大卡车，非豪华轿车 ZT

http://www.ecocn.org/thread-73983-1-1.html

英文原文：

http://www.economist.com/node/21559607

Military technology
军事科技

Trucks, not limos
大卡车，非豪华轿车




An American admiral calls for new military thinking and questions stealth technology
美国海军上将倡导新军事思想，质疑军方隐形技术
Jul 28th 2012 | from the print edition



Jonathan Greenert

SENIOR serving officers in any country’s armed forces tend to shun public controversy. But Admiral Jonathan Greenert, America’s chief of naval operations, has stoked it in the latest issue of a specialist journal. His article appeared to question the value of the stealth technologies that underpin the biggest weapons project in history, the vast and costly F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme.
任何国家军事武装力量的在职高级官员们都倾向于躲避大众的争议。然而，身为美国海军作战部长的乔纳森·格林纳特（Jonathan Greenert）上将却在一本专业刊物的最近一期上发表文章，挑起了一场公开辩论。他的文章似乎是要质疑军事隐形科技的价值。隐形科技支撑着美国历史上最大规模的武器工程——耗资巨大的F-35联合打击战斗机项目。


That is controversial enough: the F-35 is the Pentagon’s pride, exemplifying America’s technological lead and military supremacy. But the admiral’s argument, outlined in Proceedings, published by the United States Naval Institute, also has a wider theme. Military procurement is too focused on building ever-costlier new ships and aircraft of complex design, with built-in capabilities to meet specific threats. Instead of procurement being “platform-centric”, he wants it to be “payload-centric”: highly adaptable platforms able to carry weapons and sensors that can be added or removed, depending on the mission or on technological progress.
那已经够受争议的了。F-35联合攻击战斗机项目是五角大楼的骄傲，彰显了美国的领先科技和军事优势。但是，美国海军学院（http://www.usni.org/ ，译者注）发表的这篇的文章，其具体内容中格林纳特上将指出的意见，亦是可圈可点之处颇多。军事采购过分集中于组建史上最昂贵的军舰和设计精密的飞机，配备了内置的满足特殊威胁的功能（比如隐形技术，译者注）。与其将军事采购“以平台为中心”，上将要求要以“（导弹、火箭等的，译者注）有效载荷为中心”。适应性强的平台能够搭载武器和传感器，可添可减，取决于所在任务或者技术进步。


The “luxury-car” platforms designed in the last days of the cold war (and which still dominate much military procurement) have not adapted well to changes in security and technology, he says. Such platforms must always carry the sophisticated equipment to defeat a sophisticated foe. Yet much of this may be irrelevant to the navy’s typical missions in the past 20 years: counter-terrorism, anti-piracy, mine-clearing, maritime patrolling and carrier operations in support of counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
格林纳特上将表示，冷战后期设计的“奢华轿车型”平台（目前仍占据着大量的军事采购份额）不能很好地顺应军事安全和军事科技的变迁。这样的平台必须一直搭载尖端装备来制服一个老练的敌人。然而，过去的20年来很多这样的平台可能与海军的典型任务不相干，如反恐、反海盗、排雷、海上巡逻以及支持伊拉克和阿富汗反恐行动的航母军事行动。


Given the cost of building new platforms and the need to keep them in service for 30 to 50 years or even longer, Admiral Greenert wants them to be more like “trucks”: with plenty of space and power to accommodate different payloads. Some of the Pentagon’s oldest platforms have turned out to be much better trucks than their successors.
考虑到组建新平台的成本以及保持这些平台在30年到50年甚至更长时间里服役的需要，格林纳特上将要求他们更偏向于“大卡车型”平台（载荷大，译者注），拥有大量空间和能力来应对不同的有效载荷。比起新平台，五角大楼某些最老旧的战斗平台是更好的“大卡车”。


Because of its sheer size, its reserve electrical power and its small number of integral systems, at least compared with newer aircraft-carriers, the 50-year-old USS Enterprise has proved more adaptable than modern, densely packed designs. Unlike them, it has the space, storage and power-generating capacity to carry new aircraft types and new systems.
至少与新航空母舰相比，凭借老航空母舰的大尺寸，储备电力和小数量集成系统，50岁的美国“企业号"航空母舰比现代密集设计型航母（这里指现代航母平台愈发精密趋小化，译者注）更具适应性。不像现代航母，“企业号”具备物理空间，存储仓和发电能力，用于搭载新型飞机和新系统。


