F-35B USMC 2017 "not going to stay the same"

[talkitron]

I think there are plenty of articles over on the 'UK Mod in a Muddle' thread about how the UK armed forces are not going to be like the USMC/USN doing what they do. In concert with them and other allies they may participate but on their own they are not going to do that stuff you describe. However they do have other roles with equipment/conops to suit them.

But the Royal Marines are rumored by newspapers to be getting cut, which suggests a change in the direction I was discussing.

[spazsinbad]

'talkitron' IMHO british newspapers float all kinds of rumours - real or imagined - to suit either themselves, or the leakers of the rumours, and often these same 'news/rumour papers' do so because they are so ignorant about defence matters. I do not claim to be an expert on UK folderol and I did not get around to reading the link you provided but... until changes rumoured actually happen I would suggest give most rumours a wide berth when they are published in an UK newspaper.

For sure Brits have budget issues and there may well be major changes but conops do not change willy-nilly on a rumour.

[talkitron]

Deborah Haynes of The Times has a new, September 27, article on the front page of its website. There is mention the F-35 over and above a decline in amphibious forces. One quote:

The Times has laid bare over recent months the pressures facing Britain’s armed forces. A plan set out in 2015 for their future shape is underfunded by between £20 billion to £30 billion over the next decade despite a commitment by the Treasury to increase the £36 billion annual defence budget by 0.5 per cent each year of the parliament.

General Sir Christopher Deverell, another top commander, said in a comment on Twitter that military chiefs were looking at a “range of options” to balance the books. This is understood to include the possible reduction of the Royal Marines by 1,000, scrapping an amphibious assault ship and slowing the purchase of F-35 fast jets.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news ... -06ds9n3k8

[spazsinbad]

OK - here is the thing.... this thread is about the USMC - how about you take this over to the 'MoD in a Muddle' thread?

Answer here just with a link to same post above over in that thread? And later I'll read that TIMES 27 Sep 2017 article....

[spazsinbad]

Now all US Armed Forces will be networked - not just USMC & USN etc. individually - or that is THE plan....

The Future the US Military is Constructing: a Giant, Armed Nervous System [BEST READ at SOURCE]
26 Sep 2017 Patrick Tucker

"Leaders of the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines are converging on a vision of the future military: connecting every asset on the global battlefield.

That means everything from F-35 jets overhead to the destroyers on the sea to the armor of the tanks crawling over the land to the multiplying devices in every troops’ pockets. Every weapon, vehicle, and device connected, sharing data, constantly aware of the presence and state of every other node in a truly global network. The effect: an unimaginably large cephapoloidal nervous system armed with the world’s most sophisticated weaponry.

In recent months, the Joint Chiefs of Staff put together the newest version of their National Military Strategy. Unlike previous ones, it is classified. But executing a strategy requiring buy-in and collaboration across the services. In recent months, at least two of the service chiefs talked openly about the strikingly similar direction that they are taking their forces. Standing before a sea of dark- blue uniforms at a September Air Force Association event in Maryland, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said he had “refined” his plans for the Air Force after discussions with the Joint Chiefs “as part of the creation of the classified military strategy.”

The future for the Air Force?... [think TESLA]

...The idea borrows from the “network centric warfare” concept that seized the military imagination more than a decade ago. But what leaders are today describing is larger by orders of magnitude. It’s less a strategy for integrating multiple networks into operations more efficiently than a plan to stitch everything, networks within networks, into a single web. The purpose: better coordinated, faster, and more lethal operations in air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace....

...The Multi-Domain Army and Marine Corps
The U.S. Army, too, is investing big dollars into figuring out how to connect everything on the battlefield. An Army Research Lab program called the Internet of Battle of Things will be led by researchers at the University of Illinois, with help from the Universities of Massachusetts, multiple California State branches, Carnegie Mellon, and SRI International.

The Army is currently revising its Operating Concept for itself [from] the Marine Corps for 2025-2040. It basically forms the framework for writing future Army doctrine, which in turn shapes training, weapons acquisition, and operations. The final draft won’t be available until the Association of the United States Army conference in October, but sources close to the drafting process said it will focus on networked, multi-domain battle.

The Marines are already conducting experiments along these lines. In April, the Corps’ Warfighting Lab staged a beach assault, linking together robots, ships, satellites, amphibious assault vehicles to share targeting info and other situational intelligence....

