Marine's New Top Priorities: Maternity Leave and Sea Denial

The new Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. David Berger, is off to a mystifying start to his tenure.  He began with a guidance document that basically said that the Marines were going to dump conventional amphibious ships in favor of small, distributed ships and that legacy systems would be eliminated to fund modernization.  No details were offered and the military community has been expectantly waiting for more information.  His guidance document offered some welcome focus on the threat of China even if some of his solutions were questionable.  As we wait for details to emerge about his new combat focus, the Commandant has made some downright baffling public statements about his priorities. 

Gen. Berger has prioritized family leave for Marines with proposals for up to a year’s leave for new mothers (1) as well as,

Furthering gender integration in job fields previously closed to women, expanding maternity leave and raising the intellectual bar for infantry troops are among the Marine Corps’ priorities, the service’s top officer said.(2)

Is this really a priority?  Not only does it have nothing to do with combat but it will clearly hurt our combat capabilities.  It also raises a host of questions.  Will new mothers be counted as combat ready troops in the Marine’s table of manning?   Will returning mothers, fresh off a year of leave and the exhaustion of infant rearing be instantly combat ready?  Of course they won’t so what good are they?  Will returning mothers have to undergo some type of refresher boot camp to get back into shape and regain their combat skills (I can’t type that without laughing but …) – essentially amounting to even more time off in terms of being a combat asset?  The Commandant wants to give female/mother Marines what amounts to a year and a half to two years off to have a child and return to combat readiness?  If a female Marine wants to have multiple children are we really going to pay them to have several years off to do the family thing?  Theoretically, a female could have several paid years off (and highly restricted duty when back) to raise a family, all on the Marine’s dime and without ever serving on a deployment or being combat capable.  Isn’t that called welfare?  Since when did the Marine Corps become a kiddie day care center or a social experimentation program?  Who’s going to fill the female’s vacated billets?  Who’s going to deploy in place of the females?  Yeah, that would be the men.  I don’t see any resentment happening because of this.

The Few, The Proud, The Mommy Welfare Group

Additional priority items include (4):

• Exempting pregnant Marines from “standing at parade rest or attention for longer than 15 minutes”
• Increased gender integration
• Increasing enlistment test scores

The few, the proud, the out of shape exhausted mothers!  The Chinese are trembling in fear.

Continuing the befuddlement, the Commandant is now stating that the Marine’s top ground forces priority is sea denial which he envisions accomplishing by placing small units with anti-ship missiles on distributed islands or land.

The Marine Corps is all in on fielding mobile anti-ship missiles in the Pacific to challenge China’s growing Navy, declaring it in written testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s seapower subcommittee to be its highest ground modernization priority.

“A ground-based anti-ship missile capability will provide anti-ship fires from land as part of an integrated naval anti-surface warfare campaign,” the written testimony reads. “This forward-deployed and survivable capability will enhance the lethality of our naval forces and will help to deny our adversaries the use of key maritime terrain.” (3) [emphasis added]

The Marine’s ground mission is sea control?????

The Marines, who should be concentrating on figuring out how to get an amphibious combat vehicle from 50 miles offshore to the beach, who should be working to rediscover their amphibious assault capability, who should be taking on the core mission of port seizure (my opinion, not the Marine’s), who should be frantically working on mobile anti-aircraft/anti-cruise missile capability, who should be reversing their trend of shedding tanks and artillery, who should be emphasizing ground force lethality, are now going to switch to sea denial as their new top priority?  Isn’t that the Navy’s mission?  Have the Marines solved all their problems and have so much extra budget that they can now take on a Navy responsibility?

I’m sorry but sea denial is about dead last on my list of priorities for the Marines – just ahead of maternity leave.

So, setting aside my stunned disbelief, how do the Marines see this sea denial working?

The Marines are looking at not just one but two anti-ship systems:  one is based on a remote control version of the HIMARS vehicle (why remote control?  what does that gain us if the troops are there anyway?) firing a Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile and the other is an anti-ship version of Tomahawk which would be launched from an, as yet, unknown platform.  Okay, let’s look a bit closer at this concept.

What’s the overall concept?  According to the Marines,

The Marine Corps’ concept of operations, as outlined by Berger in last year’s planning guidance,  …  the Marines want to be able to spread their forces in small groups around islands in the Pacific and deny freedom of maneuver to the Chinese fleet. (3)

Has anyone wargamed this with even a small dose of reality?  How are we going to infiltrate Chinese controlled areas and land HIMARS vehicles, missiles, men, and supplies without being seen?  You don’t transport HIMARS vehicles and Tomahawk launchers on combat canoes.  They’ll have to be transported on amphibious or cargo ships of some kind.  Won’t the Chinese kind of … you know … see that?  Or, is this more of the military’s ever-growing tendency to assume that the enemy will cooperate in their own destruction?

Honestly, this sounds like some top drawer, high quality, fantasy thinking.

Marine Corps requirements and development chief Lt. Gen. Eric Smith told reporters last year during the Expeditionary Warfare Conference that the Marines want to fight on ground of their choosing and then maneuver before forces can concentrate against them.

“They are mobile and small, they are not looking to grab a piece of ground and sit on it,” Smith said of his Marine units. “I’m not looking to block a strait permanently. I’m looking to maneuver. The German concept is ‘Schwerpunkt,’ which is applying the appropriate amount of pressure and force at the time and place of your choosing to get maximum effect.”

So, we’re disbursing small units on scattered islands and they’re somehow going to ‘maneuver before the enemy can concentrate against them’?  Uh … they’re on small islands.  How much maneuvering can they do? 

Maybe the Marines think they can maneuver to another island?  Again, how will we get large cargo ships to these remote, scattered islands to re-embark the Marines and move them to another island without being seen?

Seriously, if we can sail cargo ships (and escorts? now we’re talking large task forces – won’t those be noticed?) with utter stealth and impunity all around the enemy-controlled waters, we don’t need to use Marines to control the sea, we can just send Burkes to sail up next to the oblivious enemy ships and board them.

Wait, there’s more …

Smith describes a concept where the U.S. fleet can herd Chinese ships into a contested area where the Marines can do damage from the shore.

“So, if I’m maneuvering in support of the fleet commander in a contested, confined space, through the mobility I bring in air and with surface connectors I can get to a point and block or strike something that has been herded into a contested space – something that has been herded into that space by the fleet commander.” (3)

Again, the degree of willing cooperation and the assumed utter cluelessness of the enemy is staggering.  We’re going to set up these magic, hidden anti-ship units and the Chinese are going to allow us to ‘herd’ them into range?  Again, if we have sufficient naval force to ‘herd’ the Chinese navy then we really don’t need a few more Marine anti-ship missiles, do we?

Here’s the takeaways from this:

How do we transport large vehicles to these small, remote islands and lands without being detected?

How do we find targets that are beyond the horizon?  Are we going to build airstrips and operate long range UAVs on these small islands all without being detected?  Or, maybe we’ll use the regional network that ties all the non-survivable surveillance assets together in one ginormous, real time tactical picture?

