Robbin Laird, Author at Second Line of Defense

The V-22 for Indonesia: A Core Capability to Leverage Allies and Partners’ Afloat Forces

Posted on September 10, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

09/10/2020

I have followed the Osprey since 2005.

It has clearly been a driver of change for the USMC and the joint force.

And one key area of change became evident early on: it can land on a wide variety of ships in the U.S. or allied fleets, and thereby expand the utility of sea bases for Humanitarian and Disaster Relief Operations (HADR) or combat operations.

With the allies and partners of Indonesia building out their fleets, there will be obvious opportunities to land on and leverage those allies and partners sea bases, whether it would be with Australia (recapitalizing its Navy),with the United States (sorting out the best ways to address sea control and sea denial in the Pacific alone with SLOC defense and offense), with South Korea (building out its amphibious fleet) or with Japan (building out its amphibious fleet as well), just to mention the major players in the Pacific region.

Or put more broadly, the allies and partners are building out their fleets, and with ships on which clearly Indonesian Ospreys can land and operate.

And a key advantage of working with ships is, of course, is both operational flexibility and political agility in a crisis.

But one does not need a specialized ship for the Osprey to land on and to provide connectors for the force.

We followed closely the Bold Alligator exercises held in the last decade, and in one of those, the Osprey landed on a T-AKE supply ship.

In another exercise held off of the Carolina coast, an Osprey landing was done on a Dutch warship and then later in the year, during a NATO exercise, a second landing was conducted.

We interviewed the T-AKE captain involved in the Osprey landing as well as the Dutch Captain of the HNLS Karl Doorman, and both interviews highlighted how the Osprey expanded their ability to work with the joint or allied force.

This is a key capability which clearly rotorcraft (with more limited range and speed) or fixed wing airlifters (which require landing bases) cannot bring to the Indonesian force.

The Osprey creates a new combat or HADR capability by its range and speed and ability to land vertically on a wide range of shipping, including supply and combat ships.

Linking Coalition Warships

We published an article on Jun 22, 2015 which highlighted the evolving role of the new aircraft in working with the fleet.

We entitled the article “The Osprey as enabler: Linking Coalition Warships.”

This was a summary of efforts to that date, so Indonesia would not need to worry about buying an untested capability for fleet connectivity; it was already there mid-decade.

I argued the following in that article:

The speed and range of the Osprey is a key combat enabler.

It also provides significant reach and range to connect US and allied warships into a 21^st century sea base.

The capability to provide for resupply has been demonstrated many times, but the capability delivered in Operation Odyssey Dawn whereby Ospreys flew roundtrip from the USS Kearsarge to Sigonella to resupply Harriers was a clear statement of new opportunities.

As the Osprey has become a fixture of USMC and USAF global operations, the Marines have been working operations off of foreign warships as part of the process of building out an Osprey-enabled sea base, writ large.

Among others are the UK, French, Japanese, South Korean, and now Dutch warships.

https://sldinfo.com/looking-back-usmc-ospreys-and-harriers-aboard-the-hms-illustrious/

https://sldinfo.com/the-mv-22-operates-off-the-dixmude/

https://sldinfo.com/the-osprey-globally-engaged-this-time-landing-on-a-japanese-ship-in-the-apr/

https://sldinfo.com/the-osprey-as-an-enabler-and-connector-first-landing-on-republic-of-korea-amphibious-assault-ship/

During Bold Alligator 2012, the Osprey landed on a T-AKE supply ship which expanded the lily pads from which an assault force can be launched.

The Navy is looking to expand the size of the hanger aboard the T-AKE so that an Osprey can be kept in the hanger and one on deck for a total of two as needed.

Now the two dynamics – landing on a supply ship and on a foreign warship – have been combined during training off of the East Coast of the United States with a Dutch supply ship on June 12. 2015.

In the remainder of this article, we are taking our readers back to those two experiences, the Osprey working with the T-AKE supply ship, and the USMC working with the Dutch Navy.

The Osprey and the T-AKE Ship: 2012

Second Line of Defense visited the USNS Robert E. Peary (T-AKE 5) while it was in port in Norfolk.

The ship caught our eye while we were covering Bold Alligator 2012 because of the first operational engagement of an Osprey aboard a T-AKE ship.

Captain Little is a graduate of the Merchant Marine Academy and has operated off of virtually every asset Military Sealift Command operates, since he joined in 1989.

He was the first chief mate for the T-AKE 5 when it was delivered to the Navy in 2008.

He and his crew had just returned from a 9 ½ month tour, which included action off of Libya as well as participation in the Bold Alligator 2012 exercise.

Notably, the helos, which operate off of his ship during deployments, are either USN helos, or Eurocopter Pumas.

And the ship is extremely flexible in providing supplies of various kinds, including ammunition and fuel. During the Libyan operation, the USNS Robert E. Peary worked with several allies as well.

The men and women of the Military Sealift Command are true mariners.

They operate at sea off and on during the year with only three months off.

They are civil servants but are closely intertwined in support of the warfighter.

The Role of the T-AKE Ship in Providing Forward Presence from SldInfo.com on Vimeo.

As Susan Melow, Public Affairs Officer, for MSC’s Military Sealift Fleet Support Command clarified for us:

A civil service mariner, or CIVMAR, is a federal government employee who pursues a civil service career while assigned aboard U.S. government-owned, Military Sealift Command-operated ships responsible for global fleet support.

