Marine Aviation Plan 2015

[XanderCrews]

The problem is some of his older work on reporting technical capabilities is extremely impressive. He isn't gaining any fan following or any significant audience by doing the sort of reporting he is doing now. He is also taking a confrontational posture with stealth, VHF radars and EW as if his assessment is more precise, informed or technically comprehensive than the intel and threat assessments done by the DOD. What is is essentially doing in that argument is regurgitating brochure information or what has been 'claimed' by radar makers during air-shows.

His earlier work was informative, unfortunately the recent stuff is pure garbage, and offers technical "opinion" and critique when he has absolutely no technical qualification to talk about either. It is as bad as when beat reporters start talking about the IMF and economic policy . Not only is he outright hostile but he has obviously had public spat with Lockheed that got him disciplined from his employer.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/254885620/F-22-Janes1997

Bill has said F-35 means the end of European aerospace and he has made it his mission to be "right" about the JSF. Its personal at this point, as far as I am concerned he has bet his career on the JSF, and he lost. The only thing left to do now is take cheap shots, at the USMC, at the F-35B. The concept of distributed ops was widely accepted with the harrier in europe, this is the new and improved version.

Bill is setting the rules in this argument, and then pointing out how the USMC won't fit in his construct. the bottom line is everyone not just the USMC is happy to have a harrier replacement that fits into the overall war plan. I could go on and on, but basically harriers are proven and valuable aircraft the F-35B even more valuable. the F-35B will sell more than the F-35C. There is a market that goes well beyond just the marines and framing the F-35B as a bizarre Marine dream is disingenuous but critical to the argument that the USMC is weird, thus the F-35B is weird, thus the JSF is unneeded.

We are also looking to me anyway at worst case scenarios, ships in danger, airfields in danger, distributed airfields in danger. the concept of "this should really be tested against a competent redforce" should be applied to the other options he finds acceptable too as Sferrin noted. I don't think he will like the results in any case. It only took 1 war for the harrier to look like a brilliant idea.

Another thing that gets lost is the Gator Navy wants to remain relevant like any other part of the Navy. Ive said it before and I'll say it again, The Marine mission is just as valuable to the Navy. projecting power from the sea is in some ways more navy critical than Marine. Marines can always fight on land like A-stan, the Navy ships not so much. The Navy is the biggest fan of the Marines. The Navy is just as happy to have possession of "America's 911 force" as they are when the president asks where the carriers are, and the F-35B is a further expansion of capability, its more options, more value.

"This isn't how we fight anymore....there are not "USAF strike packages" and "USN strike packages." The JFACC owns all airpower not retained for USN CVN defense or USMC organic force support. And in both of those cases, any excess sorties are usually chopped to the JFACC for employment. So the Growlers provide the EW support to JFACC MAAP (Master Air Attack Plan) ATO fragged sorties, which are put together typically by a Mission Planning Cell/Center at an AOC. There are LNOs from all services and force providers at the AOC to help this process and ensure the right capabilities are in the mission package to support the desired objectives."

Bill is appealing to the folks who still think everyone does their own compartmentalized Schweinfurt raids. The last thing Bill wants to do is paint the Marines and the F-35B as more valuable to everyone overall, but rather as lone rogue elements. PLanes launched from L class ships can be treated like equals instead of the slow cousins. The last slow child will be the A-10 BTW. You can also, (And stop me if this sounds crazy) but you can send multiple ships and combine the air power, or combine with other nearby assets. Its science fiction I know. but it can happen.

[KamenRiderBlade]

The problem is some of his older work on reporting technical capabilities is extremely impressive. He isn't gaining any fan following or any significant audience by doing the sort of reporting he is doing now. He is also taking a confrontational posture with stealth, VHF radars and EW as if his assessment is more precise, informed or technically comprehensive than the intel and threat assessments done by the DOD. What is is essentially doing in that argument is regurgitating brochure information or what has been 'claimed' by radar makers during air-shows.

His earlier work was informative, unfortunately the recent stuff is pure garbage, and offers technical "opinion" and critique when he has absolutely no technical qualification to talk about either. It is as bad as when beat reporters start talking about the IMF and economic policy :). Not only is he outright hostile but he has obviously had public spat with Lockheed that got him disciplined from his employer.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/254885620/F-22-Janes1997

Bill has said F-35 means the end of European aerospace and he has made it his mission to be "right" about the JSF. Its personal at this point, as far as I am concerned he has bet his career on the JSF, and he lost. The only thing left to do now is take cheap shots, at the USMC, at the F-35B. The concept of distributed ops was widely accepted with the harrier in europe, this is the new and improved version.