Without long range surveillance and targeting, the effective area is limited to the horizon which is 12-15 miles from shore.

A small unit’s single launcher with one to a few missiles is of absolutely no tactical significance.  Will we land large numbers of launchers and missiles (along with reload equipment)?  If so, again, how will we conduct these large scale landings and operations without being detected?

This Commandant is all over the map.  China is his number one threat and priority and yet his first actions have to do with maternity leave????  His top ground priority is sea denial?  This guy is not giving me warm, fuzzy feelings about his grasp of the issues facing the Marines.

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(1)military.com website, “Marines' New Top Officer Wants to Give New Moms a Full Year Off”, Gina Harkins, 17-Jul-2019,

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/17/marines-new-top-officer-wants-give-new-moms-full-year.html

(2)Stars and Stripes website, “Women in more job fields, added maternity leave on top Marine’s priority list”, Immanuel Johnson, 24-Feb-2020,

https://www.stripes.com/news/women-in-more-job-fields-added-maternity-leave-on-top-marine-s-priority-list-1.620075

(3)Defense News website, “To combat the China threat, US Marine Corps declares ship-killing missile systems its top priority”, David B. Larter, 5-Mar-2020,

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/03/05/to-combat-the-china-threat-us-marine-corps-declares-ship-killing-missile-systems-its-top-priority/

(4)Marine Corps Times website, “These Are The 21 Internal Memo Items The Top Marine Wants To Immediately Change”, Philip Athey, 4-Mar-2020,

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2020/03/04/these-are-the-21-internal-memo-items-the-commandant-wants-to-immediately-change-in-the-corps/

Chinese Type 22 Missile Boat

Today we’re going to take a look at the Chinese Type 22, Houbei class missile boat.  It is a small, fast, stealthy assassin with massive firepower relative to its size.  The class has been built in large numbers (Wiki cites 83 boats currently built and active) which suggests that it will operate in squadrons, allowing it to mass its firepower.  Properly used, this is a formidable threat.

Let’s take a closer look.

Type 22 Missile Boat

Size - The vessel is a 140 ft long catamaran design with a 220 ton displacement and a crew of 12 (1).  For comparison, this puts it at around 1/3 the length of the LCS and a 1/16 the displacement.

Propulsion - Four waterjets give it a speed of 36 kts. 

Number - Wiki cites 83 boats currently built and active.

Range - Range is a potential issue with suggestions of a 300 mile range based on similar civilian craft. (1)

Sensors - Sensors are an issue but operating within the A2/AD zone may greatly mitigate sensor limitations.  It has a Type ESR-1 362 surface search radar plus a Fenis-ME electro-optical tracker and a Kolonika II low-light-level optical director and backup CIWS fire control director, on top of the bridge.  A mast-mounted Type 765 I-band navigation radar rounds out the sensor fit. 

Armament - It carries 8x C-802/803 anti-ship missiles with a range of 100-125 miles depending on variant, an AK-630 (30 mm) CIWS, and a small FLS-1 surface-to-air launcher for QW series missiles. (1)  The Type 22 has extensive communications and data link equipment which suggests the capability for off board control of the missiles.

As noted, this vessel is a combat vessel with firepower far out of proportion to its size.  Add to that, numbers and stealth and you have a vessel that will be hard to detect and can operate in squadrons for concentrated missile salvos – a formidable naval force, to be sure!

The number of vessels built, 83, is magnified by the small operating area that the boats will operate in.  Unlike a 300 ship US Navy which is spread over an entire world, the entire Type 22 fleet of 83 boats is concentrated in the relatively small East or South China Seas.  This has the effect of magnifying the vessels firepower because it automatically concentrates it.

This also suggests that the Chinese will use it as an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) asset to keep US naval forces out of the South and East China Seas.  This also suggests a defensive mindset as opposed to an open ocean, long range naval hunter vessel.  If true, this in turn suggests how the Chinese view the S/E China Seas – essentially, they act as a buffer zone or ‘moat’ around the mainland.  The Chinese are clearly working toward becoming a global naval/military force but this suggests that they are not there, yet, and that their current focus is defensive.

There is also some suggestion that the Type 22 has a shore bombardment role in support of amphibious operations in addition to the anti-ship role. (1)  If true, this would give the Chinese a small, stealthy, hard to hit fire support vessel – a capability that would be unmatched in the world.

It is difficult to talk about the Type 22 without comparing it to the American LCS.

The obvious conclusion is that this is one version of what the LCS could have been.  The LCS tried to be and do everything and failed to be or do anything.  Had the LCS concept been more focused, the Type 22 is one version of what might have been – a small, lethal, stealthy, fast, focused, anti-surface craft cheap enough to be acquired in large numbers and operate in massed squadrons.

The US Navy talks incessantly about distributed lethality.  Unfortunately, the LCS is a poor fit for the distributed lethality concept.  Further, many observers and some naval officers have talked about the LCS as a modern PT boat.  Again, this is utterly ridiculous, for reasons we’ve previously discussed.  The irony is that the Type 22 actually fills the role of a modern PT boat and distributed lethality asset quite well.  Again, this is a version of the LCS that could have been.

A Type 22 swarm attack against a US carrier group would be unstoppable although it is difficult to imagine how such a swarm would even get close enough to launch an attack.  ‘Swarm’ in this scenario is radically different than the Iranian type swarm.  In this case, it would amount to a long range missile swarm as opposed to a short range rocket attack.  That said, I don’t believe the Chinese view the Type 22 as a viable carrier attack asset although if the chance presented itself …

In summary, the Type 22 appears to be a defensive, A2/AD asset intended to prevent US naval entry into the S/E China Seas.  Its stealth, cheapness, and numbers make it the distributed lethality asset that the US Navy wants but has failed to develop.  This is the distributed threat that will ‘confuse and complicate’ our operational and tactical thinking just as we hoped that distributed lethality ships would confuse Chinese naval commanders.  The difference is that the Chinese actually have a suitable vessel for distributed lethality operations whereas we do not. 

The Type 22 is also a good representation of the Hughes concept of small, distributed naval forces – a concept that ComNavOps disagrees with, at least, for the US – and, again, ironically, it is the Chinese that have developed it.

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(1)https://www.afcea.org/content/?q=node/1433

China War - Setting The Stage

War with China appears to be inevitable.  Many people don’t believe that or, rather, don’t want to believe it.  You know what, though?  For the purposes of this post, it doesn’t matter.  We’re going to stipulate that a war with China is coming for the sake of discussion.  You don’t need to believe it but it’s only wise to prepare for the possibility even if you don’t think it will happen.  To totally ignore the possibility would be the height of foolishness.  This somewhat long-winded opening paragraph serves to set the stage for this post and eliminate the inevitable “China is our friend, a peace loving world neighbor, and would never consider going to war” comments.  I’m not going to allow a debate of whether China will or won’t go to war.  Instead, we’re going to discuss and plan for a war regardless of how likely or unlikely you or I, personally, believe it to be.

