To pay for the envisioned force structure below? Well the seemingly
inviolate 12 carrier hull money is most likely one place. With what
is being proposed why would you need 12 carriers anyway?
Maybe its time to begin to transform Naval Aviation away from being so
completely centered around a weapons system that hasn't fundamentally
changed in 60 years-the Aircraft Carrier-before it becomes completely
irrelevant...

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday July 1, 2003
The Guardian

The Pentagon is planning a new generation of weapons, including huge
hypersonic drones and bombs dropped from space, that will allow the US
to strike its enemies at lightning speed from its own territory.
Over the next 25 years, the new technology would free the US from
dependence on forward bases and the cooperation of regional allies,
part of the drive towards self-suffi ciency spurred by the
difficulties of gaining international cooperation for the invasion of
Iraq.

The new weapons are being developed under a programme codenamed Falcon
(Force Application and Launch from the Continental US).

A US defence website has invited bids from contractors to develop the
technology and the current edition of Jane's Defence Weekly reports
that the first flight tests are scheduled to take place within three
years.

According to the website run by the Defence Advanced Research Projects
Agency (Darpa) the programme is aimed at fulfilling "the government's
vision of an ultimate prompt global reach capability (circa 2025 and
beyond)".

The Falcon technology would "free the US military from reliance on
forward basing to enable it to react promptly and decisively to
destabilising or threatening actions by hostile countries and
terrorist organisations", according to the Darpa invitation for bids.
The ultimate goal would be a "reusable hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV)
.... capable of taking off from a conventional military runway and
striking targets 9,000 nautical miles distant in less than two hours".

The unmanned HCV would carry a payload of up to 12,000 lbs and could
ultimately fly at speeds of up to 10 times the speed of sound,
according to Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington
Institute in Washington.

Propelling a warhead of that size at those speeds poses serious
technological challenges and Darpa estimates it will take more than 20
years to develop.

Over the next seven years, meanwhile, the US air force and Darpa will
develop a cheaper "global reach" weapons system relying on expendable
rocket boosters, known as small launch vehicles (SLV) that would take
a warhead into space and drop it over its target.

In US defence jargon, the warhead is known as a Com mon Aero Vehicle
(Cav), an unpowered bomb which would be guided on to its target as it
plummeted to earth at high and accelerating velocity.

The Cav could carry 1,000 lbs of explosives but at those speeds
explosives may not be necessary. A simple titanium rod would be able
to penetrate 70 feet of solid rock and the shock wave would have
enormous destructive force. It could be used against deeply buried
bunkers, the sort of target the air force is looking for new ways to
attack.

Jane's Defence Weekly reported that the first Cav flight demonstration
is provisionally scheduled by mid-2006, and the first SLV flight
exercise would take place the next year. A test of the two systems
combined would be carried out by late 2007.

A prototype demonstrating HCV technology would be tested in 2009.

SLV rockets will also give the air force a cheap and flexible means to
launch military satellites at short notice, within weeks, days or even
hours of a crisis developing.

The SLV-Cav combination, according to the Darpa document, "will
provide a near-term (approximately 2010) operational capability for
prompt global strike from Consus (the continental US) while also
enabling future development of a reusable HCV for the far-term
(approximately 2025)". The range of this weapon is unclear.

This is what I wrote in April and so far I'm half right...
"And I'll bet a paycheck the Air Force will argue just that Real Soon
Now. Also the Space folks will likely chime in about the operational
usefulness of the Common Aero Vehicle as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were only a six carrier force by
2015."