The same is true of the stalwart B-52 bomber. It first flew 60 years ago. It is now expected to stay in service until 2045. Conceived as a strategic bomber after the second world war, it has been recast many times. It is now proving to be a cost-effective platform for the latest precision-guided “stand-off” weapons (meaning those fired from afar). It is also more dependable than any of its more advanced successors.
至于强大的B-52轰炸机，道理是一样的。B-52轰炸机在60年前实现首飞。目前该机仍有望服役至2045年。作为第二次世界大战战后的战略轰炸机，其多次被重新改造。目前，最新精确制导防区外远程武器（译为远距离开火的武器）的使用证明了B-52轰炸机是一款成本节约型平台。它比起其他更先进的现代武器来更加值得信赖。


Another advantage of high-tech payloads over platforms stems from Moore’s law: the doubling of computer-chip speed every two years or less. This embarrasses military planners. Even their latest and fabulously expensive equipment often lacks the processing power of cheap consumer gadgets. It takes at least 15 years to bring a new ship or aircraft from design to completion. That can be eight or more cycles of Moore’s law.
比起那些平台来，高科技有效载荷的另一项优势来自摩尔定律：每两年或不到两年的时间里，计算机芯片速度翻一番。这个现象让军方决策者们苦不堪言。即便是军方最新最奢贵的装备，亦经常缺乏廉价（大众）消费品的处理能力。一艘新舰艇或一架舰载飞机，从研发设计到彻底完工（交付军方）耗时至少达15年之久。这些时间将近是摩尔定律（技术更新时间）的八倍或八倍以上了。


Mutiny amid bounty
For all its woes (chiefly cost overruns), the American navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is an attempt to build a modern “truck”, albeit a rather modest one. It can be reconfigured for each mission by adding or removing modules such as weapon systems, sensors, helicopters and drones. New modules are planned for anti-submarine warfare, minehunting, surface warfare, surveillance and special operations. Critics contend that the LCS is a jack of all trades that will be master of none, but its supporters are convinced its flexibility will make it a success.
军饷里的“叛变”
尽管军方存在这样的苦恼（主要是成本超支），美国海军的濒海战斗舰LCS是组建现代“大卡车”的一次尝试，尽管是规模十分有限。该战舰可根据每次任务而增加或移除模块，对模块进行重新配置，例如武器系统，感应器，舰载直升机以及无人机。新模块计划应用于反潜作战，海中排雷，海面战斗，军事侦察和一些特殊作业。批判者们持意见认为，濒海战斗舰这样的尝试是“通百艺即无一长"，然而其支持者们深信，平台的灵活性会让它成功的。


Admiral Greenert has whipped up an even bigger storm by saying that advantages from America’s prized stealth technology will be “difficult to maintain”. The other side’s sensors, he argues, may operate at lower electromagnetic frequencies than stealth technologies are designed to frustrate, and may use exponentially increasing processing power to work out where the stealth platform is from different angles or aspects. In other words, in the continuing struggle between hiders and finders, America will increasingly labour to keep the advantage it has enjoyed for two decades.
格林纳特上将声称，美国备受嘉奖的隐形科技优势将会很难保持。这番话掀起了另一场更大的风暴。他表示，比起隐形科技采用的低频电磁波设计来干扰敌方，敌方雷达感应器可运行更低频电磁波（例如微波等，译者注），并可以使用不断迅猛增长的（计算机）处理能力来计算出该隐形平台来自哪个方向或视角。换句话而言，随着这场军事躲猫猫游戏的接力（直译：在军事侦察与军事隐形之间的不断竞争中），美国想要保持近20年来享有的这项优势会愈来愈费力。