Whew!  Glad to get that out of the way.

Now, what I’m going to discuss is general considerations associated with a war with China.  Note that most of this would apply in a general sense to any enemy and any war.

Before we go any further, we need to stipulate that the US will not start a war with China.  That means that a war will be started by China.  That initial condition dictates many aspects of the war.  China will get the first strikes, will be able to initiate land seizures, establish the initial location and conditions of combat, etc.  Thus, America’s first actions will be purely reactionary and defensive.

The recognition that our first actions will be defensive should dictate our peacetime posture and raise questions such as,

• How many and what type of forces we should have forward deployed given that they will be hit hard and likely lost in the opening moments of a war?

• Should our few forward bases be hardened more than they are given the expected ballistic and cruise missile attacks?

• Do we have sufficient forward deployed engineering assets to quickly rebuild initially damaged bases?

• Is it wise to have naval forces based in Japan given the proximity to Chinese ballistic and cruise missiles and the resultant likelihood of their loss?

• Are our forces positioned so as to quickly respond to initial invasion/seizure attempts?

• Are we willing to fight for Taiwan in the initial stages of a war?

The issue of Taiwan is one that needs to be addressed.  In any war, Taiwan will be the first (or co-first) objective of China for two main reasons:

1. China has long wanted control over Taiwan and a war offers the perfect opportunity regardless of the actual purpose of the war.

2. More importantly, China simply cannot allow an enemy base to exist in its front yard during a war.  Strategically and operationally, Taiwan must be eliminated as a threat.

Thus, the U.S. will have the choice of trying to fight a very difficult battle to support/retake Taiwan, deep in the heart of the Chinese A2/AD zone or to abandon Taiwan and allow it to become a Chinese fortress anchoring the first island chain A2/AD zone.  Neither choice is particularly palatable but the issue must be accounted for in initial war planning.

Moving on, the biggest requirement in any war planning and, ironically, the biggest failing of most people who discuss war plans, is the need to define the desired end result.  Presumably, that means victory, right?  After all, who enters a war with losing being the desired end result?  Ironically, and disturbingly, the US has not attempted to win a war since WWII.  Even Desert Storm turned out to be a tactical and operational victory and a long term strategic failure.  So, what general conditions would constitute a desirable end result, if not victory, in a war with China?  Let’s consider some possibilities.

Conquer all of mainland China – Well, that’s just absurd.  We don’t have the manpower, weapons, capacity, or will to engage in that level of war and, even if we did, it’s highly unlikely that we could successfully (meaning, for any cost that we’d be willing to pay) subjugate a country of 1.4 billion people who have been raised to hate us.  While a conquered China that is no longer a threat to the rest of the world is a highly desirable end state, it is just not realistically achievable. 

This is just an idiotic non-starter of an idea.

Return to pre-war status quo – This is probably the end result that most people would choose.  While this would return the world to “normal” it presents one major problem – we’ll have to fight the war all over again, down the road.  China will learn military lessons, rearm (while incorporating the lessons), and try again.  This is essentially what happened with Iraq and Saddam Hussein.  We returned Iraq to the pre-war conditions and, sure enough, wound up having to fight the same war/country/leader again.  We had the opportunity at the end of Desert Storm to permanently eliminate Iraq/Hussein and opted not to. 

Status quo doesn’t gain anything for the US or the world.  If we’re going to commit to war and pay a horrific price in lives, it’s mandatory that we improve the world in some way – not just return to status quo. 

This is a viable and achievable end result but it produces no net positive gain for the US or the world and ensures that we’ll fight another war.

Negotiated settlement – This allows China to achieve a portion of its goals in exchange for peace – essentially, we “sell” various countries, locations, rights, and controls at the negotiating table in order to avoid continued fighting.  China gains, to a degree, undoubtedly a significant degree, and we and the rest of the world lose. 

This also sets a horrible precedent that China can initiate a war, seize what it wants plus a bit more, and then return the parts it didn’t really want and keep the parts it did want while looking like it is negotiating in good faith and desires peace.

This guarantees future wars.

That pretty much covers the common end results.  See what I mean about the disturbing lack of actual victory conditions?  Only conquering all of mainland China is an actual victory and it’s unachievable. 

So, where does that leave us?

There is one, and only one, other logical end result and it happens to result in an actual victory with actual long term improvement in the world condition.

Military and Academic Annihilation – This results in the complete defeat of China’s military but does not require occupation of China.  We simply, systematically, destroy China’s military and destroy China’s military industry.  This, alone, however, is not enough.  That end result would leave China’s leadership in place and the country intact.  China would learn lessons and rebuild its industry and military and we’d have to eventually fight the war all over again at some point in the future.  To prevent this, we need to go a step further and utterly destroy China’s academic capability.  We need to destroy every university, every think tank, every study group, every research facility, every school.  We need to eliminate China’s ability to produce new engineers and scientists that can eventually design new military factories and new weapons.  That’s how you prevent a repeat, future war.

Implications

Having set the desired end result, we now have to set the initial conditions and, most importantly, our initial force disposition.  Having already stipulated that the first strike will go to China, we have to consider a force disposition that allows us to absorb a first strike without crippling damage – in other words, not another Pearl Harbor.

For example, having a single carrier based in Japan is inviting a first strike, immediate loss of a carrier.  We should reconsider the wisdom and benefit of a single carrier in Japan versus the risk of immediate loss.

Guam is a Pearl Harbor waiting to happen.  Again, we need to reconsider the benefits versus the risk.  At the moment, Guam is not host to a lot of naval force so a strike would not represent a crippling blow.  On the other hand, we have seen a slow but steady increase in the number of ships based there and we should consider the risk carefully.

Hand in hand with risk assessment, we should carefully review the defendability of Guam and make major improvements if we want to maintain it as a viable and survivable forward base.

Pearl Harbor is also a Pearl Harbor waiting to happen and all the same considerations apply.  While Pearl Harbor has the advantage of greater distance from China, it is not beyond the reach of a first strike.

For both Pearl Harbor and Guam, we need to establish a continuous anti-submarine (ASW) barrier around and between those sites and China. 

Beyond absorbing the first strike, we also want to have forces positioned to enable us to hit back hard and quickly in response to the first strike in an attempt to produce a pause in combat which will enable us to “set” ourselves for continued combat.

Thus, we need a combat ready surge force.  Unfortunately, our military leaders have produced a hollow force that is far from ready.  Returning carrier groups, for example, are scavenged for aircraft, personnel, and equipment to transfer to deploying groups.  The remaining aircraft and pilots barely get enough monthly flight hours to remain flight qualified.

Our aircraft availability rates are barely 50% across all services and aircraft types.

Our ships are barely seaworthy with multiple equipment failures, training lapses, and personnel shortages.

And so on.

As previously discussed, we need to end deployments and move to a mission based system in which we can reset our forces, catch up on maintenance, and train rigorously.

