By Robbin Laird

As we work through force structure change to deal with the new strategic environment, terms like C2, ISR and training are being changed significantly.

New concepts of operations are being shaped, with modifications of existing platforms to play new roles and responsibilities, and new platforms being designed to enable an integratable force.

With the crafting of an integrated distributed force able to operate through interactive kill webs, the ability and capability to shape task forces appropriate to crisis management challenge is enabled.

To do so effectively, rests upon how specific platforms can work together, which, in turn, depends in significant part on what wave forms they have onboard which enables them to work together in a crisis management environment.

In my discussion with the Navy Air Boss earlier this year, we focused on a better way to describe how the US Navy is reworking its fleet concepts. They are no longer simply doing training for a set piece carrier air wing, they are evolving it with regard to an integratable air wing.

In that discussion, we highlighted the rethink from operating and training an integrated air wing to an integratable air wing.

Vice Admiral Miller provided several examples of how this shift affects the thinking about new platforms coming onboard the carrier deck.

One such example is the new unmanned tanker, the MQ-25. The introduction of this new air asset will have an immediate effect in freeing up 4th gen fighters, currently being used for tanking, to return to their strike role.

Even more importantly from a transformation perspective, the MQ-25 will have operational effects as a platform which will extend the reach and range of the CVW.

But MQ-25 will be a stakeholder in the evolving C2/ISR capabilities empowering the entire combat force, part of what, in my view, is really 6th generation capabilities, namely enhancing the power to distribute and integrate a force as well as to operate more effectively at the tactical edge.

The MQ-25 will entail changes to the legacy air fleet, changes in the con-ops of the entire CVW, and trigger further changes with regard to how the C2/ISR dynamic shapes the evolution of the CVW and the joint force.

The systems to be put onto the MQ-25 will be driven by overall changes in the C2/ISR force.

These changes are driving significant improvements in size, capability, and integration, so much so that it is the nascent 6th gen.

This means that the USN can buy into “6th gen” by making sure that the MQ-25 can leverage the sensor fusion and CNI systems on the F-35 operating as an integrated force with significant outreach.

It is important to realize that a four-ship formation of an F-35 operating as an integrated man-machine based sensor fusion aircraft is can operate together as a four-ship pack fully integrated through the CNI system, and as such can provide a significant driver of change to the overall combat force.

This affects not only the future of training, but how operations, training, and development affect individual platforms once integrated into the CVW and larger joint force.

This is having a significant impact on Naval Air Warfare Development Center (NAWDC) based at Fallon.

I have conducted a wide range of interviews with NAWDC officers, and the change driven by the integratable air wing focus is dramatic.

Not only is the training of platforms being altered, but NAWDC has set up two weapons schools, one MISR or Maritime ISR, and the other focused on dynamic targeting, both of which are in turn based on the ability of the force to be integratable, which is rooted in available wave forms.

When I refer to standing C2 on its head, what I mean is simply, that C2 and wave form availability is becoming a foundational element for force generation in contested combat environments, rather than simply being ways to connect platforms operating in sequential operations.

A clear case in point is the changing nature of what an amphibious task force can deliver as integratability is shaped going forward with a USMC force which can operate common wave forms with the US Navy and the US Air Force.

For example, with common wave forms, the Viper attack helicopter can marry upon with the Seahawk Romeo to provide an entirely new flank defense and attack capability for the amphibious task force.

What is required are common wave forms, and common training to shape such a capability.

The key point is that without the common wave forms an entire force structure capability is currently absent which is crucial for sea control and sea denial activities which COULD be generated by the amphibious task force.

In a recent discussion with Marines at Aviation Headquarters at the Pentagon, the potential along these lines was highlighted.

By working integration of the MH-60 Romeo helicopter with Viper, the fleet would gain a significant defense at sea capability. 

Integration of the two helicopters within the amphibious task force would allow them to provide an integrated capability to screen and defend the flanks of the afloat force.

The MH-60 crews are optimized to integrate into the Navy’s command and control architecture, and with onboard sensors can help detect potential targets and direct Vipers to engage threats.

The integration of Link-16 will make this effort even more seemless.

