Amphibious Warfare

[buglerbilly]

Conway Concerned About Amphibious Fleet

Jan 15, 2010

By Bettina H. Chavanne

Gen. James Conway, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, said Jan. 14 he is concerned about the amphibious fleet after reviewing the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), due to be made public Feb. 1.

“The most stressed capability are our amphibious ships,” Conway said at a gathering of the Surface Navy Association near Washington. After the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), new submarines, surface ships and other Navy requirements, “amphibious [vessels] are not at the top of the priority list,” Conway said. “Yet I think as a maritime nation we have to retain that capacity.”

Conway said he has discussed shipbuilding priorities with Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations. The Marine Corps is “being fairly adamant” about the need for amphibious vessels. “This is a capacity the nation has seen dwindle,” which can put the country at risk, he said.

The construction of large-deck amphibious ships lacking a well deck also worries Conway. “If ships are built without wells, we don’t think it’s wise,” he said. Ships must “be multicapable. It will be a bit more expensive and require some redesign,” but the result will be a ship that is “exactly the size it needs to be.”

Additionally, Conway said he is looking at various ways to take advantage of the capabilities inherent in the Navy-Army Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) and the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS). “Is the [JHSV] a ferry? A troop carrier?” he said. Might the LCS host a module that would transform it into a Marine troop carrier? “We think it can,” Conway said. “We have to do more exploration to determine the utility of that type of vessel.”

[buglerbilly]

EFV Has MRAP-Level Protection, Conway Says

By DAN LAMOTHE

Published: 1 Mar 2010 15:03

The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle has cleared an important obstacle, proving in tests that it can sustain the blast of an improvised explosive device as well as a mine-resistant vehicle, U.S. Marine officials said.


U.S. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway told the House Armed Services Committee last week that he was pleasantly surprised with how the EFV fared in testing.

Commandant Gen. James Conway told the House Armed Services Committee last week that he was "very pleasantly surprised" with how the EFV fared in the testing, conducted at Aberdeen Test Center, Md., in late January and February. The EFV performed "about the same" as a mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle when faced with explosions under its belly and tracks, but better against direct fire and indirect fire, he said.

The step is significant. Critics, including some in Congress, have questioned the wisdom of fielding the EVF in an era in which many combat vehicles are designed with a V-shaped hull that deflects IED blasts. In order to reach speeds of up to 40mph on water, the EFV was designed with a flat bottom.

The tests showed the EFV is as resistant to IED blasts as a Category-2 MRAP, Conway said. Cat-2 MRAPs stand up better to blasts than the more-common Cat-1 MRAP, and are sometimes used at the front of convoys and in explosive ordnance disposal - scenarios in which the possibility of an IED blast is increased.

The testing consisted of subjecting a single EFV prototype to four blasts, including two that simulated IEDs, said Manny Pacheco, a spokesman for the EFV program. The vehicle suffered damage after each shot, but was functional after minor repairs.

"Bottom line: If we're being evaluated as an MRAP, we would have passed," Pacheco said.

Conway said the testing was conducted without the EFV being outfitted with an additional armor kit, which Marine officials say is an option for the battlefield. The Corps "would want to incorporate" the kits if Marines were in an "IED-rich" environment, he said.

The Corps expects to receive seven new EFV prototypes this year, but initial low-rate production of the vehicles was delayed by the Pentagon an additional year recently to 2015. Conway told Congress that the Corps still has some "knowledge points" it needs to establish before the vehicle is cleared for full-rate production. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates "wanted us to have some of the answers to those issues before we got into a full rate of buy-in procurement," Conway said.

[buglerbilly]

EFV 'not intended to be IED-proof', says marine general

By Daniel Wasserbly

06 April 2010

A US Marine Corps (USMC) general defending the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) to Congress noted that the platform has a somewhat vulnerable underbelly but is not intended to operate in an environment with roadside bombs.

The EFV is projected to be the USMC's next-generation self-deploying amphibious vehicle that can land armour ashore at high speeds.

"One of the benefits of being able to come from the sea is you're not necessarily locked into a certain location or a certain beach to be able to do it," Lieutenant General George Flynn, deputy commandant for combat development and integration, told Congress during a 25 March hearing.

This sort of operational flexibility is seen by some in the USMC as an offset against improvised explosive devices (IEDs). These asymmetric weapons have driven the Pentagon to demand specially armoured vehicles with V-shaped hulls to deflect blasts, such as mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) trucks and the US Army's upcoming Ground Combat Vehicle.

156 of 398 words
Copyright © IHS (Global) Limited, 2010

[buglerbilly]

EFV Is the Only Option That Accomplishes the Mission While Protecting Marines

(Source: Lexington Institute; issued April 7, 2010)

((c) Lexington Institute; reproduced by permission)

Rumor has it that senior political appointees in the Department of the Navy want to make a point about acquisition reform by killing the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). Apparently the fact that taking such action would also end up killing many Marines isn't part of their thought process. It should be.

EFV is the next-generation amphibious troop vehicle being developed by the Marine Corps, a heavily armored, highly maneuverable system designed to seamlessly transition from sea mobility to land movement. With three times the water speed and twice the armor of the existing, Nixon-era amphibious assault vehicle, it will be by far the most effective troop carrier ever fielded for carrying warfighters from ship to shore; once it hits the beaches, it can match the speed of Abrams tanks in quickly penetrating deep into the enemy interior. And because the EFV has an extended range in water, U.S. ships can stay beyond the reach of enemy guns while Marines going ashore have many options for where they choose to land.

These and other features will enable the 500-plus EFVs the Marines plan to buy to provide unprecedented protection to the 17-man rifle squadron the vehicle was designed to transport. There is nothing else like it in the world, and no likelihood at all that something significantly better can be developed in the foreseeable future. Within the constraints imposed by physics and operational requirements, EFV is the gold standard of amphibious-warfare vehicles.

But in the current Washington environment, political appointees who take leadership positions for relatively brief tours are tempted to make a name for themselves by killing weapons programs deemed to be too expensive. The political process seldom takes note of the huge investment made by previous administrations that is thereby squandered, nor of the operational consequences that will follow from continuing to send warfighters into battle with outdated equipment.

Congress and the public need to do a better job of holding policymakers accountable for such irresponsible decisions. In the case of EFV, the consequences of not going forward are crystal clear. Marines who should have survived amphibious assaults to take their objectives will die in large numbers, or be precluded from going ashore at all. There is no alternative to EFV that remotely matches its performance, and all the excuses raised for why fielding the vehicle should be deferred undercut the future effectiveness of the joint force. We may not be able to know with certainty what future threats will demand of the Marine Corps, but one thing we can say for sure is that without EFV our forces are more likely to be defeated.

-ends-

[Weasel]

EFV Is the Only Option That Accomplishes the Mission While Protecting Marines

(Source: Lexington Institute; issued April 7, 2010)

((c) Lexington Institute; reproduced by permission)

Rumor has it that senior political appointees in the Department of the Navy want to make a point about acquisition reform by killing the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). Apparently the fact that taking such action would also end up killing many Marines isn't part of their thought process. It should be.