Hand in hand with initial kinetic strikes, China will launch massive cyber attacks.  We need to ensure that we are prepared to defend our networks or function without them.  Our crippling dependence on networks and our naïve assumption that we will always have them is a critical vulnerability.

This discussion leads to questions like what force structure and numbers do we need to implement the victory conditions but that’s a post for another time.

We now understand the initial conditions of war with China and the challenges we will face.  Now, before the shooting begins, is the time to plan, prepare, and train.  We need to adjust our force structure, reposition our forces, build up our bases, and train for the initial actions.  There is no hindsight required, here.  The initial conditions are easily anticipated.  We need our modern War Plan Orange.

Regarding comments, I’d like to have a reasoned, logical discussion about this. 

I am specifically not going to allow comments suggesting that we can’t even sneeze in China’s direction because they might begin using nuclear weapons.  That’s absurd beyond belief.  Yes, there could be a point where, in extremis, China would use nuclear weapons but it’s not going to be because we shoot down a plane or some such trivial action.

Distributed Lethality - Leyte Gulf

A recent Anonymous comment suggested that the WWII radar picket lines around Okinawa were an example of distributed lethality.  That’s a fascinating example that I hadn’t thought of and it prompted this post.

The radar pickets weren’t exactly distributed lethality as envisioned by the Navy.  The ships were mutually supporting, to a degree, and had air cover although leakers were, obviously, commonplace.  Further, the ships were tied to a known, fixed location.  Finally, the picket mission was completely defensive in nature versus the offensive nature of distributed lethality.  Still, it’s an example of what happens when individual (distributed) ships are expected to survive in enemy waters under enemy air cover.  The ships accomplished their purpose but paid a very heavy price doing so.

Another, possibly more relevant, example of WWII distributed lethality is the Japanese actions at Leyte Gulf which actually were a combination of multiple battles.  I won’t bore you with the details of the actions – they’re readily available on-line.

Here’s the interpretation of what occurred from a distributed lethality perspective.

The US had established a large and powerful anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) zone around the Philippine islands of Leyte, Samar, and Luzon in October of 1944.  The A2/AD defensive forces consisted of submarines, PT boats, fleet carrier task forces, battleships, and all manner of escorts along with total air supremacy.  Into this powerful A2/AD zone, the Japanese sent three independent (distributed) forces to search for and attack US forces.  The Japanese plan was complex, convoluted, and depended on a degree of command coordination (networking) that was simply unachievable (the self-imposed radio silence and the fog of war being the equivalent of attempting to operate in today’s electromagnetically challenged environment).  As a result, the three Japanese forces wound up operating independently and largely ineffectively.  The overall action resulted in heavy Japanese losses and the end of Japanese naval power.

Japanese Battleship Musashi Under Attack At Leyte

As you ponder that, now consider that the US Navy plans to send individual ships, or small groups of small ships, into China’s A2/AD zone (defined by the East/South China Seas and the first island chain) which is defended by overwhelming numbers of aircraft, submarines, missile boats, frigates, destroyers, land based anti-ship cruise missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles, and all manner of sensors.  Is this beginning to sound a lot like Letye in reverse? 

The US forces will depend on complex, real time data sharing and command coordination to enable the distributed ships to conduct massed attacks on Chinese targets.  Does this sound a lot like the wishful command and control thinking that the Japanese planners depended on?

According to the Navy, this highly questionable concept will succeed because it will “complicate” the Chinese tactical picture.  The only complication for the Chinese will be deciding which of many assets should be given the honor of destroying which Navy ships. 

The historically inclined among you may note that the Japanese plan actually succeeded, to an extent, in that it did decoy the US fleet carriers away from the intended main action.  You may consider that a “complication” of the American tactical picture.  In the end, though, the lack of effective command and control and the operational stupidity embodied in the attempt to make inferior forces penetrate a heavily defended A2/AD zone led to the almost complete annihilation of the Japanese forces and any complications that arose were more than compensated by overwhelming A2/AD numbers and firepower.

Why we think our attempt at distributed lethality, using vessels that are far less powerful on a relative basis than the Japanese battleships and heavy cruisers, will be more successful is a mystery that no one has yet been able to explain to me.

Believing that distributed lethality will be successful because it will complicate the enemy tactical picture is tantamount to believing in victory because God is on our side.  It may be comforting but it is tactically and operationally lacking.

Land To Enable Landings ????

I keep hearing the Marines talk about landings to enable landings – that the Marines recognize that an assault can’t be successfully conducted unless Marines first land and secure the area, both sea and land, around the intended landing site.  I continue to be amazed by the fact that no one seems to recognize the Catch-22 nature of that concept.  You can’t land until you’ve landed and secured a landing area????  If you can’t land successfully, how do you land to secure a landing area?

Well, you can rule out a conventional assault, as evidenced by Commandant Neller’s comment, as reported in a USNI News website article:

“…Neller said the Marine Corps wouldn’t launch an amphibious assault with lines of Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAVs) swimming ashore …” (1)

That immediately begs the question, why are we pursuing replacement AAVs and ACVs?  But, I digress …

Okay ……..  So how are Marines going to land to secure a landing area?  Maybe this is where the aviation (read MV-22) component of the Corps comes in?  But, MV-22s and sufficient manpower to secure an operating area can only come from big deck amphibious ships which the concept says can’t successfully operate in an enemy area until the area has been secured – Catch-22 again.

Somehow, in some magical, undefined way, the Marines will land in sufficient force to secure land and sea control over a large enough are to enable the actual landing. 

“…focus on securing an advance land base that can then allow ground units to establish sea control …” (1)

One more point of logic – if you’ve managed, in some magic way, to secure the land and establish sea control, why do you need a subsequent landing?

I further note that while the very concept assumes the Navy is not capable of establishing sea control, the Marines will, somehow, land a (presumably small?) force and establish sea control from the land!  If small forces of infantry can establish sea control, why do we need a Navy?

This concept, landing to enable a landing, may work at the very low end of the warfare spectrum but I can’t see it working in a peer war.  Of course, at the very low end of the warfare spectrum, we probably already have sea control and don’t need to execute this concept!

I’m also dismayed by the apparent ignorance of amphibious operations being displayed by Marine leadership.  Consider this statement from Neller.

“…we have operated amphibious ships by themselves as opposed to part of the fleet. This Bold Alligator, I think the last one had a carrier strike group …” (1)

A carrier supporting an amphibious operation seems to be an entirely novel concept to Marine leadership (just as escorts were new to the Navy) and yet this was how amphibious operations have always been conducted.  This is not new.  I also don’t think Neller grasps how a carrier operates – to be fair, I don’t think the Navy grasps how a carrier operates, either!  Carriers don’t sail with amphibious groups – they sail in support of amphibious groups but operate well away from the group.  A rudimentary study of WWII amphibious operations makes that clear.

If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.  I keep hearing this landing to enable landings being repeated and no one is questioning it.  Well, that’s why this blog exists – to examine, analyze, and question.  Right now, I have major questions and reservations about this concept.

