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2015-12-15 The Second Line of Defense team joined the media day held by the Air Combat Command on December 15, 2015 to learn more about the trilateral exercise, which featured the F-22s, working with Typhoons, and for the first time with Rafales.
We will have reportage on the discussions and panels during the day, but the core focus was on shaping approaches to operating together in high-end operations.
As we shift from the assumption of air dominance, to being able to ensure such dominance in contested areas, the three air forces worked together on shaping ways to provide for the capability, which can be delivered by an integrated five generation, enabled air force.
A key element of the exercise was enhancing the capabilities of the air fleet to work among the pilots horizontally and not just directed hierarchically from an AWACS, which is a key aspect of a fifth generation enabled force.
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With Typhoons flying with Tornados in Syria, being able to work with F-22s in the Syrian airspace increasingly populated with Russian air and ground based air systems, made this exercise more than a hypothetical scenario event.
The Typhoons from XI squadron had been to Langley in 2013 for training with F-22s, but this was the first time for the Rafales.
As all three aircraft have now passed the 10-year operational mark, there is enough combat experience under their collective combat belts to take the next step, and not simply be the best aircraft in each individual air force, but to come together to craft a much more powerful coalition capability.
During the media day, our RAF colleagues provide us with a number of videos, which highlighted the event and specific aspects, from the British point of view.
In this overview video on the exercise provided by the Royal Air Force, the capability of the RAF Typhoon to be deployed as part of an expeditionary operation is highlighted.
The logisticians, pilots, and technicians moved to Langley and were able to generate high sortie rates for the exercise.
The expeditionary aspect is a key element and the RAF and the French Air Force worked closely together in transiting the Atlantic with a joint C-17 and 330MRTT support to the French Air Force to assist in their movement to the United States as part of the RAF effort as well.
For a recent article looking at the evolution of the RAF, see the following:
2015-12-16 The tip of the spear in the exercise was provided by the premier combat jets operating today in the USAF, the RAF, and the French Air Force.
Each of these combat jets—the F-22, the Eurofighter and the Rafale – has more than 10 years of combat under its belt with modernization programs underway to enhance their capabilities.
Each provides a different capability to the blue force engaged with an adversary in contested airspace.
The F-22 provides a fifth generation warfare enablement to the rest of the air combat force, which means many things which we will discuss in later pieces.
It is about the evolution of the air combat force – you fight with the force you have – and about how that force is changing under the template of fifth generation capabilities.
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In an interview with the Commander of the ACC, General “Hawk” Carlisle, the point was made that the F-22 was a key enabler for the air combat force currently, and had led to a re-norming of airpower in practice.
Carlisle emphasized throughout our meeting the importance of the training transition throughout the fleet, not simply the operation of the F-22 and the coming of the F-35 as in and of themselves activities.
It is about force transformation, not simply the operation of the fifth generation aircraft themselves as cutting edge capabilities.
General Carlisle: “It is important to look at the impact of the F-22 operations on the total force. We do not wish, nor do the allies wish to send aircraft into a contested area, without the presence of the F-22.
It’s not just that the F-22s are so good, it’s that they make every other plane better. They change the dynamic with respect to what the other airplanes are able to do because of what they can do with regard to speed, range, and flexibility.
It’s their stealth quality. It’s their sensor fusion. It’s their deep penetration capability. It is the situational awareness they provide for the entire fleet which raises the level of the entire combat fleet to make everybody better.”
The shift is to a new way of operating.
What is crucial as well is training for the evolving fight, and not just remaining in the mindset or mental furniture of the past.
It is about what needs to be done NOW and training towards the evolving and future fight.
General Carlisle: “The F-22s are not silver bullets.
The F-22s make the Eagles better, and the A-10s better, and the F-16s better. They make the bombers better.
They provide information. They enable the entire fight.
And its information dominance, its sensor fusion capability, it’s a situational awareness that they can provide to the entire package which raises the level of our capabilities in the entire fight.
This is not about some distant future; it is about the current fight.”
But one key difference from the past is the role of the AWACs.
If this exercise was held 12 years ago, not only would the planes have been different but so would the AWACS role.
The AWACS would have worked with the fighters to sort out combat space and lanes of operation in a hub spoke manner.
With the F-22 and the coming F=35, horizontal communication among the air combat force is facilitated so that the planes at the point of attack can provide a much more dynamic targeting capability against the adversary with push back to AWACS as important as directed air operations from the AWACS.
The Typhoon is very lethal combat asset which is leading the RAF attacks against ISIS in the Middle East with the Typhoon-Tornado tandem as a key part of the force package.
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Typhoon modernization is adding to the lethality and survivability of Typhoon and will make it even a more valuable member of any air combat coalition.
This is not about shaping a lowest common denominator coalition force but one able to fight more effectively at the higher end as a dominant air combat force.
