A compilation of test video showing how the CH-53K King Stallion delivers the capabilities needed by the U.S. Marine Corps.
12.16.2019
Video by Victoria Falcon
Naval Air Station Patuxent River
For an archive of CH-53K articles, see the following:
https://defense.info/system-type/rotor-and-tiltrotor-systems/ch-53k/
For a recent report on the CH-53K, see the following e-book:
Recently, the Australian Aegis combat ship, the HMAS Hobart, returned from its engagement in the Regional Presence Deployment 2020,
This Australian Department of Defence video highlights the engagement of the ship in the deployment.
This year, one of Australia’s most advanced warships is leading the Royal Australian Navy’s largest and most challenging deployment through Southeast Asia and the Pacific. HMAS Hobart brings her state-of-the-art maritime power to Regional Presence Deployment 2020.
Australian Department of Defence
October 7, 2020
We are publishing a book on Australian defence policy this December which provides an overview on the evolution of that policy and the defense policy reset under way.
Joint By Design Cover
By Eamon Hamilton
A trans-Pacific mission by an Air Force C-17A Globemaster has delivered a Bell 412 helicopter for the NSW Rural Fire Service.
Loaded by a No. 36 Squadron C-17A crew at Vancouver International Airport, Canada, the Bell 412 was delivered to RAAF Base Richmond on September 15, where it was reconstructed and received additional servicing.
The Bell 412 will be ready to combat bushfires this summer.
Commander Air Mobility Group Air Commodore Carl Newman said the mission was well-suited to the C-17A’s capabilities.
“One of the reasons that Defence purchased the C-17A was the aircraft’s ability to transport large loads like this helicopter over great distances, where and when they were needed,” Air Commodore Newman said.
“Using a C-17A to carry a Bell 412 across the Pacific is an outstanding example of a Defence asset in support of another government agency and one that will yield positive results for the broader Australian community.
“Our air mobility fleet has a strong record of supporting state-based emergency services, including during Operation Bushfire Assist, and we will continue providing support.”
It was the first time an Australian crew had transported a three-tonne Bell 412.
A special cargo instruction on how to safely load, restrain, and unload the helicopter was provided by Air Mobility Training and Development Unit.
To prepare for the journey to Australia, its rotor blades were stored in wooden crates and its entire fuselage was covered in a protective plastic.
Wheels were attached to the Bell 412’s landing skids and the helicopter was winched into the C-17A along special wooden ramps that were laid down on the transport aircraft’s cargo ramp.
Our air mobility fleet has a strong record of supporting state-based emergency services, including during Operation Bushfire Assist, and we will continue providing support.
This process was repeated in reverse at RAAF Base Richmond with help from No. 22 Squadron Air Movements personnel.
The NSW Rural Fire Service will use the Bell 412 for rapid aerial response and remote area programs, as well as search-and-rescue missions.
Operations support manager of the fire service, Chief Superintendent Chris Ryder, is responsible for the service’s fleet of aircraft.
“We can use it to look for fires that are small and try to put those firefighters into the field on those fires to ensure that they stay small over the season,” Chief Superintendent Ryder said.
“We also chase lightning storms and storm bands.
“We move the helicopter around the state, looking at weather patterns and storm cycles and obviously high fire danger to put them in the best place for the day.”
The fire service intends to use two other Bell 412s in this role. One has been shipped from Japan via commercial means and a third is still being sourced.
Chief Superintendent Ryder said COVID-19 slowed the delivery.
“There’s long delays to get things onto those ships and flying it out commercially is problematic at the moment with COVID-19,” he said.
“Our priority was to try and get the helicopter out for this fire season and thankfully we were able to go to Defence and they brought it out on a C-17A.”
The successful delivery of the Bell 412 continued the close working relationship between the NSW Rural Fire Service and Defence and, in particular, RAAF Base Richmond.
Since 2015, the base has served as a home for the fire service fleet of large air tankers, providing them with parking space and hangar facilities.
“Having them on the RAAF base works really well for us. It provides good security for the fleet,” Chief Superintendent Ryder said.
