nice. what we need now is a missile truck, that can carry 40-60 missiles, has unlimited unrefueled range, unlimited linger capability, VTOL, amphibious, and is stealthy.
naw, the blasted text gets doubled up and seemingly takes up an entire page, so I deleted it. Long time readers know that I'm all about airships.....but NOT BLIMPS OR DIRIGIBLES. we can do better, fully rigid hulled modern lighter-than-air craft.
Proposed New Type of Navy airship (NOT blimp or dirigible) ---300’ x 180’ x 90’---Fully rigid-hulled LTA aircraft of aluminum and carbon foam--- hull thickness from 3”-24”---Lift gases contained in multiple solid bulkhead cells---Low Observable---Shaped similar to “hopeless diamond” w/ RAM coating---effectively zero acoustic signature---effectively zero infra-red signature---Speed 0 (hover)-200mph (cruise)---Sea level-25,000’---Amphibious---VTOL---Independent of traditional airship ground infrastructure---(no hangars, mooring masts, or ground crews)---Range: unlimited (depending on flight regime)---Linger: limited only by crew provisions---Crew: 20---gross lift 75 tons---payload 32 tons
Wow, that is so cool! It would be an excellent Navy asset. Do we love it enough to let either of those wealthy, elite lighter-than-air services adopt it? Yes, that was a snarky comment. Truth be told, I have great respect for the USAF, don't know enough yet about USSF, but from my perspective, those services are the rich kids from the expensive side of town. They are as brave and as tough as those of us from the less-wealthy neighborhoods, but there always seems to be a cultural difference between those newer services, and the Army, Navy, and Marines who have been around from the beginning.
I suspect that a lot of historical "baggage" - NOT related to what you're suggesting - is underpinning a lot of erroneous assumptions and foregone conclusions. We are constructing EABOs from a commercial tanker design in lieu of building out a larger fleet of combat logistics hulls. And these EABOs are presumed to be logistically meaningful... otherwise why keep making them. The question I would ask is how could the airship you proposed be paired with an EABO. If Uk conflict has taught us anything, it's probably that we should NOT be intractable as regards our "infallible" preconceptions.
I don't know how such airships might be paired with EABO. I hope that the Corps would to look into that. I do know that a few years ago, the Marines were giving some consideration to delivering a company sized force (in active vertical assault?) via airship; and that at present, a competitor of mine (vastly inferior! ha!) is being considered for Navy logistics; as was old DARPA "Walrus" program. alas, all of these have only given thought to what they already know.....blimps and/or dirigibles; or the two-blimps-smashed-together so-called "hybrids" ; which indeed are ALL, justly laden with all that "baggage" you refer to.
I'm only thinking in terms of logistics as to supporting a weapons loadout of an airship. I would take a page from the unconventional thinking and engineering talents of the likes of a Dick Rutan. Some of the greatest obstacles are dealing with "infallible" preconceptions of what would work and what doesn't? You add in what's possible with additive manufacturing, then I would tend to be a lot more accommodating to ideas that come from others who are not encumbered by institutional inertia.
Again, great framing, allowing non-military readers to readily grasp main ideas in what is a very complex activity in warfare, tactical employment of weapons against the adversary. (We used to call that the kill chain, something new today I’m sure).
As noted, improving numbers of weapons available without the ability to target them with some acceptable level of accuracy is not a solution.
Range is critical (90% of weapons that don’t reach the target, miss it…Yogi Berra).
If your weapons are out outranged by the adversary’s defenses, selective SEAD to attack critical nodes is your tactic (stealth, EW, space, NTM, unmanned, traditional manned Growler approach) to get within range.
Once you’re in range, you need the ability to find and hit the target, or waste a hard won opportunity. Seeker heads, net enabled weapons (requires a secure network with sufficient bandwidth, etc.) and last resort GPS guided (stationary target only).
Pointing out the obvious here: tough problem with a solution equation of many variables. Not the least of which is developing and producing said weapons at sufficient scale to meet the need. Hope we have enough time for the contracting notice to find success!
Build it quicker and in greater quantity. And don't let the kibitzer's keep adding required capabilities so that we can't build it quicker and afford it. Ask the Israelis if you can't figure it out in-house.
8-10 years to get it to the fleet. That's at least 3 project managers, 2 CNO's, maybe 3 SecNav's, many lobbyists and Congressmen, a dozen interested kibitzing FOGO's to get a cheap do-all weapon just-in-time to deployed units at an 80% loadout. If I am reading between the lines correctly, Tim, I share your optimism.
