Navy’s First Fleet-Fielded UAV System

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05/12/2010

UAV Lessons Learned: Coping With Disruptive Technologies

By C.J. Pappas

Constantine Pappas is starting a series on the development of the UAV environment in the Department of Defense as a new regular SLD contributor.

***

This is the first of a series of anecdotal vignettes of the development of the UAV (now called UAS) environment in the Department of Defense. Subsequent articles will deal with:

  • Pioneer: How The Program Survived A 27% Readiness Factor
  • Small drones: A Fractionated Market That Enabled Innovation with No Adult Supervision
  • Predator: A Success Story in Creating a Market
  • Global Hawk: Managing Risk/Reward

Many recent attitudes reflect the first flight of an unmanned vehicle in 1783. As Jim Winchester writes in The Timeline of Aviation:

“An unmanned test balloon flew from Paris north to Gonesse, a village now situated between Charles de Gaulle and Le Bourget airports. There it suffered the indignity of being attack and destroyed by bewildered peasants.”

A fate suffered by many recent UAV projects…

This series addresses the difficulties of introducing a Disruptive Technology in the Defense community and to provide lessons learned for program managers, operators and decision makers. Wikipedia states that: “Disruptive Technology and Disruptive Innovation are terms used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically by being lower priced or designed for a different set of consumers. Disruptive technologies are particularly threatening to the leaders of an existing market, because they are competition coming from an unexpected direction.”

The perspectives presented in these articles range broadly across four decades of success and failure with this disruptive technology.

[slidepress gallery=’qh50-slideshow’]

Credits: The photos of Destroyer, Short Final and Snoopy are U.S. Navy; the ones of the Night Panther and Armed QH-50 are DARPA; and the one of Jeep Control station is Gyrodyne.

Navy’s First Fleet-Fielded UAV System: Successful Operations, Failure In Management

Why does a program that performs 400 percent better than its Technical Development Plan requires, has been fielded on over 100 ships, delivered under schedule and under budget, and performs with a weapons systems effectiveness factor that is 12 percent higher than its nearest competitor get terminated?

Users and Buyers Have Different Goals
With the Cold War in full hue and cry and a dramatic Soviet submarine building program presenting a major threat, Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) was a primary strategic factor for the US Navy in the 1950s and 1960s. The Air Force was held in abeyance from ASW by congressional edict, preserving ASW as the Navy’s unique mission.

Within the Navy, the aviation and surface platform barons and their communities were locked in mortal combat for ascendency in the ASW mission role. While the US submarine community was focused on the “silent service” role, the backroom intelligence relationships with the aviation community were very strong. The aviators were effective in collecting Soviet sub signatures for use by the “silent service.” These intelligence community relationships created a strong interwoven link between subs and aviation.

The surface community “black shoes” viewed ASW as one of their three prime warfare missions, the other two mission areas being Anti-Air Warfare and Anti-Surface Warfare. The competition between the communities was fierce. It reflected competition in a zero-sum game where careers, promotions, personalities, and egos were involved in a winner-loser environment.

Admiral Arleigh (“31 Knot”) Burke, a surface sailor, served from 1955-1961 as Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) and became the protagonist for the Drone Anti-Submarine Helicopter (DASH) to fill the need for a surface ship with a long-range ASW weapons delivery capability. Burke was willing to take high risks like DASH in order to restore the surface Navy’s position within the Navy’s air, sub, and surface hierarchy and he had the personal clout to push through the changes that he felt the Navy needed – a four star change-agent.

During the late 1950s, the Marine Corps established a competition for a one-man helicopter for troop operations in a nuclear environment. The coaxial Rotocycle, developed by the Gyrodyne Company of Long Island, NY, won the competition. Admiral Burke observed the competition and saw the machine as the perfect vehicle to extend the range of surface ship weapons delivery beyond that of the Rocket Assisted Torpedo (RAT) and the follow-on Anti-Submarine Rocket (ASROC).

At Burke’s insistence, the Navy initiated the DASH program with Gyrodyne, owned by Peter J. Papadakis, a flamboyant Greek immigrant.