The admiral therefore calls for a shift from relying solely on stealth to using stand-off weapons, fired from such a distance that adversaries cannot shoot back, or by unmanned systems; or employing electronic-warfare devices to confuse or jam the other side’s sensors, rather than trying to hide from them. The unstated implication is that there are other ways of doing the same job as the stealthy F-35 more cheaply and more successfully.
因此，格林纳特上将呼吁转变，从仅依赖隐形转变到使用防区外远程武器，从远距离开火，敌军无法反击，或使用无人驾驶系统；或采用电子战装备来迷惑或阻塞敌军雷达感应器，而不是试图躲避雷达跟踪。格林纳特上将言下之意在于，有许许多多其他方案来完成F-35隐形战机的使命，更节约成本亦更成功。


Some defence analysts took the article as a signal that the navy, never thrilled by the F-35, might intend to make a big cut in the 480 aircraft it is meant to be buying to free money for other things. A few days after the article appeared, a spokesman for Admiral Greenert felt compelled to explain that his boss still backed the F-35.
一些防卫分析家认为该文释放出一个信号，美国海军对F-35隐形战机项目从来没有过青睐，可能会在480架飞机（的采购数量）上进行大幅削减，这意味着有更多的剩余资金来购买其他装备。该文章发表数日后，格林纳特上将发言人不得不解释，上将仍支持着F-35隐形战机。


Mark Gunzinger, an authority on air power at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a think-tank based in Washington, thinks the admiral was not so much aiming a broadside at the F-35 than making the case for having the right mix of aircraft for future carriers. An advocate of both the long-range Next Generation Bomber and the navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System, he points out that both should feature the stealthy designs that are needed to survive in hostile environments, and that forecasts of the death of stealth are very premature.
美国华盛顿智囊团——战略预算评估中心——研究空中力量的权威人士Mark Gunzinger认为，相比海军为未来航母多款战机的有效混合搭配而铺路，格林纳特上将并没有过多地强烈抨击F-35隐形战机。一名远程"新一代轰炸机"和美国海军"无人空战系统"的支持者指出，轰炸机和空战系统当以隐形设计为特色，为在险恶的敌方战场环境中生存而隐形。并且，对隐形技术消亡的预测还很不成熟。


Peter Singer, an expert on future weapons at the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, is more sceptical. He fears that advances in Chinese and Russian air-defence systems are eroding the advantages of stealth, and that the F-35 is further hobbled by its limited range. “It has very short legs,” he says, shorter than some planes from the second world war. It may be better “to play a different game”, relying more on precision strikes from afar, perhaps using hybrid transport-bombers carrying cruise missiles or swarms of drones. Because the F-35 has turned out to be so costly (after years of delays and cost overruns, the bill is now $396 billion), he fears it could blight the development of more capable systems. But whatever reservations the navy may have about the F-35, he notes that the Pentagon has deemed the programme “too big to fail”. Agreeing with Admiral Greenert’s analysis, Mr Singer asks: “Will it lead to any change in policy? That is the test.”
来自智囊团布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)的未来武器专家Peter Singer提出了更多的质疑。他担忧，中国和俄罗斯防空系统的领先技术正在蚕食着隐形技术的优势，由于作战半径有限，F-35隐形战机便愈加吃力了。“该战机作战半径很短，”Peter Singer表示，比起二战时期的一些飞机都捉襟见肘。貌似“打一场另类的战争”会更好，更多的依赖远距离精确打击，也许使用混合运输轰炸机搭载巡航导弹或成群无人机。由于F-35隐形战机已经耗资如此巨大（经数年耽搁及成本超支，花费目前达到了3960亿美元！）,Peter Singer担心其会破坏更具能力的系统的发展。但是不论美国海军持何种观点，他指出，五角大楼一直认为该项目“耗资巨大，绝不许败”。Peter Singer先生赞同格林纳特上将的分析，不禁问道："上将所分析的问题会带来军事政策上的一些变化吗？仅作试探吧。"
from the print edition | International

部分注解：

Military procurement 军备采购
“stand-off” weapons 防区外远程武器
Moore’s law 摩尔定律
a jack of all trades that will be master of none ：
"Jack of all trades, master of none" is a figure of speech used in reference to a person that is competent with many skills but is not necessarily outstanding in any particular one.http://www.ecocn.org/thread-73983-1-1.html

