By Robbin Laird

FLRAA is coming at the dawn of the age of autonomous systems. It is being crafted as a manned program to operate in the con-ops of formations that will operate in the world of combined arms operations of manned systems working with autonomous ones.

The Army approach encompasses the following considerations: Focus on the Platform; focus on the payloads; focus on the con-ops of the formation;  focus on the training with the resultant capability to work in flexible combat clusters.

Based on the discussion of the panel at AUSA which focused on the future of vertical lift, one can identify how the Army is planning to deal with each of these aspects of the way ahead for the FLRAA.

Focus on the Platform

The Army is leveraging decades of experience of the USMC working with tiltrotor aircraft. This gives them a significant edge up with its new tiltrotor aircraft compared to the situation facing the Marines who blazed the path pioneering use of this new technology when they first took it to Iraq in 2007. The Army is leveraging the USMC experience in terms of impact on con-ops, training, maintenance, and the entire experience of the tiltrotor enterprise into which they now are writing a new chapter.

As Colonel Jeffrey Poquette, project manager for the future long-range assault aircraft, noted: “I know there is a plan to familiarize Army rotorcraft pilots. We have the V-22. The V-22 is a tiltrotor, so I’ve already started meeting a couple of Army aviators who have experience in the V-22. I just hired an experimental test pilot who is qualified in the V-22, so we’re starting to build up the familiarity with a technology that the Army has not really used before.”

There are a number of design aspects to the new tiltrotor which will enhance maintainability and performance of the aircraft, but it should be remembered that the V-22 is a bigger aircraft and one which has advantages due to its size as well.

But one of the key design features of FLRAA being crafted to meet the challenge of working with autonomous systems and the correlated systems onboard the aircraft to manage them is the use of a digital backbone designed to facilitate rapid upgrades.

This encompasses the hardware – the computerization – as well as the MOSA software. As Poquette noted: “MOSA, like I said, is such a big deal; I can’t not mention it several times today. The digital backbone that enables MOSA didn’t exist on Valor, right? So that’s a significant part.”

He added: “And if I could add, as an integrator of aviation systems, I work with counterparts in other PEOs whose job is to provide me the systems.  We can’t discount the importance of MOSA to integrating ASC quickly.

“Keeping pace with emerging threats is vital. ASC is one of the harder things to integrate with an aircraft. MOSA and the ability to leverage the digital backbone, leverage the standards that are open and available to the industry. Those standards, which are government-owned, are heavily informed by the architecture working group.

“I envision a future where as soon as a threat emerges, the necessary survivability equipment is ready for integration. The challenge lies not just in developing this technology but in ensuring it works effectively on the aircraft, which is where MOSA will take those timelines down a tremendous amount which is an important part of enhancing aircraft survivability.”

The aircraft is being built with a digital engineering approach which allows as well significant ways to enhance design to production to upgrade capabilities as well.  Given the focus on working the manned-autonomous systems effort in a combined arms approach the core point is really that the aircraft has a digital backbone focused on rapid upgrades through the use of the Modular Open Systems Approach or MOSA software as a gateway to rapid upgrades in payloads and systems.

Focus on the Payloads

Acquiring and integrating into the force of autonomous systems is very different from acquiring manned platforms. They are payloads carried by an autonomous vehicle (ground, air or maritime) and are focused primarily on a singular mission purpose or payload.

As Marcus Hellyer, the noted Australian strategist, put it in a recent interview I did with him in Canberra, Australia: “You can’t look at autonomous systems as simply an unmanned version of a traditional platform. Everyone says that but I don’t think they really think through what that means. And what it does mean is you don’t want it to do everything that a traditional platform does with the autonomous system, because if you try and design it to do so, it’s going to be just as complex as a manned system. This in turn means that is going to take just as long to design and it’s going to cost just as much as a manned platform. There will be no savings in terms of time, money and people.

“In other words, the key point to underscore is this: Start simple, design autonomous systems to do one thing, and once they can do one thing effectively, and you work from there as the operators use them and input their demands into this process.”

In the discussions by the panel of autonomous systems, it is apparent that they get Hellyer’s points.  For example, as Dr. Kirsch, Director of Combat Capabilities, underscored: “Our sister centers focus on some of the payloads, the different sensors, electronic warfare effects, and lethal effects. Our primary focus has been on behaviors and specifically how to get these launched effects to collaborate to accomplish our mission.