EFV is the next-generation amphibious troop vehicle being developed by the Marine Corps, a heavily armored, highly maneuverable system designed to seamlessly transition from sea mobility to land movement. With three times the water speed and twice the armor of the existing, Nixon-era amphibious assault vehicle, it will be by far the most effective troop carrier ever fielded for carrying warfighters from ship to shore; once it hits the beaches, it can match the speed of Abrams tanks in quickly penetrating deep into the enemy interior. And because the EFV has an extended range in water, U.S. ships can stay beyond the reach of enemy guns while Marines going ashore have many options for where they choose to land.

These and other features will enable the 500-plus EFVs the Marines plan to buy to provide unprecedented protection to the 17-man rifle squadron the vehicle was designed to transport. There is nothing else like it in the world, and no likelihood at all that something significantly better can be developed in the foreseeable future. Within the constraints imposed by physics and operational requirements, EFV is the gold standard of amphibious-warfare vehicles.

But in the current Washington environment, political appointees who take leadership positions for relatively brief tours are tempted to make a name for themselves by killing weapons programs deemed to be too expensive. The political process seldom takes note of the huge investment made by previous administrations that is thereby squandered, nor of the operational consequences that will follow from continuing to send warfighters into battle with outdated equipment.

Congress and the public need to do a better job of holding policymakers accountable for such irresponsible decisions. In the case of EFV, the consequences of not going forward are crystal clear. Marines who should have survived amphibious assaults to take their objectives will die in large numbers, or be precluded from going ashore at all. There is no alternative to EFV that remotely matches its performance, and all the excuses raised for why fielding the vehicle should be deferred undercut the future effectiveness of the joint force. We may not be able to know with certainty what future threats will demand of the Marine Corps, but one thing we can say for sure is that without EFV our forces are more likely to be defeated.

-ends-
Unfortunately for the EFV there is an old acronym being bandied around the traps that is kinda sticking to it's hull rather then Amphibious Assault

It is "HIO" as in "...it is only good for HIO..."

I'll let you have some fun trying to figure out what it is, but it ain't kind.

cheers

w

ps: and , oh.. what is this guy from the Lexington Insitute taking about? The last time we had a mass assault across a defended beach was, um when?...

1990's? nope... 1980's?.... nope... 1970's?... nope... 1960's?....nope... 1950's?... Inchon!... Phew .. I was starting to sweat there.

[Riđđu]

Unfortunately for the EFV there is an old acronym being bandied around the traps that is kinda sticking to it's hull rather then Amphibious Assault

It is "HIO" as in "...it is only good for HIO..."

I'll let you have some fun trying to figure out what it is, but it ain't kind.


The first thing that comes to my mind from HIO is hole in one.

[Weasel]

The first thing that comes to my mind from HIO is hole in one.

Oh, that is good, but unfortunately no...

(hint) the "oh" is for operation...

cheers

w

[buglerbilly]

China Builds Up Amphibious Forces

May 20, 2010



By Richard D. Fisher, Jr.
Washington

There has been significant soul-searching over the past year in the U.S. Defense Department about the viability of the Marine Corps’ amphibious assault mission, tied to the controversy over the troubled General Dynamics Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) program. No such doubts about amphibious operations exist in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Since the early 1990s, the PLA has developed and deployed two generations of amphibious armored assault vehicles, and more recently developed a range of specialized amphibious assault and support systems. While this effort is largely focused on preparing for a possible invasion of Taiwan, it will also help the PLA undertake long-distance amphibious assault operations as the PLA Navy (PLAN) builds a number of large amphibious transport ships later this decade.

In 2010, the 180,000-plus Marine Corps, supported by the U.S. Navy’s fleet of 31 large LHD/LPD (Landing Helicopter Dock/Landing Personnel Dock) transport ships and 11 aircraft carrier battle groups, may be the world’s premier amphibious projection force. But in terms of manpower and mechanized firepower, the PLA’s amphibious forces are much larger. Also subordinate to their navy, the PLA marines themselves only have about 10,000 personnel organized into two brigades. The PLA’s main amphibious forces, however, reside in six or so PLA group armies (GA) near the Taiwan theater of operations, which could total about 300,000 troops with varying degrees of amphibious equipment and proficiency. The most heavily equipped and trained are the 1st amphibious mechanized infantry division of the 1st GA of the Nanjing military region, and the 124th amphibious mechanized division of the 42nd GA of the Guangzhou military region.

Once dismissed by some U.S. analysts as amounting to a “million-man swim,” the PLA has made great strides toward assembling its “joint island campaign,” which combines electronic, missile and air attack capabilities to support coordinated PLA amphibious army, marine and airborne strikes to secure entry points for follow-on forces. While formal PLAN and PLA transport ships may only be able to move 30-40,000 troops (much less with armor and support equipment), a 2006 Taiwan military estimate held that 5-7 additional divisions could be carried by mobilizing civilian ships.

Since the PLA’s amphibious forces have lacked sufficient organic air and artillery support, a condition that will change, it has placed a premium on developing amphibious assault vehicles that fight their way to shore. Since the late 1990s, PLA amphibious army and marine units have operated the unique 18-ton ZTZ-63A amphibious tank. The vehicle is a successor to the T-63 amphibious tank, which was armed with an 85-mm. gun and derived from the Soviet PT-76 tank in the early 1960s. The ZTZ-63A compensates for its light armor by carrying a computer-controlled 105-mm. stabilized cannon, which fires while moving and in low visibility. The gun fires a co-produced version of Russia’s Bastion laser-guided, gun-launched antitank missile, which has a 4-5-km. (2.5-3.1-mi.) range that exceeds the accurate range of the conventional antitank rounds fired by the 105-mm. guns on Taiwan’s modified U.S. M48 and M60 Patton tanks.

Along with this amphibious tank the PLA developed and deployed the 13-troop Type-63C amphibious armored personnel carrier (APC). This vehicle took the obsolete 1970s-vintage T-63 APC and added buoyant chambers fore and aft and an outboard motor for power. Though inelegant, it cut cost and development time. The Type-63C was made in command and armored repair and recovery (ARV) versions; there are also ARV and logistic support versions of the ZTZ-63A. With a 400-500-hp. diesel engine powering pump-jets, the ZTZ-63A’s estimated water speed of 12 kph. (7.4 mph.), with an expected 5-7-km. deployment range, was quickly judged insufficient, and the 600 or so ZTZ-63A tanks and perhaps many more Type-63C APCs are now being succeeded by faster and longer-range vehicles.

Likely spurred by the U.S. effort to move its amphibious operations farther from shore and develop the EFV, which it has tracked since the early 1990s, the PLA’s successor to the ZTZ‑63A was probably in advanced development as the latter was being deployed. First appearing in Chinese Internet source images in late 2005, by 2006 it was clear that the PLA was deploying what has been recently designated by government sources as the ZTD-05 and ZBD-05 family of amphibious assault vehicles. Both the Chinese and U.S. vehicles use a planing hull propelled by powerful water-pump jets, with retractable prow plane and rear “wing” and retractable suspension. But in contrast to the EFV, China’s vehicles are being deployed today in PLA army and marine units and could soon be offered for export.