The pilots learning to work together to execute evolving capabilities are crucial to mission success in contested air space.
The Rafale is the oldest of the three fighters in the core air combat air force in the exercise.
The plane has seen significant combat experience in Africa and the Middle East and Afghanistan.
It is the key enabler of the French force approach to joint and expeditionary operations, and over time the combat systems on the aircraft have seen significant modernization.
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Fifteen years have passed since the first Rafale entered in service in the French Navy.
“We started very small with a fleet of only ten aircraft up until 2004”, recalls Marie-Astrid Vernier, currently director of military support at Dassault Aviation and who has worked on the Rafale since 1994. The current French Rafale fleet has been built with the delivery of four different “tranches” of aircraft which have been upgraded over the years into various standards, the latest one being the Standard F3R to be delivered in 2018.
Today’s Rafale F3 has little to do with the very first F1: “Retrofitting the very first planes from a F1 standard to a F3 standard takes far more time than upgrading later-built planes”, explains Capitaine de Vaisseau Sébastien Fabre, formerly in charge of the support of the Rafale fleet within the French MoD. As the thousandth modification was achieved a few months ago, the latter stressed in an interview that “60% of these changes relate to standard and technical tracking, while the rest has to do with improving equipment and support tools”.
Today’s 2015 Rafale is a rather different bird from the 2000’s Rafale, as new technologies allowed for new operational missions, which in turn drove new technical requirements.
These planes are the tip of the spear for the air combat force.
But neither the British nor the French would be operating at Langley AFB without the expeditionary capabilities of the two air forces.
This means support aircraft and personnel which can move to the forward operating base, in this case Langley, to work together.
And in this case their was a collaborative effort as RAF C-17s and 330MRTT aircraft flew from Britian to France to support the movement to the US base.
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The aggressor role in the exercise was provided by the T-38s and F-15s of the USAF.
The video below shows a number of these aircraft operating during the exercise.
The Second Line of Defense team joined the media day held by the Air Combat Command on December 15, 2015 to learn more about the trilateral exercise, which featured the F-22s, working with Typhoons, and for the first time with Rafales.
We have reportage on the discussions and panels during the day, but the core focus was on shaping approaches to operating together in high-end operations.
As we shift from the assumption of air dominance, to being able to ensure such dominance in contested areas, the three air forces worked together on shaping ways to provide for the capability, which can be delivered by an integrated five generation, enabled air force.
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A key element of the exercise was enhancing the capabilities of the air fleet to work among the pilots horizontally and not just directed hierarchically from an AWACS, which is a key aspect of a fifth generation enabled force.
The Typhoons from XI squadron had been to Langley in 2013 for training with F-22s, but this was the first time for the Rafales.
As all three aircraft pass the 10 year operational mark, there is enough combat experience under their collective combat belts to take the next step, and not simply be the best aircraft in each individual air force, but to come together to craft a much more powerful coalition capability.
The Typhoon is very lethal combat asset which is leading the RAF attacks against ISIS in the Middle East with the Typhoon-Tornado tandem as a key part of the force package.
Typhoon modernization is adding to the lethality and survivability of Typhoon and will make it even a more valuable member of any air combat coalition.
During the media day, our RAF colleagues provide us with a number of videos, which highlighted the event and specific aspects, from the British point of view.
In this video, an RAF typhoon leads off the exercise day.
2015-12-16 The Second Line of Defense team joined the media day held by the Air Combat Command on December 15, 2015 to learn more about the trilateral exercise, which featured the F-22s, working with Typhoons, and for the first time with Rafales.
We have reportage on the discussions and panels during the day, but the core focus was on shaping approaches to operating together in high-end operations.
As we shift from the assumption of air dominance, to being able to ensure such dominance in contested areas, the three air forces worked together on shaping ways to provide for the capability, which can be delivered by an integrated five generation, enabled air force.
A key element of the exercise was enhancing the capabilities of the air fleet to work among the pilots horizontally and not just directed hierarchically from an AWACS, which is a key aspect of a fifth generation enabled force.
The Typhoons from XI squadron had been to Langley in 2013 for training with F-22s, but this was the first time for the Rafales.
As all three aircraft pass the 10-year operational mark, there is enough combat experience under their collective combat belts to take the next step, and not simply be the best aircraft in each individual air force, but to come together to craft a much more powerful coalition capability.
During the media day, our RAF colleagues provide us with a number of videos, which highlighted the event and specific aspects, from the British point of view.
In this video, an RAF pilot discusses the exercise.
2015-12-16 The Second Line of Defense team joined the media day held by the Air Combat Command on December 15, 2015 to learn more about the trilateral exercise, which featured the F-22s, working with Typhoons, and for the first time with Rafales.
We have reportage on the discussions and panels during the day, but the core focus was on shaping approaches to operating together in high-end operations.
