Ranked: The 5 Best US Military Weapons Never Built

Summary and key points: This article examines five military weapons systems that were canceled but that might have had a transformative effect had they survived. These systems, which include the AH-56 Cheyenne helicopter, the B-70 Valkyrie bomber, the A-12 Avenger stealth aircraft, Future Combat Systems (FCS), and the Sea Control Ship (SCS), each represented innovative approaches to modern warfare.

– However, they fell victim to several challenges, such as budgetary constraints, technological immaturity, inter-service rivalry and changing military priorities.

-While canceling military operations often made sense at the time, they also had lasting consequences for military strategy and procurement. Sometimes they led to missed opportunities for progress in warfare.

Five Cancelled Military Projects That Could Have Changed Warfare Forever

Weapons die for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they happen at the wrong time, either amid defense budget cuts or with the wrong staffing. Sometimes they fall victim to the Pentagon’s byzantine bureaucracy or to interservice infighting. And sometimes they die because they were a bad idea in the first place. For the same reasons, bad defense systems can often survive the most inept management if they fill a niche well enough.

This article focuses on five systems that died, but could have had transformative effects had they survived. These transformations would rarely have changed the course of wars (countries win and lose wars for many reasons besides technology), but rather would have had ripple effects throughout the defense-industrial base, changing the way our militaries approached warfare and procurement. Not all changes would have been for the better; sometimes programs are canceled for good reasons.

AH-56 Cheyenne:

It was only in the early 1960s that the military began to appreciate the value of helicopter flying. The military had used helicopters at the end of World War II and had used them extensively in Korea for reconnaissance and evacuation purposes. However, as the machines became more advanced, the military began to see the prospect of much more advanced helicopters that could perform a wide range of missions.

The star of the show was to be the AH-56 Cheyenne, a radical design that combined high speed with striking power. The Cheyenne could accompany other helicopters on transport missions, or independently perform ground support and attack operations. In particular, it featured a superb propulsion system that could provide speeds of up to 275 miles per hour.

But the Cheyenne became a victim of its own promise. The technologies that made the Cheyenne possible were not yet mature, and the first prototypes suffered from teething problems, leading to a fatal crash. The Air Force hated the whole idea of ​​the Cheyenne, believing that the Army was trying to steal air support and interdiction missions for itself. The Air Force even went so far as to propose a fixed-wing attack aircraft (which would eventually become the A-10) in an attempt to kill the program. Finally, the Vietnam War put enormous pressure on the defense budget, both in terms of making certain programs harder to sell, and in diverting funds to directly support the war effort.

And so the Cheyenne never came. Although the Army would continue with the AH-64 Apache for a few years later. In that sense, the cancellation of the Cheyenne only delayed an advanced attack helicopter capability. But the Apache was also a much safer machine than the Cheyenne, and the move to the more conventional system undoubtedly narrowed the horizons of Army aviation.

B-70 Valkyrie:

The B-70 Valkyrie deserves its own opera cycle. Envisioned as a replacement for the B-52 Stratofortress and B-58 Hustler, the B-70 was designed to penetrate Soviet airspace at high altitudes and above Mach 3. Beloved by the “Bomber Mafia,” a generation of high-ranking officers who had earned their stripes in the Combined Bomber Offensive of World War II, the B-70 represented the future of air power for many.

And just to show that I’m not a hard-hearted person, and that it’s not all about dollars and cents, the B-70 was a beautiful airplane. Long and sleek, the Valkyrie looks more like a spaceship than an airplane. The surviving prototype is still on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.

But the Valkyrie was enormously expensive, and this expense made it vulnerable. First President Eisenhower, then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, were less than enthusiastic about the idea of ​​spending huge sums on another heavy bomber when ICBMs were showing promise for delivering nuclear weapons to the Soviet homeland. Advances in Soviet interceptor and surface-to-air missile technology also made the B-70’s mission considerably more dangerous than originally anticipated.