“We’ve done a lot of work showing how we can use launched effects with similar sensors for search areas or reconnaissance. In the next month, we’re planning a capstone demonstration using a team-of-teams approach, where we have one operator managing multiple unmanned systems or launched effects with different capabilities. Some might have electro-optical/infrared sensors, some might be decoys, and some might have lethal effects. The operator will assign missions and decide when one sensor sees something and another needs to verify it. Ultimately, they’ll pass that information back to a single operator, who will decide whether to prosecute the target or not.

“This involves a lot of collaborative behavior between the different platforms, allowing the operator to focus on their essential tasks while the autonomy of the launched effects manages the complexities of dividing the problem.”

Focus on the Con-ops of the Formation

Several speakers on the panel emphasized that the new manned platform would be working with “launched effects” which refers to either autonomous systems or loitering munitions to create the effects which an Army formation would be oriented to create.

As Major General Michael McCurry, Chief of Staff U.S. ArmyFutures Command. added: “From a tactical and operational perspective, certain mission sets align more naturally with autonomy. If we’re putting 100 Rangers on the objective, there’s likely someone flying that platform. Conversely, for repetitive tasks like logistics, where operations need to occur over extended periods, those are areas where we could see more rapid applications of autonomy.

“There are still considerations as we define behaviors. There’s a natural alignment of certain mission sets. The other thing I would say about autonomy is that our focus is on protecting the humans. I talked about not sacrificing humans for first contact. Imagine a young Warrant Officer in the front seat of an AH-64 Apache with all that data coming at them. We can use different levels of autonomy to offload and untask saturate some of that workload, better protecting them and prosecute the mission more efficiently at the same time.”

Or as Colonel Jeffrey Poquette commented: “And so, I would say from an S&T perspective, when you take into account the things that General McCurry was talking about—particularly in terms of the congested and contested airspace— as we look at launch effects, the sensors for launch effects, and autonomy, we’re trying to use those capabilities to provide better situational awareness. This way, we can perform sense-and-avoid maneuvers so that we don’t run into each other in that contested airspace.

“As we push our launched effects further out in front and conduct that scout role that, in previous years, we handled with manned assets, we need to understand what behaviors are required and what sensors are necessary to provide the same kind of awareness of what’s out in front of us. So that, as we move manned formations forward, we know what we’re about to face.”

Army Brigadier General Cain Baker, Director of Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team,  highlighted the importance of the con-ops for formations as the shaping function for the kind of combined arms operations that FLRAA will do with autonomous systems for the future force:

“Generally, we’re taking steps with this on the launched effects side for the Army. Last year, when we updated the Concept Document (CD), we went with both aerial launch capability and ground launch capability. So we’re working through that now to determine the right mix of capabilities—whether launched at the formation level or employed from the air. A lot of that involves ongoing studies. We have an active study looking at that mix, and we’re also incorporating simulations. We’ve always had high-fidelity simulations, but now we’re actually putting it into our formation exercises. Additionally, we’re also testing in the field. We just finished Edge, and I can discuss that if you like.

“Bringing formations out to Edge and then subsequently to Project Convergence helps us inform the DOTMLPF (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Materiel, Leadership and Education, Personnel, and Facilities) requirements. In the next year, we’re also working closely with David’s team and PM UAS on user demonstrations with launched effects inside formations, which will inform what type of formations we need and what employment capabilities they require.

This speaks to a broader portion that General McCurry mentioned earlier about the system-of-systems approach. Launched effects interact with our ground forces, our aerial assets, and our Human-Machine Interface (HMI) on the ground, so there’s a lot of learning going on here, and we’re excited to get this out to the field.”

Focus on the Training

The speakers discussed the importance of training. From the standpoint of operational safety, training air crews is crucial. The experience with the Osprey underscores the importance of pilot training as 90% of crashes have been caused by pilot error.

Major General Michael McCurry emphasized:

“No loss in training is acceptable. Every loss of a soldier is tragic, and when that happens, we do a deep investigation to determine root causes and implement corrective actions.

“In 2023, during my time overseeing aviation, we conducted an aviation stand-down focused on a bottom-up feedback exercise where we had units provide feedback all the way up. We collected it and backbriefed the Vice Chief and the Chief at the time, then went out to brief all the division and corps commanders in one session on what we found.