As we shift from the assumption of air dominance, to being able to ensure such dominance in contested areas, the three air forces worked together on shaping ways to provide for the capability, which can be delivered by an integrated five generation, enabled air force.
A key element of the exercise was enhancing the capabilities of the air fleet to work among the pilots horizontally and not just directed hierarchically from an AWACS, which is a key aspect of a fifth generation enabled force.
The Typhoons from XI squadron had been to Langley in 2013 for training with F-22s, but this was the first time for the Rafales.
As all three aircraft pass the 10-year operational mark, there is enough combat experience under their collective combat belts to take the next step, and not simply be the best aircraft in each individual air force, but to come together to craft a much more powerful coalition capability.
During the media day, our RAF colleagues provide us with a number of videos, which highlighted the event and specific aspects, from the British point of view.
In this video, XI squadron is featured.
For our interview of XI squadron conducted earlier this Fall at Coningsby, see the following:
2015-12-16 The Air Combat Command held a media day on December 15, 2015 to highlight the first trilateral exercise.
The origin of the exercise goes back to the establishment of the trilateral agreements in 2010.
Murielle Delaporte published an article in 2013 which looked at the process and the focus of attention.
Coalition operations are becoming a norm for democracies. Effective coalition operations are built on solid military planning, exercises, and training, as well as on shared experiences. A key example of such collaborative efforts is the Trilateral Strategic Initiative, established in October 2010 by the Air Force chiefs of staff of the US, France and the UK, then Gens. Norton Schwartz, Jean-Paul Palomeros and Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton.
Col. Cyril Carcy, the only French Air Force officer currently embedded with U.S. Air Force’s Strategic Studies Group as a result of this enhanced cooperation among the three countries, describes the three pillars of the TSI this way: “Mutual trust among upcoming Air Force decision-makers, which is essential to prepare the future; integration of the three Air Forces, which goes beyond interoperability; air power advocacy, which means that air chiefs may speak with a coherent and unified voice.” Trust, integration and advocacy are the credo guiding the USAF, the FAF and the RAF on the road to enhanced military cooperation and integration among themselves, but also within and beyond NATO.
Trust: “In The Winds of History”
“When I was a Jaguar pilot in 1995, not a single month would go by without a combined mission with my British or American counterparts,” recalls Col. Carcy. “Our respective air forces always worked together very spontaneously whether in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and more recently in Libya and Mali.” And those ties have grown closer. After France rejoined NATO’s integrated military command in 2009 and France and the UK signed the Lancaster House Treaty in 2010, this trilateral relationship has intensified, building on core attributes shared by the three NATO air powers:
All three states are nuclear powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council, each with political processes which enable prompt military intervention when necessary.
Strategically, they share a congruent analysis and vision of world threats and risks (international terrorism; cybersecurity; global commons; etc).
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Militarily, they have in common a wide array of capabilities including expeditionary forces and Command and Control (C2) structures.
The build-up of trust has not been achieved overnight and is underpinned by a long tradition of a significant number of exchange officers. As far as Franco-American exchanges are concerned, about 10 different units, from academics to operational squadrons on each side of the Atlantic are involved. These include a French aerospace teacher assigned to the U.S. Air Force Academy, French and US pilots flying A-10s and Mirage 2000 fighters respectively, CSAR helicopters Sikorsky MH-60G Blackhawk and Eurocopter EC 725 Caracal, and even C-130s.
This emphasis on officer exchanges is true at both the US-UK and at Anglo-French levels: “Since the summer 2012, a British pilot has been flying Rafales, and a French pilot flying Typhoons. In Afghanistan the exchange was between Mirage 2000 and Tornado.
In my case,” the colonel said, “at the strategic level, I work side by side with my British counterpart for the Chief of the Air Staff, while the same logic applies in London and Paris, involving a total of nine officers dedicated to assist the three Chiefs in their efforts to reinforce air power integration.”
Integration: Optimizing C2
In addition to the establishment of a long-lasting network of interconnected officers, the TSI has been very active over the past two years organizing workshops in each country, four so far this year and one is planned for the beginning of next year. “These workshops are aimed at helping us to better know each other and at increasing mutual trust, as well as our ability to work collectively.
The goal is not to create interoperability, since we already have achieved that, but rather to bring this level of interoperability up to a higher and more effective level of integration. Indeed, a workshop dedicated to C2 processes, targeting and information sharing was held last December in Lyon and gathered about 40 specialists,” explains the French officer.
This focus on command and control coherency as “the most important near-term priority” was set as a result of lessons identified during the Libyan operations as early as July 2012 and was shared with allies in a joint letter from the three Air Chiefs to the NATO SACT (Supreme Allied Commander Transformation).