英文原文：

http://www.economist.com/node/21559607

Military technology
军事科技

Trucks, not limos
大卡车，非豪华轿车




An American admiral calls for new military thinking and questions stealth technology
美国海军上将倡导新军事思想，质疑军方隐形技术
Jul 28th 2012 | from the print edition



Jonathan Greenert

SENIOR serving officers in any country’s armed forces tend to shun public controversy. But Admiral Jonathan Greenert, America’s chief of naval operations, has stoked it in the latest issue of a specialist journal. His article appeared to question the value of the stealth technologies that underpin the biggest weapons project in history, the vast and costly F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme.
任何国家军事武装力量的在职高级官员们都倾向于躲避大众的争议。然而，身为美国海军作战部长的乔纳森·格林纳特（Jonathan Greenert）上将却在一本专业刊物的最近一期上发表文章，挑起了一场公开辩论。他的文章似乎是要质疑军事隐形科技的价值。隐形科技支撑着美国历史上最大规模的武器工程——耗资巨大的F-35联合打击战斗机项目。


That is controversial enough: the F-35 is the Pentagon’s pride, exemplifying America’s technological lead and military supremacy. But the admiral’s argument, outlined in Proceedings, published by the United States Naval Institute, also has a wider theme. Military procurement is too focused on building ever-costlier new ships and aircraft of complex design, with built-in capabilities to meet specific threats. Instead of procurement being “platform-centric”, he wants it to be “payload-centric”: highly adaptable platforms able to carry weapons and sensors that can be added or removed, depending on the mission or on technological progress.
那已经够受争议的了。F-35联合攻击战斗机项目是五角大楼的骄傲，彰显了美国的领先科技和军事优势。但是，美国海军学院（http://www.usni.org/ ，译者注）发表的这篇的文章，其具体内容中格林纳特上将指出的意见，亦是可圈可点之处颇多。军事采购过分集中于组建史上最昂贵的军舰和设计精密的飞机，配备了内置的满足特殊威胁的功能（比如隐形技术，译者注）。与其将军事采购“以平台为中心”，上将要求要以“（导弹、火箭等的，译者注）有效载荷为中心”。适应性强的平台能够搭载武器和传感器，可添可减，取决于所在任务或者技术进步。


The “luxury-car” platforms designed in the last days of the cold war (and which still dominate much military procurement) have not adapted well to changes in security and technology, he says. Such platforms must always carry the sophisticated equipment to defeat a sophisticated foe. Yet much of this may be irrelevant to the navy’s typical missions in the past 20 years: counter-terrorism, anti-piracy, mine-clearing, maritime patrolling and carrier operations in support of counter-insurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
格林纳特上将表示，冷战后期设计的“奢华轿车型”平台（目前仍占据着大量的军事采购份额）不能很好地顺应军事安全和军事科技的变迁。这样的平台必须一直搭载尖端装备来制服一个老练的敌人。然而，过去的20年来很多这样的平台可能与海军的典型任务不相干，如反恐、反海盗、排雷、海上巡逻以及支持伊拉克和阿富汗反恐行动的航母军事行动。


Given the cost of building new platforms and the need to keep them in service for 30 to 50 years or even longer, Admiral Greenert wants them to be more like “trucks”: with plenty of space and power to accommodate different payloads. Some of the Pentagon’s oldest platforms have turned out to be much better trucks than their successors.
考虑到组建新平台的成本以及保持这些平台在30年到50年甚至更长时间里服役的需要，格林纳特上将要求他们更偏向于“大卡车型”平台（载荷大，译者注），拥有大量空间和能力来应对不同的有效载荷。比起新平台，五角大楼某些最老旧的战斗平台是更好的“大卡车”。


Because of its sheer size, its reserve electrical power and its small number of integral systems, at least compared with newer aircraft-carriers, the 50-year-old USS Enterprise has proved more adaptable than modern, densely packed designs. Unlike them, it has the space, storage and power-generating capacity to carry new aircraft types and new systems.
至少与新航空母舰相比，凭借老航空母舰的大尺寸，储备电力和小数量集成系统，50岁的美国“企业号"航空母舰比现代密集设计型航母（这里指现代航母平台愈发精密趋小化，译者注）更具适应性。不像现代航母，“企业号”具备物理空间，存储仓和发电能力，用于搭载新型飞机和新系统。