“That’s where we discovered that, as we transitioned from the way we had been flying in Iraq and Afghanistan—higher above the terrain, with not a lot of threat to consider—to a more high-risk environment, we were overdriving our capabilities a little bit. Aviators were pushing themselves into situations they weren’t yet prepared for…

“So, in aviation, we had to back up in 2023 and focus on some fundamentals, telling people it’s okay to say, “I need more training before I take that next step.” We took action to reorient the Department of Evaluation and Standardization at Fort Novosel to assist the CABs with training shortfalls. We simplified some maneuvers, particularly in the survivability realm, and focused on retaining those mid-grade warrant officers over time…”

But training also refers to learning how to operate in formations or what I call combat clusters in which combined arms operations are conducted with manned and autonomous systems.

Major General Michael McCurry put it this way:

“When we’re working on unmanned systems and launched effects, there are really three interrelated time periods. You’ve heard a lot about transforming contact, and General Schlosser mentioned earlier that soldiers figure out how to use things differently than engineers and designers intended. Transforming contact means we’re giving some of these systems to engage soldiers so they can begin experimenting with them, informing organizational concepts, future doctrine, and training in the near term.

“These periods are interrelated: transforming contact informs the traditional deliberate transformation period and the program objective memorandum (POM). All of that is also being informed by the concept work that the Capability Command is doing. These three interrelated time periods—transforming contact, deliberate transformation, and concept-informed transformation—help us tie the picture together in a space that’s moving quickly.”

In short, one cannot understand the process of developing the Army’s new tiltrotor aircraft into the force without understanding the impact of the age of autonomous systems into which it will enter the force, one which will do combined arms operations with synergy between manned and autonomous systems.

Note: Below is a Deep Dive podcast which discussed the panel and its main conclusions.

This podcast was created using Google’s NotebookLM app.

Launching a New Manned Air System at the Dawn of an Age of Autonomous Systems: The U.S. Army Approach to its New Tiltrotor Aircraft

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Robbin Laird

The Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) or the Army’s new tiltrotor aircraft is being designed to operate in a new world of combat, namely one in which autonomous systems will become significant players.

I would argue indeed that when introducing new manned systems now and in the future, it is increasingly important to do so with consideration of how they can work offensive and defensive operations in a world where autonomous systems will become ever more prevalent and prominent.

What is impressive about the Army’s standup of their new tiltrotor aircraft is how they are doing so with core consideration of how the concepts of operations of assault operations will change with the combined arms approach which is inherent in working with and defending against autonomous systems.

A panel held at the recent Association of the United States Army (AUSA) convention held in Washington DC. discussed the way ahead with FLRAA.

This panel was hosted by Defense News which provided a video of the panel which provides readers the opportunity to watch the discussion by senior Army leaders.

The members of the panel were:

• Major General Michael McCurry: Chief of Staff Futures Command
• Brigadier General Cain Baker: Director of Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team
• Colonel Jeffrey Poquette: Project Manager for the Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA)
• Dr. James Kirsch: Director of Combat Capabilities Expand Aviation and Missile Center

The panel started with a discussion of the changing military context into which the FLRAA is being introduced. The conflict in Ukraine highlights the rapid pace of technological advancement and the need for agile and adaptable military capabilities. This necessitates a shift away from traditional platform-centric thinking towards a system-of-systems approach, prioritizing formations of capabilities.

The FLRAA program is a significant investment aimed at transforming Army aviation. It prioritizes speed and range and leveraging digital engineering for rapid design and development. Soldier feedback is actively integrated into the design process, ensuring the aircraft meets operational needs.

Yet at the same time, the Army recognizes the crucial role of unmanned and autonomous systems, particularly launched effects (ULEs), in future warfare. These systems enhance situational awareness, provide stand-off capabilities, and contribute to holistic team survivability. Ongoing experimentation and exercises like the Army Futures Command’s (AFC) Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Cross-Functional Team (CFT)’s  Experimental Demonstration Gateway Event (EDGE) and Project Convergence are informing doctrine, organization, and training for effective ULE employment.

But how to do both, launch a new manned platform and integrate ULEs?

According to Major General Michael McCurry: “We aim to capitalize on the strengths of both without sacrificing humans for first contact, focusing on what machines can do best and what humans do best. The most important letter in HMI is the “F” for formation. We’re focused on formations of capability, which is a bit different from others around the world that want to employ a singular material item on the battlefield. We’re interested in building formations and capabilities at echelon. A great mentor, retired General David Perkins, once told me to quit focusing on one thing and see how it fits into the bigger picture. So, this formation-based approach is critical.”