While recent operations – Afghanistan, Libya, Mali – have provided an ongoing learning process about capability gaps and lack of common processes, they have also demonstrated the benefits of this patiently-built groundwork among NATO airpowers, allowing smooth plug-and-play of respective capabilities.
“In Mali, in addition to tactical and strategic airlift, British and American air support to the Armée de l’air came as a result of this joint work in the area of targeting and information sharing.
We were able to plug and play capabilities, such as the UK Sentinel and the Reaper,” says Carcy. “NATO is a fantastic foundation in terms of standardization and interoperability.
There is no need to reinvent new procedures and we need only to fine-tune them as we move forward together. However, as new types of crises emerge, we need to be able to team up with other partners for an ad hoc response.”
Advocacy: The Snowball Effect
The way to look at the “Trilateral“ is not as a fixed alliance or some kind of triumvirate other allies might resent, but as a catalyst to integrate a “coalition of the willing” by aggregating other air powers to cope with crises. Through training and recent operations, new types of partnerships are starting to emerge.
For Colonel Carcy, Abu Dhabi’s Air Warfare Center is an extraordinary illustration of this patient buildup of the ability for multiple nationalities to fly and operate together, whether Qatari, Emirati, Kuwaiti, American, British or French. The center offers similar exercise capabilities to those practiced during NATO’s Red Flag series, allowing refinement of Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) among fighter units.
“During the Libyan operation, the French and the Qatari Air Forces were able to operate together in Souda Bay for eight months. The Qatari airmen are trained in France on Mirage 2000s, but were not familiar with NATO processes, so we first flew in formation with one Qatari Mirage 2000 and one French Mirage 2000 as the lead, then the Qatari took the lead and then two Qataris would fly missions on their own.
This has been superb teamwork,” says Carcy, who strongly believes this is the way to go as emerging crises require new types of regional partnerships inside and outside of NATO.
The idea is to integrate these new partners into an already robust and skilled framework of trilateral C2 and enabling capabilities so that a multinational air campaign can be quickly and efficiently constructed. Colonel Carcy refers to this new type of coalition as “tiered or differentiated participation”.
Training and exercises are absolutely crucial to this ambition. For example, Red Flag Alaska, will for the first time this summer include bilateral training flights between the South Korean and Japanese Air Forces (the ROKAF and JASDF).
The Trilateral Strategic Initiative is of course not immune to non-military factors, whether political or economic, especially at a time when defense budgets are in decline. But this partnership is preparing airmen to promptly deliver a coherent and robust response to any contingency.
The Libya and Mali campaigns highlighted the need for the three air forces to increase cooperation in order to provide decision-makers a credible and flexible tool able to operate within a NATO operation, or as a core team tailored to aggregate any willing partner.
“The next step,” concludes Colonel Carcy with a smile, “would be, given the evolving nature of warfare, to extend the trilateral approach on a joint basis beyond the air forces to work closely with the Armies and Navies and fully integrate the three dimensions of the battlefield…”
This article is based on an interview with Col. Cyril Carcy, French exchange officer at the Strategic Studies Group, USAF Headquarters.
The photos in the slideshow below were shot by the Second Line of Defense team at the event, and highlight the F-22 demonstration event, and then the F-22s, Typhoons, Rafales and F-15s taking off for the exercise on that day.
The final photos show the panel of air force leaders — USAF chief Mark Welsh, ACC Commander, Hawk Carlisle, Sir Andrew Pulford, Chief of the RAF, General Antoine Crux, the French Air Force Inspector General, USAFE CO General Frank Gorenc — who discussed the exercise and some aspects of the way ahead for coalition airpower.
The decade ahead is not a repeat of the past 15 years; it is not about a continuation of the land-centric and counter-insurgency slow motion war.
It is about global agility, the ability to insert force to achieve discrete and defined objectives, and to maneuver in the extended battlespace to work with allies and joint forces to credibly prevail in the range of military conflict across the range of military operational situations.
For the power projection forces –USN/ USMC, USAF with appropriate elements of the US Army, especially Air Defense Artillery – it is about the capability to work across an extended battlespace with flexible means which can be linked together as necessary to prevail in the military and strategic conditions facing the US and its allies in the period ahead.
It is about building capabilities at the high end, which have the flexibility to operate through the range of military operations or ROMO.
It is about powerful and flexible force packages which can operate and dominate in specific military situations but be linked to other capabilities to provide the kind of reachback and dominance which effective deterrence requires.
By leveraging some of the new platforms coming online and replacing older, costly, and stove-piped platforms and systems, a new scalable force structure can be built. And at the heart of doing so will be the inclusion of allies and U.S. forces within a modular scalable structure.
The strategy is founded on having platform presence. By deploying assets such as USCG assets— for example, the national Security Cutter, USN surface platforms, Aegis, or other surface assets— by deploying subsurface assets, and by having bases forward deployed, the United States has core assets that if networked together can end a stovepiped acquisition strategy of platforms bought separately from one another and make significant gains in capability possible. Scalability is the crucial glue to make a honeycomb force possible…..