Since DASH was a flying machine, the Bureau of Aeronautics (BUAER, now NAVAIR) assumed the responsibility for buying, fielding, and supporting the air vehicles that would be flying off destroyers in support of the surface community missions. BUAER designated the QH-50 DASH as a “naval aircraft,” a decision that would prove to be the death knell for the program.

The Naval Ship Systems Command (now NAVSEA) was responsible for implementing the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) program. Eventually, over 100 ships were outfitted with DASH as an operational mission system in competition with the naval aviation community. This was the first time that the aviation and the surface ship community had interaction on a joint program other than aircraft carriers. The cultures and vocabularies were different and how they viewed their mission areas were in direct competition.

This would not be the last time unmanned systems would be in this situation.

FRAM Destroyer Operating DASH (credit: U.S. Navy)

What Was the DASH System

The QH-50 air vehicle used the Boeing T50-BO-8, and, later, the T50-BO-12 heavy fuel gas turbine engines. The T-50-BO engines were also used in mine sweeping boats with the designation of LM-XX. Two QH-50 air vehicles were carried aboard a FRAM destroyer and secured in the hangar. Each vehicle could be rolled out and spotted for flight operations. The deck handling equipment was designed to ensure positive control of the QH-50 during all deck movement and could be rigged and un-rigged in about three minutes by the QH-50 detachment personnel. The actual time to launch from secured for sea in the hangar to lift off was about seven minutes. The hangar was alsoused for performing all organizational maintenance.

In addition to the hangar, the ship had an installed Ground Control System (GCS) in a separate small equipment room, generally located on the main deck below the hangar spaces. Full redundancy was provided by a “mix and match” dual transmitter, dual antenna, and dual coder/decoder GCS capability. The primary control station for the entire system was on the flight deck under the control of the DASH Officer, the officer-in-charge of a detachment. There was a secondary control station in CIC where the ship’s CIC Officer could control the air vehicle at extended ranges by using plots of the submarine target and the UAV on the NC-2 plotter. A separate storeroom used only for the DASH parts completed the ship facilities required to support the UAV system.

The QH-50 was a very benign air vehicle for payload integration. Since the QH-50 was designed to carry two torpedoes (each weighed 450 lbs) side by side and to release one at a time, the air vehicle was relatively insensitive to lateral shifts of the center of gravity (CG). The digital control system had several spare switch functions and with three hard points on the airframe, and up to 21 KVA of airborne power available, it was possible to interface many packages with the QH-50. The simple engine interface and the over-capacity transmission enabled the system to have a significant built-in load carrying capability of about 1,100 lbs without a great deal of concern for CG position.

Using heavy fuel (JP-5), DASH could remain airborne for about 1.75 hours carrying two MK-44 or one MK-46 torpedo out to a convergence zone range of about 30 miles. The range was limited by the radar return from the drone. While a DME transponder capability was available, BUAER declined to invest in the $2,500 per unit and many QH-50 were lost due to loss of radar tracking as it flew over the radar horizon. The operating altitude of the DASH was limited electronically to 1,000 feet because that height was thought sufficient for torpedo deployment.

DASH On Short FinalDash On Short Final (credit: U.S. Navy)
“Using heavy fuel (JP-5), DASH could remain airborne for about 1.75 hours
carrying two MK-44 or one MK-46 torpedo out to a convergence zone range of about 30 miles.”

The 5 hour endurance, shown in this table, was attained through the use of saddle tanks for special mission purposes.

DASH Physical and Performance Characteristics

The normal complement for the DASH was a five person detachment consisting of an Ensign or LT(jg) with no prior aviation experience and a skilled enlisted crew of two aviation machinists and two avionics technicians. The ship provided two nono-rated plane handlers. The detachments were formed out of VU-3 and VC-6 personnel for PAC and LANT units, respectively. The DASH personnel normally had no ship duties under way and could spend their entire time on maintenance and preparation for flight.

The personnel situation deteriorated over time. Instead of highly trained enlisted aviation ratings, the DASH detachments were made up of lower skilled ratings, which became reflected in the performance and readiness of the system.