Additionally, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the PRC Navy's damage control, given their completely lack of experience in naval warfare within the last century, probably isn't up to a good standard. Even a comparatively minor hit has a good shot of taking a ship out of the fight or even sinking it. A hit, any hit, is going to have a good chance to give them problems enough for a mission kill.
Cheap, 'adequate' ASW missiles that, say, SuperHornet could bombtruck 20 of and fire from a good range out, could be a game changer.
PLAN damage control skills may be better than you believe. (Not necessarily, but highly likely.)
Remember, they have been very good at obtaining and copying virtually every weapon system we have, and damage control is not highly classified rocket science. Plenty of public domain manuals, videos, and historical accounts that a diligent effort would provide the knowledge and skills. High level emphasis on making DC a priority can get them proficient and motivated. Of course, if they are depending on diversity for their strength, they are a screwed as we are.
FWIW, I bet a number of PLAN types are assigned to monitor and analyze Phib's postings and learn from them. Now, if we could just get some folks inside the beltway to do the same...
Let’s not forget our own navy gave them almost unlimited access in the 2000’s to our vessels. I watched in disbelief as a PLA/PLAN General and Staff were granted access to our CDC on Big E in 2000. They also had unlimited access to our carrier operations and GQ drills during JTFEX. A serious “What the actual fuck?” moment.
Our policy of openness was to demonstrate our peaceful intentions and commitment to cooperation with them. You can see the wisdom and success of this policy from the fact that decades later, China is our close friend and ally, and war between our two nations is utterly unthinkable.
I agree how big was the initial fire while in port on the Bonhomme Richard?
Lack of Damage control and fire fighting due to a lack of crew and leadership who could manage the incident is about as good a facsimile of a ship hit with one small missile in the right place. After casualties ate up the manpower.
And if all you really need is a short-term F-kill on the vessel and you can deliver that with a lighter, smaller & cheaper missile than it makes total sense to at least work through seeing if it is both viable and will produce the large numbers of cheap & effective missiles you need.
Even beyond this, build more of the ADM-160 MALD - the decoys are cheaper and have to be targeted. This will help overwhelm the ship defenses and expend the magazines. Launching a bunch of those ahead the LRASSM-ERs and other missiles coming in subsonic from long distance is a powerful combination.
Another question for the Electronic Attack Bubbas or anyone with similar experience: how much effective would HARM/AARGM striking a surface target in forcing a mission kill?
I’m thinking loss of major sensors and damage to rest of the superstructure could count as a mission kill here. Am I off base?
Anti-radiation missiles take out the enemy sensors. If they can be detected and if they are in operation. It would be prudent for any enemy to have a judicious EMCON policy.
We wouldn’t fire them in the blind at a non-emitting vessel. IMO.
HOJ is a part of certain missiles ECCM ability to overcome an enemy attempting to use jamming techniques to mask their signals against our radar ability to detect them. Basically an enemy would blanket the RF spectrum or a specific frequency to “jam” or blind our systems. We have built-in specific capabilities in certain missiles to use this jamming as a method of targeting. Without going too deep into the weeds, an enemy aircraft or ship would still need to be emitting for them to be detected. Using anti-radiation missiles against non surface to air missile capable threats (say a RORO with a DECCA SNR) would be wasting the HARM missiles IMO. Although, it’s likely the Chinese merchant fleets would use their surface search radars to navigate to any planned position, I still think even the merchant vessels will have EMCON discipline in any battle action against our navy.
I’m sure we are tracking and trying to exploit their TTP’s. But I hope that helped answer your question.
Also I would expect them to strangle or even spoof their AIS as soon as hostilities were underway.
And yes to answer your question more specifically, if we successfully launched a HARM at a surface target, we would likely achieve a mission kill based on the loss of their command and control and navigation systems.
How about cluster munitions with spread patterns matched to the target? The goal is not to sink the target ship but to knock out all the fancy accessories affixed to the superstructure.
Yeah well it's all very well to have piles of small missiles but if we get involved with China in a big way, everything we have will boil off. And that includes our delivery platforms.
They always do.
F-35's, F-22's, F-18's....everything boils off because that's just the nature of Big War. You won't have the platforms necessary to deliver those munition swarms after about a week or three.
