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Cutting E-2D Navy Radar
Plane Could Put Ships At Risk
by Rebecca Grant, Ph.D., Lexington
Institute Issue Brief (with permission)
Feb 26, 2009
"Do you think those US Navy
warships are out there on vacation?" one Saudi leader was
said to have asked Iranian ruler Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during
a recent crisis. Aircraft carriers and surface ships do a
lot for US diplomacy just by showing up. But there's a
complication on the horizon. Cruise missile attack is a
growing risk. The Navy had a good plan to offset that, but
it's drifting due to unforeseen cuts to the E-2D radar
surveillance plane.
Advanced cruise missiles don't get
much press today. They should, because several very
capable types have been around quite a while. Land-attack
cruise missiles like a French-built missile called the
Scalp have been sold in Europe and the Persian Gulf under
the name Black Shaheen. It's big, stealthy, and flies
about 500 mph. Then there are the anti-ship cruise
missiles. Just about every nation with a coastline has
them. It takes constant vigilance with a big and
high-powered radar search volume to pick out cruise
missiles flying over land or water.
The US Navy has prepared to meet
the threat with a little-known program with the far too
bland name of Naval Integrated Fire Control - Counter Air (NIFC-CA).
What that means is the Navy is pushing the technology to
link fire control for the missiles carried by its ships and
airplanes into a network that can pick out and shoot enemy
cruise missiles when they are farther away. Cooperative
engagement capability is part of the NIFC-CA, and that's
where E-2D comes in.
From the outside, E-2D looks like a
stronger, sleeker modification of the venerable E-2C, a
propeller-driven, carrier-based plane with the large
circular radar dome on top which first entered service in
1973.
Inside E-2D is a different story.
There's a new radar called the APY-9 which detects cruise
missiles at greater ranges. The Navy won't say much about
just what this powerful new radar can do. (That's how you
know it's really good. It can probably watch the
pistachios pop in
Iran.) What the Navy says publicly
is that the E-2D crew can keep track of many more targets
at once in an area 300% greater than the older plane. Work
stations inside have all the links needed to make NIFC-CA
effective in its expanded mission: flat-screen glass
displays, satellite communications and the latest secure
networking. E2-C is still going strong but on these tasks
it can't compete.
Although the whole NIFC-CA piece is
still maturing, the anti-cruise missile capabilities in
E-2D work with systems ready today. None question the
Navy's need for E-2D - the threat is too compelling. Links
to the Army's ground-based Patriot air and missile defense
batteries are designed in. An F/A-18 with an air-to-air
missile can receive E-2D cues and fire an air-to-air
missile at targets. More links to surface ships come
later.
The technology is ready but the
risk is here in Washington. To get the E-2D to the fleet
by 2011 the Navy must buy three planes per year.
Congressional vacillation took out
one aircraft for 2009 and scenting weakness, the Pentagon
pulled money for another aircraft in 2010.
Short-term, stripping out aircraft
will cost potentially hundreds of jobs in St. Augustine,
Florida. Long-term, failing to stick to the plan pushes
the cost later in the program, driving up the price with a
higher burden on the future. Heard that one
before?
Copyright (c) 2009 Lexington
Institute. All rights reserved.
Biographical Information Dr. Rebecca Grant, Senior Fellow
Dr.
Rebecca Grant is a Senior Fellow of the Lexington
Institute, a nonprofit public-policy research organization
headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. Her research focuses
on airpower, joint operations, cyberspace and other issues
within the institute's national security program. She
earned her Ph.D. in International Relations from the London
School of Economics, then worked for RAND and the offices
of the Secretary of the Air Force and Chief of Staff of the
Air Force. In 1995, she founded IRIS Independent Research,
performing work on strategic planning for aerospace and
government clients. Recent studies for the Air Force have
included analysis of major campaigns from Kosovo to
Afghanistan and Iraq and evaluation of air base ground
defense concepts and long-range strike; and for the Navy,
studies of Phase 0 shaping operations, carrier aviation
concepts, and roles for the new CVN-78 Ford-class carrier
for PEO-Carriers. She published Victory in Cyberspace for
the non-profit Eaker Institute in October 2007.
In
2005, her company's assets were acquired by DFI
International, where she was Vice President, Defense
Programs, in charge of a 40-person practice. Upon the sale
of DFI to Dettica PLC, she returned to running IRIS for two
years before incorporating that work into the Lexington
Institute. Dr. Grant is an active member of the Air Force
Association. She writes frequently for Air Force Magazine
and is a director of the new Mitchell Institute for
Airpower Studies. She appears frequently on television as
a commentator on airpower. She lives in Washington, DC,
with her husband, her three-year old daughter Sam, her
motorcycle and Red, her Tennessee Walking Horse.
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