CIVMARs are credentialed, in their areas of expertise, by the U.S. Coast Guard and are rotationally assigned to MSC ships for stints of, at a minimum, four months.

With no shore duty breaks during their civil service careers and with, generally, thirty days separating each ship assignment, CIVMARs are consummate mariners, journeymen in their fields.

Osprey aboard the T-AKE supply ship. Credit: US Navy

SLD: Captain, could you talk a little bit about the Osprey landing on the T-AKE ship?

Captain Little: “The Osprey landing was a long range supply demonstration.

“It took off from New River, landed on our ship, got refueled and then participated in a raid on Fort Pickett more than 180 miles inland.

“The Osprey was on deck for about 30 minutes, loaded four pallets, was able to refuel, and took off with her cargo to support the Marines ashore in Fort Pickett….”

Dutch Warships and the Osprey: 2015

According to a story published by the USMC on June 16, 2015 by Lance Cpl. Fateh Saad, the first landing of an Osprey aboard a Dutch warship occurred on June 12, 2015.

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION NEW RIVER, N.C. –

Spirits ran high aboard the Karel Doorman, a warship with the Royal Netherlands Navy, as U.S. Marines with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 made the first MV-22 Osprey landing aboard a Dutch ship during an interoperability test conducted near Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina, June 12.

“What we normally do is support the forces ashore,” said Capt. Peter van den Berg, the commanding officer of the warship.

To better support ground forces, the amphibious unit recognizes it needs aircraft support, said van den Berg.

“That’s why the Netherlands Navy is very interested in cooperating and integrating with the U.S. Marine Corps and operating the Osprey from our decks,” said van den Berg.

“The Osprey is capable of doing large airlifts at a time, instead of a smaller helicopter – an Osprey can take much more personnel back to shore.”

The landing was the first of its kind and tested the interoperability of the two military entities, as well as the Dutch’s ability to host the American aircraft aboard their ships through carrier landings.

“The majority of people live within 300 nautical miles of the ocean,” said Capt. Matthew Thompson, a Marine with VMM-261 and the pilot and operations officer for the exercise.

“With that in mind, the true Marine aspect of ‘from the sea, to the shore,” is increasingly important. Being able to land on a ship, or sea base from a ship, and move people, things, to the shore is increasingly important.”

The test included five landings aboard the warship along with a refuel check to test the Osprey’s ability to receive fuel from the Dutch warship.

“[This test] supports the mission of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing because when units from 2nd MAW move forward, they sometimes work in concert with coalition partners and that may include the Dutch one day,” said Thompson.

Thompson said building a stronger relationship and testing the units’ ability to integrate was the central focus of the carrier landings.

“The MV-22 Osprey provides commanders with unprecedented agility and operational reach,” said Thompson.

The U.S military has a long-standing history working with their Dutch counterparts, a partnership both units expressed an interest in deepening.

“Having the knowledge that we learned today can help us when we move forward, if we ever work with the Dutch, which I think is a very real possibility … especially when we saw the amount of compatibility that we have from a simple exercise like today,” said Thompson.

First published by 2nd MEF on 6/12/15.

We added to this USMC article, with an article of our own.

And that article was based on a phone interview prior to the landing event with the Captain of the HNLS Karl Doorman, Peter Van Den Berg.

We discussed the the interoperability exercise and its origins was discussed.

Where is your ship now?

Van Den Berg: “We are in Norfolk undergoing demagnetization.

“We will perform an interoperability test later in the week with regard to landing an Osprey onboard our ship.

Your ship is a new logistical support ship.

What are its primary missions?

Van Den Berg: “It’s designed as a logistical support ship, with its primary tasking is refueling at sea.

“And having that capability and also this space, we also have a secondary tasking, which is strategic transport for heavy equipment.

“And there’s a third task for providing the logistics from the sea base.

“We can do that with the use of small landing craft or by using our very long, and large helicopter deck”.

How did the test come about?

Van Den Berg: “We were undergoing sea trials when we were tasked last year to support the Ebola emergency relief effort.

“We had only four sea weeks on the clock when we were tasked to go to West Africa.

“And while on station we witnessed the performance of the Osprey and decided that we would like to work on working with the Osprey onboard.

“We requested such a test, and combined that with our visit to Norfolk for our demagnetization requirement.

“Dutch naval engineers determined that we could support the weight of the Osprey and any heat generated by the engines, so we worked with the USMC to set up this test.

“I should note that we only requested this test, six or seven weeks ago, and it was pushed forward by our commander general in the Netherlands with the leadership of the USMC.”

An MV-22 Osprey with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 prepares to land onto the Karel Doorman, a Dutch warship, during an interoperability test near Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., June 12, 2015. The unit worked jointly with the Royal Netherlands Navy to perform the first MV-22 Osprey carrier landing aboard a Dutch warship and strengthened the existing partnership between the two countries. II Marine Expeditionary Force — An MV-22 Osprey with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 261 prepares to land onto the Karel Doorman, a Dutch warship, during an interoperability test near Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., June 12, 2015. II Marine Expeditionary Force

You are a supply ship with some clear capabilities to operate more traditional rotorcraft, but how do you see the potential role of the Osprey for your ship as part of a coalition seabase?

Van Den Berg:” I think the Osprey in amphibious warfare is a real game changer.