Not saying the small missiles are a bad idea. But we better start manufacturing more delivery systems.
If you have a lot of a particular munition you need a lot of platforms able to deliver it, even non-traditional naval strike aircraft. Like A-10s and C-17s, possibly V-22s and MH-60S/R, AH-64s, etc
For V-22s I was thinking of chucking them out the rear hatch. The H-60s can carry a pretty huge fuel tank on the stub wings, so they seem strong enough. You might need new pylons.
You need altitude for launch. The aircraft you cite are 10K and below. 3k and below is their likely operating altitude. The navy won’t waste these assets as missile launchers.
Given the likely air defenses and long-range ASM/AAMs during a PLAN attack on Taiwan you might not want to be inside the radar horizon of their AWACS, combat aircraft and air defense vessels unless you are a pretty difficult target in terms of stealth, maneuverability, radar warning and ECM. So you'd need to stay low.
Great... Interesting how current conflicts inform a path forward that deviates from the status quo. Arrows with marathon legs (aka energetics) stealthily stowed on F-35s would seem to be an intelligent ROI and why should the Navy have all the fun. And as for the F-35B (conceding historical technical issues), a handful of LHA carriers moving dozens of F-35B's armed with such arrows would seem to be a wee bit tactically disruptive... And perhaps a future twist on Rapid Dragon??? Wouldn't this be a fun one to game out....
We still haven't added a surface attack capability to ESSM/AMRAAM shows that the Navy hasn't been thinking hard enough about killing enemy ships. RAM's anti-ship capability will be useful for small boats that will be picketing the main fleet. Oh, and surface attack option would be a more than excellent idea for LWT torpedoes...
An unwelcomed realization likely awaits as regards what ASBMs could mean to upending the apple cart on strike (when mission kill is more than good enough) in the future. The fit out of conventional prompt strike missiles on the Zumwalts is going to happen and that is likely to open up the math of what a surface hull can potentially accomplish in terms of a critical mission kill. An ASBM based on PrSM offers a less costly alternative to hypersonics which are likely to be acquired in very limited numbers. An ASBM offers an extended range to reach Tomohawk range and has a ballistic trajectory (very difficult to intercept), a very high mach number and that can cover a 1000 mile range in minutes. While PrSM doesn't have the means to target a moving surface hull, one wonders what is possible when paired with a satellites and stealth ISR. How does this mix up the math on surface hulls, manning, logistics and sustainment? How about challenges of sustaining manned strike aircraft (refueling, parts, techs, etc.,etc., etc.) from carriers. Questions worth asking I would think.
Wow. Lots of missiles to overwhelm ship air defenses. It’s almost like someone rediscovered the Watkins-Gabriel Memorandum of Agreement from 1982 that led to the effort of modifying B-52G’s to carry buttloads of AGM-84s.
Recognizing that it is in poor taste to reply to ones post, I think the appointment announcement of Gabriel and Watkins is a great illustration of what confidence in a President and Secretary of Defense looks like. The announcement ends at the 3 minute point with the final two minutes being friendly discussion, banter, and story telling. Even during the announcement, the questions from the reporters in the press corps were cogent and relevant to the seriousness of our Soviet adversaries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5If0dMgUOM
Can you spell "Sherman versus Tiger?" I knew you could.
These days in Sherman vs Tiger, we are the Germans (exquisite, very few produced) and China is the Americans (vast quantities of “good enough”).
Gezackly.
Plus the home field advantage...
And don't forget, prone to failure.
oh snap...
nice. what we need now is a missile truck, that can carry 40-60 missiles, has unlimited unrefueled range, unlimited linger capability, VTOL, amphibious, and is stealthy.
yes, we can do that
You spec'd out an interesting concept, and it disappeared before I could finish reading it. Maybe it was so good, it needed to be kept confidential.
naw, the blasted text gets doubled up and seemingly takes up an entire page, so I deleted it. Long time readers know that I'm all about airships.....but NOT BLIMPS OR DIRIGIBLES. we can do better, fully rigid hulled modern lighter-than-air craft.
