Chinese Peril

Japan’s fear of China is helping Texas’s “Cowtown”
By Steve Mollman

Part of the massive Fort Worth plant where Lockheed Martin builds F-35s. 

Japan plans to buy at least 20 more F-35A stealth fighters over the next six years, according to a report by Reuters yesterday. 

What’s most notable about the news is not the number of jets, but where they will be made and assembled.
In December 2011, Tokyo announced it would replace its aging military jets with F-35s, which would become the mainstay of its air defense fleet. 

It ordered 42 from Lockheed Martin, in a deal then worth about $8 billion. 

But in a key concession, the company agreed to license(paywall) part of the production to a consortium of Japanese companies.
It was still a sweet deal for Lockheed Martin, which would continue to manufacture many of the most lucrative parts of the jet.  

But it would have been even sweeter if the plane was put together entirely in the US. 

Instead, final assembly for 38 of the fighters would be handled in Japan by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which last June unveiled the first completed product. 

Last month, the first F-35A arrived at Misawa Air Base in Japan to begin forming the nation’s new fleet.
But Japan’s F-35 project has been plagued by cost overruns (paywall), partly due to Mitsubishi’s difficulties in getting subcontractors to supply parts of the right quality. 

In yesterday’s Reuters report, sources said that purchasing the complete aircraft from the US, at about $100 million each, would save Japan $30 million per airframe.
That will mean more revenue for Lockheed Martin, and a need to hire more workers. 

That’s good news for “Cowtown,” otherwise known as Fort Worth, Texas, where the planes are made in a massive mile-long plant. 

The nickname Cowtown traces back to the city’s role in cattle transport via rail in the late 1800s. Today Dallas-Fort Worth is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the US.
Fort Worth has been making fighter jets for decades. 

The industry has ebbed and flowed, but lately, thanks to demand for the F-35, Lockheed Martin has been on a hiring spree—one that will rev up even more with the new order from Japan. 

In December the company held a fourth hiring event at a local hotel, the Star-Telegram reported, looking to bring on hundreds of workers for the F-35 assembly line, with some jobs paying up to $75,000 a year.
The F-35 program, started in 2001, has long been under intense criticism because of cost and scheduling overruns. 

In December 2016, Donald Trump, then the US president-elect, piled on more.
He took to Twitter to criticize its costs and pledged to save billions of dollars on military contracts.
He also threatened to replace the F-35 with the F-18 from Boeing.

That drew quick criticism—and even mockery—from the combat-aviation community. 

The F-18, unlike the F-35, is not a stealth jet. 

As Popular Science suggested, “it’s like suggesting a cruise ship can do the job of an aircraft carrier.”
Yet Trump was about to become the commander-in-chief.

  Nerves were rattled in Fort Worth. 

In January 2017, Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson met with Trump to explain some things. She said her company planned to add some 1,800 F-35 jobs in Fort Worth, and that the price of the advanced jet was going down as production increased and the project gained momentum. 

The Fort Worth plant already employed 14,000 workers at the time, about 8,800 of whom worked on the F-35.
Today, strong demand is kicking in from US allies in the Asia-Pacific. 

It’s driven largely by fears of a rising China that’s making increasingly sophisticated military technology—and not backing down from its questionable claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere. 

In addition to Japan’s new order, South Korea said in December it plans to order 20 more F-35As, building upon a previous request for 40. 

And Fort Worth workers are also working on F-35As for Australia to be delivered this year, part of an earlier order for 72.
What’s more, both Japan and South Korea are considering buying F-35Bs for use on warships. 

Japan for instance wants to put the fighter, capable of vertical landings, on its Izumo-class helicopter carriers. 

China quickly protested the idea, saying it would erode trust and violate Japan’s pacifist constitution.
F-35 workers in Cowtown might not monitor the news about China and its worried neighbors. 

But having dodged a bullet with Trump, they are most definitely affected by it.

The US Navy has a severe 'missile gap' with China and Russia — here's how it can beat them anyway

By Alex Lockie
Russia's navy fires cruise missiles. 

The US wields the world's biggest, most powerful Navy, but recent developments in China and Russia's missile inventory severely threaten the surface fleet with superior range and often velocity.
But the US Navy and Lockheed Martin have a variety of solutions in the works to tip the scales in the US's favor by going hard on offense.
For years, the Navy has focused on a concept called "distributed lethality," which calls for arming even the Navy's smallest ships with powerful weapons that can hit targets hundreds of miles out.
Yet Russian and Chinese ships and missile forces already field long-range precision missiles that can hit US ships before the forces are even close.
Additionally, both Russia and China are working on hypersonic weapons that could travel more than five times as fast as the speed of sound. 

These weapons would fly faster than current US ships could hope to defend against.
Meanwhile, tensions and close encounters between the US, Russia, and China have peaked in recent years, as Russia routinely threatens NATO ships in the Baltics and China cements its grab in the South China Sea.
Lockheed Martin's Chris Mang, vice president of tactical missiles and combat maneuver systems, told reporters at its Arlington, Virginia, office that "defense is good," but "offense is better.
"People don't shoot back when they go away," he said.
Mang said that promising new missiles like the Long Range Anti-Ship Missile for ships and planes could hit the field by 2020, which would bolster the Navy's strategy of "see first, understand first, shoot first." 

The LRASM boasts a range of well over 200 nautical miles, a payload of 1,000 pounds, and the ability to strike at nearly the speed of sound.
An anti-ship missile LRASM in front of a F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet. 

It also has a huge advantage that neither Russia or China has come close to cracking: naval aviation. Lockheed Martin officials said US Navy F-18s and long-range B-1B bombers could carry the LRASM as early as next year.
While the US has been surpassed in missile technology in some areas, the Navy still has a considerable edge in radar technology and command-and-control that can provide intelligence to ship captains faster than its adversaries.
As for the hypersonic weapons meant to redefine naval warfare, Mang said they're still a long way out. (The US Air Force and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are working on their own versions, though.)
An artist's concept of an X-51A hypersonic aircraft during flight. 

"How far do they go?" Mang said of the hypervelocity weapons. 

"They tend to be fuel-consumption-heavy and thermally limited, so they go really fast for a very short distance. If you can shoot them before they get in range of you, that is a tactic."
The Navy continues to improve and spread its Aegis missile-defense capabilities so the long-range missiles Russia and China have can be knocked out and the short-range hypersonic missiles they're developing can be out-ranged.
Though adversaries out-range the US Navy on paper, the US military has and will never be defeated by figures on paper. 

Instead, the US and Lockheed Martin seem to be pushing forward with proven technologies that would bolster the US's ability to protect its shores.