Talking Nukes

Andy Weber, the Defense Department's outgoing chief of nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs, said yesterday he is leaving behind a nuclear arsenal that is still in need of modernization amid the ongoing budget crunch triggered by sequestration. He suggests that savings could be found by consolidating components of the nuclear triad, as InsideDefense.com reported this morning:

"We can definitely have a safe, secure and affordable triad," he said. "We may have to look at some of the intraleg redundancies -- the platforms and warheads. For example, the bomber leg."

Weber said DOD had already heavily invested in the B61-12 gravity bomb, begging the question: Does DOD really need to replace AGM-86B/C Air-Launched Cruise Missile?

"It's a question of do you need both the gravity bomb and the cruise missile?" he said. "Or could we live with, perhaps, either delaying or forgoing the follow-on to [the cruise missile]?"

The B61-12 "is usable in both the B-2 strategic bomber and dual-capable aircraft in Europe," Weber continued. "Consolidation of types is the way to save money. Reducing overall numbers doesn't really save money because of the production costs."

The ALCM was originally scheduled to begin development in fiscal year 2015, but will instead slip by three years, deferring almost $1 billion in spending beyond FY-18, Inside the Air Force reported in March:

The Defense Department has not yet released the budget justification documents that provide line-by-line details about military spending, but an Air Force spokeswoman provided those figures for the Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) missile to Inside the Air Force in a March 5 email. The funding table for LRSO, covering the period between FY-15 and FY-19, shows that the service will ramp up spending extremely slowly: $5 million in FY-15, $10 million in FY-16, $20 million in FY-17, $41 million in FY-18, and $145 million in the last year of the current five-year budgeting window, for a total of $221 million in the future years defense program.

That contrasts dramatically with the Air Force's previously documented plans. The service spent just $5 million on the missile's development in FY-14 but projected a need for $40 million in FY-15, and then a major jump to $204 million in FY-16. The funding requirement only grew from there, to $349 million in FY-17 and $440 million the following year.

The rephased and slowed-down development schedule pushes $959 million outside of the FY-14 to FY-18 FYDP.

Service spokeswoman Capt. Erika Yepsen attributed the restructure to financial pressures and an uncertain acquisition plan. As ITAF reported last week, the Air Force and National Nuclear Security Administration have not yet chosen a nuclear warhead to go on LRSO; that selection process should begin this summer and last about one year.

Since then, the Air Force office responsible for developing the missile advanced key ground rules for the LRSO program, meeting with a dozen companies to stress the importance of reliability and manufacturing and to assure industry of service efforts to buy back as much as a year from a four-year delay imposed on the program due to fiscal year 2015 budget constraints. As InsideDefense.com reported in June:

On April 29, the LRSO program office hosted an industry day at Eglin Air Force Base, FL, to review "top-level" program objectives for the technology maturation and risk-reduction phase of the program -- recently delayed from FY-15 to FY-19 -- which include an emphasis on designing the new cruise missile with a focus on reliability, according to Air Force documents and a service spokeswoman.

"Twelve companies participated in the meeting," the LRSO program office said in a statement provided by Air Force spokeswoman Lois Walsh to InsideDefense.com.

"The government highlighted the need to focus on reliability and manufacturing in the Technical Maturation and Risk Reduction (TMRR) phase of the program in order to improve upon experiences of previous cruise missile programs and achieve overall TMRR objectives," according to the Air Force statement.