“The Osprey will allow us the ability to sustain our support missions because of its ability to link us for a distance and with real speed.

“There is a shortage of decks; we need a connector like the Osprey able to link up those ships into an operational seabase for a coalition effort.

“And from an amphibious point of view, you can operate an Osprey deep and with speed inland.

“It changes the nature of the meaning of amphibious operations.

“It not only expands the operational reach, but can allow ships to be further from shore and be more secure.”

For the fascinating history of the HNLMS Karel Doorman, see the following video:

And later that year, the Osprey landed on the HNLMS Johan de Witt during the NATO exercise Trident Juncture 2015.

The video below, highlights this event.

An Update on the CH-53K from the U.S. Army Proving Ground: September 2020

Posted on September 10, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

By Mark Schauer

YUMA PROVING GROUND, Ariz.– The CH-53 has been a potent member of the Marine Corps aviation community’s fleet for over 40 years, but the newest version takes the platform to a whole new level.

Equipped with three 7,500 horsepower engines and built to carry a nearly 30,000 pound external load for over 100 miles, the CH 53K King Stallion boasts a 20% increase in heavy lift capability over its predecessors.

The most impressive new feature, though, is fly-by-wire technology that computerizes flight controls and represents a major advancement over hydraulic ones. In addition to making the craft lighter, the new controls assist pilots, particularly in degraded visual environments.

The CH-53K has undergone extensive developmental testing that utilized the degraded visual environment (DVE) test course at U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) for more than two years, most recently to verify software updates in the flight control software that have been made as a result of this testing.

“This iteration of testing is somewhat of a culmination exercise for the team,” said Joshua Magana, test officer. “After this, the program will go into an initial operation test and evaluation training period that will train the pilots, air crew, and maintainers who support will support the initial operational testing next spring.”

YPG’s DVE course is highly coveted by helicopter testers seeking to protect flight crews from the potentially catastrophic consequences of brownouts. Caused by rapidly blowing sand and dirt thrown into a vortex by the rotor blades of a helicopter, a brownout’s swirling dust gives pilots the illusion they are moving even if they are hovering stationary. Hazardous in any situation, it is particularly risky when landing in a combat zone with multiple other aircraft, or in a situation where support personnel are on the ground below. The risk is compounded when the aircraft is hauling an extremely heavy cargo load beneath it.

The extremely fine ‘moon dust’ on YPG’s DVE course, tilled for maximum diffusion when a helicopter hovers overhead, was more than adequately harsh for the testers’ purposes—YPG personnel prepared the site in such a way to ensure a variety of DVE conditions, disking the dusty ground at depths of two and eight inches while leaving other areas of the site completely untilled.

“If they flew at one end of the course, it was as bad a DVE as it can possibly get,” said Magana. “If they flew on the other end, it was significantly less severe.”

The King Stallion’s primary mission is Assault Support, and testers put it through its paces at the DVE in extremely realistic scenarios that included support from Marine Wing Support Squadron 371 based at Marine Corps Air Station-Yuma. The Marines attached and unhooked massive blocks of standardized weights ranging between six and 13.5 tons as the CH-53K traversed the DVE course, day and night.

“It’s meant to simulate everything from a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle to a Light Armored Vehicle,” said Magana. “The aircraft is made to carry externally anything up to 36,000 pounds, unhook it, and get out of there.”

Aircraft refueling at YPG typically is only done ‘cold,’ or with the aircraft’s engines off and powered down, as a safety measure. To maintain maximum realism for test purposes and increase the efficiency of the test, however, a waiver was granted to allow for ‘hot’ refueling of the aircraft as it was put through its paces. MWSS 371 established a Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARP) on an improved airstrip close to the DVE site.

“The customer wanted on-site hot refueling because using an operationally representative FARP was a test point,” said Magana.

MWSS 371 successfully treated the ground beneath the FARP with dust abatement material: As the CH-53K is a developmental aircraft, they wanted to minimize the risk of foreign objects and debris being vertically propelled into the aircraft and damaging it. The weight blocks used in the testing were also staged here.

“The testers received test efficiency, and MWSS 371 received training on refueling this new aircraft in an operationally realistic environment,” said Magana. “It was a win-win that integrated training with our developmental test.”

Remarkably, the large scale test that began its planning phase in early 2020 proceeded without delay despite the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic a mere weeks after formal coordination began.

“The program’s schedule didn’t slip at all,” said Magana. “The customer had implemented strict COVID-19 procedures for their personnel prior to coming here and after arriving, and followed all of YPG’s procedures once they were here.”

This article was published by DVIDS on September 9, 2020.

For our report on the CH-53K, see the following:

Vice Admiral Miller Looks Back at His Tenure as the US Navy’s Air Boss

Posted on September 9, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

09/09/2020

By Robbin Laird

In my discussion with Vice Admiral Miller last February we discussed the way ahead for the carrier air wing.

In that conversation, we highlighted the way ahead for the carrier wing in terms of a shift from the integrated to the integratable air wing.

The shift is a significant one in which the carrier air wing is reaching out beyond what is on the carrier organically to what it can tap into in the broader joint and coalition force kill web capabilities.

It is about how the carrier wing can both be supported and support an integrated distributed force.

And my recent visit to the Naval Air Warfare Development Center, focused on a significant development which highlighted the new way ahead.