Bill is setting the rules in this argument, and then pointing out how the USMC won't fit in his construct. the bottom line is everyone not just the USMC is happy to have a harrier replacement that fits into the overall war plan. I could go on and on, but basically harriers are proven and valuable aircraft the F-35B even more valuable. the F-35B will sell more than the F-35C. There is a market that goes well beyond just the marines and framing the F-35B as a bizarre Marine dream is disingenuous but critical to the argument that the USMC is weird, thus the F-35B is weird, thus the JSF is unneeded.

We are also looking to me anyway at worst case scenarios, ships in danger, airfields in danger, distributed airfields in danger. the concept of "this should really be tested against a competent redforce" should be applied to the other options he finds acceptable too as Sferrin noted. I don't think he will like the results in any case. It only took 1 war for the harrier to look like a brilliant idea.

Another thing that gets lost is the Gator Navy wants to remain relevant like any other part of the Navy. Ive said it before and I'll say it again, The Marine mission is just as valuable to the Navy. projecting power from the sea is in some ways more navy critical than Marine. Marines can always fight on land like A-stan, the Navy ships not so much. The Navy is the biggest fan of the Marines. The Navy is just as happy to have possession of "America's 911 force" as they are when the president asks where the carriers are, and the F-35B is a further expansion of capability, its more options, more value.

"This isn't how we fight anymore....there are not "USAF strike packages" and "USN strike packages." The JFACC owns all airpower not retained for USN CVN defense or USMC organic force support. And in both of those cases, any excess sorties are usually chopped to the JFACC for employment. So the Growlers provide the EW support to JFACC MAAP (Master Air Attack Plan) ATO fragged sorties, which are put together typically by a Mission Planning Cell/Center at an AOC. There are LNOs from all services and force providers at the AOC to help this process and ensure the right capabilities are in the mission package to support the desired objectives."

Bill is appealing to the folks who still think everyone does their own compartmentalized Schweinfurt raids. The last thing Bill wants to do is paint the Marines and the F-35B as more valuable to everyone overall, but rather as lone rogue elements. PLanes launched from L class ships can be treated like equals instead of the slow cousins. The last slow child will be the A-10 BTW. You can also, (And stop me if this sounds crazy) but you can send multiple ships and combine the air power, or combine with other nearby assets. Its science fiction I know. but it can happen.

It's not Science Fiction, it's just FACT.

Be it IRL in the US military, or in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and beyond, or even "Star Wars"

Combined arms is the NORMAL way of employing force.

Not the exception.

[spazsinbad]

A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower
13 Mar 2015 USN

Source: https://www.scribd.com/document_downloa ... ension=pdf (5.2Mb)

Winning The War Of Electrons: Inside The New Maritime Strategy
13 Mar 2015 Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.

"[UPDATED with additional comments from Rep. Randy Forbes and Cdr. Bryan Clark]
WASHINGTON: We must win the war of electrons in a more dangerous world. That’s the stark imperative behind the bland title of the new maritime strategy released today by the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard.

“There is an offensive warfighting tone to this document that says, where the United States has interests, it needs access, [and] it can have that access,” said the new Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Joseph Dunford, speaking this morning at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. What Dunford didn’t say explicitly, but the strategy does, is that we may have to fight for that access against increasingly sophisticated adversaries — including in cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum, domains where we long took dominance for granted.

Despite its benign title — “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower” — and plenty of boilerplate, the new strategy has a definite edge.....

...By focusing on defeating high-end threats, the strategy also helps makes the case for more capable systems in general. In debates on individual programs, Forbes told me, the strategy supports his long-standing position that the carrier-launched UCLASS drone needs to be a combat aircraft, not a souped-up scout....

...So all-domain access is important — but what is it, exactly? As official documents tend to do, the description in the strategy degenerates into a laundry list. “It looks like many constituencies were trying to tie their activity to the function of all domain access,” said Cmdr. Clark. But there is still a strong unifying theme: electrons.

The strategy lists five aspects of all-domain access, all of which have a strong cyber or electronic warfare component:

Battlespace awareness, which requires “persistent surveillance” of not only the physical environment but cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum as well.

Assured command and control, which requires US communications networks to operate reliably and securely in the face of enemy jamming and hacking. Gen. Dunford specifically said Navy-Marine networks aren’t up to coordinating the kind of dispersed operations that have become routine and will require new investment.

