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The CH-53K provides a truly unique heavy lift capability.
Not only is it fully designed to operate in a wide variety of support missions from the sea base, but it is built as a digital aircraft from the ground up.
Given its digital systems, it can work with a variety of multi-mission assets to expand the range of support over a greater operating area compared to either the CH-53E or the Chinook.
It is designed from the ground up to carry heavier loads, three times that of the E with external lift.
It has automated flight controls which allow the flight crew to be part fully of any air combat insertion team, rather than having to be primarily be engaged with the challenges of flying a heavy lift helicopter.
The flight crew are part of the combat team throughout the mission, rather than having to focus largely on operating the aircraft.
The USMC clearly needs this aircraft now, and work its integration into the fleet.
And unlike the experience of Osprey Nation, the CH-53K nation have the advantage of a significant jump on the way ahead with the sustainability of the aircraft.
The Marines have learned from the earlier Osprey experience.
They have set up a logistics team in New River working through from a practical point of view, how to implement and improve the maintainability of the aircraft from the ground up.
In the context of a strategic shift from the land wars of the Middle East to higher tempo crisis management operations which can involve conflict with peer competitors, it is hard to understand how any serious defense analyst would want to compare this aircraft with that of the Chinook.
If the Pentagon is serious about the National Security Strategy, it is time to take seriously the shift from the land wars to full spectrum crisis management.
Unfortunately, when acquisition debates occur, considerations of the nature of the strategic shift is not being taken seriously enough and comparisons are sought with new combat systems built for the new strategic environment with older systems which have operated for the past 20 years in the counter-insurgency wars.
If the need to equip the force for the new strategic situation, it is difficult to understand why the CH-53K would not be considered a key stakeholder in the new force critical to operate in full spectrum crisis management.
It is good news then that the US Navy has just awarded a contract to Sikorsky to build additional Ch-53ks.
WASHINGTON (NNS) — The Naval Air Systems Command awarded on May 17 a $1.3 billion Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) Lots 2 and 3 contract for 12 aircraft to Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, Stratford, Conn. for the U.S. Marine Corps CH-53K King Stallion.
“The Marine Corps is very appreciative of the efforts by the Navy and our industry partners to be able to award the LRIP 2/3 contract,” said Lt. Gen. Steven Rudder, Deputy Commandant for Aviation. This is a win for the Marine Corps and will secure the heavy-lift capability we need to meet future operational requirements and support the National Defense Strategy. I’m very confident in the success of the CH-53K program and look forward to fielding this critical capability.”
The most powerful helicopter in the Department of Defense, the CH-53K King Stallion is a new-build helicopter that will expand the fleet’s ability to move more material, more rapidly throughout the area of responsibility using proven and mature technologies. The CH-53K is the only aircraft able to provide the Marine Corps with the heavy-lift capability it needs to meet future operational requirements for the vertical lift mission.
“This contract award reflects close cooperation and risk sharing between the Government and industry teams to deliver critical capabilities to the Marine Corps,” said James Geurts, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. “Working with our industry partners, the team ensured that solutions for technical challenges are incorporated into these production aircraft. This reflects the urgency to ensure we deliver capabilities necessary to support the Marine Corps and the Department of Navy’s mission, while continuing to drive affordability and accountability into the program.”
Designed and demonstrated the lift capability of nearly 14 tons (27,000lbs/12,247 kg) at a mission radius of 110 nautical miles (203 km), in Navy high/hot environments, the CH-53K lifts triple the baseline CH-53E lift capability. The CH-53K has proven the ability to lift up to 36,000lbs via the external cargo hook. The CH-53K will have an equivalent logistics shipboard footprint, lower operating costs per aircraft, and less direct maintenance man hours per flight hour. The combination of unmatched heavy-lift and range, fly-by-wire flight controls, with an advanced, integrated communications suite will provide the Marine Corps with the operational flexibility necessary to gain and, more importantly, sustain a tactical edge on the battlefield.
And an article by : Megan Eckstein of USNI News published as well on May 17, 2019 provided further insight with regard too the decision.
In a Friday news release, Navy and Marine Corps leadership expressed confidence in the program despite the challenges it has faced over the past year or so.
“The Marine Corps is very appreciative of the efforts by the Navy and our industry partners to be able to award the LRIP 2/3 contract,” Lt. Gen. Steven Rudder, the deputy commandant for aviation, said in a news release.
“This is a win for the Marine Corps and will secure the heavy-lift capability we need to meet future operational requirements and support the National Defense Strategy. I’m very confident in the success of the CH-53K program and look forward to fielding this critical capability.”
“This contract award reflects close cooperation and risk sharing between the Government and industry teams to deliver critical capabilities to the Marine Corps,” James Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said in the release.
“Working with our industry partners, the team ensured that solutions for technical challenges are incorporated into these production aircraft. This reflects the urgency to ensure we deliver capabilities necessary to support the Marine Corps and the Department of Navy’s mission, while continuing to drive affordability and accountability into the program.”
In a House Armed Services Committee hearing earlier this spring, Daniel Nega, the deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for air programs, told lawmakers on the tactical air and land forces subcommittee that the upcoming contract would put the onus on Sikorsky to address remaining design flaws and fix any other problems that come up during the remainder of testing.
“The flight envelope’s been tested to the corners; Gen. Rudder talked about how we’ve sort of wrung it out,” he said at the hearing. “There’s a relatively low risk that anything major will be found. However, if nuisance issues come along, we are not going to give those nuisance issues to the Marines, and the Navy and Marine Corps team is not going to accept the full risk of that. So the risk concurrency between the development and the production, that overlap is going to be taken care of.”
Asked how the contract awarded today would do that, Hernandez told USNI News that “the production contract is structured to ensure a deployable configuration is delivered for fleet use. All known issues are included in the contract, additionally the contract provides provisions for any new issues discovered during flight testing. This will ensure appropriate shared risk between the government and industry.”
The article also discussed upcoming sea trials for the CH-53K which will take the lessons learned at New River with regard to maintainability to sea.
Initial operational test and evaluation is set to begin in early 2021, which would allow the Marine Corps to declare initial operational capability in time for the first deployment in 2023 or 2024.
Though work still remains to be done, Paul Fortunato, director of Marine Corps business development at Sikorsky, and John Rucci, the company’s senior experimental test pilot for the CH-53K, said the new helicopter has already proven it is easier to operate and maintain than its predecessor and that its warfighting capability surpasses the requirements for the aircraft.
Rucci said pilots have total trust in the fly-by-wire cockpit, which essentially lands the helicopter on its own – meaning the pilots can focus on the mission at hand or evading a threat, or can safely land in a sandstorm or other degraded conditions.
And Fortunato said the helo was built with easy maintenance in mind: fewer tools are required, the all-electronic maintenance documents include graphics that maintainers can zoom in on and rotate to help them maintain or repair parts, the logistics footprint is smaller and easier for deployments aboard amphibious ships. The design even includes putting electronic components in “backwards,” meaning the connections are facing outwards and easily accessible when maintainers take off a panel, instead of the wiring being in the back like usual and requiring a Marine to use a mirror to see what is going on behind the component.
At Marine Corps Air Station New River in North Carolina, Falk said, Marines are using one of the system demonstration test article (SDTA) helicopters to work out any remaining issues in the maintenance manuals and to start learning more about how to fix and sustain the new helo.
“There’s Marines crawling around that aircraft, taking it apart, putting it back together again, running the maintenance procedures, and basically using what we developed in order for them to be able to maintain the aircraft,” Falk said. “So the opportunity for us before we start delivering production aircraft, we can learn from that, we can feed all that back, we can improve our maintenance procedures and basically when the aircraft is deployed deliver a much higher-quality, more efficient set of maintenance instructions. Plus, you’ve got Marines that have already used it, done it, learned.”
I have had the opportunity to follow the standup of the Osprey from the outset of its first deployments.
Clearly, one highlight of shaping that narrative was the first time it was used in combat in Afghanistan.
That interview was done by phone with Lt Col. Bianca, the squadron commander, and the sound of the Ospreys come back from its first combat mission in Afghanistan could be heard in the background.
On February 9th, 2010, “Second Line of Defense”‘ followed up its earlier interview with the Osprey squadron just before its deployment to Afghanistan last November with a new one, this time directly from Afghanistan, with Lieutenant-Colonel Bianca, the Osprey Squadron Commander.
The most compelling point underscored by the squadron commander is how, in effect, the Osprey has inverted infrastructure and platform.
Normally, the infrastructure shapes what the platform can do. Indeed, a rotorcraft or a fixed wing aircraft can operate under specific circumstances.
With the range and speed of the Osprey aircraft, the plane shapes an overarching infrastructure allowing the ground forces to range over all of Afghanistan, or to be supported where there are no airfields, or where distributed forces need support.
The envelopment role of the Osprey is evident in Afghanistan as well, whereby the Osprey can provide the other end of the operational blow for the ground or rotorcrafts in hot pursuit of Taliban. The Osprey can move seamlessly in front of rotorcraft and land forces, allowing the pursuit of different lines of attack.
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Now more than a decade later, the initial Ospreys have grown into a large fleet operated by the USMC, the USAF, and now the US Navy and with the acquisition by Japan of Ospreys, the first foreign customer of the aircraft.
And the aircraft operates world wide on the aircraft, and in the words of MAG-26 Commander, Col. Boniface, and “soon the sun will never set on the Osprey as a globally deployed aircraft.”
But unfortunately, the sustainment side of the creation of the globally deployed aircraft has not been matched by shaping a global sustainment enterprise.
It is clear that to get full value from a globally deployed platform like the Osprey, it is crucial to have a logistical system in place which can allow for sustainable global operations at the point of interest or attack, rather than simply waiting for parts to show up from the next Fed Ex shipment to a remote location from a depot based in the United States.
This is especially important as the US and its allies face 21stcentury authoritarian powers who will also focus on the disruption of an already Balkanized logistical operation.