At Fallon Naval Air Station, the NAWDC team is working fleet wide and expanding working relationships with the USAF and USMC to shape Training, Tactics and Procedures (TTPs) for the fleet in the high-end fight.

For example, NAWDC chaired a working group earlier this year on how the fleet can work together to shape integrated maritime strike operations.

During his almost three year tenure as Air Boss, Vice Admiral Miller worked with his team to set in motion a solid foundation for this transition.

In an interview on September 3, 2020 in his office at North Island Naval Air Station, San Diego, we had a chance to discuss the challenges which he and his team has faced during his tenure.

Question: What are the biggest challenges you faced when you became the Air Boss?

Vice Admiral Miller: “There were three main things when I came in, and most of them were near term focused.

“Readiness was unacceptable.

“For example, 50% of our FA-18s weren’t flyable. Readiness was clearly the first and the highest priority.

“The second one was to shift our training from counter-terrorism to what we need to fight and win a great power competition.

“The third involved manning challenges. We had gotten ourselves to where we had no bench.

“:We were putting our combat teams together right at the end game and sending them out the door on deployment, and we really weren’t cultivating the expertise we need for the high-end fight.

“We knew that meeting these challenges was not an overnight challenge, but required a sustained effort.”

Question: How did you work the readiness transition?

Vice Admiral Miller: “We designed and shaped a Naval Sustainment System for Aviation.

“We focused on creating an ecosystem to provide and sustain the mission capable airplanes that we needed.

“All good things come from up airplanes.”

Question: I have seen the training changes, which are significant at Jax Navy, Mayport and at NAWDC.

How would describe the training re-set and re-focus?

Vice Admiral Miller: “The key focus has been upon a complete reworking at Fallon.

“We have totally revamped the strike syllabus, for example.

“We have migrated the new approach into all of our workups, unit level workups, our advanced readiness programs, SFARPs, FARPs, HARPs, those sorts of things.

“Now we’re starting to work it all the way down to where we’re getting into the FRS’s, so that we work that level of training that we need all the way from when you get to your initial squadron, all the way up to our air wing Fallon and then deployments.

“And with the coming of the F-35s and CMV-22bs to the carrier air wing, what we’ve seen so far out of their SFARPs, which are the unit level Strike Fighter Advanced Readiness Program, up in Fallon has just been eye-watering.

“New training and new assets mean new training to work integration for the fleet.

“We will continue to evolve as our weapons systems evolve, to include MQ-25 and what it’s going to bring to the Carrier Strike Group in the middle of the decade.

“So we’re already starting to think about how we need to training as the carrier air wing evolves.

“We’re also making great strides as far as live virtual constructive and how we connect everything from our simulation capability to what we’re able to do out on the ranges.

“The one area that’s going to be a big issue for us this year, especially in Congress, is going to be the Fallon range expansion.

“With the changing nature of warfare, we need to change not just our training approach but the ranges on which we prepare for combat.”

Question: How are working to reshape the force from the personnel side of the equation?

Vice Admiral Miller: “We are changing the metrics to evaluate personnel.

“For example, with regard to maintainers we are focusing on building an AMEX, or an Aviation Maintenance Experience Score.

“We want our maintainers to not just say, “Hey, I’m a H-60 maintainer, or P-8 maintainer, or FA-18 maintainer, but I also have these qualifications.” So as you build time and you work in that type model series and you start getting different qualifications, now your AMEX credit score goes up.

“When we’re looking at putting the right person in the right job at the right time, we can note that ”Here are the people that have those qualifications, that have that experience, and so I’m going to go ahead and place you in a particular position that requires those skill levels.”

“This helps us as well to distribute evenly our talent so that we don’t have one squadron that is at the professional level and another squadron that’s at a collegiate level.

“We want to be able to distribute our talent such that all of our squadrons throughout the entire training continuum are evenly skilled, and therefore have the ability to surge if we ever get to that point, or, of course just working towards generating MC airplanes that enhance training across the OFRP.

“If we’re in a great power competition, we need everybody to good all the time.”

Question: Looking forward what is a big challenge you are leaving behind?

Vice Admiral Miller: “Strike fighter pilot production is a big challenge facing us.

“It is a cumulative process.

“When we had some T-45 physiological episodes in the recent past, we stopped training for a while. That caused that whole pipeline of people working their way to the fleet to come to a standstill for a handful of months.

“And then about the time we started working our way through that was when the FA-18s were experiencing their readiness issues, and then over the last couple of years we got that working again, we finally got the T-45 guys into the FA-18s.

“The bottom line: we weren’t being very efficient going through the year.

“We were kind of playing whack-a-mole. We got the T-45s working, we got the FA-18s working, got the T-6s working again.

“And then what happened with T-45 engines? Just this last year, we had some material failures of compressor blades, and we took T-45 engines that we were replacing it around the 1800 hours, and now we’re replacing those engine blades at 900 hours.

“And so that took the T-45, again, back to almost nothing for a while, little trickle charge. And now after working closely with Rolls-Royce, and we’re just now starting to get ourselves to where we’re healthy there.

“Over the last couple years, this has led to a shortfall of strike fighter pilots getting to fleet seats in squadrons.

“We’ve mitigated that by elongating the guys that are there, their orders a little bit longer, other things like that through detailing processes to mitigate that shortfall.