Training was performed through the existing Navy infrastructure. Flight training for the DASH officer consisted of about 8-12 hours of actual flight time and about 6-8 weeks of classroom instruction for both the officers and enlisted personnel.

DASH Experiences Barriers to a Disruptive Technology – Perception Becomes Reality
With Admiral Burke planning to retire and Admiral George Anderson, a Naval Aviator, taking his place as CNO, the seven year development period initially planned for the DASH was truncated to three and the DASH was placed into the Fleet in 1963, essentially using the fleet as a development and test organization.

Surface ship Commanding Officers did not like DASH. Because DASH had been designated a naval aircraft, any time a DASH was lost, a full OPNAV investigation was held to determine the reasons. The surface ship Commanding Officers were forced to hold these special hearings when a DASH was lost and to file OPNAV reports. Since the surface navy tended to eat their young, several CO’s careers were derailed by having letters of censure placed in their file because a DASH crashed. In short, flying DASH was risky to careers.

Hence, the situation was one where the users of DASH, the surface ship drivers, would not use the system due to this high risk. The aviation community that provided support for the DASH would not permit DASH to fly when manned aircraft were operating, and the naval aviation acquisition community was actively campaigning to kill DASH so Light Airborne Multi-Purpose Systems (LAMPS) could fly.

The key used by opponents of the DASH was the number of DASH losses. If the loss rate In this area, the surface and aviation communities were in harmony. The surface community knew that a manned helo would belong to a squadron and the ship‘s CO need only continue the ships normal routine. If anything happened, it would be the squadron CO’s responsibility. Hence no career risks.

Key facilitators involved in the anti-DASH campaign were the prime contractors. In addition to the normal advertising blitz, lobbying congressional support, the contractors discovered that their Naval Reserve officers on their staffs could be put to good use for the program when these individuals were on active duty. The active duty reserve officers were known to copy brochures and submit them to various professional naval publications as stories of value to the sailors. Bad news travels well and the DASH blemishes were continually exposed.

In 1966 the steady drumbeat of criticism, mainly from the Navy itself, forced the Secretary of Defense to defund the program in the 1967 budget. However, the DASH program had sufficient resources to continue for many years, in fact until 1971 when the program was directed to stop and the 750 DASH billets were redirected to the emerging LAMPS program.

Reality Does Not Mean the DASH Will Be Saved – Dead Man Walking

The Navy’s Technical Development Plan called for a mean time between loss (MTBL) of 1 loss for every 24 hours of flight time. The actual Fleet MTBL was 100 flight hours (LANTFLT) and 117 flight hours (PACFLT). Several unique US operations had a MTBL of 425 hours and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force had an MTBF of 650+hours.

Goodness had nothing to offer in the way of saving a disruptive technology. There were many bright lights for DASH in the fleet. These were the 20% that do the 80% of the lifting. The table below summarizes some of the higher standards of fleet performance, contrary to the drumbeat of antipathy.

DASH Fleet Performance

DASH Fleet Performance

SNOOPY Payload Illustrates Ease of Integration (Credit: U.S. Navy)

Worthy of note is the comment regarding transit to YANKEE station and SNOOPY flight hours conducted in 1968. SNOOPY was an interesting non-program. While most of the Navy knew of DASH as the torpedo delivery system, fewer knew that Project Snoopy had been initiated to provide reconnaissance and gunfire support spotting capability in Vietnam. Six SNOOPY video packages were made up that were completely bolt-on self-contained systems to be carried on one of the three stores stationed on the QH-50. These packages provided omni-directional real time video data to the ship or to any station with a video receiver capability. On certain missions, once the QH-50 had lifted off and was inbound to the target, control of the QH-50 was passed to a manned helo that was equipped with a portable QH-50 control system. The manned helo extended the effective range of the QH-50 well beyond the normal shipboard maximum control range of 50 miles and was a first for UAV-manned aircraft interface. What made this feasible was the simplicity of interfacing the airborne DASH electronics.

The figure below provides a conceptual view of the project.

SNOOPY Con Ops

Nuclear monitoring for Project GREELEY was another capability. The project worked so well that DOE requested transfer of QH-50 from the Navy. The Navy declined.