The reasons for the success of the PLA’s new vehicles are simple: their lesser requirements and smaller size, which resulted in lower technological barriers and a faster development timetable. The ZTD-05 weighs an estimated 26 tons and can reportedly travel 40 kph., while the EFV pushes 35 tons and does 46 kph. Unlike the EFV, the ZTD-05 carries a version of the 105-mm. low-recoil gun that arms the ZTZ-63A, and also uses the Bastion antitank missile. The ZBD-05 infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), armed with a 30-mm. automatic cannon and low-cost HJ-73C antitank missile, is more comparable to the EFV, which is also armed with a 30-mm. cannon in its IFV version. While both have crews of three, the ZBD‑05 carries 10 troops while the EFV carries 17. The ZTD/ZBD hull is used for command and ARV variants.

Other specialized amphibious vehicles have emerged that demonstrate the PLA’s commitment to forced amphibious landings. In late 2009, Chinese Internet images emerged of a new amphibious 122-mm. howitzer, designated the Type-07B early this year. There was an unsuccessful amphibious 122-mm. program in the 1990s, but the Type-07B apparently combines the gun and fire control from the new Type-07 self-propelled howitzer with the ZTD/ZBD-05 hull. The Type-07B permits longer-range fire support farther inshore with heavier and varied ammunition, including laser-guided rounds.

The PLA is additionally gathering its versions of the “uglies,” specialized equipment to breach or clear a landing zone. These include a truck-mounted 240-mm. mine-clearing multiple-rocket system placed in a small landing craft utility, and trucks with heavy and lightweight aprons that roll on sand to prevent sinking by wheeled vehicles. There are also multiple amphibious logistic support vehicles: the Dong Feng EQ 2102 6 X 6 truck, two families of Jeep-like vehicles and an amphibious version of an Isuzu 4 X 4 truck.

Missing so far are larger transport ships and organic air support. The PLAN only has one 20,000-ton Type 071 LPD but more are expected later this decade. Also expected are several similarly sized Type 081-class flat-deck LHDs. These will use a new hovercraft smaller than, but similar in configuration to the U.S. Navy’s LCAC. Since it tried and failed to purchase British Harriers in the late 1970s, the PLA has been interested in vertical/short-takeoff-and-landing aircraft, though a Chinese source from 2005 told DTI that Chengdu Aircraft Corp. was investigating a possible F-35-like program.

So it stands to reason that by the 2020s the PLA could be capable of projecting heavily armed amphibious forces well beyond East Asia, which should give pause to those who consider the U.S. Marine Corps a luxury of diminishing utility.

Chinese Amphibians photo: Chinese Internet

[buglerbilly]

Beach-Storming Drill Returns Marines to Roots

June 04, 2010

Associated Press



ABOARD THE USS BONHOMME RICHARD -- After three tours in the deserts of Iraq, Lt. Col. Joe Levreault says he felt a bit rusty when he climbed into the helicopter to do what he was trained to do best as a Marine pilot -- fly troops from the ship to the shore, even under fire.

But he quickly got back into his groove and was more than ready to carry out his mission Friday when thousands of Sailors and Marines will carry out the largest amphibious landing exercise on the West coast since the Sept. 11 terror attacks sent troops to wars in landlocked regions.

The Marines and Sailors are aboard the 844-foot USS Bonhomme Richard off the coast of Southern California, preparing to storm the beach.

Marines say the training that kicked off May 24 has reinvigorated them by bringing them back to their roots as "soldiers of the sea." Some say the heavy fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade has relegated them to the status of a kind of second land army.

"After so many years away, your skills always diminish and any time you can get back to the boat, it's good," said Levreault, 40, who has served for 18 years. "It's our bread and butter."

The exercise comes at a pivotal point for the Marines, who are facing questions from Defense Secretary Robert Gates about whether major amphibious landings that made the Marine Corps so famous worldwide are becoming outdated in today's warfare.

Defense analysts accuse a cost-cutting Gates of trying to dismiss the value of beach landings and the needed equipment, like a $13.2 billion plan to buy large numbers of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle starting in 2012. The amphibious vehicles, also known as EVFs, help get troops from ship to shore while under fire and mark a significant upgrade over the current technology available to the military.

Gates is scrutinizing every aspect of the military in his search for roughly $10 billion in annual savings to sustain the combat force and invest in its modernization.

"The United States' Marine Corps has been conducting amphibious operations for 200 years. It's a unique capability and there is no analytical basis for arguing that capability won't be needed in the future," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst for the Lexington Institute. "Everyone we are likely to fight in the future is going to be close to the sea ... like Iran, like North Korea, like Vietnam, like almost any place you can mention other than Afghanistan."

And he added: "If the EFV is canceled, many Marines will die in the future for lack of an adequate vehicle."

Called "Dawn Blitz," the Camp Pendleton exercise kicked off May 24 and will culminate Friday when troops reach the Camp Pendleton beach on 60 Amphibious Assault Vehicles -- seafaring tanks supported by 16 hovercrafts and seven amphibious ships.

It will wrap up two days before the 66th anniversary of D-Day -- the world's largest amphibious invasion of all time. More than 160,000 troops landed along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944, paving the way for the Allied victory.

Defense experts say the lessons learned that day still apply.

The Marine Corps says the exercise with the Navy makes an agile force capable of doing everything from assaulting an enemy beachhead to bringing food and supplies ashore to a disaster-stricken nation such as Haiti. Outgoing Commandant Gen. James Conway wants his "soldiers of the sea" to get back to their roots.

About 2,000 Marines and Sailors were aboard the USS Bonhomme Richard, whose primary mission is to embark and deploy troops in amphibious assault operations by helicopter, landing craft and seafaring tanks. Camp Pendleton spokesman Capt. Mike Alvarez said the exercise is allowing Marines and Sailors to work together side-by-side in a way that they have not been able to do since 2001.

Navy spokesman Lt. Kyle Raines said many of the Marines participating in the exercise this week had not done a landing from sea before this drill. "It is a competency we need to maintain."

Gates has suggested that the military has overstated its requirements in a post-Cold War world and that Congress is unlikely to give the Pentagon the sizable budget increases it has enjoyed since 2001. The current defense budget, not counting the cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, is $535 billion; the administration is asking for $549 billion for 2011.

Gates managed to get Congress to agree last year to stop production of the Air Force's F-22 stealth fighter earlier than previously planned, and he halted an Army ground combat vehicle project that had been a top priority.

Gates has also asked the U.S. Navy why it needs 11 aircraft carrier strike groups when no other country has more than one.

Defense analyst James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation said the United States cannot take its military strength for granted.

"Gates has got the brilliant idea that we can waltz in everywhere we go. You know what? The enemies are not going to let us into the ports and we're going to be sitting there like in the 1920s, rowing ashore with a row boat," he said. "I think Gates is incredibly shortsighted. The Marines are not idiots. They are not doing this simply because they have always done this. We are a great power, but if you don't have amphibious capabilities, you are not a great power anymore."

© Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved

[buglerbilly]

US Navy Orders Material for JHSV 4 and 5

(Source: Austal; issued June 8, 2010)

The US Navy has exercised contract options funding Austal’s acquisition of long lead-time equipment associated with the construction of two additional 103 metre Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSV).

As the prime contractor, Austal currently has contracts to build the first three JHSVs as part of a 10-vessel program valued at up to AUD $2 billion. Today’s award funds the acquisition of long lead time material for JHSV 4 and 5.

Austal USA President and COO Joe Rella commented,

“This award signifies the US Navy’s continued commitment to the JHSV programme and confidence in Austal’s ability to reliably deliver the predecessor ships on time and budget. The long lead-time material contract award also ensures employment continuity for our US workforce.”

Austal was awarded the initial contract to design and build the first 103 metre JHSV in November 2008, with contracts for an additional two vessels awarded in January this year. Options for the remaining seven vessels are expected to be awarded between FY10 and FY13.

Similar to the Austal-built “WestPac Express” operated by the US Marines for the past eight years, the JHSV will be capable of transporting troops and their equipment, supporting humanitarian relief efforts, and reaching speeds in excess of 35 knots fully loaded. The vessels will be a joint-use platform operated by both the United States Army and Navy.

Construction of JHSV 1 “Spearhead” is currently underway at Austal’s US facility in Mobile, Alabama, with a keel laying ceremony to be held in coming weeks. JHSV 2 is scheduled to commence construction in September this year, with JHSV 3 to commence in mid-2011.

Long lead-time material for JHSV 4 and 5 will include main propulsion engines, water jets, reduction gears and other major equipment items.

General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems is the platform mission systems engineering agent responsible for the design, integration and test of the ship’s electronic mission systems, including an open architecture computing infrastructure, internal and external communications, electronic navigation, aviation and armament systems.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Gates and Co. to Axe Marine Corps EFV?



Yesterday at a reporter’s roundtable, House Armed Services Committee chair Rep. Ike Skelton said he expects SecDef Robert Gates and his merry band of program killers in OSD will try to terminate the Marine Corps armored amphibian, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV).

Skelton said he’s pretty agnostic on the EFV and that the HASC would give the Marines time to conduct further tests on the vehicle. He did expect the Marines to fight tooth and nail to keep the program alive. I’m hearing the same thing from inside the Navy department; the Marines really, really want their EFV.

I’m also told that the Marines are embarking on a PR blitz in think tank land and among reporters to try to pre-empt Gates’ move and sell the EFV along with amphibious warfare writ large; for example, a couple of weeks back EFV program manager Col. Keith Moore did a “bloggers roundtable” (transcript here).

Gates told the Marines to explain how the EFV fits into the big strategy picture, I’m told, and, more importantly, he’s asking the Marine’s for their “vision” of how they fit into the overall force, beyond amphibious assault.

He contends that the EFV is a gold plated “niche” capability designed for a highly unlikely repeat of the Inchon landing.

The Marines say… well here’s how Moore put it:


“[S]o many of the capabilities that are in the EFV are specifically designed so you never have to do another Inchon, you never have to do another Iwo Jima, but you can still do that forcible entry mission when it’s required or provide a credible threat of a joint forcible entry so that you open up other opportunities for other capabilities that are within the suite of American military capabilities, whether that’s other surface means, aviation means or whatever, that by having a credible threat in one area you open up a window of vulnerability in another area that we can exploit.”

I’m told that planners in the Navy department are eyeballing the Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCAC) as a more versatile means of delivering troops and vehicles ashore. Obviously it doesn’t have the “forcible entry” capabilities of an armored amphibian, but the idea is to use recon to find an empty beach and land there, instead of into the teeth of enemy defenses.

The feeling is that the LCAC, which is due for an upgrade, can deliver more relevant troops and material ashore much faster (carrying up to 75 tons at 40 knots) than a gaggle of EFVs.

– Greg Grant

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/06/09/gates-and-co-to-axe-marine-corps-efv/#more-7587#ixzz0qSRmuSpy
Defense.org

[buglerbilly]

Solomon's Blog reckons BAE are also quietly looking at further, unspecified, Upgrades of AAV............airbags anybody?!!! :beaver

[buglerbilly]

Italy To Get New Amphibious Ships

Jun 25, 2010



By Andy Nativi
Genoa

The Italian navy has received the go-ahead to procure two 20,000-ton amphibious assault ships (LHDs), with the possibility of a third ship, configured with extensive aviation facilities (LHA).

The preliminary LHD project is funded and will take 12 months for completion. It will be followed by a project definition phase requiring eight months and leading to a contract. Delivery of the first ship comes within 30 months after that. If everything goes to plan, the first LHD arrives in late 2014.

LHDs will replace two 8,000-ton San Giorgio-class LPDs, commissioned in 1987 and 1988. The LHA will eventually replace the carrier Garibaldi, which is being dedicated to amphibious and helicopter roles now that the Cavour carrier is in service.

The new LHDs will be 190 meters (623 ft.) long, feature a well dock that holds four LCACs (landing craft air cushions), and have a hangar with dedicated maintenance area where six medium-heavy helicopters can be recovered. The flight deck will provide six landing spots and be served by two elevators, one at the stern, the other forward of the island. It will thus be possible to launch air-assault operations, lifting a reinforced rifle company with each wave and rapidly moving personnel and equipment to the deck. Helicopter capacity will be 12-15, depending on mix.

Capabilities also include four smaller LCVP (landing craft, vehicle, personnel) vessels and two motorboats, all in dedicated spaces with cranes under the port flight deck.

The LHD can accommodate 760 troops, including an aviation detachment and staff personnel, in addition to a ship’s crew of only 200, a result of shipboard automation. The vessel will normally carry a reinforced marine battalion and aviation personnel, and be able to add an amphibious task force and landing force command, which will rely on extensive C4I spaces and systems. The basic space earmarked for the command staff is 500 sq. meters (5,380 sq. ft.).

The ship has a large garage deck with a capacity of 360 tons. The vehicles reach the garage from the well dock or through a large starboard door. The garage floor and ramps can support a 60-ton tank. The roll-on/roll-off concept permits rapid loading and unloading of cargo and vehicles, which can also be parked on the flight deck.

The navy has not yet selected a propulsion system. The general specification calls for a top speed of 20 kt. and range of 7,000 nm. at 16 kt., which translates to 45 days’ endurance. Basic proposals are built around a combined diesel and diesel scheme, with four diesels, each 6,000 kw., driving a shaft and variable-pitch propeller. Engine power will be 20-24 megawatts. There will also be powerful bow thrusters. A diesel-electric or pod configuration is being considered. The pod is popular, but would limit the size of the well deck.

The LHDs will have a large electricity generating capability, with four diesel generators in the 2.5-megawatt class.

A peculiarity of the design is that the ships, at least the first, will have civil protection as the primary operational role. The requirement is taken seriously and dictates many capabilities—for instance, large electricity generation and water purification capacity, including deployment of flexible hoses for ship-to-dock or ship-to-ship water transfer.