During my visit to 2ndMarine Air Wing in April 2019, I had a chance to discuss the challenge with a very experienced Marine Corps logistics officer, Major Paul M. Herrle. He is currently is head of MALS-26 which is part of MAG-26.
Throughout the discussion, Major Herrle underscored that with the growth of the Osprey numbers, there now was in place a large fleet. But that it was not managed as such. A core point is that even though parts are common throughout the fleet, the USAF has one sustainment system, the Marines another, and with new members of Osprey nation, yet other sustainment systems in play.
He argued that it was increasingly crucial to have an integrated sustainment system and one, which could flow parts to a globally deployed force as well.
He put the challenge this way.
“The USAF supports its ospreys from England; but we can not tap into that support structure to support our SP-MAGTF force in Europe, for example.
“Right now I cannot use USAF parts if I need them.
“I cannot touch the parts on the ship as well.
“I cannot do lateral support from the amphibious ships parts as well for SP-MAGTF.”
He noted that a great deal of his work was leveraging his networks to find ways to fill the gaps, but from his point of view, this is clearly not the way to do business, especially with a mature global fleet of operational aircraft.
The USMC is working to take the multiple configurations of the Osprey and building a common configuration, something being worked at the Boeing plant in Philadelphia.
But alongside this effort, it would make sense to have a common sustainment system, and one which has global hubs from which parts can flow to the fleet, both in normal operations and in crisis situations.
As the USMC is the nations crisis response force, there is a clear need for a sustainment system which could actually function as a core element of the strategic capability to prevail in a crisis.
But as it stands right now, and this is my perspective, and not one I am attributing to Major Herrle, we have created a significant strategic vulnerability, which clearly our peer adversaries will seek to exploit.
Rather than being able to leverage a globally sustained fleet of global aircraft, we have a Balkanized logistical system which is designed from the outset to sub-optimize performance.
Perhaps we can do that in slo-mo war but certainly not in full spectrum crisis management, where we can assume high tempo operations will be required.
First to the fight, but without a durability to continue the fight, is not a strategic motto, I would choose to embrace.
The photos in the slideshow were provided by Lt. Col. Bianca and highlight the Osprey in Afghanistan in early 2010.
For articles highlighting the evolution of Osprey Nation, see the following:
With regard to the background of Major Herrle, his experience speaks for itself.
The featured photo shows two MV-22 Ospreys, assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron (VMM) 268, flying past the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) during flight operations in support of Exercise Balikatan 2019.
Exercise Balikatan, in its 35th iteration, is an annual U.S., Philippine military training exercise focused on a variety of missions, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, counter-terrorism, and other combined military operations.
(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Daniel Barker)
I would argue that the US and its allies are not so much facing a great power competition. I would refer to it as a global contest between 21st century authoritarian powers and the liberal democracies.
And on each side of the competition there is significant cross learning going on. With regard to the authoritarian powers, Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, just to mention the most prominent they are clearly playing off of each other’s policies challenging the democracies and, in some cases, actively collaborating,
With regard to challenging the democracies, these authoritarian states are using what some in the West refer to a “whole of government policies” or in other words, using a very wide range of tool sets to try to disrupt an dominate
It is clear that the democratic powers need to find ways to expand their own tool sets to respond, including capabilities such as offensive cyber operations.
One clear line of difference is the reliance of the authoritarian militaries on hierarchical decision making versus the potential for Western militaries to shape a much more flexible, distributed force.
But for the Western forces to do so will requires a significant change beyond the legacies of the land wars.
In the land wars, which have been intensive from time to time but are largely slow mo war from a strategic point of view. The West has shaped rules of engagement which create a very hierarchical C2 system.
The new video technologies and new communications systems have been shackled by a centralized command structure.
And if this template continues, the West will lose a significant advantage which new technologies will allow.
This is why analysis of military technologies can never stop with an analysis of technologies, but must look to concepts of operations, training and the system of authority which militaries are built around.
An interview which I did some time ago with Robert Evans, formerly of Northrop Grumman and now with Cubic Corporation highlighted what the technology built into the F-35 could unleash in terms of C2.
Formations of F-35s can work and share together so that they can “audible” the play.
They can work togethe, sensing all that they can sense, fusing information, and overwhelming whatever defense is presented to them in a way that the legacy command and control simply cannot keep up with, nor should keep up with.
That’s what F-35 brings.
If warfighters were to apply the same C2 approach used for traditional airpower to the F-35 they would really be missing the point of what the F-35 fleet can bring to the future fight.
In the future, they might task the F-35 fleet to operate in the battlespace and affect targets that they believe are important to support the commander’s strategy, but while those advanced fighters are out there, they can collaborate with other forces in the battlespace to support broader objectives.
The F-35 pilot could be given much broader authorities and wields much greater capabilities, so the tasks could be less specific and more broadly defined by mission type orders, based on the commander’s intent.
He will have the ability to influence the battlespace not just within his specific package, but working with others in the battlespace against broader objectives.
Collaboration is greatly enhanced, and mutual support is driven to entirely new heights.
The F-35 pilot in the future becomes in some ways, an air battle manager who is really participating in a much more advanced offense, if you will, than did the aircrews of the legacy generation.
What Evans identified was a potential inherent within the F-35 which can be delivered by the integrated combat systems on the aircraft which can not only create data fusion but a very different decision-making system, one able to operate very effectively and comprehensively at the tactical edge.
But this advantage built into the aircraft will simply not be realized if the older templates of decision making are pursued; and this will be doubly a challenge if this happens as the authoritarian states are building strike in mass directed by hierarchical decision making as a key way ahead.
This will not happen by itself and requires a very different approach to C2 and building out from this approach to capturing the technologies which will accelerate this potential strategic advantage as well.
The F-35 with its DAS systems and its integrated approach for a man-machine system to managing data and to establish a very different approach to reversing the relationship between C2 and SA, whereby decision making at the speed of light gets enhanced by man-machine capabilities on board the aircraft informed by data coming into the network is laying the foundation for a broader revolution.
But this revolution can be enabled by the technology but will not happen unless the services and the allies embrace it and shape new distributed decision-making templates.
The global fleet of F-35s lays a solid foundation for engaging a broad coalition of liberal democratic military powers to contribute to shaping s new template of decision making and distributed concepts of operations.
In the next piece, I will address a key technological dynamic which is broadening the military sectors which can participation in this C2 revolution and which will dramatically increase the pressure to shape new C2 templates which the liberal democracies can leverage to remain competitive with the growing global impact of the 21stcentury authoritarian powers.
Honoring, and empowering human’s engaged in the deadly serious occupation of defending their fellow citizens as combat warriors in putting their life on the line is everything in a military analysis before any future technology discussions can begin.
It is no good to talk about future technologies without starting from the nature of warfare and of human engagement in that warfare.
Often looking at ground battles from the earliest recorded days, the forces engaged had a simple guiding rule — kill the enemy in greater numbers.
There is no hard and fast rule from history of what tips a battle one way or another except one core principle: with the will and means to continue to degrade ones opponent winning is enhanced.
The great quip often credited to Grantland Rice who gives full credit to a fellow sports writer comes to mind;
As Hugh Keough used to say: “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but that is the way to bet.
Such insights actually are biblical from The King James Bible (such poetic writing):
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happened to them all.”
At the most basic Payload Utility function, the key to combat success since the dawn of warfare is captured in a ery simple example — the great command of learning the very basic art of accurate marksmanship.
“Ready on the Left Ready on The Right-Already on the firing line” and with that every Marine is trained in the use of their rifle.
Once trained and retrained and retrained until actual combat because heir skills are never allowed to atrophy the individual Marine has a direct engagement using a very simple payload utility function in shooting the weapon.
The combat utility of the basic rifle is acquire the target and then accurately engage to kill the enemy.
That type of engagement at the basic infantry level is no different than the senior Generals and Admirals having their fighting forces acquire and engage targets using many different mixed and matched payloads.
This universal way of war is often correctly referred to as combined arms, as layer after layer of direct and indirect fires, kinetic and non-kinetic, weapons are engaged to defeat the enemy.
I created a short hand phrase “Tron” war for that spectrum of non-kinetic offensive and defense weapons integrated together.
In fighting against a reactive enemy in a larger battle, the aggregation and disaggregation of sensor and shooter platforms with no platform fighting alone is the commanders goal.
Making it all come together effectively is the challenge.
The infantry squad leader directs his combat force by pre-briefing, briefing and then direct voice commands to maneuver his fire team elements during the very confusing heat of combat, often accurately called the fog of war.
Using voice commands since biblical days is fighting at the speed of sound it is up close and personal.
However, with early electronic devices, for example the Civil War telegraph, the platoon leader concurrently reached electronically up and down the chain-of-command to be part of a greater focused unity of purpose combat force.
Commanders at the highest level have to keep both cohesion of the combat engagement mission by effective communications, while concurrently relying on all to engage intelligently relying on their individual initiative to fight to the best of their ability.
Communicated information is essential.
But central as well is empowerment of the force.
The key is to ensure a maximum of capability for combat operations to be able to operate independently with accurate real time dynamic intelligence at the right level at the right time to make their combat function superior to the enemy.
Very little is different from the deck of Navy Strike force or Air Battle or Ground Commander from a Marine Platoon commander except the complexity of all the “moving parts” to be managed and employed to fight that are also spread out over very great distance.
Fighting at the Speed of Light
But after two decades of the land wars, we need to learn to fight again in higher intensity operations.
We need to Fight at the Speed of Light.
This requires that a fighting force at all levels must take advantages of ever increasing technological advances to make decisions using the speed of light.
In other words, symbolically as the laws of theoretical physics are evolving, the test is the application phase or the success of the applied physics phase, so to speak. Nothing illustrates this more than E-MC squared to the atomic bombs that ended WWII.
With advances in all forms of “tron” war from Directed Energy, to Cloud Computing to Artificial Intelligence to robust encryption, many building block mathematical algorithms are now assisting the process of generating accurate and timely information in making the step from being theoretical to applied.