Meanwhile, DARPA’s Dick Cesaro initiated the Night Gazelle and the Night Panther projects. Both of these projects were highly successful. These and several other projects were so far ahead of anything else in the DoD pantheon of favorite projects that eventually Dick was invited to leave DARPA. While the Egyptian Goose and similar projects (with new names) are now still operational, DASH died. Night Panther was the DARPA Weapons Demonstration program using the QH-50 Platform.

Night Panther .50 Cal Depleted Uranium Fleschette Gun (credit: DARPA)

The stability of the QH-50 in flight offered an outstanding opportunity for DARPA to extend the state of the art in controls and weapons delivery platforms. Consequently, DARPA launched the QH-50 NITE GAZELLE program to outfit the QH-50 as a weapons platform. When carrying weapons that required aiming, a large U-Mount platform provided the extreme stability required for precise weapon aiming. A good example of one of the more sophisticated projects is the QH-50 with a 5-hour endurance carrying a DU .50 caliber gun with a LLLTV and a contrast tracker (shown in the picture on the left).

The three stores station, the payload weight carrying capacity, and the use of Practice Multiple Bomb Racks (PMBR’s) gave the system a high degree of weapons utilization flexibility as shown in the photograph below.

Armed Q-50 : Weaponeering DASH (credit: DARPA)

The various capabilities of the QH-50, its operating experience and ability to be upgraded had no influence on the final decision to terminate the program. Worthy of note is that more than 30 years after termination of the program, the QH-50 was being flown by the Navy and the Army for T&E purposes.

It is important to examine why the program was rejected by the various communities regardless of the “goodness” of the program.

Barriers to Disruptive Technology and Lessons Learned

Let’s examine some of the barriers and lessons learned.

The Barriers

The Lessons Learned

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***Posted on May 12th, 2010

Biography: Constantine J. Pappas

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Jack Pappas was the Officer in Charge of the Navy’s first deployed DASH Unmanned Vehicle detachment in the Navy from 1962 to 1965 aboard USS James E. Kyes (DD-787). Since then, he has been an Assistant Branch Head at the Navy Research Laboratory, worked in the intelligence community, was in charge of Director Navy Business Development and Director of Strategic Planning for a Fortune 100 software company, managed a radar research center at the University of Pennsylvania, became an SES Chief Engineer of a Navy R&D Center, ran companies, did international business development for a Fortune 100 company and founded several start-up companies. Jack, a Naval Academy graduate, is a strategy and business development practitioner, performing tasks as diverse as cherry picking the Bulgarian military-industrial complex for investors in Lichtenstein to arranging $1 million USD financing for a large dog kennel. His consulting practice is headquartered in Lexington Park, MD. He is active in community pro bono work and divides his spare time between Maryland and West Virginia, commuting in his airplane.

Biography: The Honorable Edward T Timperlake

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Director, Technology Assessment, International Technology Security (OSD), Jan 03 09:

  • Responsible for identifying and protecting from espionage US world leading military technology. I am the DOD representative to the National Counterintelligence Executive Committee NCIX (DNI) and principal liaison to FBI in their Government wide “Critical National Asset” project.
  • Helped established a test at Yuma Proving Ground for Rafael “RecceLight” ISR pod.
  • Was POC for high level contacts with Japanese Government to assist in their development of Japanese Space Agency to support Japanese national security objectives.
  • Traveled through out Iraq to catalogue contraband conventional weapons and dual use technology that violated international embargoes. My report is a key document in GWAT

Legislative Branch Positions, 1996-1999:

As a member of the professional staff of the Committee on Rules, U.S. House of Representatives: I was responsible for analyzing all legislation including Programmatic Budget Review for the Department of Defense, and Department of Veterans Affairs.