...The Navy: “Network Everything to Everything”
Navy leaders, too, are eager to connect every object on the sea, land, air, space and cyberspace. This is no exaggeration. As Adm. John Richardson, Chief of Naval Operations, put it during the Navy’s Future Force Expo in Washington, D.C., in July, “I want to network everything to everything.”...

...“When you start linking these platforms together, [the rate of progress is] not exponential…it’s factorial,” he said, meaning orders of magnitude greater than a rate of progress that is even orders of magnitude greater than a linear progression.

The Navy has already made some important progress. Last year, an experimental datalink allowed the pilot of a Marine Corps F-35B strike aircraft to send targeting data to an Aegis destroyer, which shot down the target drone with an SM-6 missile....

...artificial intelligence will play an important supporting role in helping commanders and operators makes sense of what’s happening on with all of these inter-linked devices and weapons, even as it steers and operates burgeoning fleets of near-autonomous drones, unmanned tanks, robot boats, and the like.

The effort to understand exactly how well all of these moving parts will co-ordinate has only barely begun. But it is the direction that the United States military is moving with both determination and speed."

Source: http://www.defenseone.com/technology/20 ... em/141303/

[popcorn]

Props to the Army for leveraging the Corps' work in developing CONOPs. Specially since the Marines have aggressively pursued integration of the F-35B with it's ground force providing a template for the Army and Air Force cooperation.



...The Multi-Domain Army and Marine Corps
The U.S. Army, too, is investing big dollars into figuring out how to connect everything on the battlefield. An Army Research Lab program called the Internet of Battle of Things will be led by researchers at the University of Illinois, with help from the Universities of Massachusetts, multiple California State branches, Carnegie Mellon, and SRI International.

The Army is currently revising its Operating Concept for itself [from] the Marine Corps for 2025-2040. It basically forms the framework for writing future Army doctrine, which in turn shapes training, weapons acquisition, and operations. The final draft won’t be available until the Association of the United States Army conference in October, but sources close to the drafting process said it will focus on networked, multi-domain battle.

The Marines are already conducting experiments along these lines. In April, the Corps’ Warfighting Lab staged a beach assault, linking together robots, ships, satellites, amphibious assault vehicles to share targeting info and other situational intelligence....

[cavok]

Props to the Army for leveraging the Corps' work in developing CONOPs. Specially since the Marines have aggressively pursued integration of the F-35B with it's ground force providing a template for the Army and Air Force cooperation.



...The Multi-Domain Army and Marine Corps
The U.S. Army, too, is investing big dollars into figuring out how to connect everything on the battlefield. An Army Research Lab program called the Internet of Battle of Things will be led by researchers at the University of Illinois, with help from the Universities of Massachusetts, multiple California State branches, Carnegie Mellon, and SRI International.

The Army is currently revising its Operating Concept for itself [from] the Marine Corps for 2025-2040. It basically forms the framework for writing future Army doctrine, which in turn shapes training, weapons acquisition, and operations. The final draft won’t be available until the Association of the United States Army conference in October, but sources close to the drafting process said it will focus on networked, multi-domain battle.

The Marines are already conducting experiments along these lines. In April, the Corps’ Warfighting Lab staged a beach assault, linking together robots, ships, satellites, amphibious assault vehicles to share targeting info and other situational intelligence....

Strangely, late as compared to european armies (networking everyone in every force) see, e.g. contact program in France entering third phase connecting air forced (done for army an navyalready)

[neptune]

Props to the Army for leveraging the Corps' work in developing CONOPs. Specially since the Marines have aggressively pursued integration of the F-35B with it's ground force providing a template for the Army and Air Force cooperation.



...The Multi-Domain Army and Marine Corps
The U.S. Army, too, is investing big dollars into figuring out how to connect everything on the battlefield. An Army Research Lab program called the Internet of Battle of Things will be led by researchers at the University of Illinois, with help from the Universities of Massachusetts, multiple California State branches, Carnegie Mellon, and SRI International.

The Army is currently revising its Operating Concept for itself [from] the Marine Corps for 2025-2040. It basically forms the framework for writing future Army doctrine, which in turn shapes training, weapons acquisition, and operations. The final draft won’t be available until the Association of the United States Army conference in October, but sources close to the drafting process said it will focus on networked, multi-domain battle.