wonder if this will help:
Proposed New Type of Navy airship (NOT blimp or dirigible) ---300’ x 180’ x 90’---Fully rigid-hulled LTA aircraft of aluminum and carbon foam--- hull thickness from 3”-24”---Lift gases contained in multiple solid bulkhead cells---Low Observable---Shaped similar to “hopeless diamond” w/ RAM coating---effectively zero acoustic signature---effectively zero infra-red signature---Speed 0 (hover)-200mph (cruise)---Sea level-25,000’---Amphibious---VTOL---Independent of traditional airship ground infrastructure---(no hangars, mooring masts, or ground crews)---Range: unlimited (depending on flight regime)---Linger: limited only by crew provisions---Crew: 20---gross lift 75 tons---payload 32 tons
Wow, that is so cool! It would be an excellent Navy asset. Do we love it enough to let either of those wealthy, elite lighter-than-air services adopt it? Yes, that was a snarky comment. Truth be told, I have great respect for the USAF, don't know enough yet about USSF, but from my perspective, those services are the rich kids from the expensive side of town. They are as brave and as tough as those of us from the less-wealthy neighborhoods, but there always seems to be a cultural difference between those newer services, and the Army, Navy, and Marines who have been around from the beginning.
I suspect that a lot of historical "baggage" - NOT related to what you're suggesting - is underpinning a lot of erroneous assumptions and foregone conclusions. We are constructing EABOs from a commercial tanker design in lieu of building out a larger fleet of combat logistics hulls. And these EABOs are presumed to be logistically meaningful... otherwise why keep making them. The question I would ask is how could the airship you proposed be paired with an EABO. If Uk conflict has taught us anything, it's probably that we should NOT be intractable as regards our "infallible" preconceptions.
I don't know how such airships might be paired with EABO. I hope that the Corps would to look into that. I do know that a few years ago, the Marines were giving some consideration to delivering a company sized force (in active vertical assault?) via airship; and that at present, a competitor of mine (vastly inferior! ha!) is being considered for Navy logistics; as was old DARPA "Walrus" program. alas, all of these have only given thought to what they already know.....blimps and/or dirigibles; or the two-blimps-smashed-together so-called "hybrids" ; which indeed are ALL, justly laden with all that "baggage" you refer to.
time to move on from 19th century tech!
Semper Fi
I'm only thinking in terms of logistics as to supporting a weapons loadout of an airship. I would take a page from the unconventional thinking and engineering talents of the likes of a Dick Rutan. Some of the greatest obstacles are dealing with "infallible" preconceptions of what would work and what doesn't? You add in what's possible with additive manufacturing, then I would tend to be a lot more accommodating to ideas that come from others who are not encumbered by institutional inertia.
CDR Sal,
Again, great framing, allowing non-military readers to readily grasp main ideas in what is a very complex activity in warfare, tactical employment of weapons against the adversary. (We used to call that the kill chain, something new today I’m sure).
As noted, improving numbers of weapons available without the ability to target them with some acceptable level of accuracy is not a solution.
Range is critical (90% of weapons that don’t reach the target, miss it…Yogi Berra).
If your weapons are out outranged by the adversary’s defenses, selective SEAD to attack critical nodes is your tactic (stealth, EW, space, NTM, unmanned, traditional manned Growler approach) to get within range.
Once you’re in range, you need the ability to find and hit the target, or waste a hard won opportunity. Seeker heads, net enabled weapons (requires a secure network with sufficient bandwidth, etc.) and last resort GPS guided (stationary target only).
Pointing out the obvious here: tough problem with a solution equation of many variables. Not the least of which is developing and producing said weapons at sufficient scale to meet the need. Hope we have enough time for the contracting notice to find success!
Build it quicker and in greater quantity. And don't let the kibitzer's keep adding required capabilities so that we can't build it quicker and afford it. Ask the Israelis if you can't figure it out in-house.
8-10 years to get it to the fleet. That's at least 3 project managers, 2 CNO's, maybe 3 SecNav's, many lobbyists and Congressmen, a dozen interested kibitzing FOGO's to get a cheap do-all weapon just-in-time to deployed units at an 80% loadout. If I am reading between the lines correctly, Tim, I share your optimism.
Additionally, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the PRC Navy's damage control, given their completely lack of experience in naval warfare within the last century, probably isn't up to a good standard. Even a comparatively minor hit has a good shot of taking a ship out of the fight or even sinking it. A hit, any hit, is going to have a good chance to give them problems enough for a mission kill.
Cheap, 'adequate' ASW missiles that, say, SuperHornet could bombtruck 20 of and fire from a good range out, could be a game changer.
PLAN damage control skills may be better than you believe. (Not necessarily, but highly likely.)
