America ARG, 15th MEU Begin Deploy, 1st ‘Air-Centric' Amphib

[spazsinbad]

Shirley this is a MILLstone and Shirley it will be repeated elsewhere on this forum - Shirley but anyway 1st is first nestpas.

America ARG, 15th MEU Begin Deployment, 1st for ‘Air-Centric’ Amphib
10 Jul 2017 Gidget Fuentes

"NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO, Calif. – Nudged by several orange-and-tan tugs, amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA-6) pushed away from Pier 13 and spun into San Diego Bay to start its first operational deployment Friday to the Western Pacific and Middle East regions....

...The big-deck amphibious ship is the flagship for the 4,500-member, three-ship America Amphibious Ready Group, comprised of Amphibious Squadron 15, amphibious transport dock USS San Diego (LPD-22), dock landing ship USS Pearl Harbor (LSD-52) and the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit....

...The deployment is considered “standard” for a West Coast-based ARG/MEU deployment, notwithstanding unexpected missions or contingencies that can arise whenever blue-green forces go overseas. “We’ll pass through the (U.S. Pacific Command area of responsibility). We are intending to spend some time in the (U.S. Central Command) AOR,” said Clearfield. “But anything can change, because we are a global response force, ready to respond to the president and the secretary of defense as he needs us.”

The scheduled deployment marks America’s first with a fully-embarked, 2,500-member Marine expeditionary unit....

..."America’s unique design swaps out a well deck to accommodate landing craft with more aviation spaces for maintenance, repair and storage, expanded fuel storage to support a more-robust air support capability and more advanced command and control systems. America is the first of what will be two ships with this air-centric configuration, crafted in mind with the long-range capabilities of the Marine Corps’ newest F-35B Lightning II fifth-generation, multi-mission jet as well as the MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.

The ship is optimized for long-range aviation operations, a difference with the existing Wasp LHD class of big-deck/well deck-equipped amphibs, officials say. Just how that will work out throughout the deployment remains to be seen, and it will be well-studied. “We see that sort of as one of our institutional (tasks), as we get back, is how this ship can operate like a Lightning carrier and how we can maximize its use,” Clearfield said...."

...The ship was commissioned in San Francisco on Oct. 11, 2014, and later went into the shipyard for additional upgrades and work ahead of its short deployment for the Rim-of-the-Pacific exercises in 2016. America also served as a test-bed for F-35B development testing last fall....

...Navy Capt. Rome Ruiz, the commodore and PHIBRON 3 commander, praised the work of the blue-green team to “come together as a highly capable, lethal force.”

“They spearheaded an environment of innovation and dominated the battle space in the training phases by leveraging the unique characteristics of the America ARG as an up-gunned, aviation-centric task force,” Ruiz said in a Third Fleet statement.

PHIBRON 3 includes the America, San Diego and Pearl Harbor; Helicopter Sea Squadron 23; and detachments from Naval Beach Group 1, Assault Craft Unit 5, Beachmaster Unit 1, Fleet Surgical Team 1 and Tactical Air Control Squadron 11, according to Third Fleet. The 15th MEU includes an air combat element led by Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161 (Reinforced); a ground combat element led by Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 5th Marines; and Combat Logistics Battalion 15."

Source: https://news.usni.org/2017/07/10/americ ... ric-amphib

[blindpilot]

Shirley this is a MILLstone and Shirley it will be repeated elsewhere on this forum - Shirley but anyway 1st is first nestpas.

America ARG, 15th MEU Begin Deployment, 1st for ‘Air-Centric’ Amphib
10 Jul 2017 Gidget Fuentes
"NAVAL BASE SAN DIEGO, Calif. – ...The 15th MEU includes an air combat element led by Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 161 (Reinforced);..."
Source: https://news.usni.org/2017/07/10/americ ... ric-amphib

Hmm .. reinforced? ... I guess I assume they will include a Harrier detachment from Yuma? oooor..... VMFA 211 has some Lightnings now! ... and 121 in Japan is 3rd MAW also .... so ...
I guess they said the Wasp would be first .... but hey ... North Korea and all.

BP

[popcorn]

https://news.usni.org/2017/07/13/uss-am ... more-26763

USS America Leadership Look To Aircraft Carriers For Inspiration On Leveraging Aviation-Centric Design

As the first-in-class USS America (LHA-6) begins operations on its first major overseas deployment, leadership has a good understanding of the basics of operating this new type of ship – an amphibious assault ship without a well deck – but also a lot of room to learn how to maximize the new capability it brings to the fleet.

Col. Joseph “J.R.” Clearfield, commanding officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit embarked aboard America, told USNI News earlier this year that the Marines and their Navy counterparts would experiment with several different loadouts of equipment on the three-ship Amphibious Ready Group – America, amphibious transport dock USS San Diego (LPD-22) and dock landing ship USS Pearl Harbor (LSD-52) – to validate what does and doesn’t help the warfighters meet their missions.