  • Assigned as the Rules Committee Investigator on illegal foreign money contributions to political parties.
  • Staff Secretary to Chairman of Rules Committee when he was Vice-President of the North Atlantic Assembly (the Political Branch of NATO)

Executive Department Service:

 

  • Assistant Secretary in the Department of Veterans Affairsin President Bush’s ’41 Administration ( Senate Confirmed): 1989-1992
    • Built the first Congressional Affairs Office at the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA), the first Public Affairs Office at DVA and the first Intergovernmental Affairs staff at DVA.
    • Senior Government Officer in charge of medical mobilization of the Department of Veterans Affairs during Desert Shield/Desert Storm.
    • Secretary Derwinski’s designated representative to address “Gulf War Illness”
  • Principal Director of Mobilization Planning and Requirements (1983-1984) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Reagan Administration (a political appointment) Responsible for DOD Mobilization Planning and all DOD responsibilities for insuring the Continuity of Government (COG) in the event of an attack on the United States.

Private Sector,

 

  • As the Program Manager with a team of investigators at The Analytic Sciences Corporation, I developed a series of classified comprehensive studies of the relative state of modernization of various national military forces, initially focusing on Aviation Technology.
  • The Director of Net Assessment, Mr. Andrew Marshall OSD, and the Director of Theater Forces Division, CIA sponsored the research.

Military Experience:

Marine Fighter Pilot, and Commanding Officer of VMFA-321, a reserve USMC Fighter Squadron, I graduated from the Senior Officer “Top Gun” course., and Senior Officers Safety Course USNPG School. My initial USMC training was as in Infantry Officer at “The Basic School,” Quantico, VA, Vietnam Service Medal (2 stars).

Life member Disabled American Veterans.

Education:

United States Naval Academy, BS

U.S. Naval Aviator, Carrier Qualified Jet Pilot

Cornell University, MBA

Clearance

Top Secret (SCI) based on full Field Investigation

Full Field FBI Investigation to be appointed by the President and Confirmed by the Senate to be awarded the title “The Honorable” for life

 

 

Significant Honors and Awards:

 

  • Received the Department of Veterans Affairs highest award, the Exceptional Service Award, for creating and fostering strong relations between VA, the White House, and state and local governments.
  • Received personal Letter from President Bush (41) for “. settling complex questions about the environmental hazards of warfare. You were able to defuse the long-standing controversy surrounding these issues and to put them on a course to final resolution.”—I addressed the issue of chemical weapons in Iraq bunkers.
  • Awarded Polish Government’s Medal for coordination of Polish Premier Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s State Funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, and then escorted Paderewski’s remains to Poland, on the occasion of the fifty-first anniversary of his death. His dying wish was to be returned to a free Poland.
  • Received DOD Commendation for work as Acquisition Technology and Logistics representative (AT&L) to NSC directed Tsunami Relief Task Force

Co-author of:

  • Showdown, Why China Wants War with the United States, Regnery Press, May 2006.
  • Red Dragon Rising, Communist China’s Military Threat to America, Regnery Press, 1999. (new expanded paperback published April 2002)
  • Year of the Rat, How Bill Clinton Compromised U.S. Security for Chinese Cash, Regnery Press, 1998. (New York Times Best Seller, 22 weeks, new expanded paperback published in 2000)

Published in the Naval Institute Proceedings, Naval War College Review, Washington Times, and Washington Post. Human Events, I have appeared on “60 Minutes” twice and been an expert guest on national security for numerous radio and television shows including Fox News, the O’Reilly Factor, The Edge with Paula Zahn, CNN World, Larry King and BBC World in London both Radio and Television.

Biography: Alain Dupas

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Alain Dupas

Alain Dupas is an international expert in space technologies, industries and policies as well as in defense and information technology strategies.

Mr. Dupas trained as a physicist and in 1977 he was awarded a Doctorat d’Etat from Université Paris-XI/Orsay. He is one of the founders of post-graduate multidisciplinary teaching at Université de Versailles-St Quentin en Yvelines (“Diplôme d’études supérieures approfondies” – DESS – on Strategic System Analysis) where he is currently researching and teaching courses on “Relationships between Strategies and Technologies” and on “Methodologies for System Analysis”. He is still a Fellow of the Space Policy Institute at the George Washington University (Washington D.C.) and since May 2000 he has been Senior Advisor for Aerospace to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

In 1987 Mr. Dupas was one of the founders of a new “think tank” called CREST-Ecole Polytechnique (Center for Research on Relationships between Strategies and Technologies of Ecole Polytechnique) and as part of his work he created a center of excellence in aerospace strategies and the impact of new technologies on security. He was Scientific and Technical Director of CREST between 1987 and 1993. Since then he has worked as an expert for many organizations and companies (Aerospatiale and later EADS, SEP, EC, ESA, etc). He is now pursuing his activities as Director of Strategic Studies at the College de Polytechnique in Paris.