Cyberspace operations, “including both defensive and offensive measures.”

Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare, a new Navy concept for masking friendly emissions — radar, radio, and so on — and deceiving or disrupting the enemy’s.

Integrated fires, which seeks to reduce reliance on a limited supply of expensive missiles by using jamming, hacking, lasers, and rail guns.

What the new weapons and tactics will be remains, unsurprisingly, unspecified. “There’s a classified annex or two or three to be put together here to go to the next level and say ok, how do we deal with this regionally in more detail,” Greenert said. In the unclassified public strategy, he said when I asked him at CSIS, “it’s more conceptual, Sydney, in our approach — and it captures the very essence, in my opinion, of what started out to be the Air-Sea Battle concept.”

Air-Sea Battle began as a controversial concept for high-tech, high-intensity, long-range warfare by Air Force and Navy forces against a sophisticated adversary. Since then the Marines and Army came aboard, and the domesticated concept has been blandly renamed the Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the Global Commons. But its central concern — fighting enemies capable of challenging us in air, sea, space, and cyberspace — is now enshrined at the heart of the new strategy."

Source: http://breakingdefense.com/2015/03/winn ... -strategy/

[spazsinbad]

An Update on the F-35B: Art “Turbo” Tomassetti Talks About the Way Ahead
13 Mar 2015 Robbin Laird

"...Tomassetti: I visit to see how they’re doing on progressing to close out SDD at Pax River to Beaufort to check on Pilot training and to Yuma to see how they’re progressing on preparation for IOC and OT-1 as they will be the predominant entity conducting that event on the USS Wasp in May. OT-1 will be a team event with personnel from OT in Edwards and from VMFAT-501 from Beaufort supporting as well.

The key focus of OT-1 is verifying that we can take the airplanes, move in from a land home base, put them out at sea, operate them at sea, and bring them home, which is what the Marine Corps would do in most cases, should they be called upon to go support an activity somewhere on the globe.

I will be at Yuma next week and looking to find ways we can support them most effectively....

...Question: A challenge of building a software upgradeable program is to understand how capable the initial planes actually are. They will progress over time, and in a real sense never be finished. How capable do you see the initial F-35B to be deployed by the Marines for combat?
Tomassetti: I hear the same things and people say, “How can you go initial operational capability before you’re done developing the airplane?” I agree with you we should really never be done developing airplane. We should always be looking to improve it and that is the plan going forward.

We already talk about follow-on developments because we know technology’s going to change, tactics are going to change, the threat’s going to change. We have to keep up with that. The airplane never becomes static in terms of its growth.

Why would the Marine Corps declare IOC with something at this stage of the game? I think you have to look at, if called upon to go someplace and do something. You are the person in charge. You would like to send your best assets forward. Your best assets are those that can accomplish the mission and the ones that can keep your people safe doing the mission.

Look at what the Marine Corps has in its inventory as an example look at the airplane I grew up in, the Harrier. I went to Desert Storm in a Harrier that was a day-attack airplane. It did not have systems to conduct night operations yet we conducted operations at night. It is a subsonic airplane with a limited weapons envelope, but it got the job done because the people were well-trained. The airplane was the best it could be at the time, and that’s what the Marine Corps had in its arsenal to do the job with.

Now the F-35B is in the Marine Corps’ arsenal and they look at the best platform to go do whatever the mission is. I think today, the F35B has all of the attributes to excel in a number of mission areas and why would you not choose to send your best system out to accomplish the mission? I think that’s where the Marine Corps is and that they realize that the airplane today is already getting to the point where it’s meeting or exceeding the capabilities of legacy airplanes.

In addition to that, knowing that you’re probably going to send the F35s with a mix of what you already have. Having the F35 out there with the legacy airplanes only makes the legacy airplanes better. From the outset, the F-35 will have an additive effect in the battlespace and will enhance the lethality and survivability of the other air assets and of the ground force as well....

...Question: We put in our latest Defense News commentary the simple proposition that the F-35 is coming at a point for the services and the partners where they are looking at its contribution to the transformation of their forces, not simply adding a silver bullet to the holster. How do you view the transformation process?
Tomassetti: It is twofold. On the one hand, it is about operating legacy aircraft with the F-35 and learning how to make these legacy aircraft better and to use them differently as the services learn what the F-35 does and how it does it.

For the Marines, this means that the Av-8Bs and F/A-18s, which remain in the force, will not be used the same way they have been used before. You have to figure out how to integrate them. Understanding how do they operate differently and more effectively with the F-35s, and how do the F-35s draw upon the legacy aircraft to gain more significant effects from operating together.