In other words, the focus is upon leveraging what a new platform like the FLRAA can provide, namely speed and range, but working in what I have called combat clusters to leverage what autonomous systems can deliver, or in the words of the panel how ULE employment working with FLRAA shapes the concepts of operations of operational units in the future force.

As Colonel Jeffrey Poquette underscored: “Two things about FLRAA that are most important to the Army are: go twice as far, twice as fast. We beat that drum all the time. The other part that General Baker highlighted is that if we get those two things right, there’s no doubt in my mind that this transformational capability will live on for many decades to come.”

But how to design a platform which has such inherent capabilities but one able to adopt to a world where autonomous systems will be increasingly significant?

I will return to the panel discussion to address this question in my next article.

By Robbin Laird

I have returned from Australia and the latest Sir Richard Willians seminar.

In that seminar, we dealt with the challenge of how to enhance the ready force while investing in the future force.

The modernization of the ADF is a case study in the clash between force design for an envisaged future force and the need to enhance the force in being to deal with the world as it is.

The challenge for any force planner is to combine a projection of desired core platforms, connectivity technologies, the nature of the adversaries to be dealt with by such a force and to do so from the perspective of what we believe of the future envisaged from the present.

It has always been difficult, but it may be well be the case that future force planning built around projections of the platforms of the future has outlived its day and is perhaps counterproductive.

What good is a thirty-year shipbuilding program when we are entering a period which will be significantly reshaped by maritime autonomous systems?

And are we preparing for World War III or are we shaping a strategy to sort through how to deal with the gray zone conflicts and local wars characterizing the multi-polar authoritarian world?

This difficulty of force planning is enhanced by how today’s ready forces need to modernize to deal with current operations.

Or put another way, closing the gaps for the fight tonite force generates change which simply is not captured by future force planning built around iterative platform replacement. You are not going to capture the nature of future air warfare by designing a so-called sixth-generation fighter to replace a fifth-generation fighter.

We have entered the world of the kill web where the evolution of warfare is being shaped by the payloads which can be configured and connected to create the desired effects in a combat space. We are building combat clusters rather than platform identified task forces. We are building maritime combat clusters not destroyer task forces. And this approach decisively challenges a platform defined future force planning approach.

The Australian government has identified a number of characteristics of the future force. The problem is that for the current force to be effective, lethal and survivable, it needs to upgrade its force on the fly.

And this requires more attention to rapid modernization than has been pursued in the past two decades.

For example, Jennifer Parker, the noted Australian naval strategist, argued this about the implications of the changing littoral environment for capital ships:

I had a chance to follow up with Jennifer Parker on her excellent presentation at the 26 September 2024 Sir Richard Williams seminar which focused on the evolving threat environments in the littorals and insights to be gained from operations in the Black Sea, Red Sea and the Philippine’s Sea.

She argued in that presentation that new capabilities, notably USVs and UAVs used by the Ukrainians and the Houthis posed new challenges to capital ships in the littorals. And that capital ships clearly can still be effective but ongoing modernization of their defensive systems in the new context on an ongoing basis was critical.

In our discussion, she underscored that the threat from land systems was of enhanced range, and new threats posed by unmanned maritime systems introduced additional threats to capital ships as well.

What this meant for her was the absolute importance of ongoing modernization of the combat systems aboard surface ships. Rather than viewing updates as occurring in long periods of block upgrades, there needs to be an ability to weave in upgrades based on the rapid evolution of offensive threat systems from various operational theaters.

It is crucial to have very credible threat information from a diversity of deployments by the Royal Australian Navy and its allies, and to be able to weave that information into ongoing upgrade efforts of combat systems.

And modern airpower is being generated by software upgradable systems such as the F-35 which need regular upgrades to keep pace with the rapidly changing combat environment.

The need to upgrade more rapidly dips into the costs of funding the future force or alternatively if you starve the current force to pay for a future force you threaten its viability.

But in the September 26, 2024 Sir Richard Williams seminar focused on the ready force, a further challenge for future force planning was laid bare. Virtually every major speaker who spoke about how to ramp up the capabilities of the ready force highlighted the salience and importance of incorporating autonomous systems within the force.