My interviews with NAWDC have underscored how the Navy is working through the question of how the integratable air wing will change when the MQ-25 joins the fleet, and working ways for the Romeo to work with MQ-25 and Advanced Hawkeye will inform Romeo as part of its fleet defense function.

“The Romeo community is already looking at how having sensors onboard the MQ-25 can expand the reach and range of what the Romeo’s onboard sensors can accomplish for the maritime distributed force.

“It is also the case that as sensor demands currently made on the Romeo can be shifted elsewhere.

“The Romeo can refocus its task priorities and enhance its contributions to broader mission sets such as ASW and to focus on contributing capabilities that other platforms within the strike group are not prioritized to perform.”

Clearly, integrating Romeos which fly onboard the amphibious class ships with the Viper would provide a significant enhancement of the flank defense capabilities for the amphibious task force.

And working a Romeo/Viper package would affect as well the evolution of the Romeos that would fly off of the L class ships as well.

And all of this, frees up other surface elements to support other missions at sea, rather than having to focus on defending the amphibs as greyhound buses. 

Another example of what the new generation of C2 can do is clearly the CNI system within the F-35, which enables the Marines to not just integrate their F-35s and to work a different approach to knowledge management to inform the maneuver force, but allows Marine Corps F-35s to be integratable with joint and coalition F-35s as well.

The integration of the F-35 into the Marine Corps and its ability to work with joint and coalition F-35s provides significant reach to F-35 empowered mobile bases afloat or ashore

In a recent interview which I conducted with Major Brian “Flubes” Hansell, MAWTS-1 F-35 Division Head, we discussed at length what the coming of the F-35 and its integratability capabilities meant for the evolution of the USMC and its role with joint and coalition partners.

The coming of the F-35 to the USMC has expanded their ability to operate within a broader kill web and to both empower their expeditionary bases as well as to contribute to the broader kill web approach.

The Marine’s F-35s are part of the broader joint and coalition force of F-35s, and notably in the Pacific this extends the reach significantly of the Marine’s F-35s and brings greater situational awareness as well as reach to other strike platforms to the force operating from an expeditionary base as well as enhancing the kill web reach for the joint or coalition force.

As Major Hansell put it: “By being an expeditionary, forward-based service, we’re effectively extending the bounds of the kill web for the entire joint and coalition force.”

The F-35 is not just another combat asset, but at the heart of empowering an expeditionary kill web-enabled and enabling force. On the one hand, the F-35 leads the wolfpack. As Major Hansell put it: “During every course, we are lucky to have one of the lead software design engineers for the F-35 come out as a guest lecturer to teach our students the intricacies of data fusion.

“During one of these lectures, a student asked the engineer to compare the design methodology of the F-35 Lightning II to that of the F-22 Raptor.

“I like this anecdote because it is really insightful into how the F-35 fights.

“To paraphrase, this engineer explained that “the F-22 was designed to be the most lethal single-ship air dominance fighter ever designed.  Period.

“The F-35, however, was able to leverage that experience to create a multi-role fighter designed from its very inception to hunt as a pack.”

Simply put, the F-35 does not tactically operate as a single aircraft.

It hunts as a network-enabled, cooperative four-ship fighting a fused picture, and was designed to do so from the very beginning.

“We hunt as a pack.

“Future upgrades may look to expand the size of the pack.”

The hunt concept and the configuration of the wolfpack is important not just in terms of understanding how the wolfpack can empower the ground insertion force with a mobile kill web capability but also in terms of configuration of aircraft on the sea base working both sea control and support to what then becomes a land base insertion force.

None of this would be possible without a revolutionary transformation of C2/ISR and data fusion integratability across the F-35 force.

Put bluntly, C2 systems are no longer commodities added platform by platform; they are the operating infrastructure within which platforms find their role within a scalable, tailorable combat force. 

Also, see the following:

C2, the Knowledge Base and the Kill Web

By Robbin Laird

With integratability comes an opportunity to shape a kill web approach to platform modernization.

It is a question of how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and what each platform not only can contribute to the whole, but what it needs to be a robust and redundant part of the kill web.

