Robbin Laird, Author at Second Line of Defense

Expanding the Assault Support Mission to a Broader Mission Set

Posted on December 8, 2023 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

12/08/2023

By Robbin Laird

During my November 2023 visit to MAWTS-1, I had a chance to meet with Maj Nicholas Peters to discuss the activities of the assault mission training part of MAWTS-1. Maj Peters is the Assault Support Department Head.

While the traditional image of assault support remains a key one – transporting Marines to a place of embarkation and ready to fight – there is growing emphasis on longer range missions and on broadening the mission set.

The Osprey and KC-130 in SP-MAGTF operated at distance. This experience is being folded into training for long range missions in the Pacific. The other members of the assault force – the rotorcraft including heavy lift – are not built for the range and speed of a combined KC-130J-Osprey mission set.

But working the broader assault package in areas of interest remains a key bread and butter capability of the USMC, and continued press of events such as the Middle East certainly reminds one of the necessities of ensuring that the Marines are range for a spectrum of operations, not just somebody’s pet rock.

Earlier this year, I interviewed Col Marvel who identified a range of adaptations which the Osprey is currently going through to support the joint force.

Col Marvel underscored that expanding the mission set for the Navy’s CMV-22B was certainly possible but was not in his domain of responsibility. But the USMC is clearly expanding the payloads carried by the MV-22B which supports distributed operations, and if the three services which operate the aircraft found ways to expand their ability to cross-service each other’s aircraft, they would be able to enhance such operations.

As Col Marvel put it: “The Osprey provides unique speed and range combinations with an aircraft which can land vertically. It is a very flexible aircraft which could be described as a mission-kitable aircraft. The Osprey has big hollow space in the rear of the aircraft that can hold a variety of mission kits dependent on the mission which you want the aircraft to support.”

He emphasized that with a variety of roll-on roll-off capabilities with different payloads.

“We can add the specialists in the use of a particular payload along with the payload itself to operate that payload, whether kinetic or non-kinetic, whether it is a passive or active sensor payload. We need to stop thinking about having to put the command of such payloads under the glass in the cockpit and control those payloads with a tablet.”

Maj Peters indicated that at MAWTS-1 they have expanded the mission sets for their Ospreys to embrace C2 and ASW efforts. With regard to the C2, roll on roll of capability can provide for a variety of joint force enablement and support missions. With regard to ASW, the Osprey can deploy sonobuoys in support of the Navy’s ASW mission as well, and they have exercised such capability at MAWTS-1.

A key aspect of the new emphasis for Osprey training being performed at MAWTS-1 is the TRAP mission for the Navy. Obviously, there have events in the past such as the pilot rescue in Libya which highlighted how the speed and range of the Osprey provides unique TRAP mission capabilities.

But now with the focus on Indo-PACOM and the concern for loss of aircraft in a contested operation, it is important for the U.S. Navy to rely on the speed and range of the Osprey to support the TRAP mission. Here the Osprey community is working hoisting methods to provide for the mission, and this has become part of the training conducted by the Assault Support Department.

The Osprey is flown by the USAF and Navy as well, which leads to a kind of built in joint integration in terms of a common operator pool across the services. Peters indicated that a USAF Osprey pilot was an instructor in his department and taught the students how the USAF using its Ospreys and operated them differently from the USMC.

And my visits to North Island with the CMV-22B squadrons certainly underscores that with the Navy operating their version of the Osprey, there are significant opportunities for working maritime integration at a very fundamental support and assault level as well.

The photos are from Maj Peters time at VMM-265.

The U-Tapoa picture is from 31st MEU support to Cobra Gold in Feb-Mar 2020. Credit: USMC

Landing on the USS America is from the 31st MEU in April 2020. Credit: USMC

The Iwakuni picture is from VMM-265 training, we were transiting from Kunsan Korea to Okinawa in Oct 2018. Credit: USMC

The Replicator Project: In Search of a Con-Ops and a Manufacturing Base

Posted on December 6, 2023 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

12/06/2023

By Robbin Laird

In August 2023, Deputy Secretary of Defense Hicks announced a new “replicator” project or initiative.

As she said in her speech:

“At DoD, we’ve already been investing in attritable autonomous systems — across the military services, DIU, the Strategic Capabilities Office, and the combatant commands themselves — and in multiple domains: self-piloting ships, uncrewed aircraft, and more.

