The Bunker: From carriers to kennels

This week in The Bunker: The Navy flies ever closer to getting a carrier-based drone to refuel its carrier-based warplanes; the Pentagon inks a deal with its biggest contractor for a decade’s worth of jet fighters that’s woefully short on details; a defense startup reveals its plans to bioengineer better dogs for the U.S. military; and more.

STUNGRAY

Moving pieces on the Pacific chessboard

The challenge: U.S. Navy carrier-based attack planes need enough range to strike enemy targets while keeping their huge carriers beyond the range of land-based enemy missiles. Check.

This is where the U.S. Navy runs into rough seas. Each carrier (costing up to $20 billion including planes) and its 5,000 sailors make for a big, fat target. So the flattop has to turn up to a third of its roughly 40 F-18s into flying gas stations. Once airborne, these “buddy tankers” can feed fuel to their thirsty F-18s comrades. That gives the gas-gulpers the legs they need to reach the enemy, while still safely keeping their carrier beyond the reach of enemy missiles. Check.

Of course, using attack planes for refueling missions means they can’t attack (the Navy retired its last dedicated tankers 20 years ago). Check.

And making the attack planes fly further to their targets cuts the number of targets hit, reducing the carrier’s punch. Check.

That’s why the Navy is spending $19.4 billion (PDF) building 76 MQ-25 Stingray uncrewed carrier-based flying gas stations. That works out to $256 million — more than a quarter-billion dollars — each. They will free up the Navy F-18s currently assigned to refueling duties to carry out the attack missions for which they were built. Check.

On October 19, the Navy announced that a carrier steaming in the Pacific controlled a MQ-25 flying more than 2,000 miles away, for the first time. “The MQ-25A Stingray’s carrier-based refueling capabilities enable F/A-18 Super Hornets to fly farther and longer,” Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said. Check.

The technology associated with this effort is amazing. In fact, the MQ-25 is slated to be the first U.S. carrier-based drone (PDF). Check.

Yet the hardware hubris it represents is head-scratching. The Navy began work on a carrier-based attack drone in 1999. But after a series of twists and turns, it abandoned that ambitious effort two decades ago in favor of the simpler flying drone gas station. And developing even this more modest aircraft has proven daunting. An April assessment by the Pentagon acknowledges (PDF) numerous “breaches” in the MQ-25’s development schedule, which have pushed its initial operational capability from this year to 2029.

Meanwhile, the nation most interested in keeping our carriers at bay (AKA “away from Taiwan”) isn’t treading water. China continues to develop carrier-killing missiles, including ship- and air-based versions. If war comes to the western Pacific, it’s a coin toss who’s going to be able to say: Checkmate.

DECADE-DUNCE

About that 10-year F-35 deal…

There are a few data points missing from what the Pentagon said is its “landmark” deal with Lockheed for their troubled F-35 program. In their self-congratulatory October 22 statements, the world’s most powerful military and its biggest supplier scratched each other’s bottom line. The Pentagon trumpeted that the deal “finalized” a “framework,” which basically means, not to get too technical about it … nothing. Lockheed said the deal is “transformative” and “is expected to save taxpayers billions of dollars,” citing one of the Pentagon’s most over-used and under-realized phrases: “is expected.”

The Defense Department and Lockheed are hoping to buy at least 850 F-35s for the U.S. military (and up to 710 for foreign customers) over the coming 10 years. That’s 85 U.S. F-35s annually, nearly double what the Pentagon is buying now.

Here’s what we don’t know:

-- How much the planes will cost. Barebones F-35s currently cost about $100 million each. There was no estimate given of potential savings because of the colossal deal.

-- Whether Congress will pay for them. The Pentagon bought only 47 F-35s in 2026. While it’s seeking to buy 85 in 2027, only 32 of them are included in the Defense Department’s $1.1 trillion base budget. The other 53 are slated to be part of a separate $350 billion reconciliation bill, whose passage is looking increasingly unlikely.

-- The Pentagon said that, in exchange for this deal, Lockheed “will self-fund at least $7 billion in initiatives that support the F-35 Program.” But the Defense Department offered no details, and the dollar commitment was MIA from Lockheed’s statement.

-- “By aligning financial incentives with actual performance, we are ensuring our warfighters are equipped with the lethal capabilities they need to fight and win,” DOD’s under secretary of acquisition and sustainment Michael P. Duffey said. But neither he nor Lockheed offered details about those incentives (although Duffey did earn brownie-nose points for using “lethal,” the favorite word of his boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth).

There are hard F-35 numbers, but neither the Pentagon nor Lockheed cited them in announcing their pact: F-35s in service with the U.S. military were able to fly at least one of their assigned missions only 44% of the time in 2025, down from 67% in 2021. Only 25% were able to perform all their missions, down from 38% in 2021. Spare-parts shortages, software problems, and corrosion are keeping many F-35s grounded.

In a June report, the Government Accountability Office said that the Pentagon said it will need to spend an additional $13.7 billion over the next six years to bolster F-35 readiness. Plus, $38 billion more will be needed to replace F-35 engines that are wearing out sooner than projected because of the plane’s ravenous appetite for onboard electricity. Lockheed magnanimously noted that the deal “directly addresses Department of War and Congressional priorities to improve F-35 readiness” without sullying its statement with any numbers.

But beyond numbers, there’s a more pertinent question at hand: Does the wholesale procurement of human-occupied fighters — and, for that matter, carriers crammed with warplanes flown by flesh-and-blood pilots — make sense in our dramatically changing war world? It is becoming increasingly clear, even to those of us not outfitted with long-range radars, that tomorrow’s wars will not be won with yesterday’s weapons.

So why are we spending so much money on them?

DOGS OF WAR

Improving the Pentagon’s canine corps

“Cry ‘Havoc!’” Mark Antony declares in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “and let slip the dogs of war.” But Bill wrote that more than 400 years ago, when unleashing the dogs of war led to chaotic and violent conflict. These days, it represents a business opportunity.

Defense startup Warhound announced October 22 that it wants to create a new U.S.-based pipeline of military working dogs harnessing gene-tweaking, cloning, and battlefield kit tailored just for mutts. “A new breed of dominance,” Warhound’s website promises. The dogs’ current missions include patrolling, security, and detecting hidden explosives and drugs.

More than 80% of the Pentagon’s 2,200 current canine combatants come from Europe, “creating a critical interdependency on foreign nations for an asset the Pentagon itself calls irreplaceable,” the company said. But these new-age Pentagon pooches could be customized “for things like speed and agility or enhance olfactory sensors for bomb sniffing and whatnot,” Warhound Top Dog Ben Lamm told TechCrunch.

Warhound is a partnership between Lamm’s Texas-based Colossal Biosciences and California defense contractor Anduril. It has taken cell lines from Belgian Malinois and German Shepherds, the breeds most often drafted for military and first-responder missions, with an eye toward creating what Lamm calls “a new type of dog” early next year.

“Man’s best friend deserves man’s best tech,” Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey says.

“Don’t count your devil dawgs before they’ve hatched,” The Bunker advises.

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