The same is true of the stalwart B-52 bomber. It first flew 60 years ago. It is now expected to stay in service until 2045. Conceived as a strategic bomber after the second world war, it has been recast many times. It is now proving to be a cost-effective platform for the latest precision-guided “stand-off” weapons (meaning those fired from afar). It is also more dependable than any of its more advanced successors.
至于强大的B-52轰炸机，道理是一样的。B-52轰炸机在60年前实现首飞。目前该机仍有望服役至2045年。作为第二次世界大战战后的战略轰炸机，其多次被重新改造。目前，最新精确制导防区外远程武器（译为远距离开火的武器）的使用证明了B-52轰炸机是一款成本节约型平台。它比起其他更先进的现代武器来更加值得信赖。


Another advantage of high-tech payloads over platforms stems from Moore’s law: the doubling of computer-chip speed every two years or less. This embarrasses military planners. Even their latest and fabulously expensive equipment often lacks the processing power of cheap consumer gadgets. It takes at least 15 years to bring a new ship or aircraft from design to completion. That can be eight or more cycles of Moore’s law.
比起那些平台来，高科技有效载荷的另一项优势来自摩尔定律：每两年或不到两年的时间里，计算机芯片速度翻一番。这个现象让军方决策者们苦不堪言。即便是军方最新最奢贵的装备，亦经常缺乏廉价（大众）消费品的处理能力。一艘新舰艇或一架舰载飞机，从研发设计到彻底完工（交付军方）耗时至少达15年之久。这些时间将近是摩尔定律（技术更新时间）的八倍或八倍以上了。


Mutiny amid bounty
For all its woes (chiefly cost overruns), the American navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is an attempt to build a modern “truck”, albeit a rather modest one. It can be reconfigured for each mission by adding or removing modules such as weapon systems, sensors, helicopters and drones. New modules are planned for anti-submarine warfare, minehunting, surface warfare, surveillance and special operations. Critics contend that the LCS is a jack of all trades that will be master of none, but its supporters are convinced its flexibility will make it a success.
军饷里的“叛变”
尽管军方存在这样的苦恼（主要是成本超支），美国海军的濒海战斗舰LCS是组建现代“大卡车”的一次尝试，尽管是规模十分有限。该战舰可根据每次任务而增加或移除模块，对模块进行重新配置，例如武器系统，感应器，舰载直升机以及无人机。新模块计划应用于反潜作战，海中排雷，海面战斗，军事侦察和一些特殊作业。批判者们持意见认为，濒海战斗舰这样的尝试是“通百艺即无一长"，然而其支持者们深信，平台的灵活性会让它成功的。


Admiral Greenert has whipped up an even bigger storm by saying that advantages from America’s prized stealth technology will be “difficult to maintain”. The other side’s sensors, he argues, may operate at lower electromagnetic frequencies than stealth technologies are designed to frustrate, and may use exponentially increasing processing power to work out where the stealth platform is from different angles or aspects. In other words, in the continuing struggle between hiders and finders, America will increasingly labour to keep the advantage it has enjoyed for two decades.
格林纳特上将声称，美国备受嘉奖的隐形科技优势将会很难保持。这番话掀起了另一场更大的风暴。他表示，比起隐形科技采用的低频电磁波设计来干扰敌方，敌方雷达感应器可运行更低频电磁波（例如微波等，译者注），并可以使用不断迅猛增长的（计算机）处理能力来计算出该隐形平台来自哪个方向或视角。换句话而言，随着这场军事躲猫猫游戏的接力（直译：在军事侦察与军事隐形之间的不断竞争中），美国想要保持近20年来享有的这项优势会愈来愈费力。