The LHD will have a hospital that treats 54, with 1,000 sq. meters of dedicated space. The hospital can expand by using space dedicated to the marines’ mess and loading medical containers in part of the hangar. The C4 spaces can be used as a command center for civil protection authorities.

The navy has not entered into discussions about the sensor suite and combat system. The LHD will have an extensive combat management and command system, multirole search and navigation radar, and electronic warfare protection system including decoy launchers.

The ship will have several 25-mm. gun mounts and machine guns, and possibly one or more Oto Melara 76/62-mm. SR guns in the Strales configuration for missile defense.

To minimize costs, the LHDs will be built to commercial standards, modified somewhat to improve survivability, but without full military specifications. Tradeoffs between cost and survivability are being assessed. According to one estimate, the ship can be built for €300 million ($369 million), excluding combat systems.

[JimWH]

Big step up for the Italians, and it suggests that their fleet will eventually comprise 2 LHD and L LHA (retrospectively you could reclassify Cavour this way). It's going to be a tight squeeze to get everything into a 190m long ship though.

[Deks]

I'm surprised they're building it that small, to be honest. I initially wondered why they didn't do a license build of the Mistral or BPE, though presumably they want to support their industry which is fair enough. Interestingly though, at EUR300M without fit-out it seems it'll cost about the same as either of the other two without matching them in capability. Given that, you might expect there to be very little chance for export.

All seems a bit lop-sided, to me.

[Gubler, A.]

Different navies have different requirements. The new Italian LHD is to replace their San Giorgioclass LPDs and its much bigger than them. One of the key reasons it is much smaller than the JCI or Mistal class LHDs is the Italians only require ~750 passengers compared to ~1,000. If they felt the need to carry more troops they would build a bigger boat.

[Weasel]

Solomon's Blog reckons BAE are also quietly looking at further, unspecified, Upgrades of AAV............airbags anybody?!!! :beaver

Awesome... how do you convert a box capable of doing 6 knots into something capable of doing more?...answer take it out of the water...

hang on a minute...isn't that something we are already trying to do?

cheers


w

[JimWH]

Different navies have different requirements. The new Italian LHD is to replace their San Giorgioclass LPDs and its much bigger than them. One of the key reasons it is much smaller than the JCI or Mistal class LHDs is the Italians only require ~750 passengers compared to ~2,000. If they felt the need to carry more troops they would build a bigger boat.
I agree fully, different navies have different requirements. And now that I actually crunch the numbers most of the difference in EMF is explainable. The RAN's LHD will have an EMF of ~980 (i.e 30% more) and will displace about 30% more. So fair enough. Still, the air group and well dock appears to be of broadly similar composition to those aboard the BPE, so I'm still going to go out on a limb and say that these Italian LHD are probably going to be a wee bit cramped compared to the BPE design. But by the same token, as you've said: different navies different requirements. The size of the ship won't have been chosen at random.
As an aside, his will now mean that there are 6-7 navies which will within the next 10 years have significant fleet of flat deck amphibious vessels:
Australia
France
Italy
? Russia
South Korea
Spain
UK (Ocean on her own is beginning to look a little pokey, bring on LPH(R)!)
US
Seem a lot like a consensus developing.

[Gubler, A.]

X

[JimWH]

The 750 figure is not just the landing force but the entire non-crew presence including air wing, CS & CSS. Total occupany of a Italio LHD will be 950 compared to ~2,300 of an Oz LHD.
According to BAE Australia [1], after the 2009 design review and freeze, the total accommodation is fixed at 1,403. Working from other sources this would suggest an EMF of 978, + 146 contingency billets, and a ship's compliment of 279. This is broadly similar to the composition of the accommodation aboard the Juan Carlos 1 [2], and is consistent with stated government policy of the two ships being able to deploy a combined arms EMF of 2,000 (i.e. including attached aircraft) with an extra 10% to cover a brigade headquarters staff.
Do you have a source indicating otherwise. Because there is a bloody huge difference between what you're saying and everything else I've read on the subject.

[1] See here: http://www.baesystems.com/BAEProd/groups/public/documents/bae_publication/bae_aus_pdf_maritime_lhd.pdf
If that link is being antsy, you can get there via this link: http://www.baesystems.com/Businesses/BAESystemsAustralia/Divisions/Maritime/ProductBrochures/index.htm
[2] http://www.armada.mde.es/ArmadaPortal/page/Portal/ArmadaEspannola/conocenos_modernizacion/02_jc_i--02_ficha_tecnica_es

[Gubler, A.]

LOL! Getting my ADAS and ship numbers mixed up!

[JimWH]

You had me worried there for a bit Abe, I thought I got myself completely mixed up. The Army is going to have enough fun finding one light role battalion to familiarize themselves thoroughly with amphibious operations, let alone 2-4!*

*Though as I understand it, the current thinking is that both 1 and 2 RAR will get tapped to become 'light role/amphibious battalions'. Rather elegant solution really, the army transitions to having 4 styles of infantry (mechanised, motorised, light role/amphibious, light role/para) across the 7 battalions. Now to equip the light role/amphibious with BvS10!

[Raven22]

They still haven't decided on a model for how they will mount the ARG. It won't be a different 'role' for a battalion though, just a different 'task'. It will be more like the RBG concept in that it will be a normal battalion (doesn't have to be light) but simply at a reduced notice to move and with a higher level of training at amphib stuff. The real kicker is in the staff work anyway. Just about anyone can be trained on how to live on an amphib in a week or so if the staff work is sorted out.

[JimWH]

One of the presentations at the 2010 sea power conference included a discussion by an RAN captain regarding the perishability of amphibious skills. His basic thesis was that for reasons nobody really understand, the skills associated with planning and executing amphibious operations seems to last less time than skills in other domains. The up-shoot of which was that he was arguing for a core of people (probably navy) who were trained and practiced at amphibious warfare, and battalion staffs who were familiar enough with amphibious warfare not to cock it up. I'm pretty certain that the idea of 1 and 2 RAR being specialized into the role was mentioned, though that was by an RAN officer.
One way or the other, I agree with you that the important thing is that the BG staff are familiar 'phib ops. Operations over a beach (i.e. 'true' amphibious operations) aren't going to happen all that often or at hugely short notice (i.e. there'll be time to train people), but deployed operations through a semi-prepared harbour and with vertical envelopment are liable to happen at very much shorter notice, and that's were the staff being on top of their game is going to be important.
Two thoughts which occur to me:
1). Would it be worth creating an intermediate level Enhanced BG HQ staff? Obviously if both LHDs and the sealift ship are going then it's a brigade level deployement (~2,500 men and two dozen helicopters) and a brigade level HQ staff would be the right choice. But what about when just one ship goes? A 980 man EMF is a good deal bigger than a standard infantry battalion, and a standard infantry battalion HQ Coy is going to e pretty stretched to control everything (e.g. an Infantry Bn, an artillery bty, an armoured sqn, and a couple of aviation troops). Would a smallish HQ staff, well versed in amphibious operations, and commanded by a Colonel, make life easier? I guess I'm thinking of what amounts to a mini-MEU Command Element.
Would it reduce the need for on-line infantry battalion staffs to need to be amphibious experts, or is it just likely to put peoples' noses out of joint (I can see it going either way)?
2). Talisman Sabre is going to be fun with the LHD!