“That has an effect because those guys normally would be rolling to your TOPGUNs and to your test pilot schools and to be your FRS instructors.

“And this means that overall we have had a cumulative negative effect in terms of strike fighter pilot production.

“The pilot training at CNATRA is being revolutionized which will help with this challenge.

“We’re changing the way we train initial pilot training.

“And, as I mentioned earlier, we’re changing the way we train at the high end, at the air wing level.”

Question: Another challenge clearly is when you add new platforms, how do you get the operators to think past their legacy platform to what they are now flying.

How significant has been that problem?

Vice Admiral Miller: “This is a challenge, getting P-3 operators not to operate in the “alone and unafraid” mentality of their legacy aircraft, to what the P-8, Triton, Romeo synergy delivers to the fleet.

“This is a major training opportunity and challenge.

“We need to take advantage of the leaps in technology that we had as we modernize.”

Featured Photo: CORONADO, Calif. (0ct. 21, 2019) Vice Adm. DeWolf H. Miller III, commander, Naval Air Forces, inspects a new gunner seat of an MH-60S Sea Hawk, assigned to Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 3 on Naval Air Station North Island.

The MH-60S gunner seat redesign has adjustable lumbar support, energy absorbers and is comfortable for the aircrew. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jeffery L. Southerland)

In the Footsteps of Admiral Nimitz: VADM Miller and His Team Focused on 21st Century “Training”

From the Integrated to the Integratable Air Wing: The Transformation of Naval Aviation

An Update on the Integratable Air Wing: A Discussion with the US Navy’s Air Boss

Visiting the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center (NAWDC): July 2020

Innovating in Support of RAAF C-17s: Leveraging Virtual Reality Systems

Posted on September 9, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

In an article published on August 31, 2020 by Flight Lieutenant Clarice Hurren, a recent innovation driven by a need to overcome a COVID-19 induced barrier was highlighted.

Aircraft technicians at No. 36 Squadron are now using Microsoft HoloLens mixed-reality devices with Boeing-developed software to maintain C-17A Globemaster III aircraft.

The trial started at RAAF Base Amberley in July to open communication and new working practices with their U.S-based counterparts.

Normally, Boeing specialist technicians – known as the recovery and modifications services team or RAMS – travel to Australia to assist with repair and replacement for certain C-17A maintenance tasks, but because of COVID-19 restrictions they have been unable to visit.

Maintenance team supervisor Sergeant Thomas Lane said RAMS could send technical drawings and documents, provide instant feedback and direct the overall task through the virtual space while technicians wear the devices.

“Through a secure ‘cloud’ connection, my team and the technicians in the U.S can work seamlessly together by sharing screens and see exactly what they are seeing inside the aircraft through iris tracking,” Sergeant Lane said.

“The first project was to replace the floatation equipment deployment systems panels inside C-17s, which consist of explosive components that deploy life rafts in an emergency.

“This technology is a massive benefit to resourcing the workforce moving forward, with significant potential to empower and train less-experienced technicians.”

Boeing C-17A field services manager Glen Schneider said this new capability would see the devices used to eliminate future travel and create time efficiencies.

“After the initial maintenance activity, No. 36 Squadron will continue the trial with two HoloLens devices that can be used by accompanied maintenance teams,” Mr Schneider said.

“Technicians can connect with the Boeing field engineering team while they are away on a domestic or international mission and will aid them to troubleshoot any unique maintenance issues they encounter.”

Raven B Training

Posted on September 9, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

Raven B operators conduct training with the small unmanned aircraft system at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar.

Raven Bs provide real-time aerial intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and enhance the 379th ESFS’s force protection mission capabilities.

QATAR

07.09.2020

Video by Senior Airman Olivia Grooms

379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

George Galdorisi Talks Maritime Remotes: The Past and the Way Ahead

Posted on September 8, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

09/08/2020

By Robbin Laird

I first became aware of George Galdorisi when were both working for Dr. Scott Truver at Anteon Corporation in support of the US Navy in the early 1990s.

And even though we have interacted through the years, and most recently, with regard to publishing some of his work on the evolution of maritime unmanned or remote systems, I had not actually met George in person.

That changed on July 10, 2020 when I flew in from Nevada after visiting the Naval Air Warfare Development Center at Fallon Naval Air Station, I was coming to San Diego for meetings to be held at US Navy Air Station North Island in San Diego.

George was my guide for an afternoon meeting pier side with the MANTAS USV team working a counter-mine maritime remote capability for the US Navy.

Currently, Galdorisi is the Director of Strategic Assessments and Technical Futures at the Navy’s Command and Control Center of Excellence in San Diego, California, Naval Information Warfare Center, Pacific. He has an extensive background serving in the Navy and working with the Navy after retirement from the Navy, and his biography can be found at the end of this article.

The day after the Friday afternoon visit with the MANTAS USV team, we sat down to discuss how he looked at the past and the future of maritime remote systems.

We started by looking at the past. He noted that the U.S. Navy has been interested for a long time in having maritime autonomous systems which could support the fleet. The challenge has been that the technology has not been mature enough to do the core missions the Navy has looked for from this class of air and sea vehicles,

He discussed the infamous DASH system which he noted “failed spectacularly because the technology wasn’t robust enough.”

Then as the XO of the USS New Orleans, he had experience with the Pioneer UAV which they launched from the ship.