On the other hand, the F-35 is simply not like a legacy aircraft. We need to learn how to operate them together to learn their special effects when so doing for joint F-35 operations, or anticipating the day when we have an all F-35 fleet. The pilot and maintainer evolution will be critical to this as new pilots and maintainers enter the force now with no history/habits from legacy aircraft.

All of us old folks carry a lot of baggage from wherever we came from. It’s not a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just reality. We’ve carried that with us. It shapes how we think about things. We’re going to bring a breed of folks into the airplane shortly that is going to have a fresh perspective, that is a different generation which grew up with X-Box 1 and Play Station not Pong and Space Invaders. They’re used to processing a lot of information. They’re used to speed in information. They are going to find out ways to do things with this airplane that we haven’t even thought of.

We have these big milestones we’ve got to track through to be successful in that but what those youngsters are going to bring to the table when they get their hands on this airplane and start putting their new perspective on it I think is going to be dramatically different over time."

Source: http://www.sldinfo.com/an-update-on-the ... way-ahead/

[blindpilot]

Good article. It begins to address what it means that the Marines are going IOC with a "system," and not a platform. We actually don't have much previous experience with that type pf transtion...

BUT we do have some !!!

One point that was made about fighting in the desert during Desert Storm, (1991) was that the allies knew where they were and what was happening. This was highlighted at the time with Whiz-Bang journalism talking about GPS and such ...

BUT !!!! It wasn't just or even GPS

JSTARS stood up its first squadron in 1996 five years later .. (IOC?) but for Desert Storm two development aircraft deployed with test crews, contractors and Pentagon based planners, who hadn't even written a draft plan of operating yet. Fifty or so combat sorties and 500 combat hours later they had changed the character of the battlespace and had as much to do with success as GPS, and laser guided munitions. JSTARS was not even cleared to "fly," much less ... hmm let's see .. what are the objections? .. cleared to fly at night, fly in thunderstorms, turn on the radar, umm.. run the software version 1.x which really didn't do anything yet etc. etc.

But it went to war and changed the nature of war forever. Then it went home and worked for 5 years at getting "IOC"

/sarcasm on> Marine F-35s post IOC will probably be able to do some of that too /sarcasm off

When you don't have anything like JSTARS, the Development aircraft makes a big difference.
When you don't have anything like the F-35 system. It will make a huge impact on day one, whether the readiness report says the gun works or not... if it goes to war we know through examples like JSTARS, what it likely will be able to do turning the plodding schedule, if required for some feature, on a dime ... and then taking five years if needed to let the paper work and training catch up. It's not like it hasn't been done before. Marine IOC is a big deal.

If the F-35 has to go to war in August of this year, it will be a bigger deal.

Good article Spaz

BP

[popcorn]

Astute insights BP.

[XanderCrews]

Good article. It begins to address what it means that the Marines are going IOC with a "system," and not a platform. We actually don't have much previous experience with that type pf transtion...

BUT we do have some !!!

One point that was made about fighting in the desert during Desert Storm, (1991) was that the allies knew where they were and what was happening. This was highlighted at the time with Whiz-Bang journalism talking about GPS and such ...

BUT !!!! It wasn't just or even GPS

JSTARS stood up its first squadron in 1996 five years later .. (IOC?) but for Desert Storm two development aircraft deployed with test crews, contractors and Pentagon based planners, who hadn't even written a draft plan of operating yet. Fifty or so combat sorties and 500 combat hours later they had changed the character of the battlespace and had as much to do with success as GPS, and laser guided munitions. JSTARS was not even cleared to "fly," much less ... hmm let's see .. what are the objections? .. cleared to fly at night, fly in thunderstorms, turn on the radar, umm.. run the software version 1.x which really didn't do anything yet etc. etc.

But it went to war and changed the nature of war forever. Then it went home and worked for 5 years at getting "IOC"

/sarcasm on> Marine F-35s post IOC will probably be able to do some of that too /sarcasm off

When you don't have anything like JSTARS, the Development aircraft makes a big difference.
When you don't have anything like the F-35 system. It will make a huge impact on day one, whether the readiness report says the gun works or not... if it goes to war we know through examples like JSTARS, what it likely will be able to do turning the plodding schedule, if required for some feature, on a dime ... and then taking five years if needed to let the paper work and training catch up. It's not like it hasn't been done before. Marine IOC is a big deal.