Two other key elements are basing and weaponization. Basing becomes transformed as allied and U.S. capabilities become blended into a scalable presence and engagement capability. Presence is rooted in basing; scalability is inherently doable because of C5ISR enablement, deployed decision-making, and honeycomb robustness.
The reach from Japan to South Korea to Singapore to Australia is about how allies are reshaping their forces and working toward greater reach and capabilities. For example, by shaping a defense strategy that is not simply a modern variant of Sitzkreig in South Korea and Japan, more mobile assets allow states in the region to reach out, back, and up to craft coalition capabilities.
The approach we have suggested is built around “no platform fights alone,” whereby we look at key platforms as nodes in a honeycomb force, which can act with effective lethality throughout an extended battlespace.
Those platforms which can operate in an interconnected manner are the crucial ones to build, deploy and sustain in the period ahead, versus those which are very limited in their capability to provide synergy to joint or coalition forces in the battlespace.
This means as well that force packages need to be examined, less in terms of themselves individually, but rather in terms of their synergy and capabilities to shape dominant combat power in the interconnected battlespace.
To discuss the way ahead for the sea services from the standpoint of the head of Naval Warfare, we had a chance to discuss key elements of innovation being put in place.
Rear Admiral Manazir, the Director of Air Warfare on the Staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, sat down with us in November 2015, to discuss the way ahead.
Question: As global events unfold, most dramatically the reach from the Middle East to Paris and back again, how do the sea services contribute to the fight?
Rear Admiral Manazir: The Navy/Marine team has always been expeditionary; it was at its inception 240 years ago for both services.
We have always been expeditionary.
We design the Navy / Marine Corps expeditionary force to be able to engage against a nation state when necessary.
USS America seen pierside in Valparaiso, Chile, 8/26/14. Credit Photo: USS America
That could be all the way from what people technically refer to as the high-end anti-access area denial fight all the way to putting power ashore to engage in counterterrorism fights.
The Marine Corps has grown in capability from being naval infantry to now having the capability to come from the sea with high-end meshed, networked, honeycombed, resilient capability, with an array of options depending on how you integrate the force.
The sea base itself has a powerful ability strategically to wage war because you don’t need a permission slip from a foreign power to use their bases.
The United Stated Navy and the United States Marine Corps singly in the world have retained and modernized the sized capability that allows one to fight a nation with our force rather than just fight another naval force.
Question: Put in other terms, a force capable of being sized to the mission?
Rear Admiral Manazir: That is right. Our modernization strategy will make us even more effective to deal with the future mission set.
What the higher-end capabilities that are delivered with F-35B and C and then the future air wing that includes unmanned give us is the capability to really own that battle space, and all domains of it. It can be flexed from the higher-end war fight down to delivering combat power ashore from the sea base.
Going into a high-end battle space with F-35Bs and Cs will allow us to identify more of the players in that battle space than we did before. With the information gathering and data fusion capability resident in the F-35, you can empower the rest of the air wing.
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The F-35 is truly revolutionary technology.
The ability to bring in that much information into a single platform, share it together via machine language and put that picture together is game changing. The ability to then coalesce that much data into knowledge is unprecedented.
If you are operating over the battle space, like a counterterrorism situation, where you have a lower-end air-to-air threat, you can operate, and persist over a ground battle space as you collect information and shape a much more rapid strike capability as well. The decision cycle can accelerate in either the higher end or lower end fights.
The point can be put simply: we are expanding our capability to shape an agile force to operate throughout the battlespace and to deal with the spectrum of threats which a sea base would be tasked to operate against.
The F-35 will be a contributor to shaping the overall modernization strategy.
The F-35 has a powerful ability to share information, the ability to sense the battlespace, whether it’s signals from a surface naval vessel, signals from an air contact, ID-ing the air contact at long-range, or processing and identifying targets on the ground, all tasks that we’re going to have to do going forward to win.
Question: When we were at Fallon, the air wing training to go out on deployment was in real time communications with the Bush on deployment in the Middle East.
And the Fallon team is working hard to evolve the approach to Live Virtual Constructive Training in order to be able to fight effectively in the expanded battlespace with higher speed warfare and operational dynamics.
How do you view the impact of these new capabilities on shaping the sea base going forward?
Rear Admiral Manazir: The ability to share information between decision-makers and staffs that are not all geographically located, is getting better and better. This allows not only dynamic combat learning but provides greater fidelity to the training process as air wings prepare to deploy.
In the past, we only sent text reports. Now we are sending full motion video. The EA-18G Growler can send actual data back to the warfighting center and say: “We have not seen this signal before, what is it?”