“It’s clear they aren’t just lower-cost. They can be produced closer to the tactical edge. They can be used consistent with our principles of mission command, where we empower the lowest-possible echelons to innovate and succeed in battle. And they can serve as resilient, distributed systems, even if bandwidth is limited, intermittent, degraded or denied.

“So now is the time to take all-domain, attritable autonomy to the next level: to produce and deliver capabilities to warfighters at the volume and velocity required to deter aggression, or win if we’re forced to fight.

“Since we need to break through barriers and catalyze change with urgency, we’ve set a big goal for Replicator: to field attritable autonomous systems at scale of multiple thousands, in multiple domains, within the next 18-to-24 months.

“And the ‘replication’ won’t just be happening from a production standpoint. We’ll also aim to replicate and inculcate how we will achieve this goal, so we can scale what’s relevant in the future again and again and again.

“Easier said than done? You bet. But we’re gonna to do it.”

But to “do it,” and provide a credible military capability, one needs to evolve con-ops, not just buy stuff.

And this is a major question: how does the military operate across the spectrum of warfare using new autonomous systems?

Remember, the UAVs used largely to date are remotely piloted systems and the U.S. Navy has experimented but not deployed such systems.

As I wrote earlier: “The new generation autonomous UAVs or the new smaller maritime autonomous systems do not have to be designed to be integrated with the combat systems of the extant manned fleet. That misses the point.

“As Commodore Kavanagh of the Royal Australian Navy has put it: “They don’t replace platforms; they complement the integrated force. They are complimentary to that force in that they interface rather than being fully integrated with the current force elements.”

“Second, they are part of a kill web, not an integrated kill chain. They can create a combat cluster rather than part of an integrated task force. You give them specific missions and they perform what that limited mission might be. Their job is fully focused on a specific mission thread not replacing a multi-mission manned system.

“Put another way, you change the con-ops of the fleet from a task force manned scoped fleet designed for multi-mission operations to one in which manned fleet assets have at their disposal clusters of autonomous systems to which one can delegate a specific mission which the manned assets does now not have to perform.

“This is not manned-unmanned teaming – this is delegation of a mission to a wolfpack of smaller autonomous vessels.”

It is not simply buying a lot of cool stuff, it is buying systems available now that the military uses now to support an evolving concept of operations.

And added to this challenge is the absence of a credible manufacturing model.

The “last supper” of Secretary Perry left a small number of primes in control of the defense industrial base.

Added to this, the supply chain atrophied during COVID and now is under pressure to provide for foreign allies, not just the U.S. military.

Se where is a credible manufacturing model that would empower a much wider production base to provide for the U.S. military without going through the archaic Pentagon acquisition system?

To be clear: it is not about simply having a vision — it is about significant change in military con-ops and the so-called defense industrial base. I say so-called because much of the production base relevant to a replicator initiative isn’t in the defense sector at all.

Featured Photo: Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks participates in a fireside chat with Editor of Defense News Marjorie Censer during the 7th annual Defense News Conference at the Ritz-Carlton, Pentagon City, Va., Sept. 5, 2023. (DoD photo by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)

Note: A crucial question facing the U.S. is the defense industrial base and its limitations..

In an article by Greg Ip published in The Wall Street Journal on December 6, 2023, the author highlighted the challenge as follows:

“It isn’t just defense; the entire U.S. manufacturing base shrank as labor-intensive production migrated to East Asia. There are fewer suppliers, factories, shipyards and, most important, workers available to meet the rising demand.

“True, civilian and military capacity aren’t perfect substitutes; defense products often require specialized systems and skills. That makes the shortfall even more severe. It could take three to five years to train a welder to work on a submarine, said Ronald O’Rourke, an analyst at the Congressional Research Service.

“Echoing the quality problems U.S. manufacturers of semiconductors, autos and airliners have experienced, defense manufacturers suffer from endemic cost overruns and delays. On average, a new lead ship costs 40% more than the Navy first estimates, the CBO says. Delivery times for submarines have grown to nine years from six.”

And the WSJ recently posted a video which highlights the autonomous system build problem.

