Stand Off Arsenal Plane
An Arsenal Plane might be a Boeing 777 platform converted to a strike platform capable of launching standoff missiles like the JASSM-ER. Each such plane could hold 52 missiles and have a combat radius of 4000 miles. Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s Strategic Capabilities Office has focused on relatively small investments that get more use out of existing assets, like repurposing the 54-year-old B-52 as an “arsenal plane".
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in speech at the beginning of February 2016, in which he discussed the Department of Defense’s 2017 budget. "And the last project I want to highlight is one that we’re calling the arsenal plane, which takes one of our oldest aircraft platform and turns it into a flying launchpad for all sorts of different conventional payloads. In practice, the arsenal plane will function as a very large airborne magazine, network to fifth generation aircraft that act as forward sensor and targeting nodes, essentially combining different systems already in our inventory to create wholly new capabilities."
The USAF "Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan" of May 2016 was a product of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force chartered the Air Superiority 2030 (AS 2030) Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team (ECCT). The Team was tasked to develop capability options to enable joint force Air Superiority in the highly contested environment of 2030 and beyond. CSAF-chartered ECCTs bring users and operators from all Air Force domains and core functions together with the requirements, acquisition, and Science & Technology (S&T) communities.
Counterair operations are designed to gain control of the air and wrest such control away from an adversary. Air superiority is a condition on the spectrum of air control, which ranges from adversary air supremacy, to air parity, to friendly air supremacy. In common discourse, air superiority is often envisioned as a theater-wide condition. In highly contested environments, such a conception may be unrealistic and unnecessary. Air superiority is only needed for the time and over the geographic area required to enable joint operations. The specific amount of time and space required varies significantly across scenarios, mission objectives, and phases of conflict.
The target and engage capability area development plan focuses on application of effects to generate joint force operational outcomes. A mix of capabilities to penetrate the highly contested environment as well as deliver effects from stand-off ranges offers a balanced approach to counter the A2/AD strategy. There are several key concepts for kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities in this area, including a Stand Off Arsenal Plane. For this capability development, the Air Force will continue to partner with the Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO) on concepts utilizing long-range mission effects chains.
Autonomous platforms could conduct initial ISR to identify surface-to- air threats, and relay the information back to the manned package for follow-on electronic warfare operations. And then, a second group of autonomous platforms could serve as “trusted wingmen” of the manned package, providing defensive coverage or even serving as a “munitions truck” carrying extra weapons. This is the idea of the arsenal plane.
Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter created the Strategic Capabilities Office [SCO] organization in August 2012 after looking across the department and “correctly [realizing] that going back into great-power competition [with Russia and China] is going to require bringing back a lot of capabilities that had gone dormant in the department” since the fall of the Soviet Union, SCO Director Will Roper said during a March 2016 media roundtable. An example of integrating systems into teams, is the Arsenal Plane Program.
“The point of the plane is to be a big weapons truck supporting forward fighters,” Roper said, adding that SCO has analyzed multiple aircraft for use in the program. In this case integration into a team is needed because 5th-generation systems like the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter are too small to carry a lot of weapons. “You could just accept that you’ve got to go land and resupply, and then go back into the fight … or you can try to offload all the weapons, keep those forward fighters flying more of a … forward-observer role, and network them to an airplane that’s standing off [and] doing the job of bringing in weapons and supporting multiple fighters forward,” he said.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter told the Defense One Tech Summit at the Newseum 10 June 2016 “We’re developing an arsenal plane, which will function as a very large airborne magazine with different conventional payloads, networked to fifth-generation aircraft that act as forward sensors and targeting nodes.”
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