But how to do so is a major challenge in part because these systems do not follow the strictures of legacy future force building models. They are payloads more than platforms, and as with all payloads their utility is determined by actual warfighters, not think tank strategists and force planners.

This character of the evolution of the ready force incorporating autonomous systems was highlighted by the former chief of the Australian Navy Vice Admiral Tim Barrett in an interview I did with him.

This is how Barrett put it in the interview:

The reality is that for autonomous systems to come into the current force, they need to be well practiced at the operational end – promotion of their adoption is a behavioral piece. New systems need to be in the hands of warfighters to ensure that these systems make the current force more agile and take actions that are effective in their application.

Operational success is still about the application of force in the mind of the person responsible for delivering it.  It’s about forcing them to think of operational success by whatever means they have available to them, and then having the courage to take those actions.

You are not necessarily after disruptive change in process, but disruption in the effect. In some cases you don’t want disruption in the efficiency of the process of operations. But, you want to be able to cause a disruption that has an effect on your adversary.

 With regard to the Ghost Shark, to fully achieve its potential, it has to quickly enter the operational world of those who are managing the underwater warfare space throughout the regions of our interests.  

To be effective as a disruptive technology, it will need to contribute to the operational effects being sought by those managing the undersea domain; in tactical terms this means it has to be of benefit to those managing the water column. It could generate strategic consequences but not simply because of its technology but in the way this it is used to produce disruptive operational effects.  

A successful water space management process is key to being able to determine where your adversary is, or, more importantly, where it isn’t, so that you can put the right forces in the right place.

Bureaucracies don’t necessarily think like that. Operators absolutely do so, because it’s their day-to-day business, and they’re in the practice of only putting in harm’s way those things that need to be there to affect a disruption to the enemy’s operations.

The disruptive effects that a Ghost Shark can produce should be determined by those who actively manage the battle space, the undersea battle space, rather than someone who’s programming from afar and doing so in complete isolation from the rest of the water space management concepts of operations.

In other words, the Australians face a challenge common to the United States and its allies: How is the changing nature of more rapid upgrades in the ready force affect the practice of future force planning?

There is probably no starker reminder of how things have changed than watching the Israelis execute a strategy in their seven front war. They have combined fifth generation aircraft with exploding pagers and a variety of new combat clusters to deal with a deadly threat generated by Iran through its complex web of warfighting.

Does anyone really think that force planners sitting down a decade ago envisaged the force engaged today?

Rather the Israelis have modified in a variety of innovative ways the ready force, adding some new core platforms, but focused on a kill web enabled force to deal with a range of threats.

We are at a turning point in our military modernization strategies.

Are we paying for a future force while being compromised in the conflicts of today?

By Robbin Laird

The Marines assisted in relief efforts in the Philippines after a Typhoon hit that country. And as has been done in the past, the dynamic duo of the KC-130J and the Osprey provided the means to do so.

As Capt Mark McDonough noted in a 14 October 2024 story:

MANILA, Philippines —

U.S. Marines across multiple forward-deployed commands concluded six days of foreign disaster relief efforts in the Philippines Oct. 10, 2024, supporting the U.S. Agency for International Development’s humanitarian response to Typhoon Krathon (locally known as Julian) at the request of the Philippine government.

Marines and Sailors from Marine Rotational Force – Southeast Asia (MRF-SEA); 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (1st MAW); III Marine Expeditionary Force (III MEF); and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (15th MEU) embarked aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4) delivered nearly 96,000 pounds of foreign disaster relief supplies to Batan Island, a remote island in the Batanes Province and one of the locations most impacted by Krathon.

Typhoon Krathon originated 155 miles southwest of Okinawa before moving northwest, reaching peak intensity Oct. 1, with sustained winds of 195 kph (120 mph). Krathon heavily battered the northern islands of the Philippines, leading to evacuations, infrastructure damage, and food supply insecurity in affected communities.

At the request of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin directed U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to support USAID’s relief efforts due to the unique capabilities and high state of readiness of forward-deployed U.S. Marine Corps forces.

MRF-SEA first arrived in the Philippines in late September to participate in upcoming training exercises with the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Operating out of Fort Bonifacio, Philippines, MRF-SEA immediately began coordination with the U.S. Department of State, USAID, the AFP, and other U.S. Marine Corps units to plan support for the relief effort. Two teams of Marines and Sailors from MRF-SEA integrated with USAID and AFP personnel in Manila and Laoag to plan and prepare for the arrival of KC-130J Super Hercules aircraft from 1st MAW in Okinawa, Japan, and personnel from 3rd Marine Logistics Group.