At the moment battle begins, command and control is essential and has to have several attributes.
First and foremost, accurate information has to flow through robust redundant systems at the speed of light in making everything come together to fight and win.
The infantry platoon commander trusts the training and combat effectiveness of each Marine to do the right thing using initiative in following orders in the heat of battle while also trusting higher commands to provide supporting arms, including air, to get it right and at the right time.
The communication and intelligence capability in this 21stCentury evolution/revolution of global coms is the connective tissue for human decisions with how to conduct successful operations and to use payloads effectively at the speed of light.
This where the capabilities begin to come together.
The future is now because from today “zero day” to five years out, there is sufficient insight to merge the human combat brain functioning with existing and near term technology to fight and win in any combat theater.
We have highlighted the importance of the 0-5 military and the central significance of how technology is integrated into evolving concepts of operations rather than focusing on an abstract long term future.
Recently, a senior British commander when discussing our approach referred to this as the rolling FYDP which in his view is crucial to engaging in combat operations successfully going forward, rather than abstracting waiting for the best hi tech solution some think tank could come up with.
America is blessed that many in the defense industrial base in responding to combat requirements have answered the challenge to build systems of systems inside the emerging Kill Web way of fighting, vice obsolete Hub Spoke and linear Kill Chain thinking.
First existing command and control is always against a reactive enemy a time dependent factor that is critical to force level combat.
If a commander can count having the initiative combat ops tempo over the enemy then his forces can be dynamically optimized as a coherent combat directed fighting force.
This is the challenge of effective command and control, of course ultimately the commander has to always have the wisdom and judgment to fight to win effectively.
If victory in battle could have been simple engineered it would have already been done so.
The Challenge
Given competent and skilled commanders there are two qualities of a fighting force that are needed for the force to derive the full capabilities of its weapons systems.
The first is motivation or dedication, or call it; will, heart, ambition or competitiveness. It is the quality that makes fighting personnel appear enthusiastic rather than lackadaisical or dispirited.
The second is a forces technological capability which is the ability at the appropriate level to have the capacity to understand and operate the rather sophisticated equipment associated with modern war.
Marrying force motivation with technological capability allows a superior force to achieve combat performance over the enemy. It is a combination of appropriate combat equipment at all levels of any engagement operated by trained individuals .\ Inventory of weapons systems and platforms, including sufficient munitions at the start of a war can make all the difference.
The time factor of both battle damage repair with any possible industrial surge and sufficient logistical supply/resupply while ensuring a pipeline of well-trained individuals from E-1, basic initial enlisted rank to 0-10, Admiral or General is simple to identify but a huge challenge to get it so right at the time of initial conflict. Trained humans matched up to technology is an obvious statement and makes all the difference as a combat campaign progresses.
The biggest challenge in the rapidly exploding human/information dynamic in this 21stCentury challenge of modern war is the ability to have all make accurate decisions using light speed technology.
The Big Three
The emerging “Big Three” of 21stCentury Tron war are: Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence and ever advancing encryption technology.
There are many appropriate technological stovepiped research applications which can be drawn upon to shape a dynamic integrated capability.
Cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence and secure encryption are very appropriate research areas unto themselves. There is also the need to be ever technology and con-op vigilant for a counterpunch combat challenge of a reactive enemy always working to deny their enemy’s (US) successful employment of our Big Three while protecting the development and employment of their own.
Remember it is not just about the money but it always about the money.
Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing R&E with the recent sole source DOD contract of Ten Billion awarded to Amazon comes at just the right time. Such a massive influx of R&D money if managed smartly will make a significant difference to advance US military cloud computing capabilities.
American military test and exercise planners can easily horizontally intellectually work inside emerging Cloud, Kill Webs, with the template of the payload utility function of multi-domain, multi platforms sensors and shooters with no platform fighting alone.
Combat Cloud research and engineering can be tied together as a global enabler to fight at the speed of light.
Success in building testing and using cloud computing emerging capabilities can become a significant component of a combat force engaged in stopping a strategic nuclear attack delivered by hypersonic weapons at all levels of threat-from space and atmospheric maneuvering glide to sub launched HSCM.
The potential of ready secure data being interactive at all levels of command is an intriguing concept. The theory and execution of “Kill Webs” by the U.S. Sea Services shows great promise.
The US Navy has pioneered the Kill Web concept versus the kill chain, with the latter reflecting linear thinking.
A global Combat Cloud built as a secure, robust, and redundant go to source of data based decision making at light speed can provide useful warfighing networking and intelligence sharing concurrently in and out of each combat theater.
This potential real time combat dynamic learning at all levels of command and when needed capability is central to the way ahead.
This will allow directed combat action sensor/shooters delegated down to all and will be very significant at all levels of force engagements.
In other words, successful cloud research is tailor made to have scalable forces operating around the globe using the same data base.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly approaching fleet wide empowerment to make truly actual speed of light decisions. It is not necessary to try and integrate AI into diverse military utility functions because it will most definitely find it’s own way in.
For more than five decades, DARPA has been a leader in generating groundbreaking research and development (R&D) that facilitated the advancement and application of rule-based and statistical-learning based AI technologies.
Today, DARPA continues to lead innovation in AI research as it funds a broad portfolio of R&D programs, ranging from basic research to advanced technology development.
DARPA announced in September 2018 a multi-year investment of more than $2 billion in new and existing programs called the “AI Next” campaign.
What should not be overlooked by DOD and, specifically DARPA, is the fact that Medicine has been pioneering many dimensions of AI, with significant research investments. Although HIPAA privacy rules and DOD Classification protocols are different, they both have a very similar issue to deal with: to guard the sanctity of data and there are significant penalties in each system.. Violate HIPAA and there can be significant private sector law suits. Violate the sacred trust of one’s security clearance and it can be a career ending mistake at a minimum.
So far the differential in research money between Military AI research and medical AI research greatly favors medicine
“Healthcare Artificial Intelligence Market to Top $34B by 2025”
This would suggest that learning from what currently exists in medical AI should most definitely be part of any important DARPA research way ahead.
The global market will rise to the challenge of synthesizing massive volumes of big data though machine learning techniques, including deep learning, semantic computing, and neural networks, according to the report.
Software developers seeking to address these use cases are likely to see $8.6 billion in annual revenue by 2025, contributing to the $34 billion total in software sales, hardware installations, and consulting opportunities within the AI market.
(Note Medicine is already integrating AI and Cloud Computing)
Cloud-based solutions accounted for the largest segment of the software and service market in 2017, and are likely to continue to grow in popularity as organizations seek speedy, low-cost options for deploying and maintaining health IT systems.
Two examples of AI in a health care applications touch on just two of countless lessons from a community spending billions of dollars already.
First, a paper on deep learning and a computer vision in which deep learning can outperform humans highlights research in the health field of relevance to defense.
Examining the use of AI for Imaging in Clinical Care
Aalpen A. Patel, MD, Chair, Department of Radiology, Geisinger Health
In recent years, deep learning has revolutionized the field of computer vision. In ImageNet competition, deep learning models are now outperforming humans in object detection and classification. In medical imaging, deep learning has been used in variety of image processing tasks such as segmentation and in recent years, for diagnostic purposes such as diabetic retinopathy and skin cancer detection using large medical datasets.
More recently, we have published a paper describing DL based identification of intracranial hemorrhage on CT scans of the head and using it to prioritize the list for interpretation.
We believe that using large clinical grade, heterogenous data set is extremely valuable in generalizing and translating to clinical tools. This is just the beginning – combining all the -ologies, -omics with imaging will lead to insights we have not had before.
AND this is a universal dynamic as DOD research moves forward:
Avoiding Hype and False Conclusions About AI in Medicine: Key Concepts and Examples
Mike Zalis, MD, Associate Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School
With advances of machine intelligence in healthcare, key stakeholders risk suffering from an inflation of expectations and misunderstanding of capabilities. This talk will summarize key conceptual underpinnings of machine learning methods and discuss academic and industry implementation examples of AI in healthcare. The goal of this talk is support participants in adroit critical thinking as they face potential applications, initiatives, and products involving AI in healthcare.
Encryption
Ever improving encryption technology can take many different research paths and often can create as much confusion as enlightenment.
Just one example of interesting research paths this is building a “Security Token”-
One example of dynamic possibilities in this field can be ways t leverage encryption technologies from the Bitcoin world.
This is but one example of many was to encrypt data based information. I am not engaging in the Bitcoin money fight-just the proof of concept of using block chain math potential for national security information secure transmittal research.
One should always be mindful of a word of warning from a man owning 10% of all bitcoins in the world of the damage of a very early bad start; never make a Security Token-as brutally said by the owner of 10% of all bitcoins isn the world a “Shit token” inside a corrupted ecosystem. The key is always “trust of information” in any ecosystem.
A “value” of bitcoins is obvious, when thought about, is that in the actual creation process it is not just “value” but it is also a standalone unique “nugget” of information.
The mathematical protected uniqueness of each bitcoin now may highlight a way of transferring classified information flow in 21st Century war fighting enterprise.
Instead of focusing on “bitcoin” as a unit of value which is a very real attribute, think of creating mathematically unique “nuggets” that when ‘spent” are used to “buy” or actually access classified information..
Thanks to a Cornell Professor’s research using a unit of Block-chain math in perhaps securely fighting at the speed of light has had a brilliant proof of concept.
Intel’s core idea allows users to run their code unmolested in a secure enclave. That means both ends of a transaction have the same constraints.
“Normally you don’t know what the computer on the other end of the relationship is going to do,” Sirer says.
“You have no idea what code they’re running or what kind of adversarial behavior they could engage in, so you have to write your protocols in the most conservative manner possible.
“But with this technology, you know exactly what code the other side has, and you’re assured the person cannot change or violate the integrity of that code.
“This allows us to build mechanisms on top that are much more efficient.”