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(1)USNI News website, “Neller: Marines Must Prepare to ‘Fight to Get to the Fight’ In High-End Littoral Warfare”, Megan Eckstein, 21-Sep-2017,

https://news.usni.org/2017/09/21/neller-marines-must-prepare-fight-get-fight-high-end-littoral-warfare

Marine's "Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment" Document

The Marine Corps has just released the 2017 unclassified version of “Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment”.  I began reading this with great interest, hoping to have many heretofore puzzling and contradictory doctrinal conundrums explained.  For example, I’ve been reading statements by Marine leadership that in order to effect a landing, they must first land and secure the landing area.  That’s a Catch-22 if I’ve ever heard one!

Unfortunately, I was absolutely stunned by a sentence in the opening paragraphs defining the scope of the document.  From section 2. (Scope), 2.b.1/2 describes the range of operations that the document applies to.  At the low end are what are described in 2.b.1 as “Crisis Response Operations in Uncertain Environments” which include humanitarian assistance, evacuations, and embassy reinforcements – generally non-combat or occasionally very low end combat scenarios.  At the other end of the range, 2.b.2 describes “Contingency Operations in Hostile Environments. 

The latter, presumably describes actual combat … war.  However, the following statement casts severe doubt on how much combat/war this entire concept applies to.

“…major combat operations (MCO) and campaigns versus peer competitors are beyond the scope of this concept.”

What???  Major combat operations and peer combat are not covered by this concept?  Are the Marines really saying that their capabilities and this concept are not useful in a peer war?  That’s what it seems to be saying – that none of the littoral capabilities described in this document apply to actual war?!

Did the Marines really just develop an entire concept that has no applicability to peer war?  Did they really just acknowledge that they have no role in peer combat? 

I can’t believe that’s what was intended but I see no other way to interpret it.  All I can hope is that it was just a very poorly worded sentence but given the Corps’ trend towards lightness, they may be acknowledging that they are no longer a serious warfighting organization.  I’ve got to get a clarification on this.

I’m not going to go any further in analyzing this document for two reasons. 

1. Until I understand the actual scope of the document, I can’t perform a valid assessment.
2. The rest of the document is garbage that reads like a generic sales brochure to Congress.

China War - Taiwan Seizure

I’m on record as saying that the first act in any Chinese War will be the seizure of Taiwan.  Why is that?  Well, two reasons:

1. Taiwan has long been a sore point for China.  Taiwan belongs to them, in their view, and its “hostage” status to the West (the US) is an affront to China’s national pride.  China has vowed to reclaim Taiwan, the only question being when.  If China is going to enter a war anyway, it may as well seize Taiwan in the process even if Taiwan is not the main purpose of the war.

2. Taiwan is too close to China for the Chinese to allow it to possibly be used as a military base of attack on China.  Thus, Taiwan must be seized at the outset of hostilities.

So, having recognized the fact that Taiwan will be the first objective (in terms of land seizure) of any war, how will China go about accomplishing it?  ……  I have no idea but for the sake of filling up some post space, why don’t we speculate.

If you had decades of time to plan for the seizure of a major piece of land, and an island to boot, how would you go about it?  Ideally, you’d slowly secure surrounding pieces of land so that once you initiated the seizure of your target, you’d already have fully equipped bases surrounding the target and protecting your invasion force.  Does this sound familiar?  The Chinese have seized various islands in the surrounding first island chain and militarized them.  Where islands are not physically available, the Chinese have built artificial ones.  You’ve got to give them credit for some outstanding creativity and initiative.  Would we have thought to build artificial islands?  I doubt it and, if we did, we’d have subordinated our military needs to ecological concerns, the welfare of coral reefs, the protection of endangered species, and abandoned the idea.

Instead, the Chinese have constructed numerous bases to the south of Taiwan with the Paracels and Scarborough Shoal protecting the area to the south and the Spratleys protecting approaches to the South China Sea in the far south.

Further, China is moving to co-opt the Philippines into their sphere of influence via a combination of state sponsored emigration, veiled threats, and political maneuvering.

China is also looking to seize and construct island bases to the north and east of Taiwan in the Senkaku and Ryukyu Island groups.

“Chinese authorities in the spring of 2013 brazenly challenged Japan’s sovereignty of the islands with a concerted campaign that included an article in a magazine associated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; a widely publicized commentary in People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s flagship newspaper and therefore China’s most authoritative publication; two pieces in theGlobal Times, the tabloid controlled by People’s Daily; an interview of Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan in the state-run China News Service; and a seminar held at prestigious Renmin University in Beijing.

At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to affirm that China recognized Okinawa and the Ryukyus as Japanese.

The close timing of events indicated these efforts had been directed from the top of the Chinese political system.

Over the last decade, Beijing has been moving in on Okinawa step by step, almost island by island. It has regularly dispatched its ships and planes to the Senkaku Islands, often entering sovereign water and airspace, in a campaign to wrest from the Japanese those small and uninhabited specks in the ocean. The provocations around the islets, which China first claimed in 1971 and now calls the Diaoyus, spiked upward in 2012 and then noticeably declined the following year.” (1) [emphasis added]

Here’s the statement from PLA General Luo Yuan.

“’Let's for now not discuss whether [the Ryukyus] belong to China, they were certainly China's tributary state,’ Luo said in an interview with China News Service. ‘I am not saying all former tributary states belong to China, but we can say with certainty that the Ryukyus do not belong to Japan,’ he added, in comments translated by the South China Morning Post.” (2) [emphasis added]

To understand the geographical and, therefore, military perspective, the Senkaku Islands lie about 100 miles to the northeast of Taiwan.   The Ryukyu Island chain begins about 100 miles to the east of Taiwan and arcs to the northeast up to the Japanese mainland.  The two groups of islands would form natural barriers and military strongpoints isolating and shielding any Chinese military actions involving Taiwan.

The presence of the surrounding island bases allows the Chinese to seize Taiwan without worry about US counterattacks.  The island bases represent the line in the ocean that the US must cross in order to come to the aid of Taiwan.  We must be willing to engage and destroy Chinese territory just to get to Taiwan.  There’s a major difference between going to Taiwan’s aid and destroying Chinese sovereign territory.  Will we be willing to destroy Chinese territory?  I suspect not.  For all practical purposes, the seizure of the first island chain and the construction of bases has sealed Taiwan’s fate.  For all those Chinese apologists who tried to argue that the islands were of no value and not worth contesting, there’s your answer.

The islands also present a speedbump in the road to aiding Taiwan even if we want to.  The time and material required to neutralize the surrounding islands are likely to be enough to allow China to consolidate its seizure of Taiwan and present the US with a fait accompli.  It’s one thing for the US to come to the aid of an ally that is actively resisting attack but it’s another to step into a situation in which the attack is over and the invasion has been accomplished.  The latter requires a good deal more fortitude on the part of the US and may present an insurmountable threshold for the US geopolitical calculation.

So, not only do the island bases represent a “line in the ocean” that we would hesitate to cross, they also represent a significant speed bump in the path of our response – one that would render the attempted rescue moot.