This clearly can shape how to think about platform modernization going ahead.

Ensuring that the core platforms have the digital tools to work together, then there is the opportunity to think of the integratable task force and what the platforms operating within that task force can bring to the fight, and what they can leverage from other platforms, and what they can contribute.

A case in point is how to conceptualize the way ahead for the Viper attack helicopter.

Building in Link 16 and video links into the Viper allows it work differently with both Aviation and the Ground Combat Element within the USMC.

And allows it to operate differently within the Navy-Marine Corps team at sea as well.

As argued in an earlier article:

As the US Navy reworks how it is operating as a distributed maritime force, which is being reshaped around the capability to operate a kill web force, the question of how best to leverage and evolve the amphibious force is a key part of that transition itself.

This is a work in progress, and one in which a determination of various paths to the future are in evolution and will be subject to debate as well.

Part of that evolution are changes in other elements of the amphibious task force which can over time play roles different from how various “legacy” platforms can be reworked to provide for new or expanded capabilities for the US Navy overall.

A case in point is how the Viper attack aircraft can evolve its roles AT SEA with the addition of key elements being generated by the digital interoperability effort, as well as adding a new weapons capability to the Viper, namely, the replacement for the Hellfire missile by the JAGM. 

What this means is that the Viper can be a key part of the defense of the fleet while embarked on a variety of ships operating either independently, or as part of an amphibious task force.

Because the Viper can land on and operate from of a wide range of ships, thus enabling operational and logistical flexibility, and with integration of Link 16 and full motion wave forms as part of digital interoperability improvements, the Viper can become a key member of the kill web force at sea.

Additionally, with digital interoperability enablement, the Viper can be reimagined in terms of how it might work with other members of the at sea task force.

A key example would be how it might work with the Seahawks operating from the L Class ships as well.

As argued in an earlier article:

My interviews with NAWDC have underscored how the Navy is working through the question of how the integratable air wing will change when the MQ-25 joins the fleet, and working ways for the Romeo to work with MQ-25 and Advanced Hawkeye will inform Romeo as part of its fleet defense function.

“The Romeo community is already looking at how having sensors onboard the MQ-25 can expand the reach and range of what the Romeo’s onboard sensors can accomplish for the maritime distributed force.

“It is also the case that as sensor demands currently made on the Romeo can be shifted elsewhere.

“The Romeo can refocus its task priorities and enhance its contributions to broader mission sets such as ASW and to focus on contributing capabilities that other platforms within the strike group are not prioritized to perform.”

Clearly, integrating Romeos which fly onboard the amphibious class ships with the Viper would provide a significant enhancement of the flank defense capabilities for the amphibious task force.

And working a Romeo/Viper package would affect as well the evolution of the Romeos that would fly off of the L class ships as well.

And all of this, frees up other surface elements to support other missions at sea, rather than having to focus on defending the amphibs as greyhound buses.

Working cross modernization of Romeo with Viper is an example of how a kill web perspective built on digital integratability can provide a clear concept for providing both timely and cost-effective modernization.

In a follow up conversation with Major Thomas Duff and Mr. Michael Manifor, HQMC Aviation, APW-53, Attack and Utility Helicopter Coordinators, about the Viper maritime attack helicopter, we discussed some ways to think about a way ahead.

One aspect of a cross-modernization approach shaped by integratability is finding ways for Viper to leverage Seahawk.

They noted that the Seahawk has a surface radar which the Viper does not but with integratability, they could have access to that data in addition to what they have organically onboard the Viper.

Currently, Viper and Seahawk pilots go to flight school together.

But what is needed is moving beyond the initial experience to shape an integratable capability with the deployable force.

Another aspect is the emergence of “smart” aircraft which can work together more effectively in combat packages.

For example, aircraft working together in a USMC assault package that could share information on the nearest fuel sources via wave form links, and sharing onboard information such as fuel state and fuel burn rates with such links, can lead to more effective integrated operations.

One such “smart aircraft” is the CH-53K. It as an all-digital aircraft with significant flexibility within its data management systems could, if properly configured, proactively know that an H-1 was in need of fuel and give them a time buffer to establish a FARP site, which would lead to more effective combat operations as well.