[Raven22]

There is going to be a permanent purple amphib command group (can't remember the name), probably commanded by Army, that will command any embarked forces when required. Any attached forces - be it the ARG or anyone else - will be commanded by this group until they hit the shore and they can start doing proper Army stuff. This group will also be where all the amphib SME knowledge will be held, limiting the skills the embarked forces have to learn to more practical pursuits.

As I said, the model which will be used for the rotation of the ARG hasn't been decided yet. Whether it is one battalion permanantly assigned, or whether it rotates every two years or so as with the RBG is still to be determined. It still hasn't even been worked out whether it will be a permant task - ie some dudes on the boat at all times - or whether it will be a loose BPT task, with the battle group able to do other things in the meantime. To be sure, there is no room in the force generation cycle for another obligation like this (at least while we are deployed, anyway)

[JimWH]

So that'd be like a somewhat miniature version of the UK's COMUKAMPHIBFOR (which is a Major General) then... Which makes a good amount of sense, and creates another deployable 1* billet with a command staff (kind of a cheeky extra brigade staff if you get right down to it, which has been a bottleneck intermittently over the past decade).

Didn't somebody fairly senior (as in CA or DCA) who ought to have known better say something like "we'll have a battalion permanently aboard ship!" only to very quickly retract it once somebody pointed out that not even marines spend all their time aboard ship. Given how tightly the army is stretched at the moment it would push the deployment plans into deeply nasty territory if a battalion were floating around all the time. Would seem to me to make far more sense to have one of the battalions tagged as the on-line 'phib battalion, which means being competent as 'phib operations not necessarily doing nothing but 'phib training.
[Ah the joy of being an RAAMC Lt posting anonymously on the internet: second guessing my seniors and generally behaving like a tool.]

[Raven22]

So that'd be like a somewhat miniature version of the UK's COMUKAMPHIBFOR (which is a Major General) then... Which makes a good amount of sense, and creates another deployable 1* billet with a command staff (kind of a cheeky extra brigade staff if you get right down to it, which has been a bottleneck intermittently over the past decade).

I don't how the Brits do it, but when deploying as an amphibious task group, the Australian version will have a CJTF in charge of everything, and under him will be the Commander Amphibious Task Force (CATF) and Commander Landing Forces (CLF). The CATF will almost certainly be the COMAUSTATG (I love Navy acronyms) in charge of the ships. The CLF will obviously command the embarked forces, but currently there is no permanent CLF. When the new ships come on line there will almost certainly be a permanent CLF with staff, who will command the landing forces until they are well ashore and a ground commander takes over the ground forces. This has its own drawbacks, like an untested command relationship, but it is better than simply throwing the most senior dude in the embarked forces the title CLF.



Didn't somebody fairly senior (as in CA or DCA) who ought to have known better say something like "we'll have a battalion permanently aboard ship!" only to very quickly retract it once somebody pointed out that not even marines spend all their time aboard ship.

Yeah, the CA wants the ARE (ie a CT) permanently embarked aboard ship to respond to contigencies (most likely NEO) at very short NTM. As you've said, its not really feasible with any likely force generation cycle. What I personally think the best solution is to have the kit for a generic CT embarked (incl a sect of PMV, Cav TP, maybe Tk Tp etc), so if the shit hits the fan the warm bodies can be married up with the kit very quickly (even at sea). This COA has its own obvious draw backs, but doesn't require a couple of hundred soldiers getting permanent suntans to work.

[Gubler, A.]

In terms of embarking forces and developing in depth skills in the dry Army a more practical method would be to embark an amphibious combat team onto a single LHD with an escorting FFG/FFH for a mini US Navy/USMC style Expeditionary Strike Group and send them to sea for 3-6 months every mid year. They can cruise South East Asia, South Pacific and even the Middle East in the off Monsoon season doing various amphib type and on land training with local forces. They would also be on hand if any emergency develops. 60 years of US Navy/USMC global peacekeeping/peacemaking experience shows that an at-sea deployed group is far more ready to deploy and intervene in any arising crisis than one at home port – even if they are further away from the crisis location.

The combat team would include detachments from 10 FSB (landing craft and beach terminal) and 5 Avn Regt (helos) on top of its reinforced company strength land combat force and CS & CSS. Preparing such an amphib combat team for such a deployment would be relatively an easy insert into the Army force generation cycle and would be more practical than a permanently assigned “Combat Team Kings Cross”. Also the Navy would be sending their ships to sea to obtain their own skills and providing an Army amphibious force for these deployments would make it possible for everyone to learn the business.

[buglerbilly]

This assumes that we will have Landing Craft that: -

a) Actually work;

b) Are worth a damn, by then!

[JimWH]

We've ordered LCM-1E Bug, can't be too many ways the procurement of them can be ferked up.

Actually, subject of, what ever did happen to the new landing craft? Last I heard was about 4 years ago that they were running trials. Obviously there's been a cluster frak somewhere in the chain, but seriously how hard is it to get a landing craft right?

[Raven22]

We've ordered LCM-1E Bug, can't be too many ways the procurement of them can be ferked up.

Make a bet...

[buglerbilly]

We've ordered LCM-1E Bug, can't be too many ways the procurement of them can be ferked up.

Actually, subject of, what ever did happen to the new landing craft? Last I heard was about 4 years ago that they were running trials. Obviously there's been a cluster frak somewhere in the chain, but seriously how hard is it to get a landing craft right?

Sarcasm skips by you sometimes doesn't it................

[JimWH]

Sarcasm skips by you sometimes doesn't it................
Occupational hazard Bug.

[JimWH]

Make a bet...
I don't make bets I'm bound to loose :p

[Gubler, A.]

We've ordered LCM-1E Bug, can't be too many ways the procurement of them can be ferked up.

Actually, subject of, what ever did happen to the new landing craft? Last I heard was about 4 years ago that they were running trials. Obviously there's been a cluster frak somewhere in the chain, but seriously how hard is it to get a landing craft right?

Well its pretty simple unless you want to make them either very light so a certain crane can lift them in and out of the water (LCM2000) or make them very fast when empty so they are great to joy ride VIPs around the harbour in (LCM1E). Of course there is nothing wrong with the LCM8 as built by NQEA in the 1970s for the Army. They should just order a repeat batch and consign the LCM2000 to the aluminium can scrap heap and the LCM1Es can stay in Spain. And then the Army shoudl start looking at CTDs for more advanced and capable over the beach LCMs. Of course this not a very commercial or complex approach so would never be pursued.

PS: As much as I love to chat about LCMs does anyone want to respond to my idea for a mini ESG annual deployment idea?

[Raven22]

PS: As much as I love to chat about LCMs does anyone want to respond to my idea for a mini ESG annual deployment idea?

What you wrote is pretty much exactly the chiefs intent (ie, the ARE), but he wants it essentially year round, not for 3-6 months each year.