Remember, they have been very good at obtaining and copying virtually every weapon system we have, and damage control is not highly classified rocket science. Plenty of public domain manuals, videos, and historical accounts that a diligent effort would provide the knowledge and skills. High level emphasis on making DC a priority can get them proficient and motivated. Of course, if they are depending on diversity for their strength, they are a screwed as we are.
FWIW, I bet a number of PLAN types are assigned to monitor and analyze Phib's postings and learn from them. Now, if we could just get some folks inside the beltway to do the same...
And they have more sailors at sea around the world to build a maritime culture.
Let's not forget we invited them aboard USN ships and did DC Olympics with them.
Let’s not forget our own navy gave them almost unlimited access in the 2000’s to our vessels. I watched in disbelief as a PLA/PLAN General and Staff were granted access to our CDC on Big E in 2000. They also had unlimited access to our carrier operations and GQ drills during JTFEX. A serious “What the actual fuck?” moment.
Our policy of openness was to demonstrate our peaceful intentions and commitment to cooperation with them. You can see the wisdom and success of this policy from the fact that decades later, China is our close friend and ally, and war between our two nations is utterly unthinkable.
Oh we already know that answer. A few of the fucktards have engaged us in the last few weeks and they will likely respond to this post.
I'm waiting for the wumao to crawl out from under his flat rock
Oh for sure.
Bad assumptions.
The Zulu won’t be able to get any super hornets for Sea Control. That’s a fable.
I agree how big was the initial fire while in port on the Bonhomme Richard?
Lack of Damage control and fire fighting due to a lack of crew and leadership who could manage the incident is about as good a facsimile of a ship hit with one small missile in the right place. After casualties ate up the manpower.
This MACE concept makes a lot of sense to me.
We can't build enough ships fast enough. The Chinese can.
Part of the solution are anti-ship missiles. Lots and lots of anti-ship missiles.
Design it so it's relatively cheap and easy to produce and make a lot of them.
Maybe we can still do that.
And if all you really need is a short-term F-kill on the vessel and you can deliver that with a lighter, smaller & cheaper missile than it makes total sense to at least work through seeing if it is both viable and will produce the large numbers of cheap & effective missiles you need.
bonus if it's small enough you can hang 8 or more of them off of a Reaper.
Even beyond this, build more of the ADM-160 MALD - the decoys are cheaper and have to be targeted. This will help overwhelm the ship defenses and expend the magazines. Launching a bunch of those ahead the LRASSM-ERs and other missiles coming in subsonic from long distance is a powerful combination.
Another question for the Electronic Attack Bubbas or anyone with similar experience: how much effective would HARM/AARGM striking a surface target in forcing a mission kill?
I’m thinking loss of major sensors and damage to rest of the superstructure could count as a mission kill here. Am I off base?
Anti-radiation missiles take out the enemy sensors. If they can be detected and if they are in operation. It would be prudent for any enemy to have a judicious EMCON policy.
We wouldn’t fire them in the blind at a non-emitting vessel. IMO.
Good points. Although what about home on jam capability? Considering where EW equipment is located, would it cause other damage to unarmored ships?
HOJ is a part of certain missiles ECCM ability to overcome an enemy attempting to use jamming techniques to mask their signals against our radar ability to detect them. Basically an enemy would blanket the RF spectrum or a specific frequency to “jam” or blind our systems. We have built-in specific capabilities in certain missiles to use this jamming as a method of targeting. Without going too deep into the weeds, an enemy aircraft or ship would still need to be emitting for them to be detected. Using anti-radiation missiles against non surface to air missile capable threats (say a RORO with a DECCA SNR) would be wasting the HARM missiles IMO. Although, it’s likely the Chinese merchant fleets would use their surface search radars to navigate to any planned position, I still think even the merchant vessels will have EMCON discipline in any battle action against our navy.
I’m sure we are tracking and trying to exploit their TTP’s. But I hope that helped answer your question.
Also I would expect them to strangle or even spoof their AIS as soon as hostilities were underway.
Good points, although I’d say mission killing a RORO packed with an armored BN is worth any missile when defending against an invasion.
I agree absolutely. But I think our Growlers and Lightning’s will have their hands full using the 88’s on warships.
And yes to answer your question more specifically, if we successfully launched a HARM at a surface target, we would likely achieve a mission kill based on the loss of their command and control and navigation systems.