In a test, Sirer and his colleagues set up a Teechan channel between Imperial College in London and Cornell University and sent transactions across the Atlantic at the blistering fast speed of one-one-hundred-thousandth of a second
Shaping a Way Ahead
The senior leadership challenge in defense is to foster and accept innovations generated within “stovepipe” fielding processes from vertical IR&D to R&D to requirements and to engage in cross-learning, It is not enough to introduce innovation in the individual sectors,
The challenge and the opportunity to empower decision making at the speed of light by shaping integrated C2 drawing upon these technologies in the big three areas of innovation,
Rather than chase individual emerging technologies such as the Cloud, AI or encryption it is much more productive to immediately begin the “applied physics” phase of crafting experiments for dynamic iterative solutions that allow all to constantly learn how to fight at the speed of light.
Each of the “Big Three” has it’s own R&D dynamic so having an open dynamic testing process can accommodate each technology’s current practical demonstrated capability — all constantly integrated together in an open loop learning but operational cycle.
Accurate, timely, target acquisition and target engagement leading to payload utility success from the heavens to under water is the goal.
Shaping success is ongoing con-ops learning process success is found in the Nike saying of just do it.
It is not about simply discussing technology in isolation.
As the cloud comes on line, we can embrace it as a dynamic way to share information.
As AI improves in many situations, the human factor can be successfully taken out of the loop. One huge caution in that there is both promise and danger in getting AI correct to consider never having a totally closed loop AI engagement process.
Encryption is a wondrous field of research and mathematical advance are being made every day.
For the most advanced military forces in the world, the most practical way to learn to fight at the speed of light begins just like the first command a private hears “Ready on the Right Ready on the Left, with the boundaries of being ready on right and left incorporate global engagements with all weapons.
The command “Ready” can begin on instrumented training ranges. Not only is training for training sake essential, but just like the individual Marine sees exactly where his rounds have hit the target.
The real time data collected on instrumented ranges is everything for enragement improvements at all levels.
Feeding back the captured range data results in trying to make accurate payload decisions at light speed can accelerate all aspects of future combat success.
Hard data from instrumented ranges is the most essential building block of marrying human capacity with their ever improving force technological adeptness.
For all who want to successfully fight at the speed of light, they are only limited by their imagination on how to mix and match offensive and defense engagement exercises on instrumented ranges.
One simple example, one could deploy staggered F-35s on station hundreds miles apart integrated with advanced Hawkeyes, UAVs and active AEGIS ships and then run very fast low level bogies with a minimum RCR signature at them from hundreds of miles away.
Then clock the ability to safely pass target acquisition and then weapon engagement data against such a threat.
Finally, begin to include Space Assets after testing integrated “air-breathing” systems. I suspect Space is nice but might not be the panacea all believe it can be in the year 2030.
After such a series of engagements break the problem down to simple questions with the focus being only technology available specifically in a 0-to 5 years out year time horizon with a rolling FYDP being created.
Conclusion
The future of combat is very high right now and it is essential to deal interactively with these various dynamics:
Will Combat Cloud research help?
Will AI make a difference?
Is encryption of data essential?
How can various platforms mix and match weapon payloads?
What is the current and five year out use of space based systems.
Do all types of UAVs help?
What difference does ever improving Directed Energy make?
If the threat comes from below the surface, on the sea or land or screaming from space, where does existing technology come together and where are deadly seams for an adversary to exploit?
If a very fast set of bogies, one R&D team suggests several F-104s as adversary, what is similar with low flying Mach 1+ targets to being different from hypersonic incoming warheads going a mile a second .
With that initial lower Mach data collected than asked the above questions again and again and again, so successful ways ahead will be discovered by integrating in considerations of HSCM and advanced BMD (including hypersonic maneuvering glide warheads) .
Eventually the research and testing is for both Live Virtual Ranges and computer simulations.
But nothing should take the place of first learning by doing in building from limited in geography operations to the very large global combat.
With respect to U.S. test ranges, the East Coast military Warning Areas are perfect, eventually Allies can be part of learning by doing.
Four distinct possible combat global areas could be considered to eventually test proof of concepts between US and Allies while building stronger integrated combat Kill Webs;
The round two of suggested research, after limited test range experiments is to acknowledge the global geography of threats being both similar and different all with the common threat of escalation into a potential nuclear weapon exchange.
Looking at potential flash points of global threat areas that the American Military has can be seen in four “wicked” combat theaters anyone of which can escalate to major tactical and strategic use of of Nuclear Weapons.
South China Sea
North Pacific
Nordics
Battle of the Atlantic.
My personal opinion is research will demand better quicker longer reach payloads as the most pressing challenge.
America might have to go back to the future in looking a very low yield Nuc warheads.
But that is a national debate, including all Allies, fraught with much political danger but it still may be considered as the most productive way ahead to save a Navy Carrier strike force.
During my recent visit to Australia, a major focus of attention was upon the challenge facing the Australian Defence Force to sustain that force through a crisis period if a peer competitor was involved.
And one of the speakers highlighted the significant challenge of moving beyond the Middle Eastern mindset whereby the logistical system has been set up to support slo-mo conflict, not high-intensity conflict.
“We need to move beyond our current Middle Eastern logistics mindset.”
“If we are honest with ourselves, the threats were asymmetric and we operated far from our domestic basses.
“What took place in the Middle East was a sustained buildup of logistics support structures in the Middle East prior to operations.
‘These hubs became part of a network that could be called upon to support a range of operations amd were underwritten by significant commercial and host nation support.”
So how is the US doing in this regard?
With the very significant readiness shortfalls generated over the past decade by defense funding and significant global deployments, it was clear that the US forces faced a significant readiness shortfall, or, in my view a crisis, when President Trump came to power.
Although funding has been generated to start the repair process, the basic system remains the same, one, which is not designed to provide for parts to support the globally deployed force, or to provide for a buffer in parts availability.
The system is designed to provide for taut supply chains, just in time delivery via Fed Ex or DHL (with the customs choke points which slow down delivery), and a hording of parts in CONUS, which means that parts then have to flow from the US as a supply hub, not from a robust global set of supply centers which can provide support to the point of interest or attack globally.
A good case in point is the unique USMC creation, the Special Forces MAGTF.
We were present at the creation of the SP-MAGTF more than a decade ago.
The Osprey and its capabilities and the necessary KC-130J support to go with the Ospreys generated this unique creation.
The speed and range of the Ospreys opened up new opportunities to provide for crisis support throughout Africa, which was the focus of the effort.
I recently had the chance to discuss the logistics challenges facing the force with the CO of VMM-266, Lt. Col. Brandon Whitfield. As a crisis response force, in my mind, this provides a case study of what a broader challenge crisis management will provide for testing the current logistical system.
Lt. Col. Whitfield has recently returned from Europe where he commanded an SP-MAGTF. Even though the force has been in existence for more than 10 years, this “experiment” already has significant operational experience.
The SP-MAGTF has grown to include more KC-130Js and Ospreys, in part to ensure aircraft availability. The force has really no permanent home even though they operate from Naval Air Station Sigonella and Moran Airbases.
“We have only three MV-22 spots and two KC-130J spots at Sigonella although we currently operate six MV-22s and three KC-130Js.”
But the aircraft availability measure is undercut by the absence of dedicated logistical support to SP-MAGTF and to the need to reach back to CONUS to get a number of parts necessary to operate the force; in shall we dare say it, a crisis.
“A number of high demand parts are not on the shelf. These parts are normally spread out across CONUS and it takes 12 days or so to order parts and get them flown by FEDEX or DHL to me in Europe.”
Put in blunt terms, the logistical footprint for the force is not optimized for the force and its operational needs.
It is a question of the need for proper global hubs and a supply chain better tied to operational realities, than the performance indicators for a supply system, which is not really geared to those realities.
And the threat of the cloture of the base at Sigonella still hangs over the forces, which depend upon support from that base.
The availability of aircraft piece obviously impacts on training, because one can not compromise operational availability of aircraft for a mission, while using those aircraft for training. So logistical shortfalls directly impact on training, and both are key drivers of operational readiness and aircraft availability.
In my perspective, and I am not suggesting the CO said this, the logistical system as currently constructed is a significant strategic vulnerability which have constructed ourselves and needs to be addressed in those terms.
We need to combine hubs globally located and fully capable of logistical support to a crisis force with enough “buffer” to endure a crisis, and with enough protection to endure non-kinetic and kinetic attacks.
This is not a nice to have capability; it is an essential strategic capability of we are to compete effectively in 21stcentury conflicts of the sort envisaged in the new national security strategy.
For three articles which highlight the standup and evolution of SP-MAGTF, see the following:
A Look Back at the Standup of the SPMAGTF-CR-AF and the Way Ahead on Crisis Management: A Look Back and Forward with Col. David Suggs, CO of MCAS Yuma
By Robbin Laird
During my May 2018 visit to MCAS Yuma, I had a chance to sit down with the Commanding Officer of the Air Station who has significant electronic warfare experience and was part of the standup of the SPMAGTF-CR-AF.
The naming convention was changed multiple times.
The original name was SPMAGTF-AF operating out of NAS Sigonella, Italy.
This force was not a CR force and was designed to support Theater Security Cooperation (TSC) utilizing logistics combat element (LCE), no Air Combat Element (ACE), or Ground Combat Element (GCE).
The (CE) was limited in scope and tailored to meet mission requirements.
After 2013 the ACE, and GCE were added with a robust CE to support the Crisis Response (CR) mission requirements and hence became the SPMAGTF-CR.
We are focusing on the role of insertion forces in 21stcrisis management and the birthing of the SPMAGTF-CR-AF &CENT is clearly part of that transition.
Our conversation focused around the standup of SPMAGTF-CR-AF and the way ahead with crisis management.
During the visit of Murielle Delaporte to Morón Air Base, Spain, Dec. 6, 2013, the initial standup of the SPMAGTF-CR-AF was described:
SPMAGTF–CR-AF is a self-command and -controlled, self-deploying and highly mobile maritime crisis response force allocated to U.S. Africa Command to respond to a broad range of military operations to provide limited-defense crisis response in the AFRICOM/EUCOM region.