And then the labs can run it through their data libraries and work the problem to ID the signal and send their findings back to the deployed fleet.
The F-35s coming to the fleet will add significantly to this process. It is about rapid combat learning in a dynamic warfighting environment.
We are shaping the foundation for “learning airplanes” to engage the enemy.
LVC will enable us to train in a more robust environment than we are on our current ranges that are geographically constrained, and currently do not have the full high end threat replicated. LVC will allow us to train to the full capabilities of our platforms across a variety of security environments and do so without exposing our training process to an interested adversary.
Question: What you are talking about is shaping real time combat forensics against an active and dynamic threat?
Rear Admiral Manazir: That is a great way to put it. And this capability is crucial going forward.
We’re back into a scenario where lots of threats around the world require us to react to enemy learning. Then, when they act in accordance to our reaction, we react again and so on. The enemy morphs to do X. We have to react and we now do Y.
What is not widely realized is that the evolving air wing on the carrier and on the large deck amphibious ships, is being shaped for a dynamic learning process. The F-35s will play a key role in this evolving process, but we are already underway with this process as you mentioned with regard to Fallon.
With regard to the air war, where it’s either air-to-ground missions or air-to-air missions, we can share that information and bring in more people into the discussion with our long-range information and communication systems.
That kind of capability is foundational to the evolving air wing.
We’re also working on the capability to bring in national technical means into a cockpit where the synapses that are required to do that are significant to be able to have something with a relatively low latency.
Imagine an off-board sensor that gives you a piece of information in the battle space that you can get into the cockpit and adds to the information you already have. It’s about closing down the information deltas that we have traditionally considered as a strategic national asset with a tactical naval asset.
And we’re closing down the connection lines between where we get that information and conveying to the warfighter.
There is a constant effort to enhance the ability to get intel to the warfighter so he can act on it.
Question: What you are describing is the fighter wing as sortieing of information, and not only weapons?
Rear Admiral Manazir: That is a good way to put it.
We are doing what Bayesian theory talks about, namely we are providing more and more information to get closer to the truth in targeting or combat situation. One can reduce that fog of war by increased understanding of what actual truth is, you’re going to have better effects.
This is why the technology that the F-35 brings to the fight is so crucial.
You have decision-makers in the cockpit managing all of this information.
CF-2 Flight 158 with Mr. Dan Canin and CF-1 Flight 189 with LT Chris Tabert on 18 January 2013. First dual refueling of F-35C on KC-130 tanker. Credit Photo: Lockheed Martin
With Block 3F software in the airplane, we will have data fusion where you transform data information to knowledge enabling greater wisdom about the combat situation.
The processing machines in the F-35 provide enough of the fusion so that the pilot can now add his piece to the effort.
This enables the ships to enhance their ability to operate in the networks and to engage with the air fleet in dynamic targeting at much greater distance.
It is about reach not range for the honeycomb enabled expeditionary strike group. The F-35 is a key enabler of this shift, but it is part of an overall effort to operate in the expanded battlespace.
Question: Visits to the USS America, to CVN-78 and to the Queen Elizabeth, all highlighted the importance of building ships which can provide what one might call 21st century infrastructure of combat air.
How do you look at the Ford, for example, through this lens?
Rear Admiral Manazir: It is a 21st century naval infrastructure asset, which lives off and further enables the transformation of the air wing.
It’s a facilitator for all the things you’re going to do off the flight deck.
The electrical generation capacity on the Ford is three times what the Nimitz’s is.
It gives you the ability to put greater electronic systems on to the ship.
The ability to have high power requirements with high cooling requirements for your data servers is enabled by the ship.
It has the capacity to be able to support those things and in conjunction with the high-end air wing we’re building, you’re going to be able to do the missions we discussed earlier more effectively in the expanded battlespace.
The Ford’s infrastructure will be partnered with the airplanes that come on and off the flight deck.
Question: What you are describing is a shift from thinking about the carrier as the deck which can fly X number of aircraft to thinking of the carrier as a moving epicenter of an extended strike enterprise, that can work with the USAF and coalition partners and live off of their combat capabilities in the expanded battlespace.
Is that what you are arguing?
Rear Admiral Manazir: Absolutely.
The focus is upon the carrier as a moving epicenter for a netted capability with the joint and coalition force.
It is not about counting the number of airplanes on the deck or projecting the future existence of paper airplanes.
It is about the air wing we are building and how it will operate with the transformed joint and coalition forces we are collectively modernizing.
The approach is to have force structure flexibility with an interconnected extended battlespace.
You can operate as a separate force package; or as a federated force when you are connected but can plug and unplug; you can be interoperable, integrated or interdependent; depending on time, circumstances and mission.
What the Ford class, the Joint Strike Fighter and future unmanned platforms bring is the ability to pull the information in and be an epicenter of an enlarged and extended reach for the joint and coalition force.