Eric Trappier’s Perspective on French Arms Exports and Cooperation: December 2023

Posted on December 6, 2023 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

By Pierre Tran

Paris – The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have not fueled fresh sales of the Rafale, Eric Trappier, executive chairman of Dassault Aviation, prime contractor for the French-built fighter jet, said Dec. 5.

“These two crises are very hard, very sad, (but) there has been no impact,” he told the Defense Journalists Association, a press club, when asked whether the two conflicts had sparked greater interest in foreign orders for the French fighter.

Indeed the fighting in those two regions had “slowed discussions,” he said.

Exports are critical to Dassault, as Paris has slowed orders for the French fighter in a bid to control the public purse.

There has been much talk in France of a “war economy,” since president Emmanuel Macron used that term following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February last year. The French head of state and commander in chief brought forward a seven-year military budget law, and parliament adopted in July an increased funding of €413 billion ($447 billion), partly in response to the incursion ordered by Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Trappier pointed out the increased military orders consisted mainly of artillery and shells, and the Rafale did not really feature in that war economy.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has asked France for details of the Rafale, an interest that reflected Germany’s problems with an export sale of the Eurofighter Typhoon to Riyadh, he said. Berlin’s refusal to give a green light for the Eurofighter stems from Saudi Arabia’s ordering the killing of a Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in Istanbul in 2018, and support for a civil war in Yemen. The Green party, a key German coalition partner, objects to alleged Saudi failings in observing human rights, and rejects arms sale to Riyadh.

Such German resistance to an arms export deal was not a good sign, Trappier said, raising doubt over foreign sales of a planned fighter to be built by Paris, Berlin and Madrid.

There is an updated Franco-German bilateral treaty on arms exports, but there is concern in French industrial circles over future authorization from Berlin for foreign sales of weapons built under cooperation.

Meanwhile, the Dassault top executive said the Italian government had made an “anti-Rafale” move in blocking a $1.8 billion acquisition by Safran, a French company, of an Italian company building flight control systems. Safran builds M88 engines and other equipment for the Rafale, including the AASM powered smart bombs.

The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said Nov. 22, the government was using its “golden share,” to forbid Safran’s offer for Microtecnica, on the grounds the company was a strategic asset and key supplier to the Italian services. Microtecnica is a unit of the U.S. company Collins Aerospace.

Italy is a partner nation in the Eurofighter Typhoon consortium, along with Britain, Germany, and Spain. Rome is also partnered on the F-35, flying and assembling the U.S. fighter which Dassault sees as its arch rival in the European market.

There is a certain amount of interoperability between the F-35 and the Rafale, Trappier said on the sidelines of the meeting with the press club, with the Nato Link 16 communications protocol, but that allowed a basic exchange of information, and the question was what lay in the future.

France has partnered with Germany and Spain on an ambitious project for a future combat air system (FCAS), which rests on a planned new generation fighter, remote carrier drones, and a combat cloud for an extended network of command and control.

Airbus Defence and Space leads work on that European combat cloud, while Dassault is architect and prime contractor on the new fighter. Simulation studies are being conducted on the FCAS project at the Dassault head office in Saint Cloud, in the suburbs of the capital, and designing algorithms that support the pilot are part of the work, Trappier said.

“We know exactly what we want to do,” he said, with the combat drones flying with the new fighter.

There is a French plan to build a combat drone to fly with the Rafale, separate from the FCAS project, which is due to enter service in 2040. That earlier combat drone will be larger than the Neuron, a technology demonstrator for an unmanned combat air vehicle, which is continuing to be used for flight tests at Istres, a French air base, southern France. The French services initially held Neuron in low regard, something of a “gadget,” he said, but grew increasingly attracted to the project, which included the launch of weapons.

Meanwhile, Trappier ruled out any prospect of cooperation with the Tempest-Global Combat Air Programme, as two of the core partners, Britain and Japan, are not “European.”

Italy is the third partner nation in that project, which competes with the European FCAS led by France, Germany, and Spain. Belgium expects to sign a formal agreement later this month on gaining observer status on the FCAS, and hopes to join as a full partner in the following phase, building a technology demonstrator to fly in 2029. Brussels is keen to join the FCAS, to win high-value aeronautical work for Belgian companies.