“We don’t get tied into commercial airline routines as well as having to fit into general traffic. It allows us to get off the base quite quickly and get airborne quite quickly.
“It’s an absolutely fantastic relationship that we hope is ongoing.”
Australian Department of Defence
In September 2020, a No. 36 Squadron (36SQN) C-17A Globemaster transported a Bell 412 helicopter from Canada to Australia.
The helicopter has been acquired by the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS) and will be utilised for rapid aerial response during the 2020/21 Bushfire Season, allowing small teams of fire-fighters to be delivered into remote locations and combat fires before the can grow out of control.
The use of a RAAF C-17A for this airlift task ensured the helicopter will be available in time for the bushfire season, with NSW RFS also utilising hangar facilities and other aviation services at RAAF Base Richmond for the helicopter’s reconstruction and modification.
Australian Department of Defence
October 12, 2020
A Royal Australian Navy MH-60R Seahawk helicopter from 816 Squadron, Nowra, during a recoverable torpedo exercise with a Mark 54 Lightweight Hybrid Torpedo, off the coast of Jervis Bay, New South Wales.
816 Squadron is Navy’s operational support squadron for the MH-60R ‘Romeo’ maritime combat helicopter. The squadron can deploy up to eight flights embarked in Navy’s fleet of Hobart class destroyers and Anzac class frigates, providing a ship or task group with an enhanced anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare capability. The crew, consisting of the Aircraft Captain, Mission Commander and Sensor Operator, combine to maximise the employment of the Romeo.
Australian Department of Defence
September 24, 2020
By Robbin Laird
On Friday, October 9, 2020, I had a chance to visit the USS Ford and to get an update on the progress of this formidable warship.
Earlier, Ed Timperlake and I have visited the USS Ford in 2015 and discussed the next generation large deck carrier with the ship’s captain, John Meier. Now Captain Meier is Rear Admiral Meier, Commander, Naval Air Force Atlantic.
This article provides an overview for a series on the strategic context into which the USS Ford is entering and the reshaping of how the large deck carrier will operate with the integrated distributed force.
I will provide a series of articles looking at specific aspects of the ship which make it a next generation carrier and will highlight the discussions onboard the ship during my visit about those various aspects.
Although the USS Ford draws on the generations of experience operating large deck carriers, the USS Ford is no more a Nimitz class replacement than the F-35 is a replacement for legacy aircraft.
The ship has a number of capabilities which allow it to have substantial increases in sortie generation rates which allows the ship to deliver mix and match force packages into the expanded battlespace.
And these capabilities will work differently with the fleet, understood more broadly, as inclusive not only of the Navy but with the US Air Force and Marine Corps as well.
The airwing of the future understood as the integratable air wing, new approaches to working fleet wide combat integrability, enhanced capabilities to work with the various elements of the joint and coalition forces more effectively, reworking blue water expeditionary operations, and shaping kill web dynamic targeting options, all provide the strategic context within which the USS Ford will operate.
In other words, it is not just a new ship; it is a new blue water capability empowering maritime and air power to operate in ways symmetrical with the challenges of full spectrum crisis management.
As such, the ship will benefit from the various force structure changes which the United States and its allies are generating but it will also drive further changes in concepts of operations and capabilities as well.
In many ways, it is an untold story.
For most discussions of the USS Ford have revolved around the new systems onboard the ship; not what those capabilities enable both for the fleet and the joint and coalition force, and, in turn, how those capabilities enable the new ship to leverage innovations being shaped for operations in the extended battlespace by the joint and coalition forces.
This series will provide an initial attempt to shape that narrative and that story.
E2D Landing on USS Ford from SldInfo.com on Vimeo.
The featured photo highlights my visit to the USS Ford. On the left is Ford’s top catapult officer (TOPCAT) Lt. Cmdr. Andy Kirchert and to my right is Rear Admiral Craig Clapperton, Carrier Strike Group 12 commander.