“We actually put small arresting wires on the deck and our commanding officer, who was a Vietnam-era A7 pilot, had one goal that week. His goal was that we left the pier on Monday morning with three Pioneers and he wanted to come back Friday afternoon with three Pioneers.

“We came back with one.”

But after a decade-and-a-half of widespread use of unmanned systems by U.S. and allied forces in the land wars, this experience has clearly reshaped the U.S. Navy’s approach shaping a way ahead for the use of remote technologies in the fleet.

And for the U.S. Navy, the missions which they envisage for such vehicles are the dull, dirty, and dangerous work where you are putting Sailors or Marines in harm’s way and would wish to outsource these missions to autonomous systems.

The Navy and Marine Corps have been using such systems in a wide range of exercises to shape proof of concept efforts in order to sort through what will most effectively meet their needs.

For example, Galdorisi noted, with regard to the MANTAS system, it has been used by the Navy/Marine Corps team to do “intelligence preparation of the battlefield,” where they have gone into the surf zone to use sonars actually to see obstacles such as mines, as well as other obstacles that could thwart an amphibious landing.

“In Valiant Shield, they used the MANTAS to bring supplies to the beachhead because once the Marines were on the beach they had to fight their way inland.

“As tough as the landing is, the tougher part is resupplying Marines as they work to push off the beach because they use massive amounts of ammunition, fuel, and food.”

“They demonstrated that they could resupply a beachhead with autonomous vehicles and not put Sailors and Marines in harm’s way just to deliver materiel to the beach. What you saw yesterday when you rode on the larger MANTAS vehicle and saw other USVs and UUVs was the next step in having autonomous vehicles do the dull, dirty, and dangerous work that Sailors have had to do in the past to execute the mine countermeasures mission (MCM).

There is an urgency to provide the MCM capability to the Navy. Legacy capabilities now in use employ a 25-30-year-old fleet of Avenger class MCM vessels and equally old MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters.

Littoral Combat Ship MCM Mission Modules currently under development are leaving an unacceptably narrow margin between obsolescence of legacy capability and transition to Full Operational Capability (FOC) of the new Mission Modules.

What industry is proposing is a mine countermeasure system built completely with commercial off the shelf technology. And in this case, they’ve used the 38-foot MANTAS USV. They have used the Kraken side scan sonar. And they’ve used the Pluto ROV mine neutralization system. And they have demonstrated these over the past several weeks in various exercises.

Galdorisi noted: “What industry is proposing is a parallel path solution. They are not saying that the Navy shouldn’t build another minesweeper. They are not saying the Navy shouldn’t have the H-60 helicopter do the AMCM mission. They are saying, ‘The COTS technology is available now. Why don’t we offer a parallel path solution to again take the Sailor out of the minefield and make it a single sortie to engage?’”

“What this means in practice is that one would send the MANTAS USV autonomous vehicle out in an area where mines are suspected. The MANTAS sonar coupled with the Kraken UUV searches for the mines. The Kraken comes back to the MANTAS once it surveys the area, then the Pluto goes out fine tunes exactly where the mine is and then drops an explosive charge next to it.

“The Pluto backs away, it comes back to the MANTAS and can either explode that mine right then, or put explosive charges on several mines and then detonate them at a predetermined time.

“Importantly, you don’t have to blow up every mine in the minefield; you just need a safe path for either the ships or the landing craft to go through.”

We then discussed how the U.S. Navy is looking at the various classes of unmanned surface ships to meet various needs for the fleet.

Galdorisi underscored that “At the high end are the large USVs, which basically are going to be, in my view, a truck. They will bring smaller USVs to the OPAREA.

“The medium USVs will do a lot of the work, whether it’s ISR, or mine countermeasures, or other missions.

“The smaller USVs could do tasks like counter-swarm

“My professional interest is currently on the medium ones, and there are several medium USVs out there that the Navy is experimenting with. One of the better-known ones in this class is the Sea Hunter, and of course MANTAS, which you saw yesterday.

“With these ships you can perform a variety of missions, you saw the counter-mine one yesterday.

“But another mission would be ISR. If you can’t see ahead of your ship and you want to know what’s going on out there, you can send a USV armed with radar, sonar, FLIR and other sensors out ahead of the task force to do scouting in much the same was as we used to do scouting back in World War II with aircraft.”

We then discussed the challenge of bringing together data streams generated by various platforms and their sensor networks and making that data useful to the operators and to the fleet.

Obviously, part of the challenge is working with wave forms that can communicate securely and effectively.

It is crucial to ensure that the data streams come back to a single screen allowing the operators to make correlations among those data streams, aided by autonomous systems, but really allowing the man-in-the-loop to make the intelligent judgments and decisions which allows the operator to not be in a stove-piped data stream situation.

He discussed an historical parallel that in his mind is suggestive of the way ahead,

“The LAMPS MK III was designed with an elegant concept. Think of it as disassembling a P-3, where you cut off the front end and put that up in the air, and took the back end and put it on the ship.

“And why did you do that?

“You put the front end up in the air because it has a radar and an EW system and sonobuoys. And you put the back end on the ship because the ship is more stable and has more computing power and more people and more power onboard the ship to work the data.

“In theory, it was great. And all the pilots were supposed to do in the aircraft was keep the helicopter out of the water. They were just driving the sensors around.