That has irked Trappier, who points out the European project is not to promote jobs, but to meet military requirements, the partner nations will buy the aircraft, and it is not clear Belgium will place orders for the new fighter. Brussels has ordered the F-35, but failed to win work share on that program.

On further orders for the Rafale, Trappier expects France to order 42 units later this month, comprising a planned batch of 30, and 12 to replace those sold second hand to Greece. There are also a further 26 Rafale expected to be ordered for the Indian navy, with Trappier appearing unconcerned India is due to hold general election next year. Indonesia is also expected to order a further 18-strong batch of the fighter.

Dassault has an order book for the Rafale which runs to 2032-33, he said, and the production rate is due to rise to three per month next year. That compares to a previous rate of one per month, or 11 per year, with the Marignane factory, outside Bordeaux, southwest France, closed for the month of August for the annual holiday.

That production rate of three per month could be increased, he said, if there were more orders.

Credit Photo: Dassault

An Update on MAWTS-1: 2023

Posted on December 5, 2023 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

12/05/2023

By Robbin Laird

This report focuses on MAWTS-1 in 2023. In 2023, I interviewed the CO of MAWTS-1, Col Eric Purcell, in April and then visited the command in November after the second WTI of the year. This provided a chance to discuss how MAWTS-1 had progressed in working enhanced force mobility for the USMC within the broader joint force, a key emphasis of the force design effort.

The challenge is that while the Marines are working FARPs and other means to enhance force mobility, the joint force is in the throes of significant change, whether it be the U.S. Navy working distributed maritime operations or the USAF working agile combat employment.

How does the USMC effort to reorganize and enhance its contribution to the joint force while the joint force is itself in fundamental change with much uncertainty over how to do maritime distributed operations and the agile combat air combat employment?

The Navy and Air Force sides of this transition have been a major part of our work published elsewhere and provide insights with regard to how challenging the overall force transformation is within which the USMC is working to find its proper place. It is not just up to MAWTS-1 to work the training for such an effort, but NAWDC and Nellis are clearly involved as well.

To put it simply: it is a work in progress and the Marines emphasis on a MAGTF organizing principle remains important going forward in spite of the effort to find ways to operate from much smaller organizational formations.

This report includes the interviews conducted in 2023. The date indicates when the interview was published on Second Line of Defense and collectively they provide an overview of how MAWTS-1 is training for the way ahead for the USMC by preparing the force that might have to fight tonite.

As the end of course video for WTI-1-24 starts: “It is not a question of if the Marine Corps will go into combat. It is only a matter of when.”

Crafting a Sustainable Distributed Force: Maintenance and Logistics Challenges

Posted on December 5, 2023 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

By Robbin Laird

Each of the services is seeking ways to distribute their force for survivability and presence, but at the same time working through a joint lens to enhance lethality.

But the elephant in the room is sustainability, maintainability, and broader considerations of logistics support.

When visiting PACFLEET and PACAF this past April, one of the key subjects we discussed was the problem of how to have a sustainable distributed force.

How to do you support a distributed maritime force?

How do you support an Air Force doing agile combat employment?

It is no shock that when the Marines are focusing then on EABO and other approaches to force distribution that they face similar problems.

How do you maintain a force which is distributed?

One can demonstrate a FARP in which the F-35 receives fuel, but what if it needs the right kind of maintainer and the parts that are needed when it wishes to leave the FARP?

How do you move ammunition and weapons to keep a sustained moving EABO force?

Since this is not done by pixie dust, what support systems are available?

How are the personnel trained and available to do such operations?

Since the trend is away from iron mountains of weapons and material how do you create a chessboard of support for the force at the tactical edge?

To do so will require significant organizational change in DoD and the shaping of a truly joint sustainment system.

But the services are moving out on ways to distribute force in advance of any such changes.

This is obvious in a place like MAWTS-1 where the focus is upon the standardization of training for operations.

How to standardize maintenance and sustainment for the EABO focused Marines?

To be blunt this is a struggle and an effort in progress, but in my own view, the resolution of this challenge is at the joint sustainment level not simply at the USMC or U.S. Navy level.

And joint solutions can be crafted using the air systems and autonomous systems coming in the near to mid-term including USVs and UAVs.