By Pierre Tran
Paris – France recently published its 2021 draft defense budget, which set aside €5 billion ($5.9 billion) for the nuclear deterrent, taking a chunk out of a total budget of €39.2 billion.
Hitting that nice round number showed the significance of nuclear weapons, on which France relies for its seat at the top table reserved for world military powers.
The draft budget includes €1 billion of studies to develop the nuclear ballistic missile submarine, and a fourth generation nuclear-tipped, air-to-ground missile, the air-sol nucléaire 4ème génération (ASN4G) to replace the present nuclear-armed cruise missile, dubbed air-sol moyenne portée amélioré (ASMPA).
France is proud of ownership of such weapons and its permanent seat on the UN security council, two possessions perhaps not unrelated. The five holders of that prized placement on the council are Britain, France, China, Russia and the US, all holders of thermonuclear arms.
There are other members on that UN council but they hold rotating posts.
Other nations are developing nuclear weapons, with India and Pakistan perhaps joining China, France and the UK in the ranks of “second order nuclear powers” by 2030, said an Oct. 2 report from the Fondation de Recherche Stratégique, a think tank.
The spread of Covid 19, however, has sown seeds of doubt, as there may be a “significant drop in investment” on the modernization of nuclear weapons if the crisis extends in time and depth, wrote the authors, Emmanuelle Maitre and Bruno Tertrais.
The French nuclear spending reflects political importance as each president will make a keynote speech which seeks to set out a new view on atomic weapons. President Emmanuel Macron sought Feb. 7 to make a moral evaluation of weapons of mass destruction, while calling for stronger world government.
Meanwhile, even when the economy suffers from chronic weak growth, heavy national debt, or a pandemic, there will be a ballistic missile submarine out at sea, ready to take orders from the president, whose aide de camp carries a black briefcase which holds launch commands.
Perhaps ownership of that lightning bolt of the Elysée presidential office shows a determination never to repeat a history of setbacks. Germany defeated France in 1870, almost overwhelmed the French forces in 1914, and occupied the country in 1940.
A then little known army general, Charles de Gaulle, made June 18 1940 from London a rallying call on the BBC for France to fight back against the Nazis.
De Gaulle who went on as president to field in 1964 an independent capability with a 50-strong fleet of Dassault Mirage IV nuclear bombers. France left Nato in 1966, backed by that strategic airborne weapon. There may well be a Cold War, but France sought its own nuclear umbrella, free from the call of Washington or London.
The navy sailed its first nuclear ballistic missile submarine, the Redoutable, in 1972, boosting the French force de frappe.
France rejoined Nato in 2009, but stayed out of the nuclear planning group, which sets policy on the use of weapons. That empty chair approach reflects the French pursuit of strategic autonomy, a concept often to be found in ministerial speeches.
The nuclear weapon shapes French defense policy, with the ballistic missile submarines and missiles on fighter bombers taking the pole position in the race for funding.
Warheads must be maintained and developed, communication links boosted, and inflight refuelling from tanker aircraft upgraded. There are nuclear engines for six attack and four ballistic missile submarines, and atomic power plant for the sole aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, with the fleet air arm flying Rafale fighter bombers with nuclear-tipped missiles.
Two land-based squadrons fly the airborne nuclear weapon, and France recently speeded up acquisition of A330 multirole tanker and transport jets to refuel those fighter bombers.
That makes the navy and air force winners in the budget, with the army relegated to poor bloody infantry, after cancellation of the Pluton tactical nuclear missile in 1993.
The army’s fight back for funding called for a brand name, Scorpion, seen as needed to sell its modernization drive.
Such a budgetary commitment to the nuclear weapon squeezes resources for other projects, such as a planned European medium-altitude, low-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, which must lobby for scarce funds. A limited budget allows little room for compromise.
The French version of the next generation fighter in the planned Future Combat Air System will carry an airborne nuclear missile, which will help drive the design of the aircraft, along with requirements for stealth, speed and artificial intelligence.
That nuclear armed fighter will also be deployed on the next generation aircraft carrier, playing a key role in the architecture of that capital vessel. There has been lobbying the future carrier will be nuclear powered, a decision to be made by Macron.
