By Robbin Laird
In my last article, I highlighted a third way one can discuss autonomous systems working with manned air systems. This third way would focus upon crafting combat clusters which work in a combined arms operation involving a manned air system with autonomous maritime systems especially working as a wolf pack.
Prior to discussing a notional case of doing so, I would like to focus on why one would want to be able to do so.
For me, the answer to this lies in my assessments of the Marines and their focus on enhanced force mobility to deal with the threats from peer adversaries.
The focus has been upon an ability to distribute a force, to reduce the signature of that distributed force and to move more rapidly across the combat chessboard in order to be able to target the adversary more effectively from the points of interest where those dynamic distributed forces operate.
During my visits to MAWTS-1 in Yuma Arizona since 2018, there is a clearly evident focus on finding ways to be able to do what I have just described. During my November 2023 visit, such a focus was evident throughout the interviews with the officers at the command.
For example, I noted after the visit:
When I was last at MAWTS-1 in 2020, they were starting to work on how to enhance the deployability and mobility of the Marine Corps and to do so in formations smaller than the traditional MAGTF. During this visit, my discussions with the department heads underscored how much work they have done in terms of doing expeditionary basing, innovations in Forward Refueling and Re-Arming points and ways to reduce the signature of the deployed force.”
In that visit, my discussion with the Aviation Ground Support (AGS) Department Head, Maj Justin Atkins, a USMC combat engineer, focused on the signature management challenge.
Atkins noted that in his deployments to date, they had not really focused on signature management. When fighting the land wars, signature management was not a key issue. But when dealing with more advanced adversaries, obviously operations in the electro-magnetic spectrum had a key effect on the movement and operation of forces.
With regard to Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO), the question of how to manage forces across the combat chessboard is clearly affected by signature management and the need to organize force in ways to reduce it or to mask it. He noted that most of AGS activities are focused on FARP operations as the means to do EABOs.
They have worked multiple configurations of FARPs to do so but have not found an optimal solution. We are building small tactical teams and exploring ways to sense, communicate, and to operate in the battlespace with mobility. But how to ensure that such teams have the desired effects?
He noted that they work with the spectrum warfare department to do two things. First, they work with them to reduce their spectrum signature footprint. Second, they are working as well to copy that footprint to provide means to mask operations as well.
Maj Atkins noted: Before coming to MAWTS, I never looked at the question of electromagnetic spectrum whatsoever. Now it is a central consideration of my focus and effort.
In short, the Marines at MAWTS have been working new ways to do FARPS as a way to do EABOs, but there are key limitations to what one can do in the real world. And ultimately, the key combat question can be put simply: What combat effect can you create with an EABO? How does the joint force use an EABO in creating a joint effect? And what is the relationship of the creation of EABOs to what the Marines do when the National Command Authority calls on them to deploy?
My discussions with LtGen Heckl, Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command, and the Deputy Commandant for Combat Development and Integration, expanded on this challenge and highlighted the importance of introducing autonomous systems in the force to provide for the kind of force mobility and support the Marine Corps was looking for.
LtGen Heckl argued in one of our interviews:
It is about survivability and a key to being able to do that is signature management. We are keenly focused on reduced electronic magnetic signature management in how we think about deployment of the force and doing so with an eye to how the deployed force can integrate sensors with strike.
“It really is about a kill web in which the real value proposition is reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance reducing your vulnerabilities and exposing those of the adversary and enabling effective strike.”
It is in this context that Heckl discussed autonomous systems. “We are focusing on a broad range of autonomous systems capabilities. They aid significantly in signature management. If they are unmanned, you don’t have the weight or equipment necessary for a man onboard whether it be a ship or an airborne system. It means as well you can get better value out of your manned aviation assets or your ships.
“With regard to our lift assets – C-130s, CH-53s, or Ospreys – they can carry the most essential elements to an EABO but can be supplemented by a variety of autonomous systems which reduces the overall signature of the force and allows for enhanced flexibility of the force.”
Logistics in LtGen Heckl’s view is the pacing function for a distributed force. How to sustain a distributed force? This will be a combination of the air and sea manned assets as well various autonomous systems. He highlighted work being done for the USMC to build unmanned surface vessels to carry logistics to the point of need.
In another of our interviews, he added this core point:
The real value proposition we are putting forward as the Stand in Force for the joint force is our sensing capability. The insertion of Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) of a sensing capability that can link with other assets, such as the F-35, allows us to sense, connect, and operate even in the face of the denial of space-based assets.
When we’re in an integrated environment, everything we’re doing, we’re approaching from that perspective so that we will still be active even when an adversary takes action to degrade our ability to connect, we will still be connected.
For me, the discussions at MAWTS-1 and with LtGen Heckl provide the launch point for considering why a combined arms operation of manned air systems with a maritime autonomous system wolfpack can be a significant innovation in rethinking how to leverage the force you have now to have the future capability you want now.
I will turn in the next article to a notional case of how one could do so.
Featured Photo: ARABIAN GULF (Oct. 23, 2023) A Lethal Miniature Aerial Missile System launches munitions from a MARTAC T-38 Devil Ray unmanned surface vehicle, attached to U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s Task Force 59, during Exercise Digital Talon in the Arabian Gulf, Oct. 23. U.S. Naval Forces Central Command recently completed Exercise Digital Talon, demonstrating the ability of unmanned platforms to pair with traditionally crewed ships in “manned-unmanned teaming” to identify and target hostile forces at sea. Then, using munitions launched from another unmanned platform, engaged and destroyed those targets. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Justin Stumberg)
Autonomous Systems and Manned Platforms: From Teaming to Combined Ops