Question: The expeditionary strike group as a sea base is seeing significant increase in its flexibility with the changes in the amphibious as well as carrier fleet. It really is an engagement force, which can allow for significant operational flexibility.
How would you describe the evolution of the sea services with regard to the way ahead?
Rear Admiral Manazir: You can describe it in terms of continuity of change and transformation.
They are engagement forces; they are presence forces; they are deterrent forces. They are extensions of the National Command Authority.
In the old days, way back when Perry opened up Japan, he was an independent Captain given mission orders and off he went.
In World War II, they were given mission orders and off they went.
F-35C on approach to a landing aboard the USS Nimitz. Credit Photo; Breaking Defense
Through the 60s, naval forces operated to deter. The Strike Group commander had communications back to the National Command Authority. The links were limited and text based.
Now, you have the real ability to actually have a fundamentally robust connection with the engagement forces forward at sea and one can pursue Bayesian logic, getting down towards more truth in the picture. You start to reduce the fog of war that comes from misinformation, or a different understanding of the battle space.
And as you reduce the fog of war by increased understanding of what actual truth is, you’re going to create better effects from the use of force.
The great thing about naval forces is that we can move in and out of operational sanctuaries, and the Navy Marine Corps team can move to the area of interest and the point of attack. You can take that capability, whether it’s in the Eastern Med or in the Western Pacific, with the reach of this network-enabled combat force, and especially when you start to link it together with coalition partners, you start to grow a honeycomb mesh of integrated networks that are all sharing information.
And the reach of this combat capability is greater than what flies or is launched off of any particular combat ship.
Question: They are some critics who focus on the Navy building too complex of platforms for new sailors to operate. Our observations are somewhat different from either operating on or visiting Naval platforms – complexity is there but the focus is upon the ability of sailors to operate more automated systems as well.
How do view this challenge?
Rear Admiral Manazir: I’d push back against anybody that says we make our systems overly technical for our sailors to operate. Our most important war-fighting asset is the United States Navy sailor.
The sailors that are on Ford, we’re training them at the level that the technology is advancing. Our air crews that are in our F-35s are trained to operate that weapon system. They are expert at that higher technology weapon system. We train them to be part of that weapon system.
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We put a program together that doesn’t just give them a piece of equipment and say here, go figure this out. We are the best in the world at building training systems that optimizes our technology.
What we really get, though, through the inventiveness and the ingenuity of our sailors and junior officers is that they take their weapon system, which is now more software-driven than it is hardware, and drive it’s capabilities forward, enhancing the warfighting impact of the new technology.
And based on growing up in a data-rich word and growing up in a machine-rich world, they know how to take this weapons system to a higher level than we even designed it for.
For example, the recommendations we got coming back from the first deployment of the Growler, was that they’re developing tactics for us that we did not envision when we first sent it out on the ship.
The new systems rely on significant machine to machine and man to machine interfaces. We are finding that the best way to enhance the machine-to-machine learning is to make it a man-machine interface to enhance the dynamics of change in the machines and the quality of combat innovation.
For example, when I think of the future of remotely piloted systems operating from or with a carrier, I envision a future that has a Joint Strike Fighter pilot with three unmanned wingmen.
Question: One capability which fifth generation systems have brought to the fight is the capability of the aircraft to operate at great distances from one another.
This is a key enabler of better combat capabilities in the extended battlespace.
How do you view this synergy?
Rear Admiral Manazir: With the fifth generation aircraft and their sensors and fused data you can cover a much greater swath of combat space than with legacy aircraft.
And as we sort through how to integrate unmanned systems with F-35s we will be able in a single operational unit cover significant combat space.
You are looking at exponential growth in coverage capabilities to inform the process of generating the combat effects, which you want in that extended battlespace.
And the growth in the ability to generate better target information will allow us to execute strikes within our rules of engagement.
The coming of the F-35 will help in this process.
We train our aviators in the Navy and the Marine Corps to be decision-makers, given the constraints.
A lot of times, we can’t apply the rules of engagement we’ve been given because we can’t identify that’s a bad guy, whether he’s on the ground or in the air.
With better fidelity of information at the forward edge of the battle, I can execute more rapidly as well.
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Question: We are discussing the evolution of the sea base and its operational capabilities in the extended battlespace.
But what can be missed is the innovation already underway by the Marine Corps-Navy team with the Osprey reaching 10 years of operational life, the IOC of the F-35B into Naval Aviation and several other innovations already in place and underway.
We noted that when the Truman strike group went to sea recently, that the team put the strike group to sea in a much quicker turn around than planned.
Rear Admiral Manazir: The Truman did go to sea based on a planned surge cycle, deploying to deal with emerging combat needs and requirements.