“Before Marine Corps aircraft ever touched down in the Philippines, Marines and Sailors with MRF-SEA were integrated with our partners in the U.S. and Philippine governments, on site at Villamor Air Base and Laoag International Airport, with the manpower and heavy equipment needed to package and move aid material,” said Col. Stuart Glenn, commanding officer, MRF-SEA. “Forward-deployed Marine Corps forces allow us to quickly respond to humanitarian missions because we’re already in the region. I am extremely proud that our team was able to set the necessary conditions to quickly provide relief to the Philippine people.”

After arriving on Oct. 5, the cargo planes were loaded with supplies at Villamor Air Base and flown to Laoag International Airport in northern Luzon for staging and preparation to move the supplies to their final destination on Batan Island. The KC-130 crews conducted 26.2 hours of flight operations, successfully transported all aid materials to Laoag.

As U.S. and Philippine personnel worked to move supplies north, the 15th MEU arrived aboard USS Boxer and began flight operations to support relief efforts on Oct. 8. MV-22B Ospreys, assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 165 (Reinforced), landed in Laoag, and combined teams from the 15th MEU, MRF-SEA, and Philippine Marines spent the next three days loading Ospreys, the Marine Corps’ medium-lift tiltrotor V/STOL platform, with disaster relief supplies for the final leg of the movement to the Basco Airport on Batan Island. Pilots and aircrews from VMM-165 (Rein.) conducted more than 55 flights and successfully delivered the final disaster relief material on Thursday, Oct. 10.

“The primary focus of our mission is helping the people of the Philippines recover as quickly and safely as possible,” said Col. Sean Dynan, commanding officer, 15th MEU. “Humanitarian assistance in an expeditionary environment is what we train to do, and it is one of the reasons we are forward-deployed as an amphibious force.”

The forward presence and ready posture of U.S. Marine forces in the Indo-Pacific region was pivotal to the rapid and effective response to Typhoon Krathon, demonstrating the U.S.’s commitment to its allies and partners during times of need.

This recalled an earlier effort for which I conducted an interview in 2013 with the Marines involved in the Osprey engagement in a Typhoon relief mission.

I entitled that article: “The initial response to the Philippine Relief Mission: An Osprey Squadron in Action.”

That article follows:

As the 1st Marine Wing prepared to celebrate the USMC birthday at a ball, and to prepare for a long weekend around Veteran’s Day, this reverie was smashed by the reality of a Typhoon.

Nature had another idea and another approach to Veteran’s Day.

It was time for the Veteran’s in the making to go to work, and not to celebrate the past.

It was a case of Marines making history; not celebrating it.

A massive Typhoon was heading towards the Philippines and the Marines needed to prepare to assist, notably as the forward deployed force with rapid support capability.

For Lt. Col. Brown, the CO of VMM-262, the “Flying Tigers, this meant as well telling his wife Darcy, that they would have to put a hold on their anniversary celebration as well.

And this meant organizing the C-130s and Ospreys to coordinate for the coming eventuality.

According to Brown, “1st MAW organized a template for the initial engagement, but the first few days on the ground were chaos, which has only now become clarified in terms of how the joint and coalition force will shape its supporting mission.

“When the digital support for the mission was down, the Ospreys used aerial reconnaissance (their own) to determine where to take relief aid.

“Initially, the team thought this was a soccer field but determined upon landing that it was a schoolyard.

“Upon delivering aid, the Filipinos worked with the Marines and the local police who were present to deliver aide in an orderly fashion. According to Brown: “The school children were very happy to see us and the parents and children responded with enthusiasm to our arrival.”

“Because the C-130J squadron commander lives next door to Brown in Okinawa, they started planning the joint mission several days prior to its execution.

According to Brown, “A hub and spoke system is emerging in which the Navy helos are being supported by Marine FARPS (Forward Area Refueling Point) with the Ospreys using either the C-130s or the large deck carrier for refueling.”

In its role the USS Washington is a seasbase operating a few miles offshore and is integrated into the overall operations, rather than being considered as something apart from the overall role of airpower supporting the HA/DR mission set.

