Aircraft, Fighters, Pilots, Air power,
Airstrikes,
Missiles, Rockets
U.S. Faces Choice
on New Weapons
for Fast Strikes
April 22, 2010
The New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER
and THOM SHANKER
WASHINGTON — In coming years, President Obama will decide whether to deploy a
new class of weapons capable of reaching any corner of the earth from the United
States in under an hour and with such accuracy and force that they would greatly
diminish America’s reliance on its nuclear arsenal.
Yet even now, concerns about the technology are so strong that the Obama
administration has acceded to a demand by Russia that the United States
decommission one nuclear missile for every one of these conventional weapons
fielded by the Pentagon. That provision, the White House said, is buried deep
inside the New Start treaty that Mr. Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev
signed in Prague two weeks ago.
Called Prompt Global Strike, the new weapon is designed to carry out tasks like
picking off Osama bin Laden in a cave, if the right one could be found; taking
out a North Korean missile while it is being rolled to the launch pad; or
destroying an Iranian nuclear site — all without crossing the nuclear threshold.
In theory, the weapon will hurl a conventional warhead of enormous weight at
high speed and with pinpoint accuracy, generating the localized destructive
power of a nuclear warhead.
The idea is not new: President George W. Bush and his staff promoted the
technology, imagining that this new generation of conventional weapons would
replace nuclear warheads on submarines.
In face-to-face meetings with President Bush, Russian leaders complained that
the technology could increase the risk of a nuclear war, because Russia would
not know if the missiles carried nuclear warheads or conventional ones. Mr. Bush
and his aides concluded that the Russians were right.
Partly as a result, the idea “really hadn’t gone anywhere in the Bush
administration,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who has served both
presidents, said recently on ABC’s “This Week.” But he added that it was
“embraced by the new administration.”
Mr. Obama himself alluded to the concept in a recent interview with The New York
Times, saying it was part of an effort “to move towards less emphasis on nuclear
weapons” while insuring “that our conventional weapons capability is an
effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”
The Obama national security team scrapped the idea of putting the new
conventional weapon on submarines. Instead, the White House has asked Congress
for about $250 million next year to explore a new alternative, one that uses
some of the most advanced technology in the military today as well as some not
yet even invented.
The final price of the system remains unknown. Senator John McCain of Arizona,
the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said at a hearing
on Thursday that Prompt Global Strike would be “essential and critical, but also
costly.”
It would be based, at least initially, on the West Coast, probably at Vandenberg
Air Force Base.
Under the Obama plan, the Prompt Global Strike warhead would be mounted on a
long-range missile to start its journey toward a target. It would travel through
the atmosphere at several times the speed of sound, generating so much heat that
it would have to be shielded with special materials to avoid melting. (In that
regard, it is akin to the problem that confronted designers of the space shuttle
decades ago.)
But since the vehicle would remain within the atmosphere rather than going into
space, it would be far more maneuverable than a ballistic missile, capable of
avoiding the airspace of neutral countries, for example, or steering clear of
hostile territory. Its designers note that it could fly straight up the middle
of the Persian Gulf before making a sharp turn toward a target.
The Pentagon hopes to deploy an early version of the system by 2014 or 2015. But
even under optimistic timetables, a complete array of missiles, warheads,
sensors and control systems is not expected to enter the arsenal until 2017 to
2020, long after Mr. Obama will have left office, even if he is elected to a
second term.
The planning for Prompt Global Strike is being headed by Gen. Kevin P. Chilton
of the Air Force, the top officer of the military’s Strategic Command and the
man in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal. In the Obama era — where every
administration discussion of nuclear weapons takes note of Mr. Obama’s
commitment to moving toward “Global Zero,” the elimination of the nuclear
arsenal — the new part of General Chilton’s job is to talk about conventional
alternatives.
In an interview at his headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base, General Chilton
described how the conventional capability offered by the proposed system would
give the president more choices.
“Today, we can present some conventional options to the president to strike a
target anywhere on the globe that range from 96 hours, to several hours maybe,
4, 5, 6 hours,” General Chilton said.
That would simply not be fast enough, he noted, if intelligence arrived about a
movement by Al Qaeda terrorists or the imminent launching of a missile. “If the
president wants to act on a particular target faster than that, the only thing
we have that goes faster is a nuclear response,” he said.
But the key to filling that gap is to make sure that Russia and China, among
other nuclear powers, understand that the missile launching they see on their
radar screens does not signal the start of a nuclear attack, officials said.
Under the administration’s new concept, Russia or other nations would regularly
inspect the Prompt Global Strike silos to assure themselves that the weapons
were nonnuclear. And they would be placed in locations far from the strategic
nuclear force.