“All the pilots had between them was a small screen about as big as an iPad where they could look at tracks and other information.

“On the ship you had five people just like the back of a P-3 interested in what the helicopter was picking up in terms of data. And onboard the ship, one had the REMRO, the radar guy, the ESMO, the ESM guy, the ASMO, the ASW guy, and then you had the ATACO who was watching the whole picture, all the dots on the screen.

“And then you had the CIC watch officer.

“And they were the bosses. All the pilots were supposed to do in the air was keep the helicopter out of the water.

“But guess who had the best situational awareness?

“The aircrew had all the data displayed on their screen, the radar picture, the ESM picture and the tracks from the sonobuoys. All of those things were on the same screen where they could go, ‘Oh, that one is associated with that one. And that must be the Soviet ship that way, because we’re getting the radar, we’re getting the ESM spike.’

“In contrast, the guys on the ship were stove-piped in their individual roles.

“In many command centers today there many, many individual screens with lots of people doing individual things.

“To me, the art of it is bringing all those things together.

“And that art is what we need to take forward to make best use of the data streams which autonomous systems can provide.

“The data needs to go to a centralized location whether on a ship or in the air where it is correlated and made sense of.”

This is the area where clearly the discipline of human factors engineering and human system integration comes in and plays a key role in shaping how best to do the convergence or correlation effort and capability which is central to the way ahead.

Clearly, artificial intelligence will contribute to providing decision aids, but in Galdorisi’s view, to maximize fully unmanned platforms, we need to move from the current paradigm where many people manage a single unmanned platform, to a new concept of operations where a single operator can manage a force package of maritime USVs with different sensors on each.

This way, we can make the best use of what the sensors or capabilities deployed on tho e systems can do for the fleet.

This is a major challenge, but clearly a key way ahead.

George Galdorisi

GEORGE GALDORISI is a career naval aviator whose thirty years of active duty service included four command tours and five years as a carrier strike group chief of staff. He began his writing career in 1978 with an article in the U.S. Navy’s professional magazine, U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings.

In addition to his Rick Holden thrillers published by Braveship Books, he has written thirteen other books distributed by mainstream publishers, including several bestselling novels in the rebooted Tom Clancy’s Op-Center series, including Out of the Ashes, Into the Fire, Scorched Earth, and Dark Zone.

With his longtime collaborator, Dick Couch, he coauthored the New York Times best seller, Tom Clancy Presents: Act of Valor the novelization of the Bandito Brothers/Relativity Media film. He is also the author of The Kissing Sailor, which proved the identity of the two principals in Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous photograph; as well as over three-hundred articles in professional journals and other media.

George has received a number of national and international writing awards, including: The Navy League of the United States Alfred Thayer Mahan Award for Literary Achievement, the Surface Navy Association Literary Award, the Navy League of Australia’s Annual Essay Competition, the Naval Helicopter Historical Association Mark Starr Pioneer Literary Award, and the Military Writers Society of America Silver Medal Award, among others. George speaks frequently at writing classes and seminars including: San Diego State University Writers Conference, La Jolla Writers Conference, San Diego Writer’s Ink, Southern California Writers Association, Coronado Writer’s Workshop, and other venues.

George is the Director of Strategic Assessments and Technical Futures at the Navy’s Command and Control Center of Excellence in San Diego, California. He and his wife Becky live in Coronado, California. Other than writing thrillers, he likes nothing more than connecting with readers. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter, and learn more about his books, blogs and other writing on his website: http://georgegaldorisi.com/ – especially his “Writing Tips,” – which offer useful advice for all writers from established authors to future best-selling writers.

The Australian Defence and Security Strategy 2020 Reset: The Perspective of Air Marshal (Retired) Geoff Brown

Posted on September 7, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

09/07/2020

By Robbin Laird

On 1 July 2020.The Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Scott Morrison, and the Minister for Defence, Senator the Hon Linda Reynolds, launched the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and the 2020 Force Structure Plan at the Australian Defence Force Academy

The Defence Strategic Update sets out the Government’s new defence strategy, which has three core objectives: to shape Australia’s strategic environment; deter actions against Australia’s interests; and respond with credible military force, when required.

In his speech announcing the next phase in Australian strategic development, Prime Minister Morrison highlighted the challenges of dealing with the new strategic situation and the importance of enhancing Australia’s ability to defend itself in an alliance context.

As the Prime Minister emphasized in his July 1, 2020 speech launching the new defense strategy:

“Previous assumptions of enduring advantage and technological edge are no longer constants and cannot be relied upon. Coercive activities are rife. Disinformation and foreign interference have been enabled and accelerated by new and emerging technologies. And, of course, terrorism hasn’t gone away and the evil ideologies that underpin it and they remain a tenacious threat.

“State sovereignty is under pressure, as are rules and norms and the stability that these provide.

“Relations between China and the United States are fractious at best, as they compete for political, economic and technological supremacy. But it’s important to acknowledge that they are not the only actors of consequence.

“The rest of the world, and Australia, are not just bystanders to this. It’s not just China and the United States that will determine whether our region stays on path for free and open trade, investment and cooperation that has underpinned stability and prosperity, the people-to-people relationships that bind our region together. Japan, India, the Republic of Korea, the countries of South-East Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Pacific all have agency, choices to make, parts to play and of course, so does Australia.