Concepts of operations can change as new technologies are added to the fleet.

The Marines have operated as the forward deployed force for the operation, and reminds one of the importance of forward presence.

Having integrated capability for the point of the spear is crucial and the Osprey clearly functions as the tip of the tip of the spear for rapid insertion.

As one senior Marine put it:

“1st MAW had Ospreys and Hercs in Tacloban about 72 hrs after the storm passed. And I am not talking just about people on the ground but real, self-sustaining capability to move the mountains of relief supplies to where it was needed and where nothing else could get the job done so effectively.”

There is no question it is a just a small effort against an immense catastrophe but the combination of rapid deployment and true capability is a crucial part of getting the response in play.

And it has been clear that the Marines see themselves as part of the overall joint and coalition force and working as a supporting command to the Philippine’s Armed Forces overall.

Members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spearheaded the relief efforts in Tacloban and surrounding areas by having disaster teams on-hand even before the super typhoon hit.

Multi-national forces soon fell into supporting roles to the AFP, and one week later groups and military representatives from across the globe are aiding in relief efforts.

Lt. Col. Brown highlighted the importance as well of the night operations of the USAF C-130s able to deliver supplies at night so that the effort could be run on a 24 hour basis.

But I pursued the story and focused on the first few days of meeting the challenge

This is the story as published on November 22, 2013:

The devastation from the Typhoon which directly struck the Philippines left in its wake a patch quilt of infrastructure from which to start a relief effort.

The Marines on Okinawa, Japan because of their integrated force structure and forward location were able to go early and to set in motion the process to follow.

The Osprey and KC-130J (teaming) was important for this effort. The KC-130Js provided air to air refueling and path finding creating the conditions for the Osprey to operate at extended ranges with increased time of station throughout the Philippines.

With fuel initially only available in Manilla and Clark, the teaming and extra time on station allowed the Ospreys and KC-130s to conduct multiple insertions in remote areas of relief workers and other elements necessary to set up an infrastructure for a much larger relief effort to follow.

The first five days was the key focus of the initial insertion force, and because of the reach and range of the Osprey, the Marines were able to operate throughout the island chain.

And the reality of the island chain is important in this regard, as it is clearly not a land mass, so considerations of support for the Ospreys – fuel etc. – as well as locations of supplies and the complexity of moving people and those supplies was significantly enhanced by the geographical reality of an island chain.

In a follow up to our discussion with Lt. Col. “Sniper” Brown, the CO of VMM-262, we had a chance to talk with his colleague Major A. “Papi” Guzman. 

According to Lt. Col. Brown, Guzman is his assistant operations officer and the two of them flew lead and wing together interchangeably for the 1st three days. We had the chance to revisit from the Major’s perspectives some of the key realities of those first few days of the relief effort.

The Major noted that the MEB flew out on the 10^th; and they received their diplomatic clearances on the 11^th and then departed for the relief mission. The assessment team from the MEB went first and the airplanes followed.

The first point underscored by the Major was the need to get the planes initially to Manila and Clark Air Base to get a process started on October 11^th.  “The next day we started executing the relief mission.”

And in a relief effort, a common problem which was evident in the Philippines as well is the need to deal with missing ports and airfields and leveraging what remains.  This creates in turn a choke-point management problem of the first order.

“Every plane that was available started flowing into Tacloban. This was a major problem given the absence of real air traffic management and the tarmac getting loaded up with supplies as well.  Supplies, workers, planes, and congestion were evident on the fields where we were to stage from.  Everything was in flux. Although a good thing to do, we realized it was a dangerous effort as well.  We needed to get the right crew elements together to execute the mission and to do so in the presence of devastation only a Typhoon can deliver.

This in turn created significant fuel problems, as we would have to hover prior to landing as much as an hour plus (because of the ground congestion), which meant that fuel was always a challenge.

And clearly without the KC-130Js we could not have done the operation.  I was concerned about being a stranded airplane on a remote island in case of a landing emergency. The KC-130Js were critical to us, prior to the arrival of the USS Washington, which we now use as an alternative fuel base for our Osprey operations. We did not have a running FARP (Forward Air Refueling Point) until the 4^th day of the operation.”

It was clear that not knowing where your Exxons are located is a key aspect of managing air operations in such a large scale relief effort; and managing the choke point as well, because there is no point to flowing through more people and supplies if the surviving ports and airfields are simply becoming dumping grounds and making it more and more difficult to operate from.