There is some expectation there may be an announcement on the future carrier at the Euronaval virtual trade show, which opens Oct. 19. Naval Group, the shipbuilder, hopes the Elysée will pick the nuclear powered option.
The €5 billion in 2021 shows a steady climb in spending on nuclear deterrent, up from €4.7 billion in 2020 and €3.6 billion in 2019, with the latter accounting for the largest single item for that year and a 10 percent increase from the previous year.
In the 2021 budget, the funds for payment on nuclear work rise to €4.1 billion, up seven percent from the previous year, said parliamentarian Jean-Charles Larsonneur, who sits on the defense committee of the lower house National Assembly.
However, authorized commitment to fund work fell 59 percent to €3.5 billion, signalling a sharp drop in future spending.
The €5 billion of nuclear work is drawn from a number of programs, including programs
144 and 178 for strategic research, 146 for equipment, and 212 for infrastructure.
Under program 146, which covers procurement and the deterrent, the largest single payment next year will be €1 billion of studies for “technological credibility,” namely upgrade of the ballistic missile submarines and the fourth generation air-to-ground nuclear missile, ASN4G.
Some €788 million has been earmarked for the M51.3 version of the M51 three-stage submarine ballistic missile. Work on the upgrade started in 2014, seeking to boost range.
Service support for deterrence will draw €700 million, while nuclear simulation will receive €650 million, with backing for the Mégajoule laser-based system and research on next generation computers.
Studies on engineering and de-risking technology on the third generation nuclear ballistic missile submarine will receive €365 million.
Some €112 million will be spent on a mid-life upgrade of the ASMPA air-to-ground missile.
The 2019-2023 military budget law has sent aside €25 billion for nuclear weapons, out of a total €198 billion in the multi-year program.
Tertrais and journalist Jean Guisnel forecast the modernization work would drive the annual nuclear budget to a peak of €6 billion some 10 years after their account of the French deterrent, Le President et La Bombe (Odile Jacob), was published in 2016.
The overall 2021 defense budget, announced on Sept. 28, rose to €39.2 billion, up 4.5 percent from the previous year, with €22.3 billion for equipment, according to the armed forces ministry. No details were available on that spending strand.
There will be an overall 2021 authorized commitment of spending of €15 billion, while payment will be €7.6 billion, up 11 percent from the previous year.
It remains to be seen whether the 2022 budget will be maintained according to the multi-year military budget law, as the national purse will be severely depleted by the pandemic.
But it is likely work on nuclear arms will hold privileged position, even in straitened times.
For a look at the French QRA approach shaped for nuclear strike but in terms of its broader operational impact, see the following:
https://breakingdefense.com/2018/05/french-quick-reaction-force-key-to-syrian-missile-strikes/
By Robbin Laird
As the fleet re-works blue water maneuver warfare and expeditionary operations from the sea, a key element of the effort is shaping an effective weaponization approach and strategy. Doing so is a work in progress and a major challenge for the United States and its allies.
During my discussions and visit to NAWDC, some elements which are crucial to shape an effective way ahead for the fleet, and the challenge as well of shaping the kind of training which will be needed to deliver the right combat effect at the right time were discussed.
The first point is pretty straightforward. The focus is upon how to shape fleet wide targeting.
This is part of the NAWDC-led effort to work TTPs for a force element, not just a single platform, or a platform operating off a single ship, such as Super Hornets working with an aircraft carrier.
The reason for this focus is rooted in a shift in how ISR is changing and how new options are becoming available for targeting, and as well how to do delivering targeting solutions.
This is what is implied in the shift from the kill chain to the kill web.
This was put particularly well by a senior RAAF commander in an interview I did with him in 2016. Because the Aussie Navy does not have an Air Force but relies on the RAAF to do the air part, they focus on integration at levels which in the United States requires two very large forces the US Navy and the USAF to work integrability.