I discussed the current situation with regard to standardization of maintenance and weapons support with three MAWTS-1 Marines. Major James J. Lay is the head of aircraft maintenance at MAWTS-1. Captain Jonathan R. Caruthers is in charge of aviation ordinance support to the aircraft operating at WTI. And Captain Tyler Thomsen who is the director of the advanced aircraft maintenance course at MAWTS-1.

I had a number of take-aways from my discussion with these three very capable officers. I am not holding them responsible for how I interpreted our discussion but am crediting them with insights with regard to the whole transition challenge.

The first is simply how daunting their task really is. MAWTS-1 is not an owner of aircraft. It is a facilitator of integrated operations which means that aircraft come from the various USMC air wings, fly into Yuma and within one week, they have to make the aircraft ACE ready.

They then have to organize the maintainers as part of a command-wide training effort to shape standardization across of the force. Maintainers come from the MAWs and it is in MAWTS that best practices are brought together allowing the standardization of those practices throughout the USMC. This obviously is ongoing learning process which is driven by maintenance experience of the air wings in operations which then gets standardized at MAWTS-1.

U.S. Marine ordinance technicians assigned to Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One, prepare to load advanced precision kill weapon systems during a forward arming and refueling point exercise, part of Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course 1-24 at Landing Zone Bull Attack, near Chocolate Mountains, California, Oct. 13, 2023. WTI is an advanced, graduate-level course for selected pilots and enlisted aircrew providing standardized advanced tactical training and assists in developing and employing aviation weapons and tactics. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Alejandro Fernandez)

Second, the template for provision of weapons has been the iron mountain at a base or support facility then moved out to the areas of interest.

But this template needs to be adjusted in several ways.

There needs to be a ramp up of weapons supply.

There need to be new methods and procedures to distribute weapons across a distributed force.

The work which MAWTS-1 has been doing with regard to FARPS/EABOs provide a demonstration of how challenging movement of weapons over a distributed force operational area is and the question of how to work this remains to be resolved.

The problem in part rests in acquisition. The Marines acquire ground-based ammunition: The Navy acquires weapons for the air element.

How to ensure a common adequate flow of weapons to a USMC expected to support the Navy in new ways?

Third, there is the need clearly to provide a different generation of weapons for the use of a distributed force designed to deliver integrated fires at range and distance required.

But what will be the new template to distribute such forces to an agile combat force?

In short, MAWT-1 is an incubator for testing the real world for new approaches and certainly along with the Navy and the Air Force’s weapon schools will attack this challenge in real world terms.

Credit Featured Image: U.S. Marines with Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361 (HMH-361), Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, perform maintenance on U.S. Marine Corps CH-53E helicopters assigned to Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course 1-24 at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, Sept. 20, 2023. The WTI course is an advanced, graduate-level, seven-week course hosted at MAWTS-1, which provides standardized advanced tactical training and certification of unit instructor qualifications, to support Marine aviation training and readiness, and to assist in developing and employing aviation weapons and tactics. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ruben Padilla.

An Update on MAWTS-1: 2023

C3 and the Way Ahead for the USMC: The Perspective from the C3 Department Head at MAWTS-1

Posted on December 4, 2023 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

12/04/2023

By Robbin Laird

C3 is the key tissue allowing for the shaping of a distributed force which can be integrated to create the desired combat effect. During my November 2023 visit to MAWTS-1, I discussed the way ahead in this crucial area with Major Christopher Werner, the C3Department Head.

Werner is a DASC marine, as is the current XO of MAWTs.

These are Marines who focus on providing the direction for air operations supporting the ground forces, and hence are key players in shaping an integrated ground maneuver force.

Major Werner began by describing their key role, notably working with the USAF, in providing fire support for the ground forces in Afghanistan. He noted that they were able to operate within a MAGTF construct to provide significant support for the ground forces in counter-insurgency operations.

But with the shift to preparing for combat operations against peer competitors, the focus has shifted both for the air element and the focus of C3 Marines on force integration. The air element is now returning to air-to-air combat as well as air defense as key missions, both of which were not the focus of attention in the counter-insurgency wars.

And now the C3 effort for the USMC needs to shift from a primary focus on integration within the MAGTF to working with the joint force and using C3 to integrate relevant joint force elements to create the desired effect.