The carrier presence number is a vetted, risk-based, posture and presence discussion, with the Navy, the Joint Staff and the Secretary of Defense.
We choose where and when to put our forces out there.
But when they go, they’re ready for any mission.
In short, while some are considering the anti-access, area denial challenge as the end of history for the sea services, the professionals are treating the challenge as the opening of new round of innovation for the operation of the sea services in the 21st century battlespace.
For a biography of Rear Admiral Manazir, see the following:
The Indian Navy’s Design Bureau is considering nuclear propulsion for future Indian aircraft carriers.
Although the final decision is yet to be taken, reliable sources told India Strategic that the Navy and the country’s nuclear scientists have drawn sufficient experience from their success in installing nuclear propulsion in Arihant, the country’s first SSBN (or nuclear propelled nuclear armed) submarine, and that is encouraging them to replicate the technology for indigenous aircraft carriers.
Right now, according to Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Robin Dhowan, the Naval Design Bureau (NDB) is working towards designing a 60,000 to 65,000 ton aircraft carrier, and that two major systems under consideration are nuclear propulsion and the new generation aircraft launch system, EMALS, from the US General Atomics.
But there is no final decision yet on either.
India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier, IAC-I or Vikrant, is under construction at the Kochi Shipyard for delivery by end-2018, and it is to be propelled by four LM2500 gas turbine engines from the US GE.
Nuclear power is being considered for the second, called IAC-II and likely to be named Vishal. It is planned for induction in 2029.
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There is also the strong possibility of another indigenous carrier, IAC-III.
While the IAC-I has a ski jump to launch aircraft, IAC-II and IAC-III will likely use the EMALS to catapult aircraft from short distances of the carrier decks.
The Indian Navy is looking at three aircraft carriers to ensure 24 x 7 operations with two Carrier Battle Groups.
Three carriers are required as one of them will be under periodic maintenance and refits, and accordingly unavailable.
At present, the Indian Navy has Russia-supplied INS Vikramaditya since 2013, and it should be in service for about 30 to 35 years. India will need its third indigenous carrier by then, and it may be noted, it takes some 10 years to build it even with new modular construction practices.
Both INS Vikramaditya and IAC-I share the ski jump system to launch Russian-made MiG-29K aircraft. The EMALS will be much more efficient and powerful to launch different aircraft in moments with the flick of a switch. The US Navy is using the system for its new generation carriers, the Gerald R Ford (under construction) and John F Kennedy.
As for the IAC-II, sources told India Strategic that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is set to initiate the first formal step towards according its official sanction by allotting funds to authorize and complete a study on requirements.
The second step, a big one, is likely within 2016 in the form of Acceptance of Necessity (AoN). That will mean the official go-ahead from the Government to start work and funding will be allotted in accordance with the pace of development and construction.
Notably, while the US Government is already working on sharing the EMALS (Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch and Recovery System) technology with the Indian Navy, development and complex installation of nuclear propulsion will have to be done by Indians themselves.
That is where the success in installing nuclear propulsion in Arihant using low enriched uranium (LEU) offers the incentive and inspiration.
The NDB and scientists from DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) and BARC (Bhabha Atomic Research Centre) are systematically coordinating in this regard.
Notably again, the US carriers use bomb grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) after mastering the technology decades ago. The US Navy is the only one to do so, and apparently will be unwilling to share this expertise.
HEU-propelled vessels have big advantage as they can go on for 20 to 40 years or more while LEU-propelled ships have to be opened and refueled every five years or so.
Significantly, Arihant has successfully completed several propulsion and diving trials, and right now, it is conducting a series of final tests to launch unarmed missiles from different depths before its likely induction in the coming few weeks.
Subject to their success, it will be given a warship pennant number, declared operational, and then cleared for participation in the International Fleet Review (IFR) scheduled for February 2016.
Admiral Dhowan has expressed hope in this regard, but understandably has been noncommittal as even minor tests on board nuclear vessels are critical and nothing is accepted without total success, notwithstanding any time delays.
The Indian Navy already has clearance to build six SSN (nuclear propelled but not nuclear armed) submarines, and indications are that two to three more SSBN Arihant class vessels are also under different stages of planning and construction, and that they will be larger, and with more powerful nuclear reactors than that of Arihant.
Progression to building nuclear reactors for aircraft carriers is logical particularly as fossil fuel powered vessels are dependent on continuous supply of oil irrespective of the growing cost factors as well as the emerging threats in the Indian Ocean.
China, for instance, has acquired Gwadar from Pakistan to serve both as a commercial port and a naval base, becoming the first foreign power to have this facility so near the Indian shores and the strategic Strait of Hormuz from where nearly half the world’s oil comes through.
The US also has a major base in the Indian Ocean, but about 2400 km from India’s southern tip in Tamil Nadu.
This article has been reprinted with permission of our partner India Strategic.