Having a cruise once each year as part of the normal RTS cycle would be workable, depending on the model chosen. The problem is pretty much any model you want to choose won't work with the current brigade rotation force generation cycle. If you've got the one battalion designated the ready amphib battalion, then they will be required to generate forces outside of the brigade model, and you continue to have circles within circles as what happens now with the RBG. To make the system work within the brigade rotation model you'd have to have the ready amphib element swap between each brigade each year, but of course that would mean the loss of SME knowledge and as the baton was passed and each new element would have to be fully worked up each rotation. The other option would be to have the amphib battalion seperate from the force gen cycle, meaning they would be unavailable for scheduled deployments. This has some very obvious drawbacks.

The whole thing would be easier if we didn't have to generate forces for ops at the same time. As it is, we have to generate both deployed forces every eight months and online elements (ACT, RCT/RBG and soon ARE/ARG) at the same time, which makes the current system unworkable. A solution might be to go from a brigade rotation model to a battlegroup rotation model, whereby the battlegroups within each brigade would go through the readying, ready, reset phases independently of other brigades. You can then have, say, 3 Bde responsible for the ARE/ARG, 7 Bde responsible for the RBG/RCT and 1 Bde responsible for the ACT (I made that up), and just accept that if the brigade needs to generate forces for ongoing operations than that online element falls away.

For an Army our size we can't expect to be able to do everything all the time, which we try to do too often which leads to mediocrity.

[buglerbilly]

Marine Corps Releases New Operating Concept



The Marine Corps Operating Concepts — Third Edition, has been released and I wanted to make it available to readers. I’ll be writing much more about this document after I get some time to thoroughly read it. For now, I wanted to highlight this bit from the first chapter:

http://defensetech.org/wp-content/uploads//2010/06/usmcoperatingconcept.pdf


While Marine Corps forces may perform a variety of missions across the range of military operations, two stand at the forefront of what we do.

First, as part of the naval team we assure littoral access by bridging the difficult seam between operations at sea and on land. This is accomplished through a combination of activities ranging from military engagement, crisis response, and power projection (both soft and hard). This capability contributes to overcoming diplomatic, geographic and military challenges to access and assists the Nation in it strategic objectives of preventing conflict, protecting national interests, assuring access to engage partners and to defeat aggression when necessary.

Second, we fight what have historically been called “small wars,” operations that require a high degree of adaptability along with versatile, comprehensive skills. We have a long track record of success in solving; spanning recently from Al Anbar province, to the Barbary Wars and suppression of the slave trade in the early 19th century. These are complex problems in which purely military solutions will not suffice—because the fundamental causes of the conflict are often a complicated combination of security, economic, political and social issues.

– Greg Grant

Read more: http://defensetech.org/#ixzz0sIXcTbR8
Defense.org

[buglerbilly]

New Marine Corps Operating Concept Says Naval Infantry Must Shed Weight



I’m working my way through the new Marine Corps Operating Concepts document and wanted to highlight some of the weapons and equipment implications. To get back to its naval infantry roots, the service must shed some of the weight its gained fighting as a second land army in Iraq and Afghanistan, it says.

The concept document says the imperative to significantly lighten all of the component parts of the Marine’s combined arms air ground task force (MAGTF) “will have a significant impact on research and development, programmatic budgeting, acquisitions, doctrine development, and employment of future systems.”

The amount of sealift provided the Marines is not likely to increase by much, it says, so radical changes are in order to get everything on the sips; “business as usual” won’t do it.

“The process of leveraging emerging technologies should begin with a bottom-up reevaluation of all systems from individual equipment through large principal end-items with a specific focus on making each system smaller, lighter, and more efficient whenever possible.”

Toward that end the Marines will pursue the following objectives:

• With the one exception of the KC-130 aircraft, every item in the Marine inventory must be able to be embarked on an amphib and be employable from ship to shore without the use of a pier.

• Consideration should be given to requiring that all combat vehicles have scalable armor protection capable of being embarked separately from the vehicle.

• Infantry companies must be able to operate independently without combat vehicle support. To further reduce vehicle dependency, the Marines should buy the aerial cargo drone; reduce equipment density; reduce energy demands by emphasizing renewable and alternative energies; and reduce battlefield contractor dependence.

• All units must be self sustainable for 72 hours.

• Reexamine the basic building blocks of the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) to determine whether its current organization accurately reflects the realities of where and how it will be employed.

• Lighten the logistical footprint required to support the aviation combat element (ACE) by buying newer, less maintenance intensive, aircraft. The ACE must also reduce the amounts of fuel and oil it consumes.

• Add Joint Terminal Air Controllers (JTACs) to the lowest echelon possible.

– Greg Grant.

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/07/06/new-marine-corps-operating-concept-says-naval-infantry-must-shed-weight/#more-8043#ixzz0sxSVq9W2
Defense.org

[buglerbilly]

Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) Program Faces Cost, Schedule and Performance Risks

(Source: Government Accountability Office; issued July 2, 2010)

Given the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) development’s cost, schedule, and less-than-expected performance during its initial operational assessment and other issues, we were asked to review the EFV program. This briefing provides the results of our review. It examines performance, schedule, and cost risks facing the program following the program’s 2007 Nunn-McCurdy breach and restructuring.

The EFV is the successor to the Marine Corps’ existing amphibious assault vehicle (AAV), and is intended to transport troops from ships offshore to their inland destinations at higher speeds and from farther distances than the legacy AAV. Desire for ability to launch from farther offshore is driven by the growing range of shore-to-ship threats.

Two variants are being developed: A troop carrier for 17 combat-equipped Marines and a crew of three, and a command vehicle to manage combat operations in the field. The system has a reliability Key Performance Parameter requirement of 43.5 hours Mean Time Between Operational Mission Failure (MTBOMF).

Summary

Findings:

--Reliability growth approach and other performance issues present significant challenges and risks.
--Current nature of development, test, and procurement schedules add unnecessary risk to program
--Costs could increase due to concurrency, redesign effort, and final procurement quantity

Conclusions:

--Program’s history of cost growth, schedule slips and performance failures and the current challenges (including changing threats) raise the question of whether the business case for the EFV program (in terms of cost, schedule, and performance) is still sound.

Recommendations:

-- A reevaluation be performed to confirm the EFV remains a required asset and the preferred approach. If the EFV business case is confirmed, ensure that certain knowledge is gained prior to the start of OA-2, and add another OA to verify progress along an acceptable reliability growth curve.

--To ensure a more informed production decision and minimize investment risk, delay the production decision until the added OA and a design projected to provide the required reliability are completed, and reduce LRIP quantities to the minimum necessary and document the rationale for the quantity if it is in excess of 10 percent of the total planned buy.

Click here for the full report (32 pages in PDF format) on the GAO website.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10758r.pdf

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

EFV Debate Is Really About The Future Of The Marine Corps



19:42 GMT, July 14, 2010 Inside the U.S. Navy, a defense newsletter, reported last week that Pentagon policymakers have decided to take the advice of the Government Accountability Office and review whether the business case for the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is still valid. EFV is being developed by the Marine Corps to replace a 40-year-old amphibious vehicle that is the main way Marines move from ship to shore in combat. The leadership of the Marine Corps says EFV is its top ground-combat modernization priority, but the program has seen big cost increases and schedule delays leading some analysts to question whether it makes sense to proceed with the program.