Even if war with China never comes, the slow and steady seizure of surrounding island bases (or construction of artificial ones) will eventually put the Chinese in a position of being able to dictate their desires to Taiwan under threat of blockade.  The geopolitical implications of this are obvious.  China can simply “starve” Taiwan into submission and reunification.

Viewed from a military strategy perspective, China’s actions in the South and East China Seas are not only understandable but logical and predictable.  We simply need to acknowledge the reality and choose our response.

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(1)The Daily Beast website, “Now China Wants Okinawa, Site of U.S. Bases in Japan”, Gordon Chang, 31-Dec-2015,

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/31/now-china-wants-okinawa-site-of-u-s-bases-in-japan.html

(2)The Guardian website, “China lays claim to Okinawa as territory dispute with Japan escalates”, Justin McCurry, 15-May-2013,

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/15/china-okinawa-dispute-japan-ryukyu

Why The Navy Needs A Really Large Tanker Aircraft

Once again, we are honored to have a timely guest post from Mr. Bustamante with his thoughts on Navy tanker aircraft needs.  Please be sure to read his bio at the end of the post.

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Why the Navy Needs a Really Large Tanker Aircraft

Some Unruly Thoughts on Strike Warfare Against a Peer Competitor [1]

Figure 1. S-3Bs Conduct Aerial Refueling with the Hose-and-Drogue System

Source: open source

If the U.S. Navy expects to employ carriers against peer competitor who can establish substantial Anti-Access and Area Denial (A2/AD) defenses, it will need large tankers, much longer ranged tactical aircraft, and long-ranged standoff weapons.  The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments has published several excellent analyses papers making the case that we face adversaries with A2/AD defenses designed specifically to counter American naval and air-superiority extending from 1,000 nm, to1,500 nm or more from a hostile coast.[2]  It is important to note that ships, submarines, aircraft are not automatically destroyed when they enter into an area protected by a sophisticated A2/AD network, but they do risk detection and ultimately destruction that is directly related to the time exposed to the enemy maritime strike-reconnaissance network.  This presents a formidable range requirement for naval aircraft designs built in the last four decades and one that seems unlikely to be met satisfactorily with external fuel systems like conformal fuel tanks.[3]  Ironically, a typical 1960s carrier task force had both long ranged attack aircraft (A-3s, A-6s, and A-5s), and the tanker assets necessary to support escorting fighters for long range strike missions.[4]  The USN today, however, finds itself without long ranged aircraft due to decades of aircraft procurement policy favoring sortie generation over “deck load strike”, failure of the A-12 program, and retirement of long-ranged legacy aircraft.  The requirement for a long range attack aircraft and a big tanker is driven by the physics of fuel consumption and the relatively short range of carrier aviation.  Tanker aircraft allow strike packages to launch with maximum weapons load, but minimum fuel loads, then aerial refuel to maximize fuel load, while simultaneously reducing stress on airframes and extending the life of aircraft.  Large tankers are not only more efficient at delivering fuel, they are also a welcome savior for aircraft returning with combat damage, or Combat Air Patrol (CAP) aircraft returning from an extended mission.  While the F/A-18 is criticized for its relatively short combat radius, the reality is that the longest ranged carrier-based fighters would be challenged by today’s A2/AD defenses.[5]  The current solution to this dilemma is provided by U.S. Air Force, which operates the core of U.S. military aerial refueling fleet, largely consisting of ~460 KC-135 and KC-10 aircraft.[6]  These aircraft have performed yeoman service for naval aviation, but the USAF tanker fleet is prioritized for USAF requirements: delivery of large volumes of fuel to a single large bomber.  USAF tankers are primarily configured to use a unique “flying boom” fuel delivery system, a rigid, telescoping tube that the tanker aircraft extends and inserts into a receptacle on the aircraft being refueled; however, Navy and Marine Corps aircraft refuel using the “hose-and drogue” system, which is a flexible hose that trails from the tanker and drogue (windsock) that stabilizes it in flight.[7]  The USAF also uses JP-8 fuel, while the Navy uses JP-5.  In order to fuel USN and USMC aircraft, Air Force tankers generally have to flush their tanks and install a modified hose-and-drogue system, the inventory of which is sufficient to equip about a third of the tanker fleet.[8]  The new KC-46A is equipped with both the flying boom and the hose-and-drogue systems built into the airframe, but aircraft fuel compatibility remains an issue. 

Figure 2.  USAF KC-135A Refueling a B-52D¹

Source: open source

1.  The flying boom system designed specifically for fast, efficient refueling of very large aircraft like bombers.

The KC-46A is also just entering production and the current procurement plan is for only 179 aircraft.[9]  The balance of the USAF tanker fleet is also old and shrinking.[10]  Moreover, the USAF is likely to need every tanker to support a long-range bomber campaign in a high end conflict and these aircraft will be based to support USAF missions.  This is likely to leave Navy aviation without desperately needed aerial refueling capability in war.  This article will first examine the long range strike mission, review the aerial refueling requirements needed to support strike packages, and then show why current naval aircraft are not well suited the role.  Finally we will suggest some solutions to the issue.

Figure 3.  USAF KC-46A Refueling a Pair of F/A-18s¹

Source: open source

1.  The KC-46A has both the flying boom system; and the hose-and-drogue system.

We should ask ourselves, does the USN have a requirement to conduct long range strike operations using carrier based aviation?  Dollars are tight - a large tanker, and possibly a large tactical aircraft program, must fully justify the additional expense.  We could accept the status quo where long-ranged naval strike missions are tied to the availability of USAF tanker assets.  After all, the USN, and USMC used USAF tankers to support long missions to Afghanistan following 9/11.  Besides, the USAF is tasked with deep inland strikes; the USN has plenty of RGM/UGM-109 Tomahawk missiles for long-range strikes and highly capable submarines for clandestine launches.  Finally, there is the argument that carrier aviation exists to provide local air superiority for naval task forces – thus an alternate strategy for carrier employment might call for blockade, minelaying, and commerce raiding instead of deep strike.  In the end, none of these propositions are entirely acceptable; particularly given that the Navy had a plethora of tankers and long-range attack aircraft in the middle of the last century.  This is a problem with a readily definable technical solution that was worked out in the 1950s and then fielded.  Large organic tanker capability is incredibly useful, even when conducting strikes well within the range of strike aircraft.  USAF tankers are not always going to be conveniently based to support naval strikes, especially if the Navy pursues operations outside the USAF’s primary theater of operations.  In practice, USAF aircraft flying from known, geographically fixed bases may prove to be more vulnerable to attack than an aircraft carrier.  The submarine launched deep strike mission is in direct competition with the use of submarines for the critical anti-submarine warfare (ASW) mission and the commerce raiding missions, which I give much higher priority.  Further, an operational shift, or technological breakthrough favoring ASW might dramatically affect submarine survivability or effectiveness.  Finally, a good military policy is to retain redundancy and flexibility with weapon systems and units where possible. 