The Marine task force can serve as the lead element, or the coordination node, for a larger fly-in element. It also can conduct military-to-military training exercises throughout the AFRICOM and EUCOM areas of responsibility.
Like other MAGTFs, the SPMAGTF–CR includes a command element, a ground combat element (GCE), an aviation combat element (ACE) and a logistics combat element (LCE). It is composed largely from II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C., coordinating a balanced team of ground, air and logistics assets under a central command.
Col. Suggs provided an overview on how the standup and operation of the force provided a defensive insertion force, which empowered crisis response options but also triggered broader working relationships with allies in shaping convergent crisis response capabilities.
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Crisis management requires both the forces and the convergent C2 and decision making to use those forces. And the standup and operation of the SPMAGTF-CR-AF facilitated both processes.
In effect, the formation of the SPMAGTF-CR-AF provided a bridging function for AFRICOM and EUCOM to be able to provide insertion forces able to deploy rapidly, a key means for triggering enhanced training with key allies in the Western Mediterranean.
This was especially important as the focus had shifted dramatically to CENTCOM and provided an important stimulus to American forces being able to work through with interoperability among crisis response forces.
SIPRNET is where Americans work with each other, and can become a limiting capability which inhibits broader and more effective collaboration with allies, the kind of collaboration central to allied crisis management.
And the Western Med collaboration in turn provided leverage back into broader NATO collaboration.
And all of this was driven by the stand up of the SPMAGTF-CR-AF as a forcing function force, so to speak.
“In fact, SPMAGTF-CR-AF itself was born from the Benghazi crisis.
“We did not have a reactive/sustainable force to operate in Africa and the AFRICOM and EUCOM relationship did not have in place the procedures for how to transfer forces from one component commander to the other in African operations in a timely manner.
“Having a complete understanding and the authority to launch a CR force from a sovereign nation can create additional bureaucratic delays if all participates are not on the same sheet.
“SPMAGTF-CR-AF created a catalyst and through collaboration with the Spanish and Italian MODs we were able to establish a clear common understanding allowing for quick response to a crisis.
“To me a crisis is my house on fire and I need to call the first responders right away and know the number to call. It’s about building connective tissue, or access to the right people at the right time.”
“We needed to set up the first responders and the 911 number.
“And it is not just a question of the physical force, but the working relationships among allies to allow that force to engage rapidly.
“We have logistics support units postured in Africa but we are not set up to operate in Africa for a sustained period of time unless we are operating out of Djibouti.
“And it was cost prohibitive to set up Djibouti West, if one might call it that.
Question: In effect, you were sizing a force that could be effective, but clearly defensive in nature, and one that could work with allies to get not just pre-positioning but de facto pre authorization for use?
Col. Suggs: The challenge was precisely that.
“SPMAGTF-CR-AF was set up to operate out of Morón Air Base, Spain, and worked closely with Naval Air Station (NAS), Sigonella, Italy.
“The Spanish have great forces operating from Morón Air Base and we had close proximity with the French.
“We have had a lot of coordination with French Forces and conducted routine training exercises to ensure proper techniques and procedures where established.
“We have introduced the Osprey to the Spanish, French, Italians, and UK, integrating forces conducting amphibious training on their ships. This increased readiness in not only our forces, but also to NATO forces.
“In effect, we were going back to the time when we used to have a MEU in the Mediterranean working with allies, but that has atrophied given the focus on CENTCOM.”
Col. Suggs highlighted that the SPMAGTF-CR-AF was a triggering for more allied cooperation as well.
“We created a number of second and third order effects as well as our small force contingents were able to work with other NATO allies, such as in theEUCOM Black Sea Rotational Force.
“There a small force of Marines led by a Marine Corps LtCol led the effort and we learned how to work more effectively together.
“The problem on the US side is that we rely primarily on SIPRNET for our communications and even though a significant amount of the content is actually unclassified, we are operating within our SIPRNET culture.
“Allies are not on SIPRNET so we need to train ourselves to become more interoperable and work with other communication and intelligence channels to deliver the kind of crisis management effect we are going to need.”
“This small little group is operating as a trigger for significant reworking by ourselves and our allies, way beyond the combat weight of what that force brings to the table.”
Question: It is important to focus on crisis management, not simply forces the US can deploy to an event.
How does your SPMAGTF experience trigger that kind of learning?
Col. Suggs: If we have a crisis to respond too, a key part of the response is ensuring that the relevant allies are all on the same page operationally and politically.
“Because we are training regularly with those allies but not bringing overwhelming force to the training, we shape common approaches and procedures, which are crucial to crisis management situations.
“It is about convergent forces, and convergent intervention approaches and shaping a capability to do so in the short time span which effective crisis intervention requires.
“It is not about bringing multiple Army battalions or Air Force Air Wings. It is about arriving at the right time; the right place and to get the right effect our outcome.
“When one’s house is on fire you want to call the first responders and expect them to show up.
“You are not calling the insurance adjuster’s first.”
Special Purpose MAGTF-CR: The Juba Operation
2014-04-22 By Murielle Delaporte
In a recent article published in Leatherneck, Murielle Delaporte provided an overview of the Crisis Response unit with a focus on the effort in South Sudan. Interviews conducted in December 2013 at the Morón de la Frontera Air Force Base in Spain, where the SPMAGTF–CR temporarily has been deployed since April 2013.
In the following excerpt taken from the article, the author discusses the Juba Operation.
According to the Commanding Officer of the SP-MAGTF-CR in December 2013, Col. Scott Benedict:
“This force provides new capabilities where there has been a gap,” said Col Benedict.
Historically, we would provide this kind of capability of a Marine expeditionary unit [MEU], i.e., the Marine forces that are on ships.
Where there have been some gaps in the coverage of these ships, the Marine Corps created this force and intends to create others like it in order to fill those gaps.
So in that sense, it is a new capability, but the skills that we bring as a SPMAGTF are the same types of skills that Marines have always brought to the fight. In terms of comparing what we are doing now with what we have been doing in the past, my experience over the years has been that this is more the type of missions that Marines have done historically…..
However, what we have historically done is operate small units like this and provide very flexible and agile capabilities to respond to crisis. We have done it for years off amphibious shipping, and now we do it with the extended range capability of the V-22 which allows us to provide some very similar capabilities over the vast areas that we are responsible for.
The ACE commander, LtCol Freeland, who has been trained as both a CH-46 and a MV-22 pilot, said there is a paradigm shift due to the juxtaposition of the expeditionary vertical-landing capability of the V-22—especially useful if a runway or an airfield is not available or if it is necessary to land near the target—and the long legs brought by the KC-130J is able to generate on the theater.
“Both the MV-22 and KC-130J have worked together before in the past, but the way we are teaming them here is a little different: I think one of the best analogies is the tank-infantry team concept,” said Freeland.
We now share the whole mission together: It is shared mission management, shared functional responsibilities within the same flight.
Such a change is not overly difficult, but it is different, and we are expanding tactics, techniques and procedures to leverage the unique capabilities of each airframe.
You have, on the one hand, one V-22 aircraft going a distance, a good one but nothing incredible—let’s say 350 miles—and land vertically anywhere, and you have, on the other hand, one KC-130J which can fly thousands of miles, but [has] to land on a runway.
Now you put the two of them together, and you can take this team thousands of miles away and land anywhere.
This is a very significant paradigm change.
We bring agility and task organize the Ground Combat Element to go anywhere we need to quickly.
“The work we have been doing traditionally in Africa has been done off amphibious shipping,” Col Benedict added.
We would send a ship up and down the coast, and we would operate.
So, this is the same idea that we would not have a permanent presence, but different aircraft.
The capability that we have now is unique, as this pairing of the MV-22 and the KC-130J gives us the type of ranges that is necessary to be able to operate in Southern Europe, while still being able to reach all the operational areas that are necessary in Africa.
That is what I meant by bringing together the old and the new, because when the Marine Corps was envisioning bringing the V-22 forward as a capability, we envisioned this kind of distance to employ the force.
We just have not been [until now] in a position to take advantage or to have to use that capability.
In this particular mission and with this particular force in the area we are responsible for, we are employing the V-22, the KC-130J and a task-organized ground force at the distances we envisioned when this aircraft was designed.
That is revolutionary.
The Marines also are going back to some geographic roots as well, since they have had a long history in West Africa during the Cold War and in the ’90s and early 2000s.
Benedict added,
Well before the current ‘post 9/11,’ it has been episodic because we do exercises and theater security cooperation where we partner with nations, so we learn from them and they learn from us, keeping in mind that we might work together in the future for a common goal.
However, we have not based there.
We have been doing these operations for years, and it has paid dividends when we had to do ‘provide support’ for different countries on the continent.
Another MAGTF, called SPMAGTF Africa, is, in fact, more dedicated to training and partnering with African forces and has been building those relationships for several years on the continent.
This long-lasting effort has proven an essential part in the success of the recent evacuation of U.S. and non-U.S. citizens from South Sudan, with the ability to rely on neighboring partners such as Uganda, which at the time of the crisis actually was involved in a pre-planned small logistics exercise with SPMAGTF Africa, while USAFRICOM also was overseeing an aircraft mission flying 850 Burundians as peacekeepers in Central Africa.
Juba, South Sudan, also has been a case in point demonstrating the revolutionary capability of the pairing between the MV-22B and the KC-130J with the longest-range insert ever accomplished by the SPMAGTF–CR.
As the domestic situation worsened in South Sudan on Dec. 15, 2013, a decision was made to evacuate part of the personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Juba. The mission was given to USAFRICOM, which assigned its execution to the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa based in Djibouti. It was under the authority of the CJTF-HOA commander, Brigadier General Terry Ferrel, USA, that on Dec. 22, 2013, SPMAGTF–CR repositioned about a third of its force—160 Marines and sailors—from Morón de la Frontera to Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti.