After having landed at Clark, they had to sort out where they would go the next day.

“The situation was very unclear. Where were we to go, with which supplies and with which purpose?  Intelligence was completely missing and communications were down.  We relied on the CO’s international blackberry for the first two days for our planning and communication needs.  We had no other connectivity.

We had to work our taskings through the blackberry. We were ready to go but where.  I reached out to a fellow Marine and he reached out to family on Facebook and gave us some information about areas we might consider going to. And we relied on the local newspaper to identify one of our first locations to visit, namely Guian peninsula.

But prior to doing the school field delivery, they flew to Tacloban airfield which was to become a key operational center for the air side of the relief effort.

“The area was so devastated and we had limited ground support so we flew our first two Ospreys there with senior officers in charge of each plane and flew in slowly on rotor because we were not sure of the terrain or the ground conditions for landing.  We had to devise a way for us to get into the airfield.

We remained visual with each other because the weather was so bad initially. I was amazed at the level of destruction we saw as we came in. Although we had four aircraft available, for risk mitigation we felt that only two planes should go in initially.”

Next up was the flight to Guian peninsula.  “We identified a devasted area by reading the Philippine Examiner and saw what we thought was a picture of a soccer field, but later would discover it was a school yard.”

We asked the Major what the field looked like as they began to touch base.

“The area was completely devastated and all we saw was rubble.  It was a never ending path of destruction.  My eyes scanned with total amazement.  I would see images of families and little kids running around in the streets as we passed over. At first, the area looked deserted. But after we landed hundreds of children and older people came out from under the rubble or from cardboard boxes to approach the plane.

You really do not imagine that many people in such a devastated area, coming out from the woodwork. And older gentlemen came up to the plane and shunted the children away from the plane so we could safely shut it down. If we had not had the newspaper we would not have had a good idea where to start the relief area. ”

We pointed out that the plane must have seen like a science fiction object to folks who had never seen it before and asked what happened when they started flying locals on the plane.

“Like most first time flyers, they were amazed when we transition from rotor to propeller mode and become a plane.  The crew chiefs noted that eyes open wide open when the acceleration takes place and smiles came on the passengers faces. Normally we hold 24 in the back; here we had more than that.  I remember we put a man with babies on both shoulders into a jump seat.”

The Major also emphasized the challenge of flying in these conditions.  “Normally we do 3 hours of flight planning for each hour of flight; needless to say we were doing 0 hours of flight planning in these conditions on a contingency task.”

We also discussed the coming contribution of the F-35B in this type of operation.  With the F-35B the Marines will have a C2 and ISR capability to contribute significantly as well to this type of operation.

By getting a five day jump, it was then possible to shape the infrastructure for the next phase.  And by the USMC approach, the first five days was an operational relief effort PLUS putting in place the infrastructure for the next phase.

When we interviewed the Major it was several days into the relief operation and he was having his first day off.  We asked him: “looking back what did it feel like emotionally?”

According to the Major:

“We were flying in a very confused and difficult situation.  We clearly are concerned with our own capability to operate and at the same time this is just a means to an end.  The end is to get relief to people who need, move in relief workers, bring supplies and move locals as necessary.

Virtually none of these folks had ever flown on an Osprey before, but willingly did so in these circumstances.  When we would open the back we would see many women and children crying with no doubt relief but regret and having now to face an uncertain future.  It was difficult to look at this and not have your own emotional reaction.

But it is rewarding. You go through all this training and now you get to make a difference.”

What the Major was experiencing was Thanksgiving a bit early in the month of November; the sci fi platform was working with others to start the Philippines towards that future.

When doing disaster relief, professionals will tell you that time is your most precious commodity.

The Osprey-KC-130J pairing bought time for the current HA/DR mission. 

By having the pairing, the USMC team was able to move in rapidly and prepare for the insertion of additional forces and aide teams.

How much is 3-5 days of additional time worth in putting in motion a relief effort?

Featured photo: U.S. Marine Corps MV-22B Ospreys attached to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 165 (Reinforced), 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, land at Basco Airport during foreign disaster relief operations in Basco, Batanes Province, Philippines, Oct. 8, 2024.

BASCO, PHILIPPINES

10.10.2024

Photo by Cpl. Joseph Helms

15th Marine Expeditionary Unit