“Who knows if we would ever deploy it?” Gary Samore, Mr. Obama’s top adviser on
unconventional weapons, said at a conference in Washington on Wednesday. But he
noted that Russia was already so focused on the possibility that it insisted
that any conventional weapon mounted on a missile that could reach it counted
against the new limit on the American arsenal in the treaty.
In a follow-on treaty, he said, the Russians would certainly want to negotiate
on Prompt Global Strike and ballistic missile defenses.
If Mr. Obama does decide to deploy the system, Mr. Samore said, the number of
weapons would be small enough that Russia and China would not fear that they
could take out their nuclear arsenals.
The RAF retired the last three
of
its 20,351 Spitfires from service
APART from the very occasional
“benefit” performance, which brings all the best old-timers out of their
retirement for a brief spell, the three remaining Spitfires in the Royal Air
Force today made a “positively last appearance”.
They were flown to Biggin Hill to join Fighter Command’s only Hurricane aircraft
at this Battle of Britain station. Air Marshall Sir Thomas Pike was present to
welcome these famous aircraft, which, he said, would be maintained in airworthy
condition to take part in the annual Battle of Britain fly-past and other
ceremonial occasions.
The Spitfires have been making daily high-altitude weather observation flights
for the Meteorological Office. The first Spitfires were delivered to No 19
Squadron at Duxford, Cambridge, in September, 1938; the last operational
machines left No 81 Squadron at Seletar, Singapore, in 1954. This record of
front-line service was unequalled by any other Allied fighter aircraft. During
the war Spitfires flew about 935,000 sorties.
The fighter descended from a long line of racing seaplanes designed by the late
R. J. Mitchell. The prototype Spitfire first flew on March 5, 1936, and early
types had a speed of 362 miles an hour. By the end of the war a top speed of
452mph had been achieved.
Today, Group Captain J. Rankin and Wing Commander P. Thompson piloted two of the
Spitfires; the leading aircraft was flown by Group Captain J. E. (“Jonnie”)
Johnson, the RAF’s top-scoring fighter pilot of the war, credited with the
destruction of 38 enemy aircraft.
The more that is learnt of German preparations and progress with new weapons,
the more apparent it is that the Allies ended the war with Germany only just in
time.
The dangers faced, above all by Britain, were many and terrible.
Radio and optical equipment. A fabulous ray was to deal with tanks. This proved
to be only infra-red searchlights to blind tanks and was used in conjunction
with the 88mm gun. It was more humdrum than the fable. But it was deadly against
tanks moving at night, as ours did.
Guns. There were unpleasant novelties, such as the rocket-assisted shells. At a
certain point in the shell's progress, the rocket took over and provided further
propulsion. There was at least a scheme in the pre-development stage to provide
the V2 rocket with wings, which had great possibilities.
Chemical warfare. The Germans had a new gas in great quantity with certain
qualities more deadly than any yet used. It could have been mastered, but would
have given trouble and caused much loss, especially as anti-gas discipline in
England was naturally not as good as at the outset of the war. It is known that
Hitler was the man who prevented its use, not through altruism but because he
did not believe it would pay.
The Germans were experimenting with a piloted VI flying-bomb with a retarded
take-off and an obvious increase of accuracy. They had also made considerable
progress with controlled projectiles directed either from an aircraft to a
ground target or to aircraft.
Naval construction. There was a torpedo with a range of 80 miles and an acoustic
head which "listened" to its target. There were controlled torpedoes that would
follow a zigzag course with deadly possibilities.
There was a jet-propelled submarine going into production with an underwater
speed of 25 knots. These were made possible by a new fuel.
The inventions mentioned were in all stages, from pre-development to full
production. When it is realised that full preparation was made by the Germans to
carry out all essential production in underground factories impervious to
bombing, the full extent of the peril becomes apparent.
It is not too much to say that the Germans were in the act of switching from one
kind of war to another and that many developments of the kind I have enumerated
would have been as deadly as those already disclosed in, for example, the VI and
V2.
Allied bombing had delayed the switchover and would have hampered development,
especially by attacks on communications, but could not have stopped it.
The bombers come over as I am going home at dusk, flying high and lonely, the
lights at their wing-tips glowing richly like the red and green jujubes we used
to suck as children.
Standing back against the wall to watch them, the day still heavy upon me, I am
teased by the memory of another time when I have stood like this. It comes back
as one cruciform shape follows another against the cool, dimly blue evening. The
wild geese driving in a great wedge across the sky, their exulting clangour and
rhythmic, proud wings, the cold of the wind-scoured marsh aching in one's
finger-tips, and a boy's half-broken voice beside one saying: "They look like
aircraft flying in formation, don't they?"
For us on the coast the wild geese, every year, brought in the winter. The iron
weather, in our minds, began with the October morning or twilight when the first
trumpeting battalions passed over the town, just as spring was confirmed by the
chiffchaff. Now it is the Lancasters that remind one of the wildfowl and one's
spring song is the throb of their engines.