The Gulf Oil Crisis and the USCG: Where are the Resources?

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05/10/2010
Ohio - U.S. Air Force Master. Sgt Paul Tatar

The Need To Refill

Ohio - U.S. Air Force Master. Sgt Paul Tatar, a C-130 Hercules aircraft aerial spray aircraft maintainers, from the 910th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Youngstown-Warren Air Reserve Station, Ohio, refill a C-130 with oil-dispersing chemicals on the runway of the Stennis International Airport, Miss, on May 9, 2010. Members of the 910th Airlift Wing (AW) are in Mississippi to assist with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The 910th AW specializes in aerial spray and is the Department of Defense’s only large-area fixed-wing aerial spray unit.
U.S. Air Force Master. Sgt Paul Tatar, a C-130 Hercules aircraft aerial spray aircraft maintainers, from the 910th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Youngstown-Warren Air Reserve Station, Ohio, refill a C-130 with oil-dispersing chemicals on the runway of the Stennis International Airport, Miss, on May 9, 2010. Members of the 910th Airlift Wing (AW) are in Mississippi to assist with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The 910th AW specializes in aerial spray and is the Department of Defense’s only large-area fixed-wing aerial spray unit. (Credit Photo : US Air Force Tech Sgt Prentice Colter, Ohio, May 2010, www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com)

Once again we face a Gulf crisis.  This time the crisis involves oil spills, not a hurricane.  Once again, the USCG is providing leadership and skilled manpower to cope with a national problem.  If history is a guide, the USCG will perform well, but receive no new resources to cope with future crises.  Many will marvel again when seeing daring rescues and other events requiring exceptional skills and highly reliable equipment, but few will appreciate the years of training and highly effective equipment necessary for successful execution often during awful conditions. If any of us are victims of exceptional danger and lucky enough to be plucked from a life threatening experience, we’ll want at least two things as we dangle from the helo hoist or as boats and ships fight the wicked waves to rescue us—skilled people doing the job with the best equipment possible.

In fact, the operational tempo associated with the crisis will further deplete USCG resources. The service can accelerate its pace of operations, but will receive no new money for depleted capital assets.  This is not only short-sighted, but also suicidal with regard to environmental security. With the crisis, the USCG may get access, along with other federal agencies, to emergency funding.  Unfortunately, there is no ability to access such funding to work on prevention or to acquire equipment appropriate to shape proactive capabilities in dealing with future oil spills and other environmental challenges.

Indeed, the USCG is currently undergoing painful budget cuts at the hands of Administration and the Congress. Ironically, one of these cuts involves eliminating the ability of the USCG to deal with catastrophic environmental problems. Two weeks after the Haiti earthquake, the President’s proposed budget called for cutting some of the very ships and helos that were so dramatically needed there,  where the Coast Guard was the first in and last —in fact it’s still there. During a period of constant inside the beltway jabbering about so called “jobs bills”, more than 2,000 Coast Guard people will get pink slips. Aren’t these the kinds of jobs and people we want to keep?

In addition, USCG cutters like the one pictured behind the President in a recent appearance in the Gulf are being significantly cut as well, while the maritime patrol aircraft, which have been used as part of the oil spill response, are under the gun from the Department of Homeland Security.

The oil spill comes at a point where the nation will rely increasingly on indigenous capabilities to provide for energy needs.  The Eighth District for the USCG is a key oversight agency for these growing needs.  As one USCG leader put it:

The unique feature of the 8th District is the offshore sector.  It captures the intercontinental shelf, oil and natural gas industry. Within this region there is 6,500 oil and gas wells; 4,000 oil or gas production platforms and over 800 of which have full-time crew support. There are 116 Mobile offshore drilling units 51 of which are stacked, some which are crude and some are not.  There are 30,000 workers offshore on any given day.  This infrastructure accounts for 30 percent of our domestically produced oil and 23 percent of our domestically produced natural gas.