Approximately 12 hours later, a platoon-size element (about a third of that very force) was flown by a KC-130J to Entebbe, Uganda, in order to be better postured to support operations at the U.S. Embassy in Juba.
“Within 60 hours of receiving the execution order, SPMAGTF–CR inserted forces more than 4,000 nautical miles from Spain to Djibouti, Uganda and South Sudan,” said Capt Sharon Hyland, SPMAGTF–CR public affairs officer.
“The distance from Spain to Djibouti is equivalent to a flight from Anchorage, Alaska, to Miami, Florida. This was the longest-range insert to date for this force and was a testament to the organic aviation assets and our task organized force which enables us to accomplish our mission.”
On Jan. 3, 2014, a squad-size element of Marines from SPMAGTF–CR successfully evacuated more than 20 personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Juba, via a KC-130J in coordination with the East African Reaction Force (EARF).
For the full article please go to the Leatherneck website:
It should be noted that there are currently three Special Purpose MAGTFs currently, not all operating with the KC-130J and Osprey combinations, in part due to limitation of numbers of assets.
The deployments for operations, training or exercises by the three SP-MAGTFs through mid-April 2014 can be seen in the table below and in the next table the aircraft used in the various deployments of SP-MAGTF-CR are identified as well.
Deployments of SP MAGTFs Through Mid-April 2014. Credit: USMC
Aircraft used by SP-MAGTF CR Through Mid-April 2014. Credit: USMC
The Osprey and Innovation: Breaking the Mold
2013-08-05 Secretary Wynne recently underscored that with the Osprey, “the Marines are busily embracing the 21st century operational concept.”
During this year’s visit to New River, discussions with Col. Seymour, the CO of MAG 26 and with Major Frank “Robo” Rhobotham, VMM-364 Remain Behind Element (RBE) Officer in Charge (OIC), underscored how significant the Osprey has been in forcing culture change in the USMC and shaping new combat approaches.
The Seymour interview will be published shortly, but in this discussion with Rhobotham, two key aspects of change were discussed.
The first involved the standpoint of the Special Purpose MAGTF, now in Spain, and the second the changing approaches associated with a younger generation of maintainers, who work on the Osprey.
Rhobotham discussed the very short period from the generation of the concept of the Special Purpose MAGTF to its execution. It took about eight months from inception to deployment.
He emphasized the flexibility of the force and its light footprint. “With a six-ship Osprey force supported by three C-130s we can move it as needed. The three C-130s are carrying all the support equipment to operate the force as well.”
The flexibility, which the Osprey now offers Combatant Commanders and US defense officials, is a major strategic and tactical tool for the kind of global reality the US now faces, requiring rapid support and insertion of force.
SLD: Could you describe the process as seen from your end?
Major Rhobotham: We received a request to look at the deployment of a 6-ship detachment of Ospreys to operate flexibly as a group. That started a long, long conversation because it depends on what you want to do with those six airplanes.
Are we going austere, are we working from a prepared zone; are we going to fly 100 hours a month, or are we going to fly 500 hours a month? And where are we going to operate it for environment matters to the performance and endurance of the aircraft?
It is similar to thinking about ground transportation and what car you would used.
Take the Baja 500, for example. If you buy a truck from the Ford dealership, and you drive it around LA, you’re going to get 150,000 miles out of it. You take that same truck and you attempt to run the Baja 500, you won’t make it past the first day.
It is the same thing with this aircraft. If I go from paved runway to paved runway and I fly in airplane mode the entire way, I’m going to get a lot more use out of it. And if I’m flying it like a helicopter and I’m landing in nasty, dusty, dirty environments, it’s going to break down, as any mechanical device will do in that environment.
Additional questions had to be answered.
Where are we going? What are we going to do, how much are we going to fly? Who are we supporting, how are we being supported?
We then got a response back that Africom was interested in what a six-plane V-22 force would look like. With the Africom focus that shrunk the bubble down. The continent of Africa has about every single environment out there.
Mali happens in the middle of this. While we were not told that Mali was even in the play, it was dominating the news in the time period that we began the planning. We really started looking at the western coast of Northern Africa, we looked at the Northern portion of Africa, and obviously Libya is all fresh in everybody’s memory.
We’re an assault support unit; we are always supporting, and we’re supporting the Marines. So obviously, we, by ourselves, are not a force. We enable somebody else to be a more efficient, more effective force.
And that also helps as well in thinking about the deployment focus.
MV-22 Osprey Landing Aboard the USNS Robert E. Peary during the Bold Alligator exercise. Shaping an ability to move systems around on platforms, and islands or on Allied bases will be a key to shaping a new Pacific strategy.Credit: USN
What can we do with the company, how can we help a company? And we fell back upon our MEU mission sets. If we’re going to be supporting the African countries with a company, we draw upon what we know.
We were given some restraints to the diplomatic clearances with our European partners, which shaped the force to a certain degree. And then there’s always the what-ifs.
As a result, we deployed out relatively heavy. We’re running two ships of maintenance in the field, and we have round the clock maintenance.
SLD: Obviously the light footprint of the force gives it significant operational flexibility.
Major Rhobotham: That is a significant benefit. If for some reason, due to political turmoil in any of those countries, it doesn’t take much to completely pack up and move.
And it helps that the Osprey has a refueling probe. We’re no longer limited to how far the ship is willing to steam in one day. Now we’re limited to how much can that tanker hold?
And we can put the Marines in the back and tank, and as long as I’ve got a C-130 that’s willing to go with me and has something to give me, it’s human limited now. How many hours can I fly this airplane before I’m too fatigued?
SLD: The Marines deployed the SP MAGTF in April?
Major Rhobotham: It was deployed in April and it actually self-deployed. The V-22s flew across the Atlantic, and although it has been done before, this is a new operational reality which folks need to recognize exists. We got all the airplanes where they needed to go flying there, and not being airlifted by the USAF.
SLD: You are preparing to shift out a new group of Marines to replace the currently deployed SP-MAGTF, I believe?
Major Rhobotham: That is correct. The Marines from 365 will return, and the Marines from 162 will go out. And right now, it’s scheduled to be the same package. It is scheduled to be the same number of marines, and the same number of aircraft.
SLD: In your view how is the SP-MAGTF different from a MEU?
Major Rhobotham: It compliments a MEU very, very well. It is a different tool set. It is similar to having both a screwdriver and you’ve got a drill in your toolbox; that drill is a lot like the MEU. It’s a lot more powerful, it can go a lot faster; it can do a little bit more powerful things. But it doesn’t mean you need to throw away your screwdriver.
The SP-MAGTF has a lighter footprint, and we can go to any place that the government sees that needs a little bit of attention; we can drop one of these special purpose MGTFs off.
We can just go wherever we need to, drop it off, and then when that situation’s resolved itself or reached some sort of threshold that we feel comfortable, we can pick this up and move it anywhere we want to.
In the past we would have to fly in infrastructure or move by ship; establish the infrastructure and the diplomatic agreements to place the infrastructure in country. Now I can fly in the force; stay until I wish or need to depart.
A special purpose MGTF is not to replace a MEU; it is to compliment a MEU. And while there are separate commands, they’re not led by the same colonel, they’re designed to complement each other, not to replace each other or be lieu of each other.
And I think that’s probably a point that doesn’t get made enough.
SLD: The other major cultural change with which the Osprey is associated which you mentioned earlier has been the rise of a new generation of maintainers able to handle the complexity of maintaining something like the Osprey.
Major Rhobotham: A major change which I have experienced, but really is not talked about is the role of the new generation and their ability to process information and combat learning.
The new genreation grew up with such an influx of information that they are able to process information in ways that are a challenge for me, and for my parent’s generation are impossible.
And it makes them amazing mechanics.
My Marines downstairs can flip through publications and can resource four or five different sources of information and come up with amazingly creative solutions to problems.
When I grew up, you would go to the library, you’d grab the encyclopedia, you’d get the first cut from the encyclopedia, you’d then grab two or three references, beyond that you’d support your theory, your statement, your thesis, whatever it was.
For this generation, they are very used to opening up a source and saying well, I can’t prove that this information that was published by so-and-so on this website’s true. And they’ll grab something 180 out, cross-reference it and make an assessment, and that is a significant capability for troubleshooting.
We have items that don’t always fail the same way every day. For example, I’m getting an indication in the cockpit of a certain failure, and these new mechanics can go through one publication, and it will indicate that they are to test this wire, or that wire, and if those pass, change the sensor, and then after that, you call an engineer.
And these young men and women are incredibly creative.
They will look at a different publication that was talking about a similar sensor in a different part of the aircraft, it has these three other steps. Why aren’t these three steps in here?
And then, the next thing you know, they have built procedures that we then write into the process.
I attribute it to the way their brains and the way they’re socially trained even from a young age to look at information and not necessarily believe that just because it’s written in a book it’s the end all, be all.
This thinking process is crucial, especially with an airplane that’s complicated as the V-22.
The featured photo shows crew members conducting final inspections on an MV-22B Osprey with Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response prior to departure, July 26, 2014. The Department of State, in coordination with the U.S. Ambassador for Libya, requested Department of Defense support for a military-assisted departure of embassy personnel. SP-MAGTF Crisis Response is a self-deploying, self-sustaining task force with the capacity to provide a rapid-response capability to U.S. Africa Command. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by 1st Lt. Maida Kalic)
And the video below shows an even younger Captain Whitfield in Afghanistan.
The video was posted on August 15, 2008 and is credited to the 24th MEU.
The defeat of Labor was not widely expected in Australia.
Scott Morrison led the Liberals to a largely unanticipated electoral victory.
This will mean that as PM in which he clearly led the coalition to victory he will have more authority initially than might be normal in the Aussie context.
The Chinese were clearly hoping that the Liberals would loose but in any case the Chinese-Australian relationship is a key one to be dealt with by the new government, on economic, security, defense and cultural grounds.