After building only two prototypes (one of which was lost in a PR stunt), the Air Force halted production. Fifteen years later, the B-1B, with some superficially similar features, would enter service.

The B-70’s effect on the Air Force would, on balance, have been quite negative. Spending enormous resources on acquiring another strategic bomber would have diverted attention from both tactical airpower and missile power. B-70s would have been used (in desperation) to bomb Vietnam during Operations Linebacker I and II, but they probably would not have performed any more effectively than the B-52s they replaced. And both the B-52 and the B-1B have shown themselves to be remarkably flexible in terms of missions and update technologies, in part because they can accommodate larger crews (4 and 5 respectively) than the Valkyrie (2). McNamara saved the Air Force from itself by preventing a long, deep procurement gap that would have lasted thirty years.

A-12 Avenger:

What if we had a stealth bomber that could take off from aircraft carriers? In the mid-1980s, the Navy needed a replacement for the beloved but venerable A-6 Intruder. Capitalizing on expectations about the advancement of stealth technology, McDonnell Douglas developed the A-12 Avenger, a subsonic “flying wing” bomber that visually resembled a miniature B-2 Spirit. Combining stealth with the flexibility of aircraft carriers, the A-12 promised an unparalleled deep strike capability. Even the Air Force expressed interest in the A-12 as a replacement for the F-111 Aardvark.

But there were problems. Early expectations about the stealth coating proved optimistic, and the repairs significantly increased the Avenger’s weight. Costs rose, but the aircraft did not. The biggest problem, however, was that the Avenger entered the design and production cycle just as the Cold War was ending. Faced with a tight defense budget, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney decided to scrap the A-12 in favor of less risky programs.

The consequences of the cancellation are still being felt today. Instead of buying an advanced stealth bomber, the Navy opted for the Super Hornet, a significant, but conventional, upgrade over the F-18s it already had. Ultimately, the continued need for a carrier-based stealth attack aircraft would manifest itself in the F-35C, a program that still teeters between “disaster” and “epic disaster.” Even if the F-35C somehow works, the Navy gave up the deep strike mission when it opted for the Super Hornet. The Air Force is now concentrating on the Next Generation Bomber, a project that in many ways closely resembles the A-12. The death of the A-12 effectively changed the nature of the USN carrier wing for a generation or more.

Future combat systems:

In the early 21st century, the theory known as the Revolution in Military Affairs resulted in a major procurement plan for the Army known as “Future Combat Systems.” In short, the application of RMA theory to modern operations suggested that the combination of precision-guided munitions, high processing speeds, real-time communications, and comprehensive sensor capabilities would transform the way armies fought. Future Combat Systems envisioned an integrated system of weapons, vehicles, and sensors that could prove lethal and decisive across the combat spectrum. The Army expected that every element of the system would support the goal of pairing sensors with shooters, increasing killing power while simultaneously reducing the footprint. Army planners also intended that FCS would result in lighter, more deployable brigades.

But then the Bush administration dropped the Iraq War on the U.S. military. Iraq created major problems for the development of the FCS program. Intellectual energy and material that had been devoted to fully developing the FCS concept was instead diverted to waging the war. The conflict required systems (such as the MRAP) that did not fit into the FCS concept. Perhaps most importantly, the course of the war called the RMA theory into question, with guerrilla fighters consistently bludgeoning their technologically advanced American enemies.

And so the FCS died a slow death. The vision of a coherent system-of-systems surrendered to the need to field certain capabilities in a piecemeal fashion, regardless of their role in the larger puzzle. The Army fought the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with a mix of new and old systems, combined with weapons that had no place in its future expectations. While individual parts of the FCS vision survive, the ideal has given way to budgetary and military realities.

Sea control vessel:

What if, instead of a few very large aircraft carriers, the US Navy had built many small aircraft carriers? During World War II, the Royal Navy and the US Navy (USN) used large numbers of escort carriers, small flat-bottomed aircraft that could support anti-submarine and amphibious operations.