Werner noted that their cooperation with the USAF evident in Afghanistan was going forward, but there was a renewed emphasis on working with the Navy on new ways to do force integration, to which C3 needed to provide the integrating tissue.

But this was a work in progress.

Major Werner noted that officers of the same rank of his in the Navy are pushing for more effective C3 between the services, but major problems remain in terms of working with the C3 systems of the carrier task forces.

He underscored: “That is something we need to work out if we can operate as an inside force with the carrier strike groups.”

C3 for the joint force as seen with the Navy MISR officers is essentially sensor-shooter integration over a kill web.

As Major Werner put it: “What we teach in our courses is the importance of being able to take data from whatever joint or coalition forces sensors are relevant to us and blending them into data enabling shooters and fires control decision makers. I think that makes our community such an interesting one to work within today, notably as the joint services pursue ways to do joint command and control to create desired combat effects at the tactical edge.”

From my own point of view, an important focus which would enable the Marines is building on the ARG-MEU and its amphibious ships. Ed Timperlake and I in our book on the maritime kill web, we underscored how we envisaged a very dynamic future for such a force.

As we argued: “There is no area where better value could be leveraged than making dramatically better use of the amphibious fleet for extended battlespace operations. This requires a re-imaging of what that fleet can deliver to sea control and sea denial as well as Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) offense and defense.

“Fortunately for the sea services, such a re-imaging and reinvention is clearly possible, and future acquisitions which drive new connectors, new support elements, and enhanced connectivity could drive significant change in the value and utility of the amphibious fleet as well. In addition, as the fleet is modernized new platform designs can be added to the force as well. And as we will address later in the book, this entails shaping variant payloads as well to be delivered from a distributed integrated amphibious fleet.

“As building out the evolving fleet, larger capital ships will be supplemented and completed with a variety of smaller hull forms, both manned and autonomous, but the logistics side of enabling the fleet will grow in importance and enhance the challenges for a sustainable distributed fleet. That is certainly why the larger capital ships – enabled by directed energy weapons as well – will see an enhanced role as mother ships to a larger lego-like cluster of smaller hull forms as well.”

And as maritime autonomous systems come on line, amphibious ships are well positioned for mother ship functionality in terms of launching and leveraging air and sea autonomous systems.

Note: The quote is taken from: Robbin F, Laird, and Edward Timperlake. A Maritime Kill Web Force in the Making: Deterrence and Warfighting in the 21st Century (pp. 109-110). Kindle Edition.

Featured Photo: U.S. Marines with Command, Control and Communication, Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One (MAWTS-1), board an MV-22B Osprey aircraft during an offensive air support exercise, part of Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) 2-23, at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Arizona, April 4, 2023.

WTI is a seven-week training event hosted by MAWTS-1, providing standardized advanced tactical training and certification of unit instructor qualifications to support Marine aviation training and readiness, and assists in developing and employing aviation weapons and tactics. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ruben Padilla.

Heavy Lift Helo Support in WTI-1-24

Posted on December 4, 2023 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

U.S. Marine CH-53E Super Stallion and a CH-53K King Stallion helicopters assigned to Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One, perform external lifts during Weapons and Tactics Instructor (WTI) course 1-24 at Yuma Auxiliary Army Airfield 2, Arizona, Oct. 3, 2023.

WTI is an advanced, graduate-level course for selected pilots and enlisted aircrew providing standardized advanced tactical training and assists in developing and employing aviation weapons and tactics.

10.03.2023

Video by Lance Cpl. Emily Hazelbaker

Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron-1

The Technology is Important: But the Con-ops Against a Reactive Enemy is Determinate

Posted on December 3, 2023 | by Robbin Laird | Leave a Comment

12/03/2023

By Robbin Laird

With the coming of maritime autonomous systems, we are reminded once again about the importance of understanding what a technology does and does not do for an organization. If you keep the structure of the organization the same, you simply wait for the technology to be useful to that legacy organization. Your focus is not upon – how can I use that technology now because it is important I do so?

How do I change the way I operate so I can use it NOW?

There is no better case in point than the conventional thinking about the U.S. Navy and maritime autonomous systems.

To be clear, there are those in the U.S. Navy who get it, such as Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, Commander U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. Task Force 59 within 5^th Fleet has provided practical leadership for the way ahead in using (not endlessly developing) maritime autonomous systems.