Defense policy should see signifiant continuity although the retirement of Chris Payne brings a new defense minister to office. Linda Reynolds is from Western Australia and given the need to reconsider Australian geography within the context of India-Pacific defense perhaps she is well placed to rework the appraoch for the Northern Territories and Western Australia. She certainly should be open to the ship building initiatives launched by Payne in the last govenrment.
She comes to the job with nearly thirty years of involvement in the Australian Army reserves as well.
Linda Reynolds served in the Army Reserves for 29 years (1984-2012) in both part and full time positions. During this period she acted as an Officer Cadet, Regional Logistical Officer (Second Lieutenant to Caption), Training Development Officer (Captain), Commanding Officer 5th Combat Support Battalion (Lieutenant Colonel), Military Instructor at the Army Command and Staff College (Lieutenant Colonel), Senior Career Manager (Lieutenant Colonel) and the Director of Active Standby Staff Group (Colonel).
An article by Stephen Kuper in Defence Connect published on May 29, 2019 provided some initial insight with regard to the potential impact o the new government on defense.
While Australia’s defence expenditure looks set to increase to $38.7 billion in 2019-20, it is a case of business as usual for defence and industry, with the Coalition’s budget announcement signalling the government’s continued commitment to supporting the capability and development of Australia’s sovereign defence industry capabilities.
The Coalition remains committed to continuing the delivery of a number of key projects identified as part of the government’s 2016 Defence White Paper, which focused on delivering a series of major capability upgrades and modernisation programs across the Australian Defence Force, including:
The delivery of the first unit as part of the $5.2 billion LAND 400 Phase 2 Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles;
Industry partners presented their bids as part of the $10-15 billion LAND 400 Phase 3 Armoured Fighting Vehicle program;
Construction progress for the $35 billion SEA 5000 Hunter Class guided missile frigate program;
Construction commencement and milestones at the $535 million SEA 5000 Shipyard facility at Osborne, South Australia;
The continued arrival of Australia’s Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighters; and
The $50 billion SEA 1000 Attack Class future submarine program.
The government has confirmed over the next decade to 2028-29 the government will invest more than $200 billion in defence capabilities, including:
The continuous naval shipbuilding program, which is investing around $90 billion to build world-class vessels, while also building a strong and viable Australian naval shipbuilding industry;
Supporting the acquisition of 30 new self-propelled howitzers for the Australian Army – to be built and maintained at a purpose-built facility in Geelong;
Building three new naval surface ships to be built at the Australian Marine Complex at Henderson, WA.
Continuing to upgrade the EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft and E-7A Wedgetail battlespace management aircraft; and
Building Australia’s policy and intelligence capabilities to ensure Australia has a deeper understanding of the changing geo-political environment.
Frank D. McCann, professor of history emeritus at the University of New Hampshire, has long been an observer of US-Brazilian military relationships.
He knows both sides very intimately.
He taught at West Point in the 1960s during the Vietnam War. He met privately with the Vice-President of Brazil, General António Hamilton Mourão, during Mourão’s recent visit to Harvard.
McCann is a very careful scholar whose insights are based on fifty years of detailed research in Brazilian and US archives.
His new book is very timely.
President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are re-engaging on multiple fronts.
Brazil plays a critical role in these calculations since Brazil has a large land boundary with Venezuela.
Trump and Bolsonaro want to re-set the relationship and the military component could become very important.
But as Frank McCann shows there is a long history of US-Brazilian military relations.
These past hopes (and disappointments) are well worth recalling now.
WW2 was a critical moment in Brazilian-US relations and this period is the focus of McCann’s book.
The relationship was of the greatest importance to both sides and eventually brought together an unlikely partnership between the Brazilian dictator, Getulo Vargas, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. As a result of their strategic relationship Brazil sent an expeditionary force to fight in Italy under US command.
And Brazil provided the US with its most important overseas military air transport base in Natal, in the “bulge” of Northeastern Brazil, which was critical to the support of US forces in North Africa, and to the supply of (disassembled) American aircraft (47,874 aircraft were sent in this way) to the Soviet Union via the South Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope, and the Indian Ocean via Iran, when supplies to the Soviet Union via the North Atlantic to Mourmansk became too dangerous and vitually impassable in winter conditions.
The US had an interest in developing a military relationship with Brazil before the war broke out in Europe.
General George C. Marshall, the newly appointed US Army Chief of Staff, was sent by President Roosevelt to Rio de Janeiro on the USS Nashville in June 1939 to assess the state of the Brazilian army, and to begin negotiations at the suggestion of Oswaldo Aranha, the Brazilian Ambassador in Washington between 1934 and 1938, who on his return to Brazil became Vargas’s foreign minister.
Roosevelt had visited Rio de Janeiro in 1936 on his way to Buenos Aires for a Inter-American Conference and had met Vargas (they spoke together in French).
General Marshall was interested in obtaining port facilities in the North East of Brazil. General Goes Monteiro, his Brazilian counterpart, believed that Brazil’s principal challenge was the threat of an Argentine invasion, and subversion within Brazil by German, Italian and Japanese immigrant communites which were particularly large and powerful in São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.
The Nazi party in Brazil was the largest in the world outside of Germany and had 2900 members in 17 Brazilian states.
The Nazi influence was strong within the higher ranks Brazilian army’s officer corps and within the Vargas Regime’s secret police in Rio de Janeiro commanded by the pro-Axis Anti-American chief-of-police, Filinto Muller.
In 1936 the Brazilian military was extremely weak.
The authorised force was supposed to be composed of 4,800 officers, 1100 temporary officers, and 74,000 soldiers, though in fact the number was 20% lower, with some 60,000 soldiers. The army had faced internal discontent among junior officers and sergeants, and a junior officer led Communist and Moscow supported uprising in November 1935.
By July 1941 US Army intelligence placed the number of Brazilian troops at 92,000 organized in 5 divisions, with 6,500 officrs. They evaluated their state as “fair” and the 192,000 reserves as “poor”. The navy of 17,000 “infrequently put to sea,” and the Air Force was only recently formed and made up pilots drawn from the Navy and Army and distributed in eight squadrons.
General Marshall wanted a US protective army force of 9,300 troops and 43 aircraft in Brazil since the fear for the Americans was that the seizure of the airfields and ports of northeastern Brazil could be achieved by forces already in the country acting in conjunction with a small German intervention force.
They were also worried about the deteriorating situation in North Africa where the German and the Italians were making major advances against the British, and Vichy France and the Germans threated to take control of Dakar.
Roosevelt lauched a major campaign to win hearts and minds in Brazil, and in August 1940 Roosevelt appointed Nelson A. Rockefeller to be the coordinator of Office of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA).
This cultural/political offensive had a major impact.
Leading Brazilian authors were translated into English, including Euclides da Cunha. Gilberto Freyre, and Jorge Amado. RKO, partially owned by Rockefeller, sent Orson Wells to Brazil to make a film, though Vargas did not like the project because Wells depicted the image of a poor and black Brazil and the funding was cut and the film was never completed.
Walt Disney was more successful. He portrayed a Bahia (Brazil’s most Afro-Brazilian City) without blacks, as well as creating one of the most enduring Brazilian film characters, Ze Carioca, who introduced Donald Duck to Brazil and to Samba and both to an American audience.
Roosevelt secretly approved projects whereby the War Department negotiated a deal with Pan American Airports Corporation, a subsidiary of the PanAm, to develop airbases and routes from the US via northeastern Brazil to Dakar and North Africa.
After the Japanese surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbour in Honolulo on December 7th, 1941, which the Japanese intended to neutralize US military activites in the Pacific, the Japanese launched near simultaneous attacks on the British in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Dutch territories, and on the US in the Philippines, Guam and Wake Island.
The US Congress on December 8, 1941 declared war on Japan and on December 11, 1941 and Germany and Italy declared war on the US.
The US Army in 1939 was the 17th in size among the world’s armies. It had 174,000 men in the regular army and a similar number in reserves. Its regiments and battalions were understrength and undertrained, its weaponey was old, as was its officer corps. The US generals who would command in North Africa, Europe, and the Far East, were still majors and lieutenants, and the war industries were few.
The extensive manoeuvres and training held in East Texas and Louisiana in 1940 and 1941 reshaped the officer corps of the army, army tactics, and weapons.
Brazil faced similar problems with infinitely meagre resources and had no training exercises.
The negotiations with the Brazilians were difficult and at times contentious, and disputes between the State Department and the US military did not help. The Brazilians were unwilling to have US troops on their territory, yet they needed US arms, training, and logistical support, and received lend-lease assistance which involved the support of the Volta Redonda Steel Mill, an important part of Brazilian industrial development ambitious.
But it was the personal intervention of President Roosevelt at critical moments, and of General Marshall, who sent his close personal friend and long time trusted colleague, Claude “Flap” Adams, to Brazil as military attache.
Roosevelt and Vargas meet at Natal in January 1943 when Roosevelt’s was on his way back from Casablanca, and together inspected the by then huge Parnamirim Air Base.
The sinking of the Brazilian passanger ship “Baependy” on August 15, 1942, when 16 army officers and 125 men of the Brazilian Seventh Artillary Group were killed among the 320 passengers who lost their lives as the result of an attack by a German submarine had outraged Brazilian public opinion.
By April 1943 the idea of a Brazilian expeditionary force had the backing of key policy makers in both countries.
The move still met with hostility among some facist minded regular officers, especially in Rio de Janeiro, and the American general sent to inspect the Brazlian units found they needed “a more realistic type of training” and that the standarization of weaponry “was badly needed.”
Joint military commissions were established one in Washington and the other in Rio de Janeiro to prepare the defense of North Eastern Brazil and to work with the American Army and Naval Missions to improve the combat readiness of the Brazilian Armed Forces. Vargas recognised that it would take a year for the Brazilians to be ready for deployment overseas. The first echelons of the Brazilian expeditionary force (FEB) which would eventually number 25,334, arrived in Naples in July 1944.
The FEB was to be totally integrated into the American Army.