And to no-one’s surprise the 8th District is not adequately resourced in terms of personnel or equipment.  As Captain Stanton, New Orleans Sector Commander, put it: “we are very resource strained.  We have to surge our resources all over our AOR, and our bench strength is very thin”.

Let’s talk about oversight for a bit; no not the kind of alleged oversight seen on TV where some posturing politician l is reading scripted sound bites while berating a witness on some obscure, “when will you stop beating your wife” type questions. Real oversight is hard work every day all day by highly trained, educated and hard working public servants. And yes, it must involve the industry in a most productive way. Mature people know all these oversight programs are in reality risk management assessments. We can’t prevent all bad things from happening, all the time, everywhere. Mature and informed judgments must be applied. These judgments can have the best chance (it will be a chance always) of success, if adequate numbers of highly educated and skilled people are available to make them. Furthermore, sufficient people and equipment are required for periodic checks and observations. No, we can’t see everything everywhere—risk assessment and management again. Our problem is we have grossly inadequate numbers of both.

Let’s learn from this disaster and apply its lessons across the board. Resource our protectors adequately. We love what they do in a crisis, but let’s not make them lament, “Will you still love me tomorrow”?

———-

***Posted on May 10th, 2010

More Than Just an Oil Slick…

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05/08/2010

By USMC (Ret) Vince Martinez

Vince Martinez is a retired U.S. Marine Corps Officer and pilot. He is the President and Founder of Affinity Fidelis Consulting and Technologies, a defense consulting firm in Northern Virginia.  Vince is now a regular contributor to Second Line of Defense and starts with the article below.

[slidepress gallery=’space-views-of-oils-spill’]

Credit : Betsy Mason,Tracked From Space: Gulf Oil Slick Approaches Land , Wired.com, April 30th, 2010
(Click on top of picture to access caption)

As the oil slick from the offshore drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico makes its way to the shores of the U. S. coastland, an emerging picture of the vulnerabilities of any coastland that has offshore rigging in close proximity is now presenting a much clearer snapshot as to the risk of cataclysmic biological disaster at the hands of human error, bio-terrorism or natural disaster.  Although somewhat shocking for many in the public domain, the risks associated with biological catastrophe and its impacts on a population are far from new in martial circles, and should serve as a wake-up call for all concerned.  Biological methods of war have been formulated and successfully utilized throughout history.  Whether it was through the use of infected corpses to pass bubonic plague to the enemies of the Mongol Empire in medieval times, or in the sustained economic aftermath of the oil fires in Iraq during the Gulf War, the endemic and substantive impacts of these types of occurrences tend to exact tolls far longer than the initial salvo.

In the case of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the aftermath will manifest in everything from massive losses in the food chain, to the economic impacts of a far-reaching clean up, the loss of revenue for the tourism and fishing industries of the Gulf States, and the operational readiness impacts associated with the use of U. S. Naval and Coast Guard resources to assist with containing the spill, as well as their likely sustained role in the clean-up, recovery and security of this region as this event unfolds.

Was this an act of bio-terrorism?  As far as all accounts in the public domain go, that does not appear to be the case.  What is clear, however, is that those who do seek ways to exact tolls on nation states are watching this outcome closely– just as we are.

This is not the first time this type of operation will have been contemplated, and will most certainly not be the last.  Like all things, however, this should serve as an opportunity for decision makers to consider what type of martial capabilities to invest in for the security of their coastlines.

In direct opposition to the land war that has everyone’s attention today, naval deterrence, coastal defense, biological and chemical defense, and the fiscally constrained environment that is pervasive worldwide should cause all to pause and contemplate closely.

What are those programs which are critical to maintain a nation’s defense, how do they fair against other high priority programs given limited resources, and how do they fit into a balanced, holistic military posture?  This is, and must be considered by those in places that affect such decisions, far more than just an oil slick.

———-

***Posted on May 8th, 2010