A good illustration of the challenge was highlighted in a recent USNI piece published on 30 November 2023.

In this piece, the author indicated that the unmanned future of the U.S. Navy is “murky.”

I would have used the term “confused” instead.

And the difference gets to a key point about how these systems can be used now and not after China has seized Taiwan.

The story highlights the deployment of four autonomous ships which was a months long deployment at the behest of the PACFLEET commander. The goal of the deployment was to demonstrate utility of such ships to the fleet, and the commander involved was quoted as saying: “The long-term goal … is to find ways to integrate these unmanned systems across the continuum – subsurface, surface and air – while having the ability to close kill-chains faster, keep them closed longer and be able to operate in a contested environment.”

But this a variant of the vision of a so-called ghost fleet which mimics what a legacy fleet does, only doing so with “unmanned vessels” and doing what is referred to as “manned-unmanned” teaming.

And these larger vessels will cost serious money to build and will almost certainly follow traditional production methodologies.

That is not going to get the Navy where it needs to go and will not keep it ahead of strategic competitors.

A different understanding is required.

First, the new generation autonomous UAVs or the new smaller maritime autonomous systems do not have to be designed to be integrated with the combat systems of the extant manned fleet. That misses the point.

As Commodore Kavanagh of the Royal Australian Navy has put it: “They don’t replace platforms; they complement the integrated force. They are complimentary to that force in that they interface rather than being fully integrated with the current force elements.”

Second, they are part of a kill web, not an integrated kill chain. They can create a combat cluster rather than part of an integrated task force. You give them specific missions and they perform what that limited mission might be. Their job is fully focused on a specific mission thread not replacing a multi-mission manned system.

Put another way, you change the con-ops of the fleet from a task force manned scoped fleet designed for multi-mission operations to one in which manned fleet assets have at their disposal clusters of autonomous systems to which one can delegate a specific mission which the manned assets does now not have to perform.

This is not manned-unmanned teaming – this is delegation of a mission to a wolfpack of smaller autonomous vessels.

Third, the battlespace is conceived as a chessboard. There are significant gaps on that chessboard which the legacy force can not address.

Autonomous systems – the next generation air or maritime autonomous systems can fill those gaps – in addition to providing complementary ISR, C2, logistics or strike capabilities.

The article mentions one desired effect from PACFLEET which is to create “hellscape” for an adversary looking to occupy terrain in the Pacific.

The article notes: “To keep sailors and Marines out of the deadliest of the Pacific crucibles, they want to overwhelm the invasion force with lethal drones to create what PACFLEET calls “hellscape.” The plan calls for thousands of lethal drones on, above and under the sea, creating chaos for the invaders.

“[Enemy] ships are getting damaged, slowing down, big timings are getting thrown off, some are getting lost, some ships are probably going to get sunk,” Clark told USNI News last week.

“This hellscape, this churn you cause in the invasion lets you mobilize, get your act together and start delivering the long-range fires that are going to actually take out the larger amphibious ships and surface ships,” he added.

“The concept has been taken up by the Pentagon and folded into the overarching Replicator initiative.”

To do this in the near term is possible but not by focusing on long-terms LUSV builds.

To do so requires building kamikaze boats with ordinance aboard which can attack the adversaries’ assets.

One company, MARTAC, has recently created such a kamikaze boat (the M-18) in five weeks, and could be available in the short term.

There are other ways to use smaller boats to enable a Hellscape con-ops but the point is that the con-ops change to drive the technology you tap.

And associated with that is creating a manufacturing model which could build smaller boats to scale, and such a model has virtually nothing in common with legacy shipbuilding models but can be done through the leveraging of smaller more agile companies that can activate a supplier chain more rapidly than the legacy prime contractors.

And to be blunt, whether you are a legacy prime or a smaller company it is all about the supply chain, and that will not exist at the scale needed without significant demand.

By focusing on a con-ops at hand – a maritime kill web force – one can find the place for maritime autonomous systems ready now for identifiable mission threads – rather than waiting for a ghost fleet that mimics the legacy fleet.

After all you want our sailors not to become ghosts while waiting for that futuristic ghost fleet.

Featured Photo: The MARTAC M-18 on the water. Credit: MARTAC