How can spring be both this and that other, one asks, and logic has no answer.
Once "the drunkenness of things being various" [from Louis MacNeice's poem Snow]
brought exhilaration; now there is only weariness and bewilderment.
One cannot find the synthesis that will make an orderly whole of the Juggernaut
tanks roaring along the bypass and the horses reeking and straining ahead of the
jangling plough chains, of the women who protest in print at the sending of
vitamins and powdered milk to Occupied Countries while their own children are
growing up without knowing the taste of milk chocolate.
The irreconcilables are crowded on one another - the striking apprentices: the
pilots and their pin-up girls in their smart bars, impossibly young and heroic;
the distorting mirrors of propaganda, the justice and felicity of a Mozart
quartet on the radio; the narcissi and almond blossom massed before the Easter
altar, and the VD advertisements in the press. The April sunshine is ironic and
impartial on them all: there is no synthesis, no formula for integration, only
panic edging closer.
Still the Lancasters, the iron geese who bring winter in our spring, are passing
overhead, ascending into hell through a huge, serene sky, pricked with the first
stars, faint and sparse. One will not hear them coming back: the droning will be
no more than a menacing pedal in the troubled fantasia of dream whose cadences
are never resolved, a ground bass to the melody of this, our sweet season.
The military authorities announced
yesterday that the destruction of the Zeppelin that came down early on Sunday
morning at Cuffley, a few miles north of London, was mainly due to an army
airman, Lieutenant William Leefe Robinson, Worcestershire Regiment and Royal
Flying Corps.
The king has awarded Lieutenant
Robinson the Victoria Cross. To the official announcement of this in last
night's "Gazette" is added the following note:- "For most conspicuous bravery.
He attacked an enemy airship under circumstances of great difficulty and danger,
and sent it crashing to the ground as a flaming wreck. He had been in the air
for more than two hours, and had previously attacked another airship during his
flight."
Viscount French, Commander in Chief, Home Forces, in a statement says, "The
airship ... passed through heavy and accurate gunfire, but it is established
beyond doubt that the main factor in its destruction was an aeroplane of the
R.F.C., which attacked with the utmost gallantry and judgment and brought it
down."
Several other army aviators were on the track of or engaging the Zeppelin, and
one of these who witnessed the end from a height of 10,000ft. describes how
Lieutenant Robinson, anticipating the raider's movements, was able to dash in on
the airship as the latter rose to about 12,000ft.
A flying officer, at the inquest on the German crew on Monday, expressed the
opinion that the airship was not crippled by gunfire before the aviator's
attack, but in other quarters this claim was made for the anti-aircraft guns.
An officer of the Royal Flying Corps who took part in the pursuit of the
destroyed Zeppelin told a press representative that two other aeroplanes were
endeavouring to engage the air ship, which was making frantic efforts to get
away, firing with its machine guns, first diving and then ascending.
An east coast correspondent says Lieutenant Robinson was one of several British
aviators who pursued a Zeppelin several months ago, but had the misfortune to
meet with engine trouble. After cursing his luck he registered a vow that he
would bring down a Zeppelin or die in the attempt.
Lord French stated yesterday:- "An important part of one of the enemy's airships
which raided England on September 2-3 has been picked up in the eastern
counties. There is no doubt that the ship suffered severe damage from gunfire."
It was reported on Monday that part of a Zeppelin gondola, with a great length
of wire and a telephone installation, had been picked up in a village on the
East Anglian coast.
WE NOW know the best and the worst
of the Government policy concerning aerial warfare, and are in a position to
realise the full effects of the neglect of the King’s Ministers in this branch
of defence.
We are aided in this unpleasant task by the news which we publish from Berlin
today showing that the Germans propose to allocate nearly four millions more to
their aerial fleet, bringing up the total sum available to for this purpose to
between six and seven millions sterling.
It is the Government as a whole on whom the responsibility rests for their
inability to understand the importance of this new branch of warfare, and for
their failure to take the measures necessary for our security.
It was obvious to every looker-on that when M. Blériot crossed the Channel a new
chapter was opened in the military history of the British Isles, and it was
obvious many years ago that the Germans had built dirigibles which were bound to
exercise a most important influence upon warfare by sea and land.
At present Germany possesses a fleet of useful dirigibles, to be formed into two
squadrons, each of five airships, while we possess not a single airship. The
Zeppelins now travel 56 miles an hour, have a good armament, and a range of
1,200 to 1,500 miles. Germany has also built, or is building, eight dirigible
stations. The stations on the Rhine are some 250 miles from Chatham, which can
be reached in five hours, given favourable weather.
Does Mr Churchill or Colonel Seely seriously think that the Germans are so
obtuse that they cannot realize the advantages gained by their audacity and
perseverance?
