b835b868c0bb452b6d78f33cd9b343b4455

A-12 Quartering

https://preview.redd.it/3vxhahsnbpz61.jpg?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=666a37b9bba8ff5d520ea677a71759ce0339f043

A-12 Head On,, Note the vertically tapered upper deck, indicating the 'fat wing' and the complete lack of APQ-183/CFF/LST/NFLIR cutouts.

https://preview.redd.it/md44ngsnbpz61.jpg?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=c37ceb89af03d9296b5806b81df77a5dca8f8f66

A-12 Production/A-X Concept Art

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/9f/54/27/9f542710652fa3d4cfaae4553acd7d10.png

A-12 Mockup, Not the much softer, more blended, wing LE sectional curvature.

https://acesflyinghighthesurvivors.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/img_20190929_123345.jpg?w=900&h=551

A-10 Inlets, much smaller on the mockup (more mass flow, = new engine = more SEROC).

https://preview.redd.it/ever-seen-these-a-12-avenger-ii-photos-album-v0-rwl33owjn81d1.jpg?width=2000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2cd37fd217327bc227b8392674d17f5e667de37

Keith Jackson (A-12 Designer, GD) Lecture. 'We got nothing from the B-2. Northrop was expected to win but our design was better , including signatures and so the A-12 got nothing.'

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS1qfIGNgwI


Note the complete lack of the large dielectric panels for the Norden radar and early Westinghouse APQ-183 as well as the Combined Function Flir and the Navflir and the LST.

So... Where does this leave us? On the eve of the lawsuit and Congressional investigation, Dave Christiansen (A-12 USAF 'Action Officer') told Tom Hafer (OSD Comptroller) that the USAF had known, 2 years before the Navy, that the A-12 was blown, on weight. Something along the lines of 'Only 13 runways in the world...' could operate the jet at full mission gross and hot'n'hi densities.

Yet, when he had originally published his Program Budget Decision which told the DOD and World that the A-12 was 500 million and 1.5 years out on completion (something Debbie D'Angelo, A-12 program budgetary analyst, had 'tiny nod' confirmed as he grilled her in the A-12 SPO) he immediately got a call from a USAF General Jaquish who said words to the effect: 'It's a pole model vs. software modeled difference, we have a Red Team on it, don't worry...' as a function of preventing mandatory budget freezes and keeping the Navy plane in the running.

Given words to the effect 'Why the hell didn't you tell me in 1988?', at the time he released his PBD, Dave Christenson explained that nailing the Navy program invited counterfire and the need to keep the USN onboard with NATF and not cost the USAF budget share on the ATF which was itself going through a 13->17 billion dollar upfunding and would be approximately 3 years late, demanded a kind of 'honor among thieves'.

Yet, if you look at the extreme modifications of the A-12 front end as something akin to the early B-2, all black, dielectric LE antenna for the ZSR-61/62/63 (the only reason the B-2 is actually 'stealthy'), the notion that the A-12's VLO was also at least partially 'active cancellation' becomes something of a reason why the jet was worked on by the IRT, right up until Cheney cancelled it. It also potentially explains why the system technology was withheld. Because it was not in fact Northrop's to give or was so, only as GFE, through another source.

Large scale avionics/antenna subassemblies are second only to fuel in terms of SWAP-C and may also not have functioned in the same way, on the B-2 as they did on the A-12 in terms of chorded shape/materials loading vs. impedance values or cooling.

Such remains a significant problem (ECU), along with 'mission data files', on the F-35 today.

Admiral Dunn, then CNO Air appears to have known this, in the 1988 timeframe, just after the FSD contract award and just before the Contractors began to blow up the parade float with their suggestions in March 1989 that the system was divergent from what had been sold under Demval and was rapidly becoming unworkable due to cost, schedule and 'configuration' (CCB) changes.

When he said that he had once believed in the value of stealth but, having seen multi-static fused trackfiles coming out of CEC and Retract Maple, he no longer did. He considered Stealth to be 'perishable'.

At this point, the USAF steps in with a big fat 'look at the cake we baked for you!' as the first real reveal, to the Navy, of what stealth actually is. And yet it's not a real help because it takes the weight from 1,650lbs original to 4,800lbs by initial program review, to 7,930lbs overweight by CDR. And yet it still makes sense because if the ATA does go down, and it's clearly not the USAF's fault, after they 'tried their best', the funds are now available to finish ATF EMD without issue.

Finally, if 'Level 4' compartment kick down is the one where parallel programs (B-2 -> YF-23) becomes cross-program accessible (B-2 -> A-12) and yet your A-12 program chief (Jackson) insists he has 'no read-in' on the B-2. And Chris Bowser has no clue about 'lightweight RAM and a Nose Boot' while the A-12 requirements officer is hinting awfully hard that the A-12 is borderline Carrier Unsuitable while at the same time stating that _operationally_ the capabilities provided by the A-12 are so essential that he cannot envision a weight excess, even of 7,930lbs which would sink the jet.

It stands to reason that:

A. The system is stealth related.
B. It is very heavy for what it does.
C. It probably did not come from Northrop.

We know this because Tom Burbage got the same head's up in 1986. Over the July 4th weekend, he pulled his entire ATF design team in, said basically: 'Whatever you have, rip it up. We're going clean sheet, based on this!'

Nobody suggests that the YF-22 used 'Northrop' Stealth DNA. Yet the Lockheed ATF contender went from being a blend of a Su-27 and F/A-18 to an upside down F-117, overnight. And it beat the YF-23 on stealth.

As Admiral Dunn suggested, fixed materials stealth is indeed probably of limited utility before a band, waveform or scattering aspect is found which allows the radar to see it. And once discovered, through a signature model in an Anechoic Chamber, that vulnerability never goes away. It is literally baked into the thermoset composites and moldline of any passive VLO system. But a stealth 'field' like a surface level jammer, can be software driven via MDF and thus change the 'techniques' used, based on radar PRI/PRF, Operating Mode and peculiar elements of polarization and range that the radar/s present.

When the A-12 was cancelled, Congress, in an unusually charitable mood, asked them how much it would take to restart the program to completion of FSED. The Navy said they weren't interested, even though the A-X was shaping up to be a smaller, less aggressively 'Yes!' to everything, followon to the same flying wing configuration.

Congress then asked what, if any, program elements needed to be paid off so that they could be harvested for the new program. The Navy basically said, 'Not interested, nothing to be learned here.'

Which only makes sense if the needed stealth additions were external to the program and introduced in a hurry, to offset the shortcomings of what had always been a high stealth emphasis airframe. By cost and by mission profile. The USAF which did try to rescue the A-12, even if they knew the tech would sink it, had this capacity via the LOCLOEXCOM (Low Observables/Counter Low Observables, Executive Committee).

As a separate design and engineering capability, within the Aeronautical Systems Command and/or DARPA.

As for the A-12 system, let's call it: LGAG. Little Grey Alien Gear. :-]

 

[Archibald]

Wow. The A-12 by large was such a turd, from craddle to grave.