If the F-35 has to go to war in August of this year, it will be a bigger deal.

Good article Spaz

BP

Very well put, and thank you

[rpgrynn]

I find it really fascinating how few actually get the "systems" part. Great post.

[KamenRiderBlade]

I find it really fascinating how few actually get the "systems" part. Great post.

The more complex something is, the fewer understand it.

The more things evolve, the fewer understand it.

That's a given reality of all things.

[rpgrynn]

I find it really fascinating how few actually get the "systems" part. Great post.

The more complex something is, the fewer understand it.

The more things evolve, the fewer understand it.

That's a given reality of all things.

To add greater insult to injury - Far more data is available on this program than ever.
Awaiting USMC IOC

[KamenRiderBlade]

I find it really fascinating how few actually get the "systems" part. Great post.

The more complex something is, the fewer understand it.

The more things evolve, the fewer understand it.

That's a given reality of all things.

To add greater insult to injury - Far more data is available on this program than ever.
Awaiting USMC IOC

Most modern punk journalists couldn't be bothered to read more than 1 page single spaced on any subject.

Also, if the wording doesn't agree with their world view, they'll cherry pick lines to make the narrative fit their story.

Real journalists would've had far more in depth detail on understanding a subject including far more research.

The lack of good journalists these days is a result of the short attention span news bite world & corporate news structure that exists globally.

[spazsinbad]

Gotta HAND IT to BS to be WAY BEHIND - this is old stuff (for us slow oldies down here in the LandDunUnder)

Marine Corps Commandant Dunford: Alternatives for Amphibious Warships Needed
13 Feb 2015 Yasmin Tadjdeh

"SAN DIEGO — The Marine Corps needs 50 amphibious warships to tend to all the missions it must perform around the globe, but there are currently only 31 available. The service will have to seek alternative platforms to fill that gap, said the commandant of the Marine Corps on Feb. 12.

“There is a requirement for over 50 ships on a day-to-day basis, that’s what … the combatant commanders are asking for,” said Gen. Joseph F. Dunford, Jr. “We’ve got an objective of 38 — that’s the requirement within the Department of the Navy. We’ve got a fiscally constrained objective of about 33. We’ve got an inventory right now of 31.”...

...The Navy will increase its fleet of amphibious vessels to 33 over the next four to six years, he noted. In the mean time, the Marine Corps must be creative and flexible as it seeks alternatives to the vessels that are used to transport and station Marines around the world, often in contested areas.

“There’s got to be another answer besides just amphibious ships,” he said. “We’re working very closely on alternative platforms not as a substitute for amphibious ships, not as substitute for a warship, but as an opportunity to get Marines to sea to be more responsive to combatant commanders.”

For instance, using mobile landing platform afloat forward staging base vessels are one solution, Dunford said. The ships have flight decks as well as command-and-control stations. They are compatible with V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, which could be used to ferry Marines to shore for forward presence engagements as well as crisis response missions.

“By no means are they replacements. They’re not a warship. They’re not a replacement for an amphibious ship. But they are [a way] to augment our capability to meet our requirements on a day-to-day basis and are very, very capable ships,” he said.

The Marine Corps plans to test out new concepts of operations that take advantage of alternative platforms in U.S. Africa Command's area of responsibility as well as in Australia this year, Dunford said...."

Source: http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/ ... a2&ID=1747

[spazsinbad]

Even SOLOman gets it (all your seabase are mine) why cannot billybobboyo?:

Strock Interview Part 1. Why the "Short Well Deck LX(R) & Army Integration with the Sea Base.
16 Mar 2015 SNAFU

"...The Sea Base could...I repeat could...change the way that the USMC conducts operations."

Source: http://snafu-solomon.blogspot.com.au/20 ... -well.html [/quote]

[spazsinbad]

[USN/USMC] Amphibious Ops 1990-2013
19 Jun 2014 Research done by John C. Berry, Jr., Director, Concepts Branch, Emergent Force Development Division, Futures Directorate, DC CD&I

8 page .PDF attached made from the 8 page original .DOCX file

Source: https://www.scribd.com/document_downloa ... nsion=docx (58Kb)

[spazsinbad]

Over on previous page BS attempted to dunk Marines for their innovative plans for F-35s etc. Well goodfibreshit refloats as we know so here it is again with probably some words changed? If youse have read over page probably do not bother with this'un.... AND... LordyLordy how USMC have used their assets historically (not histrionically) is immediately above in the PDF - well I never.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... nking.html