“We need to be in the position where our maritime surface combatants are able to receive the information that we’ve got airborne in the RAAF assets. Once they’ve got that, they’re going to actually be trying to be able to do something with it. That is the second level, namely, where they can integrate with the C2 and ISR flowing from our air fleet. But we need to get to the third level, where they too can provide information and weapons for us in the air domain.
“That is how you will turn a kill chain into a kill web. That’s something that we want in our fifth-generation integrated force. And in a fifth-generation world, it’s less about who is the trigger shooter, but actually making sure that everybody’s contributing effectively to the right decisions made as soon as possible at the lowest possible level.”
A key element of the new approach is how platforms will interact with one another in distributed strike and defensive operations and enable cuing weapons across a task force.
The first point is rather significant—it is about how to leverage weapons capabilities across a task force and shaping an expanded capability and process for empowering third party targeting.
The second point is that there is a shift from a primary focus on deliberate targeting to dynamic targeting. As one analyst has put the issue of the shift affecting the maritime domain:
“Perhaps the most acute differences that the maritime theater will present are the target sets. Targets that can be categorized as deliberate will now be the exception to the rule. Relatively fixed land targets will yield to highly mobile maritime targets. Therefore, targets may be known but not fixed.”
This then highlights the importance of dynamic targeting for the fleet, a subject which I discussed last Spring with CDR Joseph Fraser, head of the Information Warfare Directorate, which has been designated the executive agent for targeting for the United States Navy.
In that interview our discussion focused on the evolving role of ISR enablement to a strike enterprise, and the challenges of working a kill web approach.
During the visit to NAWDC in July 2020, we continued that discussion. There is a clear need to expand targeting domain knowledge to include both non-lethal and lethal effects. Because the kinds of non-lethal effects as discussed with CDR Stephenson provide significant shaping functions in combat, non-lethal effects really need to factor into the entire sweep of how the strike function delivers combat effects.
CDR Fraser put it this way: “Nirvana for me is a fully integrated strike squadron capability that does both kinetic and non-kinetic missions to provide a range of options to the commander.”
Part of the challenge is putting in place a cadre of officers with the kind of strike domain knowledge covering both lethal and non-lethal who are not attached to a particular carrier wing. This would allow for the strengthening of the cadre and the ability to deploy to the operational need, rather than the operating cycle of a particular air wing.
The third point flows from the second. How to shape dynamic targeting knowledge and training, notably in terms of the dynamics of change both in terms of ISR availability and the evolution of the weapons enterprise?
How is one going to shape a training enterprise able to encompass fleet wide plus ISR (the MISR path) with knowledge of the various ways weapons which can be launched from air-sea-land locations to provide for the dynamic targeting required by the fleet?
The fourth point really would revolve around the weapons enterprise itself and how the fleet will be empowered by new ways to build out weapons arsenals and provide for adequate stockpiles for the force.
That was the subject of conversation with Captain Edward Hill, the oldest Captain in the U.S. Navy at sixty years of age. Because he goes back to the Cold War operating Navy, he can bring forward that experience to the return to the contested environment challenges facing the weapons enterprise.
Frankly, this was one of the most interesting interviews I have ever done with a Navy officer but will focus on only a couple of takeaways from that conversation. He is the head of the TLAM department and has been focused for some years on the challenges which TLAMS would face in a denied communications battlespace.
Although we discussed that issue, I am going to focus on three other issues which we discussed.
In addition to the readiness challenge which the U.S. Navy faced at the end of the last Admiration, the Navy has faced weapons shortages as well. Clearly, building adequate stockpiles of weapons is crucial.
But also important is working a new weapons mix to ensure that one is not forced by necessity to rely on the most expensive weapons, and the ones that will almost always have a stockpiling issue, but to have a much more cost effective weapons set of options.
As Captain Hill put it: “We need to get beyond golden bee- bee solution.
“We need to have a weapons barge come with the battle group that has an affordable weapons mix.
“We need $50,000 weapons; not just million-dollar weapons.
“We should have weapons to overwhelm an adversary with Joe’s garage weapons and not having to use the golden bee-bees as the only option.”