The admiral therefore calls for a shift from relying solely on stealth to using stand-off weapons, fired from such a distance that adversaries cannot shoot back, or by unmanned systems; or employing electronic-warfare devices to confuse or jam the other side’s sensors, rather than trying to hide from them. The unstated implication is that there are other ways of doing the same job as the stealthy F-35 more cheaply and more successfully.
因此，格林纳特上将呼吁转变，从仅依赖隐形转变到使用防区外远程武器，从远距离开火，敌军无法反击，或使用无人驾驶系统；或采用电子战装备来迷惑或阻塞敌军雷达感应器，而不是试图躲避雷达跟踪。格林纳特上将言下之意在于，有许许多多其他方案来完成F-35隐形战机的使命，更节约成本亦更成功。


Some defence analysts took the article as a signal that the navy, never thrilled by the F-35, might intend to make a big cut in the 480 aircraft it is meant to be buying to free money for other things. A few days after the article appeared, a spokesman for Admiral Greenert felt compelled to explain that his boss still backed the F-35.
一些防卫分析家认为该文释放出一个信号，美国海军对F-35隐形战机项目从来没有过青睐，可能会在480架飞机（的采购数量）上进行大幅削减，这意味着有更多的剩余资金来购买其他装备。该文章发表数日后，格林纳特上将发言人不得不解释，上将仍支持着F-35隐形战机。


Mark Gunzinger, an authority on air power at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a think-tank based in Washington, thinks the admiral was not so much aiming a broadside at the F-35 than making the case for having the right mix of aircraft for future carriers. An advocate of both the long-range Next Generation Bomber and the navy’s Unmanned Combat Air System, he points out that both should feature the stealthy designs that are needed to survive in hostile environments, and that forecasts of the death of stealth are very premature.
美国华盛顿智囊团——战略预算评估中心——研究空中力量的权威人士Mark Gunzinger认为，相比海军为未来航母多款战机的有效混合搭配而铺路，格林纳特上将并没有过多地强烈抨击F-35隐形战机。一名远程"新一代轰炸机"和美国海军"无人空战系统"的支持者指出，轰炸机和空战系统当以隐形设计为特色，为在险恶的敌方战场环境中生存而隐形。并且，对隐形技术消亡的预测还很不成熟。


Peter Singer, an expert on future weapons at the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, is more sceptical. He fears that advances in Chinese and Russian air-defence systems are eroding the advantages of stealth, and that the F-35 is further hobbled by its limited range. “It has very short legs,” he says, shorter than some planes from the second world war. It may be better “to play a different game”, relying more on precision strikes from afar, perhaps using hybrid transport-bombers carrying cruise missiles or swarms of drones. Because the F-35 has turned out to be so costly (after years of delays and cost overruns, the bill is now $396 billion), he fears it could blight the development of more capable systems. But whatever reservations the navy may have about the F-35, he notes that the Pentagon has deemed the programme “too big to fail”. Agreeing with Admiral Greenert’s analysis, Mr Singer asks: “Will it lead to any change in policy? That is the test.”
来自智囊团布鲁金斯学会(Brookings Institution)的未来武器专家Peter Singer提出了更多的质疑。他担忧，中国和俄罗斯防空系统的领先技术正在蚕食着隐形技术的优势，由于作战半径有限，F-35隐形战机便愈加吃力了。“该战机作战半径很短，”Peter Singer表示，比起二战时期的一些飞机都捉襟见肘。貌似“打一场另类的战争”会更好，更多的依赖远距离精确打击，也许使用混合运输轰炸机搭载巡航导弹或成群无人机。由于F-35隐形战机已经耗资如此巨大（经数年耽搁及成本超支，花费目前达到了3960亿美元！）,Peter Singer担心其会破坏更具能力的系统的发展。但是不论美国海军持何种观点，他指出，五角大楼一直认为该项目“耗资巨大，绝不许败”。Peter Singer先生赞同格林纳特上将的分析，不禁问道："上将所分析的问题会带来军事政策上的一些变化吗？仅作试探吧。"
from the print edition | International

部分注解：

Military procurement 军备采购
“stand-off” weapons 防区外远程武器
Moore’s law 摩尔定律
a jack of all trades that will be master of none ：
"Jack of all trades, master of none" is a figure of speech used in reference to a person that is competent with many skills but is not necessarily outstanding in any particular one.