Presumably larger drones could be fitted with jammers then orbit the owning vessel - that'd negate a "home on jam" attack option.
That’s one way to do it. Hunter - Killer.
How about cluster munitions with spread patterns matched to the target? The goal is not to sink the target ship but to knock out all the fancy accessories affixed to the superstructure.
They already drop cluster munitions on boats, it works like a champ
Yeah well it's all very well to have piles of small missiles but if we get involved with China in a big way, everything we have will boil off. And that includes our delivery platforms.
They always do.
F-35's, F-22's, F-18's....everything boils off because that's just the nature of Big War. You won't have the platforms necessary to deliver those munition swarms after about a week or three.
Not saying the small missiles are a bad idea. But we better start manufacturing more delivery systems.
If you have a lot of a particular munition you need a lot of platforms able to deliver it, even non-traditional naval strike aircraft. Like A-10s and C-17s, possibly V-22s and MH-60S/R, AH-64s, etc
MV22 and rotary 60’s don’t have enough real estate to launch from. Ie weapons pylons. Also they aren’t good long bow shooters.
For V-22s I was thinking of chucking them out the rear hatch. The H-60s can carry a pretty huge fuel tank on the stub wings, so they seem strong enough. You might need new pylons.
You need altitude for launch. The aircraft you cite are 10K and below. 3k and below is their likely operating altitude. The navy won’t waste these assets as missile launchers.
Figure 300 NM radius for rotary at 3-5k alt. You won’t be using them as an asset.
Given the likely air defenses and long-range ASM/AAMs during a PLAN attack on Taiwan you might not want to be inside the radar horizon of their AWACS, combat aircraft and air defense vessels unless you are a pretty difficult target in terms of stealth, maneuverability, radar warning and ECM. So you'd need to stay low.
Used to mount Penguins on Seahawks.....
Great... Interesting how current conflicts inform a path forward that deviates from the status quo. Arrows with marathon legs (aka energetics) stealthily stowed on F-35s would seem to be an intelligent ROI and why should the Navy have all the fun. And as for the F-35B (conceding historical technical issues), a handful of LHA carriers moving dozens of F-35B's armed with such arrows would seem to be a wee bit tactically disruptive... And perhaps a future twist on Rapid Dragon??? Wouldn't this be a fun one to game out....
We still haven't added a surface attack capability to ESSM/AMRAAM shows that the Navy hasn't been thinking hard enough about killing enemy ships. RAM's anti-ship capability will be useful for small boats that will be picketing the main fleet. Oh, and surface attack option would be a more than excellent idea for LWT torpedoes...
Considering we are falling woefully behind the power curve in procuring LRASMs, this may be a good parallel track to pursue.
An unwelcomed realization likely awaits as regards what ASBMs could mean to upending the apple cart on strike (when mission kill is more than good enough) in the future. The fit out of conventional prompt strike missiles on the Zumwalts is going to happen and that is likely to open up the math of what a surface hull can potentially accomplish in terms of a critical mission kill. An ASBM based on PrSM offers a less costly alternative to hypersonics which are likely to be acquired in very limited numbers. An ASBM offers an extended range to reach Tomohawk range and has a ballistic trajectory (very difficult to intercept), a very high mach number and that can cover a 1000 mile range in minutes. While PrSM doesn't have the means to target a moving surface hull, one wonders what is possible when paired with a satellites and stealth ISR. How does this mix up the math on surface hulls, manning, logistics and sustainment? How about challenges of sustaining manned strike aircraft (refueling, parts, techs, etc.,etc., etc.) from carriers. Questions worth asking I would think.
Distributed Munitions. More is better. But we still desperately need to amp up our ship building....and soon.
The enemy is in shoes not ships coming over our border.
Wow. Lots of missiles to overwhelm ship air defenses. It’s almost like someone rediscovered the Watkins-Gabriel Memorandum of Agreement from 1982 that led to the effort of modifying B-52G’s to carry buttloads of AGM-84s.
Recognizing that it is in poor taste to reply to ones post, I think the appointment announcement of Gabriel and Watkins is a great illustration of what confidence in a President and Secretary of Defense looks like. The announcement ends at the 3 minute point with the final two minutes being friendly discussion, banter, and story telling. Even during the announcement, the questions from the reporters in the press corps were cogent and relevant to the seriousness of our Soviet adversaries. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5If0dMgUOM