Modern tactical air operations place a premium on Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD); the ratio of aircraft actually delivering steel on target might only be one out every three or four planes.  Most of the aircraft in a strike package will be fighter escorts, electronic warfare aircraft, SEAD aircraft, command and control aircraft, and other air frames, just to make sure the bomb droppers get to their weapon release points.[11]  During the Gulf War, strike packages of up to 50-60 tactical aircraft were generally required to assure the penetration of 12-16 aircraft with ground attack munitions!  The proliferation of advanced SAMs and advanced fighter aircraft gives us little hope that the situation will dramatically improve.  Additional considerations are the extensive fortifications constructed by many potential adversaries to protect key military and civil infrastructure to complicate U.S. strike operations.  This will demand larger ordinance loads, and also gives us little hope of using external fuel tanks extensively as a solution to extending aircraft range.

So what would it take to support the fuel needs of a carrier task force (TF) strike package of 60 or so aircraft?  I am assuming the TF is willing to risk a high speed dash at 30 knots to penetrate 240 nm into the A2/AD network (~8hrs), and that stand-off weapons range is 60+ nm, so the strike package needs to penetrate (fly) about 900 nm get to weapons release point for stand- off weapons   The key determinants are based upon the combat radius and fuel capacity of the aircraft flying in the strike.  Table 1 below gives us a quick summary of open source data in very rough approximation of the fuel and combat radius characteristics of selected naval aircraft.  Aside from the F/A-18E and F-35C, several historical aircraft are included as “place holders” to approximate potential performance of future aircraft. 

Table 1.  Fuel and Combat Radius Data for Tactical Naval Aircraft

Source: open source data is approximate and are for illustrative purposes.

1.  Combat radius is a very complex and qualified figure, see end note 2.

2.  F-35C figures are yet to be demonstrated.

The F-111 was included in the table because it was originally intended to be a joint USAF/USN carrier capable design and approaches the maximum size and weight of carrier capable airframes like the A-3D Skywarrior and A-5 Vigilante, arguably the closest aircraft to a strategic bomber that the USN has produced.[12]  The take away is that naval aviation, now based upon the F/A-18, is short ranged, and hugely dependent upon aerial tanking to conduct very long range strikes.  Even the “long-ranged” F-14 has qualifications.  A very rough estimate for an alpha strike package of 60 F/A-18 aircraft (to include F/A-18Gs) will require at least 36,750 lbs. of fuel, and three refueling operations per aircraft to reach 900 nm.  A strike package of 60 aircraft would require over 2.2 million lbs. of fuel!  This figure could overstate the actual fuel requirement because long-range missions may allow aircraft to operate at speed/altitude profiles that significantly enhance their fuel efficiency.  On the other hand, commonly quoted combat radii, do not address the inevitable delays that occur when aerially refueling dozens of tactical aircraft.  Also note, that this mission also requires tankers operate at least 600 nm from the carrier.  The situation improves slightly for an all F-35C strike package (27,990 lbs. per aircraft, 1.7 million lbs. of fuel for a 60 aircraft formation – but it still is a formidable requirement.  It is also questionable if the USN will buy a sufficient number of F-35s, and even if it does, the only tactical jammer currently in the U.S. inventory is the F/A-18G.  The F-35 is supposed to deliver many capabilities that promise to reduce the size of strike packages and increase survivability, but these have yet to be demonstrated.  A partial solution is of course to use external fuel tanks, but these come at a performance penalty and also increase the detectability of the strike force.  For these reasons, and to simplify what can be a very complicated analysis, the strike package fuel requirement assumes internal fuel loads only.

Having stated the requirement, what tanker assets are available to support the strike tanking requirements?  Table 2 below provides a summary of selected aerial refueling aircraft in the U.S. arsenal and matches them to the number of tankers required to deliver 1.7 million pounds of fuel to support a 60 aircraft strike.

Table 2.  Summary of Selected U.S. Aerial Refueling Assets

Source: open source data; approximations are for illustrative purposes.

1. Note that with the exception of the KC-135, all of the other aircraft options fail to provide fuel at useful ranges.
2. Figures are rounded up to the nearest whole number of aircraft.
3. The more common EKA-3B could deliver 21,000 lbs. of fuel at 460 nm, enough to fuel 2.2 full F-4Js, but it also retained significant stand-off jamming capabilities and could still carry ordinance while operating as a tanker.  The KA-3 and EKA-3B were far and away the best aerial refueling assets the Navy built.  They were also the largest carrier capable aircraft ever built with about 82,000 pounds maximum take-off weight.
4. With two 300 gallon tanks.
5. The KS-3A program was cancelled afte a single prototype was built.  Had it entered production,it arguably might have been the most capable dedicated Navy tanker.
6. The F/A-18E configured as a "buddy tanker".

What Table 2 really demonstrates is the huge load efficiency of very large, land-based tankers with maximum take-off weights exceeding 320,000 lbs. (the KC-46A has a maximum take-off weight of 415,000 pounds - over five times heavier than the largest carrier aircraft ever deployed, the KA-3).  This analysis also underestimates the tanking requirements of a long range strike package because with the exception of the KC-135, all of the other aircraft options fail the ability to provide fuel at useful range.  It also shows that the best tanker the Navy ever acquired, the KA-3, was still inefficient as a tanker, requiring an almost one to one ratio of tankers to F-35Cs to support a 900 nm strike.  The very worst tanker option is the F/A-18E operating as a “buddy tanker” due to the short intrinsic short range of the airframe.  In fact, the F/A-18E “buddy tanker” configuration will burn most of its transfer fuel capacity to reach 600 nm. 

Figure 4.  The Navy’s Best Tanker Ever - an EKA-3B Skywarrior Refuels an F-14

Source: A-3 Skywarrior Association

This is reminiscent of the U.S. Army Air Corps fiasco in WWII called Operation Matterhorn: an ill-conceived strategic bombing campaign against Japan by basing B-29s bombers in India and staging them from airfields in China.  Every gallon of fuel, every pound of ammunition and other military supplies had to be flown over the Himalayas to China.  Because the B-29 was inefficient as a tanker, it took seven round trip B-29 flights to build up enough fuel for a single B -29 mission against Japan; prompting General Curtis E. LeMay the commander of XX bomber Command to say: “The scheme of operations had been dreamed up like something out of ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ ...”[13]  Carrier aviation, lacking both a large tanker, and long ranged aircraft, is in danger of repeating this error.

Matching requirements to assets, suggests a number of options the U.S. Navy can, and should take to improve its strike capacity against first class adversaries with advanced A2/AD defenses.  Specifically:

1)     In the short term, the Navy should study the feasibility of returning some of the 100 A-6E aircraft in storage to service after refurbishment and conversion into KA-6Es.  The A-6E was given new composite wings shortly before retirement and could provide a great deal of relief to the air wings.  Conversion to unmanned or optionally manned operation should be considered.