The Marines are already conducting experiments along these lines. In April, the Corps’ Warfighting Lab staged a beach assault, linking together robots, ships, satellites, amphibious assault vehicles to share targeting info and other situational intelligence....

Strangely, late as compared to european armies (networking everyone in every force) see, e.g. contact program in France entering third phase connecting air forced (done for army an navyalready)

....care to elaborate with references; maybe not "apples to apples"??

[gabriele]

Question for the resident experts: does the docking down of a LHD for landing craft operations pose great challenges to aviation ops? I've seen claims that jet operations are not possible with the ship docked down, but that seems quite strange to me. Why would Harrier / F-35 not be able to launch and recover?

[steve2267]

I am not a naval expert. The following is my best, educated guess:

1. Vessel speed. Docking operations may be limited to a max speed, e.g. 5 knots or 10 knots? Such a speed may preclude th necessaray WOD (wind over deck) required for launching a Harrier or Killer Bee loaded with goodies. Fixed jet operations may require the LHD to be moving at 20 knots or more (a WAG on my part) -- too fast to launch landing craft.
2. Vessel course (or direction). Sea state may specify a given steaming bearing for launching / recovering landing craft, which may not be a good direction for launching / landing fixed wing aircraft.

[gabriele]

I am not a naval expert. The following is my best, educated guess:

1. Vessel speed. Docking operations may be limited to a max speed, e.g. 5 knots or 10 knots? Such a speed may preclude th necessaray WOD (wind over deck) required for launching a Harrier or Killer Bee loaded with goodies. Fixed jet operations may require the LHD to be moving at 20 knots or more (a WAG on my part) -- too fast to launch landing craft.
2. Vessel course (or direction). Sea state may specify a given steaming bearing for launching / recovering landing craft, which may not be a good direction for launching / landing fixed wing aircraft.

I've considered those factors, but while lack of wind over deck is not beneficial, the take-off distance requirement for the F-35B, as far as i can remember, is at 0 WOD.
I can imagine limitations to payload, perhaps, but "impossibility" of simultaneous air and landing craft ops seems a wild claim to me. I've tried to find images and / or literature about LHD / LHA air ops with simultaneous flooded dock to get conclusive information, but have not had much luck.

[steve2267]

I look forward to learning from those with real knowledge or experience pertinent to your question.

The only other thing that comes to mine would be personnel tasking -- is it possible that if you are conducting well deck operations, personnel that are required for aviation ops are unavailable because they are busy with well deck responsibilities?

[quicksilver]

The short answer is 'yes' -- simultaneous well deck ops and launch/recovery of jets is not only possible, but has been done on numerous occasions both operationally and in training exercises.

There are, of course, some accommodations that have to be made circumstantially given some of the factors the steve outlines. But, it isn't a difficult thing to do given workable conditions (OAT, wind direction and velocity, etc). The flexibility to do such things are an advantage of STOVL aircraft.

[spazsinbad]

="gabriele
I've considered those factors, but while lack of wind over deck is not beneficial, the take-off distance requirement for the F-35B, as far as i can remember, is at 0 WOD....

BOWMAN had this to say back in 2011:

"..."The USMC has added STOVL performance as a service specific key performance parameter. The requirement is listed as follows: With two 1000# JDAMs and two internal AIM-120s, full expendables, execute a 550 [now 600] foot (450 UK STOVL) STO from LHA, LHD, and aircraft carriers (sea level, tropical day, 10 kts operational WOD) & with a combat radius of 450 nm (STOVL profile). Also must perform STOVL vertical landing with two 1000# JDAMs and two internal AIM-120s, full expendables, and fuel to fly the STOVL Recovery profile...." http://2011.uploaded.fresh.co.il/2011/0 ... 290792.pdf OR http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_download-id-14791.html (PDF 325Kb)

Any recent F-35 SAR gives the same spiel: https://fas.org/man/eprint/F-35-SAR-2018.pdf
OR: download/file.php?id=27020 (2019 F-35 SAR 0.7Mb)

ZERO WOD at same temp with same loadout would take some extra FEET one would imagine - which is there indeed.

[quicksilver]

And, of course, if there is zero WOD, they can increase the deck roll (up to 750' on the US amphibs) or lighten the fuel load, or both.