Another aspect is the modernization of the EW capabilities onboard the Viper.

There clearly needs to be enhanced organic EW capability provided for the Viper, but if done in the kill web manner, of being able to leverage the integrated distributed force, it is clearly a case of no platform fighting alone, but being able to both enhance the Viper’s survivability, but being able to provide data, and strike capabilities to support the kill web force.

Another aspect is working future weaponization from a kill web perspective.

A key aspect with regard to weaponization is the coming of directed energy weapons within the fleet.

Directed energy weapons reduce logistical footprints, extend ranges and allows for effective engagement across many targets.

It is clear that ships have significant advantages over aircraft with regard to the ability to operate directed energy weapons.

This means that the aircraft which fly with a directed energy enabled fleet will be able to tap into those capabilities as part of the kill web without having to operate them onboard their particular aircraft.

Third party targeting is enabled by a kill web; and with the enhanced impact of both directed energy weapons and the fusing of weapons and remote carriers, there is an expanded role which a modernized Viper can provide.

With directed energy weapons in the fleet, which is clearly coming, the airborne assets working with the fleet can focus more broadly on longer range strike opportunities. This is especially the case as targeting data becomes available from assets operating within the kill web that could inform a shooter like Viper, even though the Viper will not carry directed energy weapons itself.

The question then is putting longer range strike weapons on the Viper itself.

With the coming of low cost, collaborative, and tube launched systems like the Coyote UAS, the Viper can fire at greater distance with targeting data provided by C2 at the tactical edge from a partner platform. Swarms can be created by a system like Coyote UAS, but the swarm does not have to be generated by a single platform, but integratable platforms operating as a wolfpack.

A final point is the absolute centrality of common weapons throughout the kill web force.

A Viper needs to land at a FARP, or FOB, or on a Navy ship and be able to fly with common weapons and expendables. With a distributed missile and swarm UAV capability deployed to mobile or expeditionary bases, an asset like Viper can provide integrated strike capability which empowers a kill web.

The Viper has the ability to land virtually anywhere which means that it can tap into a widely dispersed weapons load outs on ships and FARPs throughout the extended battlespace.

In short, as the kill web approach gains traction, it can clearly affect the way ahead for platform modernization as well as to find ways to get best value out of legacy and evolving platforms, and shape the kind of new platforms that will come into the force.

The Viper is a case in point.

The featured photo shows United States Marine Corps AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venom helicopters landing  on HMAS Adelaide during a multi-spot exercise.  

By Robbin Laird

I have been focusing in a series of articles on the mobile basing role of the USMC within the evolving maritime kill web approach.

Earlier articles highlighted key requirements to perform expeditionary basing, as well as challenges facing sustainment and support for such a force.

A key element of the challenge which must be met is the command and control required to operate a distributed force which is integratable with the appropriate air-maritime force.

This allows the expeditionary force  both to make its maximal contribution to operations as well as to enhance its survivability.

As I noted in the discussion with Major James Everett, head of the Assault Support Department at MAWTS-1: “With the shift from the land wars, where the Marines were embedded within CENTCOM forces, C2 was very hierarchical.

“This clearly is not going to be practicable or efficacious with a distributed insertion force.

“Working mission command for a force operating in a degraded environment is a key challenge, but one which will have to be met to deliver the kind of distributed mobile based force which the Marines can provide for the joint and coalition force, and not just only in the Pacific, but would certainly provide a significant capability as well for the fourth battle of the Atlantic.”

I continued the discussion of the C2 challenges associated with expeditionary basing with Maj Tywan Turner Sr., TACC Division Head, Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1. The Tactical Air Command Center, or TACC, provides oversight and direction of aerial battles and aircraft movement in an operational environment and at WTI plays a key role in integrating aviation assets from the West Coast, East Coast and overseas.

The digital interoperability effort which I have focused on in a number of articles earlier is a central piece of working C2 for mobile basing.

The challenge has been that the legacy approach has been to make C2 and ISR capabilities inherent to specific platforms, and then the task is to do after market integration and to work these disparate platforms together for operations.