“There is a new dynamic of strategic competition and the largely benign security environment, as I’ve noted, that Australia has enjoyed, basically from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the global financial crisis, that’s gone.

“Since the Government’s 2016 Defence White Paper was released, we have witnessed an acceleration of the strategic trends that were already underway. The pandemic has accelerated and accentuated many of those trends, and that is why today I’m launching the 2020 Defence Strategic Update. It represents a significant pivot. It outlines the shifts and challenges I’ve foreshadowed and mentioned. It makes clear the strategic environment we face and this clarity will guide Australia’s actions. The update sees an evolution of strategic defence objectives in accord with our new strategic environment.

“The objectives outlined in the 2016 Defence White Paper saw an equal weighting across the three areas of Australia and its northern approach, South-East Asia and the Pacific and operations in support of the rules-based global order.

“In this update, the Government has directed Defence to prioritise, to make choices, ADF’s geographical focus on our immediate region, the area ranging from the north-east Indian Ocean through maritime and mainland South-East Asia to Papua New Guinea and the south-west Pacific.

Recently, I discussed with Australian strategist, Brendan Sargeant, who provided his perspective with regard to the new strategy. He underscored that the new strategic was a significant break from the 2016 strategic documents.

“Deterrence has also always been a major element of Australian strategic policy, but this document strengthens it and in a sense is a search of contemporary capabilities that fulfilled the role of the F1 11 in the 80s and 90s. But we haven’t done enough policy thinking on deterrence since the 1990s.

“The operational focus of the Middle East wars has consumed too much policy energy and made us complacent.

“The document recognises limits, and in that sense overturns the 2016 White Paper and is quite explicit about that.

“It’s repositioning geographically is something that we drifted away from when we put our faith in the continuation of the rules-based order, which underpinned a lot of the thinking in 2016.”

Recently, I had a chance to talk with Air Marshal (Retired) Geoff Brown, now Chairman of the Williams Foundation with regard to his assessment of what the new strategy signified in terms of shaping the way ahead for Australian defense and security.

He started by reinforcing the core point made by Sargeant.

“There’s a clear recognition that the environment’s changed much more rapidly than anticipated in the 2016 strategy. When we put together that strategy, we were doing it with a clear focus on the Middle East along with our region as the main foci of our strategic efforts. Now we are clearly concentrating more on our area, the Indo-Pacific.

“There is a commitment to enhanced defense spending. An extra $70 billion is committed over and above what the 2016 strategy projected. A lot of that will probably go to the additional costs around the ship building programs, but the additional money, in my mind, guarantees the other programs to go ahead in air and land as well.

“Additionally, I liked the emphasize on the key role for Australia in being able to shape, deter and respond to threats in our region. There is a major emphasis on both the cyber and space domains as part of this effort as well.

“But a major part of the strategy for me is the renewed emphasis on deterrence. There was a clear focus on shaping our changing strategic environment, deterring threats and responding to threats in a kinetic way. Probably the biggest manifestation of the change is on the commitment to developing and deploying long range missiles. I think if you read between the lines and if you have a look at where some of the investments going, there is a desire to have a more independent deterrent capability going forward. To me, that’s a real plus of this new strategy.

“Finally, is the emphasis on national resilience. Certainly COVID-19 has reinforced the need for enhanced national resilience. There is also a need to think through how Australia can respond when facing a zero-based supply chain and the need to build resiliency throughout all our inputs to capability.

It is clear that a key element of the strategic rethink is infrastructure defense, whether it is a cyber challenge, or a communications challenge or physical supply chain support to the ADF or the society in a crisis situation.

And clearly, the role of China in providing the threat calculus in this area is evident.

According to Air Marshal (Retired) Brown; “The Australian population certainly does not see the Chinese Communist Party as a benign force with regard to Australia’s interests. The Prime Minister’s speech announcing the new strategy recalled the environment of the 1930s, and underscored that the assumption that we would have 10 years warning time for a defense buildup is not realistic.”

There is a clear emphasis as well on a new longer-range strike capability. Brown has been quite vocal on the need for such a capability for many years. As a former F-111 pilot, this probably is not surprising, and the need for an F-111 like capability, whether delivered by a bomber of long-range strike generated from the joint force is an open question. This is clearly a work in progress.

With regard to allies, Australia is focusing on how to shape, and contribute more to a Quad capability, namely, Australia working with the United States, Japan, India in shaping collaborative capabilities. “Notably, we need to work on the Indian part of the Quad, which is increasingly important.”

In short, for Brown: “I actually don’t see this as a set-and-forget strategic update. I think this is the first of a series of updates, and will certainly shape more deterrent capabilities going forward.”

Featured photo: The Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Scott Morrison, at the launch of the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and the 2020 Force Structure Plan at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra.

Summer Fury 20

Posted on September 7, 2020 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

U.S. Marines with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 465, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing conduct external lifts with a M777 155mm howitzer from a CH-53E Super Stallion in support of Exercise Summer Fury 20 at Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range, Calif., July 14, 2020.

The exercise focused on long-range strikes from fixed-wing aircraft in a naval environment from expeditionary advanced base operations.

The exercise enhanced the integration capability of the Marines and increased squadron flight crew proficiency in aviation.

CA, UNITED STATES

07.14.2020

Video by Cpl. Leilani Cervantes and Lance Cpl. Victor Mackson

3rd Marine Aircraft Wing