To get to this point raises a second aspect, namely, working out where one engages an adversary and what weapons mix one might need in that engagement area. With regard to the Pacific, in my view, as we address sea denial and sea control reaching out into the SLOCS, what weapons mix do we need in which particular engagement zone? It is not going to be all about hypersonic weapons.
The third point is about the C2 side of weapons engagement. As Captain Hill put it: “How do we train to be prepared for C2 disruptions and conflict in a high-end fight.”
For a strike force, this is the critical element of ensuring an ability to leverage a distributed weapons capability, but to do so with effective determined targeting solutions with the kind of tactical or strategic effect one is seeking. This means that C2 enabling an integrated distributed it force is not only a weapon but the foundational weapon enabling change in dynamic targeting for an innovative weapons enterprise.
One of the clearest expressions of the way ahead along these lines was an interview which I did in 2016 in Australia, with Rear Admiral Mayer, the commander of the Australian Fleet. This is how he characterized the C2 side of the weapons enterprise for an integrated but distributed force.
“The potential of each of the individual platforms in a network is such that we’ve actually got to preset the limits of the fight before we get to it. The decisions on what we’ll do, how much we’ll share, and what sovereign rights we will retain have to be preset into each one of the combat systems before you switch it on and join a network.
“There is no point designing a combat system capable of defeating supersonic threats and throttling it with a slow network or cumbersome C2 decision architecture. Achieving an effective network topology is so much more complex in a coalition context in which the potential for divergence is higher.
“The paradox is that a coalition network is much more likely a requirement than a national network, and yet what investment we do make is based on national systems first. If we don’t achieve the open architecture design that enables the synergy of a networked coalition force, then the effectiveness of the coalition itself will be put at risk. The moment we insert excess command and hierarchical decision authority into the loop, we will slow down the lethality of the platforms in the network.
“Before we even get in the battlespace, we have to agree the decision rights and preset these decisions into the combat system and network design; the fight for a lethal effect starts at the policy level before we even engage in combat operations.
“The network and C2 rather than the platforms can become the critical vulnerability. This is why the decision-making process needs to be designed as much as the network or the platforms. If the C2 matrix slows the network, it will dumb down the platform and the capability of the system to deliver a full effect.
“The nature of the force we are shaping is analogous to a biological system in which the elements flourish based on their natural relationship within the environment. We have an opportunity to shape both the platforms and the network, but we will only achieve the flourishing ecosystem we seek if each harmonize with the other, and the overall effectiveness is considered on the health of the ecosystem overall.
“For example, an ASW network will leverage the potential of the individual constituent platforms and that in turn will determine the lethality of the system. A discordant network connection will, at the least, limit the overall force level effect of the network and at worst break the network down to discordant elements.”
Clearly, a key part of the evolution is about shaping a weapons revolution whereby weapons can operate throughout the battlespace hosted by platforms that are empowered by networks tailored to the battlespace.
And that revolution will have its proper impact only if the network and C2 dynamics discussed by Rear Admiral Mayer unfold in the national and coalition forces.
“The limiting factor now is not our platforms; it’s the networks and C2 that hold the potential of those platforms down.
“When the individual platforms actually go into a fight, they’re part of an interdependent system[;] the thing that will dumb down the system will be a network that is not tailored to leverage the potential of the elements, or a network that holds decision authority at a level that is a constraint on timely decision[-]making. The network will determine the lethality of our combined system.”
The strategic shift from the land wars highlights the growing role of dynamic targeting in a contested environment.
And as new platforms and capabilities come into the force, they can be looked at in terms of how these new capabilities empower a kill web force, rather than simply fitting into the older kill chain appraoch.
For the U.S. Navy at NAWDC, the next generation carrier, the USS Ford can be viewed from this prism.
My visit last week to the USS Ford will highlight how indeed the next generation carrier is best understood from the standpoint of being able to deploy an integratabtle air wing and empowering interactive maritime kill webs in the extended battlespace.
Featured photo: A visit to the USS Ford, October 9, 2020.