2)     Long term, the Navy needs to procure a very large, carrier capable tanker aircraft with a maximum take-off weight of 80,000 pounds or larger, and an objective transfer fuel load of 40,000 lbs. delivered to 600 nm.  This aircraft should follow the “payload over platforms” design philosophy and provide a robust “pick-up truck” functionality over stealth and other features.

a)     The aircraft could be unmanned or optionally manned.

b)     A flying wing or blended wing design seems appropriate to maximize lift and internal fuel capacity.

c)      The tanker should have several "joint" features for maximum compatibility with the USAF and allies that use the flying boom (e.g.  Australia):

i)        Incorporate a flying boom receptacle to enable the new tanker to receive fuel very quickly from USAF tankers, while simultaneously refueling USN aircraft.[14]  This would open a number of tactical advantages, shorten refueling times, and allow strategic tanker aircraft to complete their missions more rapidly.

ii)      Incorporate certain USAF mounts for large capacity external fuel tanks. 

iii)    Possibly incorporate a flying boom for refueling USAF fighters.

3)     From a joint perspective, the Navy and Air Force must continue to integrate operations and ensure equipment interoperability. 

a)     The U.S. military needs to move to a single aviation fuel type to minimize logistics issues.  Given the number of aircraft in each service, this means that the Navy and Marine Corps should adapt JP-8, which is similar in chemical composition, but has a lower flashpoint than JP-5.

b)     The Navy must also seriously consider incorporating the USAF flying boom/receptacle compatible system into large aircraft like the P-8 or future attack aircraft.  It also means that the USAF must maintain sufficient numbers of Wing Air Refueling Pods for legacy tankers to support naval aircraft.  This is key, the Navy must support the USAF 100% in obtaining funding for these pods.

4)     Future naval aircraft must place a much higher emphasis on range and payload than the past three decades.  Plainly stated, this requirement greatly favors a large, long-ranged heavy attack aircraft; the same physics of moving large bomb loads over great distance was exactly what drove the procurement of the A-3, the A-6, and the A-5.  This aircraft will need to be larger than the X-47B - it could also be a drone or optionally manned.  It should incorporate certain USAF mounts for large stand-off weapons and large capacity external fuel tanks. 

5)     Improve stand-off ranges with a very long ranged (1,200 to 1,500 nm) air to ground weapon.  This also favors a large heavy attack aircraft in A-3/A-5/F-111weight class. Consider:

a)     Adapting Navy aircraft to carry long ranged USAF air-to-ground cruise missiles with conventional warheads to support strike operations.  This implies a large attack aircraft to carry them: for example an AGM-129A missile weighs over 3,500 pounds.[15]

b)     Procure a long ranged air-to-ground ballistic missile with a conventional warhead to support strike operations.[16]

These are appropriate actions for naval aviation but the Navy in general needs additional reforms to conduct strike warfare against modern a2/AD defenses.  First and foremost is the procurement of a very long ranged (1,200 to 1,500 nm) ship launched cruise missile and/or ballistic missiles for strike operations.  These weapons need not only greater range than BGM-109 tomahawk, they require more sophisticated warheads, for example anti-radiation seeker heads, earth penetrating warheads, and EW packages like jammers.  Serious consideration to stealth and hyper velocity propulsion is essential. 

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[1] This article addresses high end war against a peer competitor, not COIN operations.

[2] See AirSea Battle: A Point-of-Departure Operational Concept, May 18, 2010 by Jan van Tol, Mark Gunzinger, and Andrew F.  Krepinevich and Jim Thomas.  Available at  http://csbaonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/2010.05.18-AirSea-Battle.pdf

[3] The details of combat radius are highly technical and dependent upon a number of factors (ordinance and fuel loads, ingress and egress altitude, dash speed, weapon drag, etc.), but typical tactical aircraft combat radii range from 350 nm to about 600 nm.  External fuel systems work well, but impose trade-offs in performance, particularly in maneuverability, radar cross section, and use, or interfere with, munition hard points. 

[4] This capability was developed because Admirals Mitscher and Sallada proposed a nuclear bomb capable attack bomber in 1945 with a 1,000 nm combat radius leading directly to the A-3 Skywarrior and later the A-5 Vigilante.  U.S. Aircraft Carriers, An Illustrated Design History, by Dr. Norman Friedman, 1983, pages 240 and 241.

[5] The F/A-18 does what it was designed to do, the problem is the carrier air wing lost the supporting cast of aircraft types.

[6] Formal Joint air refueling operations between the Air Force and Navy started in the early 1970s.  A 1988 memorandum of understanding (MOU) established joint air -refueling concepts.

[7] Congressional Research Service report RL32910,  Air Force Aerial Refueling Methods:

Flying Boom versus Hose-and-Drogue, by Christopher Bolkcom pages 2 and 3, June 5, 2006.

[8] The KC-10 is configured to allow the alternate simultaneous use of either the flying boom or the hose and drogue if equipped with Wing Air Refueling Pods (WARP).  This does not solve the issue of the services using different fuel types.  Only about one out of every three USAF KC-10s had Wing Air Refueling Pods (WARP), and these are low priority procurement items for the USAF.  Naval Air Refueling Needs Deferred in Air Force Tanker Plan by Hunter C. Keeter, Sea Power magazine, April 2004.

[9] http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104537/kc-46a-tanker.aspx

[10] GAO found that the average age of the KC-135 fleet was 35 years back in 2003.  GAO-03-938T, page 4.

[11] A combat grouping of aircraft with different capabilities that are launched together to perform a single attack mission

[12] The C-130 is the largest aircraft to land and take off from aircraft carriers.  In October and November 1963, a KC-130F (BuNo 149798) made 21 landings and take-offs on the USS Forrestal.  It is important to note that the C-130 essentially shut down normal flight deck operations and was (remains) unsuitable for normal carrier operations.

[13] The Matterhorn Missions, by John Correll, pages 62-65, AIR FORCE Magazine, March 2009.  http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2009/March%202009/0309matterhorn.pdf

[14] Designed properly, a USN tanker could receive fuel from a USAF tanker via the boom, while also fueling two Navy aircraft.  In the case of a KC-10, or KC-46A, the possibility of fueling the Navy tanker (via the flying boom) and four tactical aircraft via hose and reel (two from the USN tanker, and two from the USAF tanker, is a possibility.

[15] http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/FactSheets/Display/tabid/224/Article/104543/agm-129a-advanced-cruise-missile.aspx

[16] The Douglas AGM-48 Skybolt Air-Launched Ballistic Missile from the 1950s suggests one possible weapon. It was very heavy weighing almost 11,000 pounds.

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Mr. Bustamante is a retired naval officer who served the majority of his career as a Naval Special Warfare Officer, but also as a Surface Warfare Officer and Foreign Area Officer.  He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy with a degree in Systems Engineering.  He also holds a Master of Science degree in Defense Analysis (Operations Research) from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. After retiring from the Navy, Mr. Bustamante worked for the legislative branch as an auditor and analyst, as a civil servant with the United States Department of State, and also in the private sector as an analyst in information technology project management.