It was a division in the army of an independent country voluntarily placed under US command. The FEB adopted the smoking cobra as it’s nickname, engaged in 229 days of combat and lost 447 killed. A Brazilian fighter squadron was part of the US 350th fighter group based in Pisa. The Air Transport routes via the base in Natal at Parnamirim became the busiest Air Transport base in the world.
But after WW2 the Brazilians were to be bitterly disappointed.
Brazil did not participate in the occupation forces in Europe. The FEB was withdrawn and disbanded. The promised economic assistence did not arrive and the Cold War between the WW2 Allies, the Soviet Union and the United States, soon took priority.
Roosevelt was dead, President Harry S. Truman was the President of the US, Getulo Vargas was overthrown and replaced by his war minister Enrico Gaspar Dutra, and Vargas’s pro-American Foreign minister, Osvaldo Aranha, a critical supporter of the de-facto US-Brazilian alliance was out of office. In the US the conflict within the State Department and within the military between those who supported a bilateral alliance with Brazil and those who wanted a broader multilateral Latin-Amercian wide alliance intensified.
George Kennan, after a visit to Brazil in 1950, which he did not like at all, wrote that “we have really no vital interest in that part of the world.”
Truman also opposed to the nationalization of Brazil’s petroleum resources with the foundation of Petrobras in 1953 by Vargas after his return to power in 1950 as the democratically elected president of Brazil.
The Americans also opposed the Brazilian nuclear program with Germany.
Brazil did not participate in the Korean War or Vietnam despite requests by the US. The Cuban Revolution transformed US concern with Latin America.
And Brazil’s participation in the Dominican Republic after the US invasion of 1964 produced more misunderstandings between the US and the Brazilian military commanders.
The military coup in Brazil in 1964 brought one of the key figures in the FEB, General Castelo Branco, into power, and the US was very well informed of the situation within the Brazilian army though the Military Attaché , Colonel Vernon Walters, who had been the translator and liaison officer with the FEB during WW2 in Italy.
The US had mobilized a fleet to support the rebels in the case of a civil war in Brazil. But the military regime proved much more difficult than had been anticipated. The military relationship did not improve. The relationship was plagued by conspiracy theories, which McCann does much to dismantle.
But the basic problem was suspicion on the Brazilian side and indifference and insensitivity on the American side.
The low point came during the administration of Jimmy Carter and Ernesto Geisel over human rights and Brazilian nuclear development and was more than Geisel could tolerate.
“We had to live and treat with the United States, as much as possible, as equal to equal, even though they are much stronger, much more powerful than us.”
As a consequence he intensified relations with England, France, Germany and Japan.
The cancellation of the 1952 military accord and the elimination of the mixed military commission that had existed since 1942 altered the nature of US-Brazilian Relations.
The irony was that Geisel was implementing a policy which was to contribute to the ending of the military regime in Brazil and conducting a foreign policy which recognized the newly independent states in former Portuguese Africa.
If Bolsonaro and Trump can reverse these years of disengagement and misunderstandings remains to be seen.
Rhetorically they will certainly attempt to do so.
Bolsonaro is after all “The Trump of the Tropics.”
But those who ignore history are bound to repeat it.
And with the occupant of the White House who has generated more than 30,000 text messages in office, perhaps he will not have time to read a history which might show a way ahead.
The featured photo shows Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro and President Donald Trump walking to a press conference in the Rose Garden on March 19, 2019.Brendan Smialowski / AFP – Getty Images
During a recent visit to New River Marine Corps Air Station, I had a chance to meet with the CO of MAG-26, Colonel Boniface and members of his team.
I first met him at the standup of the Osprey and viewed its first impacts on Marine Corps operations.
The early days of Osprey Nation required establishing a significant learning curve with regard to the aircraft and leveraging the Osprey in terms of changing USMC and USN concepts of operations.
The Osprey has spearheaded significant change with regard to the Amphibious Ready Group, in which the ships in the ARG-MEU would operate at much greater distance from one another, and migrated into what I have referred to as an amphibious task force rather than thinking of it as the traditional ARG-MEU and its three-ship operation within a 200 square mile box.
The inclusion now of the F-35B into the task force has added significant new capabilities which when added to the Osprey allow for a very capable force able to operate from the seabase.
But the Osprey as it has matured faces new challenges and obstacles to overcome as the Osprey Nation evolves and as the new heavy lift helicopter– the CH-53K — is added to the fleet as well as other new capabilities for the force.
A major challenge, which the USN-USMC team faces, is simply the shortage of amphibious ships from which to operate.
As the capabilities of the force have gone up, the number of amphibious ships has gone down.
Clearly, this is a challenge, which can be met, but only if there is a ramp up of amphibious ship construction.
There is also the very significant challenge to the amphibious fleet provided by the increasingly integrated digital force operating off of the ships in the fleet, namely, the IT and C2 systems are much more limited than what a digitally integrated force of Ospreys, F-35Bs and CH-53Ks can deliver to the ARG-MEU commander.
During our meeting in April 2019, Col. Boniface focused on two major challenges, which he sees with regard to the way ahead for Osprey nation.
The Training Challenge
There is a significant challenge and opportunity, which he sees with regard to training.
Prior to the US Navy and the Japanese acquiring the Osprey, the main focus has been upon training Marines or the Air Force, with the latter taking their training into the Special Ops forces, which operate the CV-22.
Now with the growth in Osprey Nation comes the challenge to provide adequate training opportunities to the new partners and allies within a single integrated training squadron operating within MAG-26.
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The first aspect of the challenge is to ensure that the Navy pilots and maintainers do not repeat the sins of the past by following the same path which the Marines followed in its earlier days of learning how to operate the aircraft.
According to Col. Boniface: “Learning has definitively occurred over the last 15 years and we must incorporate those lessons learned and attempt to speed up the maturation phase by accelerating the process much like, “Sixth graders skipping middle school and going directly into high school” vice following a traditional model which takes them through the rest of elementary school into junior high school.”
“We know where the past mistakes were made and we have done a good job revising the entire syllabus. More to the point, we know what is critically important to operate successfully and safely this aircraft.”
A key way to do this is to have Navy pilots and maintainers serve on amphibious ships and to learn their skill sets in operational conditions—operating in the conditions that will replicate future missions.
According to Col. Boniface: “On the next MEU we’re actually integrating more Navy maintainers, more pilots and crew chiefs into a composite MEU ACE Squadron.
“This approach shows a lot of potential.
“These Sailors are not rookies; they have a tremendous amount of experience and while they learn how to maintain and fly an Osprey from ARG shipping they also provide vital aviation maintenance experience to our younger Marines.
“It is an absolute win for both services.”
Deployment decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, but clearly accelerate US Navy learning.
The majority of the Navy pilots come from the Carrier Onboard Deliver or COD community in the US Navy, although there are SH-60 pilots as well.
But what the Navy has seen as the Osprey has flown to the Carrier is that the Osprey can land directly on the deck as a helicopter and does not need to trap. This means that the Osprey can fly into the carrier saving landing time and space as well.
Col. Boniface commented: “Some of our Navy partners recently flew out to a “big deck” carrier and performed a proof of concept flying the MV-22 in a COD mission scenario while integrating into the F-18 flight pattern.
“They were able to do maintain an integrated five-minute flight pattern around the ship without having to trap.”
“Bottom line, instead of having to take a trap, unhook, taxi etc., you just come in land like a traditional helicopter.
“You unload, load and your off again.
“No current COD approach has that capability built into it.”
New Users and the Expanded Global Fleet
A second major challenge is to ensure that the USMC’s new partners and allies operate safe and successfully for the Osprey has come to become a central player in the evolution of USMC capabilities. There is very little interest in having enhanced use by the US Navy or the Japanese lead in any way to negative performance, up to and including accidents of various sorts.
With regard to the training of the Japanese, the pilots and maintainers have to conduct all operations in English. This has been a challenge for the Japanese, but they have been showing a tremendous amount of success in this realm.
The growing numbers of Ospreys has some challenges of its own.
These largely revolve around parts shortages.
According to Col. Boniface: “The focus of the past couple of years has been upon getting more parts into the wholesale system while moving retail parts as close the aircraft as possible.
“The real challenge is how do we do this in a somewhat resource deficient enterprise.
“Prioritizing correctly while developing a suitable forecasting and reliability tool is the key to distributing supply material to the right user quickly and efficiently not just in the U.S., but throughout the world.”
There still is no global sourcing approach in terms of ensuring that parts are closer to the operational forces operating worldwide as opposed to ensuring parts are closer to the depots.
This would mean that the advantages which a global fleet of Ospreys could provide in a crisis would be reduced significantly as parts shortages, choke points and shortfalls would undercut the ability to leverage what the Osprey Nation could bring to the fight.
In past discussions with Col. Boniface, he has repeatedly underscored the importance of getting a solid global support system in place.
But clearly, we are not yet there.
This is how Col. Boniface put the challenge: “By right sizing, or more to the point balancing our community, we can more easily distribute supply material availability to the operator because we are better prepared to manage operational tempo.
“A global mindset allows for a refined flow of parts throughout the world because while we might not know exactly where the next fight will be, we have an accurate model for forecasting and reliability. ”
With regard to the supply chain, clearly the Osprey is facing major challenges.
Colonel Boniface put it this way:“ Our operational fleet is approaching 20 years old.
“We are now looking at mid-life upgrades which always ramps up maintenance costs and time.
“We have new partners and allies flying this aircraft and more possibly on the way, but we have not significantly refined or in some cases reinforced our supply material availability.
“PMA-275 at Pax River has been outstanding by ramping up Performance Based Logistics Contracts to ensure more effective delivery of parts on a timely basis.
“However, the growth in the community has not been fully accounted for in terms of the supply chain demand side.”
I added that from my work in Australia, the question of sustainability through a crisis simply augments the challenge, which he described.
If the Pentagon believes we’re dealing with high-end warfare demands, we have to have a supply chain that can deal with high-end crises.
That means however efficient the supply chain is currently, we have to actually relook at it from the standpoint of how do we maintain a global fleet for a significant period of time.