And during the land wars, the size of the C2 capabilities evolved over time, but the reduction in size of the servers is providing a significant opportunity to bring C2 to the tactical edge as well.

Moving forward, combing enhanced digital interoperability with much smaller footprint server capabilities to manage C2 data will provide a way ahead for working to deploy more efficacious expeditionary deployable C2.

The Aviation Command and Control System is referred to as “Common” because all MACCS agencies either have or are planning to adopt the software and equipment suite.

Prior to the hard the shift toward Naval Integration, it was a major step toward digital interoperability.

But the baseline Common Aviation Command and Control System (CAC2S) during the land wars has operated from a Humvee frame, which obviously is not the best way to work the ship to shore concepts of operations which expeditionary C2 will require.

As Major Turner put it: “We need a smaller mousetrap to do C2 in the expeditionary basing environment.”

The Marines are working with a CAC2S smaller form factor to meet the evolving needs for force insertion.

They are experimenting with decreasing the footprint of the server-software configuration to make it more deployable and overcome mobility and sustainment limitation (lift required, power requirements & fuel, cooling).

According to Major Turner: “CAC2S small-form factor SFF, also has also shown early promise in being incorporated aboard naval vessels.”

It could provide enhanced digital interoperability between expeditionary bases and Naval strike groups as well.

With regard to working the CAC2S deployable system, a correlated effort is working new ways to handle the wave forms which the ashore force would need in a variety of expeditionary environments.

And along with this effort, clearly signature management is a key consideration as well.

In my view, a key element revolves specifically over which wave forms need to be deployed with an expeditionary basing force, for those wave forms will determine with which force elements the Marines can integrate with both to achieve their mission but also to support the broader integrated distributable force.

In an earlier article, I focused on the central significance of the strategic or tactical mission assigned to an insertion force to an expeditionary base.

And that mission set will be highly correlated with which wave forms are available to the insertion force either afloat or ashore.

Clearly, a major challenge facing USMC-USN integratability revolves precisely around how best to ensure integratable C2.

Are the Marines decision makers operating from expeditionary bases or are they nodes in a fire control network?

Notably, the potential expansion of the role of the ampbhious task force to play an enhanced role in sea control and sea denial, which I have discussed earlier, and will build out in future articles, clearly requires C2 which allows for the Marines to be decision makers within the kill web force, not just working as a transmission belt in the firing solution set.

With the new computational technologies, which allow for the enablement of the internet of things at the tactical edge, the capability for the Marines to play the decision-making role with an extended kill web can be emphasized and enhanced going forward.

For the Marines to play a decision-making role from mobile basing, there is a key challenge as well associated with the evolution of the wave forms enabling deployed integratability.

There needs to be management of the various wave forms to deliver what one might call a 360-degree waveform delivery system to the deployed Marines, to have both the situational awareness as well as the decision space to support the proper scheme of maneuver from the mobile base.

By 360 degree, I am referring to an ability to manage wave forms which provide management of the ship to shore to airborne platform space to deliver the kill web effect. Such a a 360-degree solution should also support all-domain access (specifically the space and cyberspace domains) to information that is normally held at the operational level.

If the Marines are deploying strike teams to expeditionary basing, how best to ensure that they have the 360-degree waveform capability to achieve mission success?

Featured Photo: Tactical air defense controllers and air control electronics operators with Marine Air Control Squadron 24, 4th Marine Aircraft Wing run simulations on the new Common Aviation Command and Control System (CAC2S) Sept. 12, 2013. The Marines received training on the new systems during their fielding of the new system, which was the final fielding in Phase I of the CAC2S program.

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA, UNITED STATES

09.12.2013

Photo by Sgt. Scott McAdam 

Fleet Marine Force Atlantic, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command

See also, the following:

C2, the Knowledge Base and the Kill Web

Working Mobile Basing: Defining the Challenge

The Digital Interoperability Initiative and Mobile Basing: A Key Enabler

The USMC and Mobile Basing: The Contributions of Forward Arming and Refueling Points (FARPs)

Fighting with the Force You Have: Moving Forward with Mobile Expeditionary Basing