For people who don't follow military affairs closely, EFV is just the latest in a series of impenetrably arcane program debates brought on by the need to rein in Pentagon spending. But within the Marine Corps, senior leaders understand that the fate of their entire service hinges on the outcome of EFV deliberations. If they don't field a successor to their obsolete Cold War amphibious vehicles soon, they will have to begin abandoning the mission that has long been at the core of their identity. That mission is usually referred to as forcible entry, meaning the capacity to gain access to contested coastlines despite the efforts of enemies to keep U.S. forces out.

After nine years of fighting in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, a fashionable idea has taken hold in policymaking circles that amphibious warfare is largely a thing of the past, and that the Marine Corps needs to focus on other missions more vital to the prosecution of unconventional conflicts. It's true that Marines have been spending less time afloat and more time away from the sea -- see Frank Oliveri's cover story, "Beyond the Beachhead," in this week's Congressional Quarterly Weekly -- but that is probably just a temporary phenomenon. Most of the world's population still lives within a one-day ride from the beach, and America's security (not to mention its prosperity) depends on having assured access to that narrow band of littoral real estate.

But technology is advancing quickly, and the Marine Corps can't credibly conduct amphibious operations today with weapons designed for the Nixon era. That's why it is replacing its legacy aircraft with systems such as the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor and F-35B fighter that have the vertical agility to takeoff and land on a dime. A similar transformation is required in its ground vehicles, so that instead of being sitting ducks that require warships to deposit them within range of enemy guns ashore, they can use the sea as a maneuver space to hit the beach from over the horizon whenever and wherever it is most advantageous.

EFV was designed with that need in mind, so it has three times the water speed and twice the armor of existing amphibious vehicles. A single EFV can transport an entire 17-person rifle squadron ashore, and then quickly penetrate inland at the speed of an M-1 tank without having to use the roads where improvised explosives are often planted. That's a complicated mission profile requiring a versatile vehicle, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps is adamant that no suitable alternative to EFV exists. Government testers previously complained that the vehicle needed to be more reliable, but it is now exceeding reliability goals, so the question is whether the Obama Administration is going to spend the money necessary to keep America in the amphibious-warfare business. If the answer is "no," it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out what that means for the future of the U.S. Marine Corps.

----
Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.

[buglerbilly]

Huzzah! For The Humble Yet Effective Logistic Support Vessel (LSV)

By Craig Hooper

Defense Tech Naval Warfare Analyst



One of the more thankless contributors to America’s “National Fleet” is the U.S. Army’s Logistic Support Vessel (LSV). The 8 General Frank S. Besson Class LSVs are next-generation LSTs–an expendable, beach-able, plodding, “fill-with-what-you-will” vessel.

The LSV is a perfect example of defense “humbletech”–a technical asset so mundane it gets completely overlooked by the wiz-bang gadgetry of modern defense technologists.

LSVs are unexciting–they are cheap, slow, and built by VT Halter Marine–an entirely off-the-DC-radar shipbuilding company. That is probably why the national role of LSV advocate has been assumed by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Michael W. Carr–and not some high-profile member of Congress or a two-star Powerpoint Ranger skippering a desk in Crystal City.

CW3 Carr just sails on the thing, after all–a perfect humbletech kind of guy. But the CW3 makes some salient points in the “Professional Notes” section of the July 2010 issue of Proceedings, saying that the Army, in particular, should use the $32 million dollar LSVs to:

“regain it’s roots in amphibious operations, reinstating in its maritime-training curriculum the many valuable lessons and skills learned during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam relating to oceanography, waves, beaches, tides and currents. Increased training should be provided for worldwide amphibious operations, with a focus on Africa…”

Think what you will about that strategic goal, but, as far as the platform goes, an LSV–with its slow speed, tiny draft, mid-sized crew (a core of about 30) and long legs (5,000 miles) would be a perfect “presence” tool for Africa and the Pacific Islands. Capable of carrying the equivalent of 28 Abrams M1A tanks, the LSV can bring a lot of stuff to a lot of places. But that’s not all.

CW3 Carr appreciates the flexible “get-it-done” nature of the platform, and, in a June 2006 issue of Proceedings, he advocated for using the LSV as a Special Operations platform or an Unmanned Vehicle carrier:

“An LSV’s well deck, fitted with 70,000-pound working load cloverleaf tie-down fittings, staged at 6-foot centers, is highly flexible and adaptable. Combinations of boats, people pods, recompression chambers, and remotely operated vehicles can all be supported.

Unmanned aerial vehicles could be launched and recovered using the bow ramp. With modifications a retractable roof could be installed over the well deck and a dedicated helicopter pad added to the stern. Even as presently configured the LSV is an ideal platform for supporting special operations missions.”

That’s how to leverage cheap tech.

For low-threat presence and long-standing, watch-oriented pirate/anti-smuggler missions, the LSV is a cost-effective way to get modest capabilities to the field. But…why aren’t these cheap assets being used?

Let’s get these humble platforms out into the field, and perhaps, after giving them a chance, the experience might start getting us to think a little harder about how a handful of cheap, specialized LSVs (read up on the helicopter, semi submersible and troop carrying variants) might contribute to U.S. security.

Let’s talk stimulus. LSVs are simple–not even Northrop Grumman’s Avondale Yard could mess them up. They are cheap enough to be made in numbers, used hard, and then handed out to friends. Take the Philippines–two helicopter-ready variants are currently serving in the Philippine Navy–the BRP Dagupan City (LC-551) and BRP Bacolod City (LC-550). For regions struggling to field a navy and patrol a long coastline, U.S. built LSVs–cheap pieces of humbletech that they are–might be the right way to go.



Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/07/23/huzzah-for-the-humbletech-logistic-support-vessel-lsv/#more-8361#ixzz0ua3iwHco
Defense.org

[buglerbilly]

First JHSV To Be Delivered To Army In 2012

Jul 23, 2010



By Michael Bruno michael_bruno@aviationweek.com

The future U.S. Army Vessel (USAV) Spearhead is expected to be delivered to the Army’s 7th Sustainment Brigade in 2012.

The second ship of the Joint High Speed Vessel program, the future USNS Vigilant, will be delivered to the Navy the following year.

The Army and Navy authenticated the keel for the Spearhead on July 22 at the Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala., which traditionally marks the beginning of ship construction.

The commercially designed, non-combatant vessel is the result of recent Pentagon-ordered consolidation of the Army Theater Support Vessel and the Navy High Speed Connector. Consequently, the consolidated program was able to hammer out a military design within four years of starting the rival efforts, and now military officials are touting faster shipbuilding. With the Pentagon’s consolidation, Austal constructed a “modular manufacturing facility” in November 2009 to accelerate its capacity fivefold while cutting construction time.

According to Naval Sea Systems Command, the ships will be capable of transporting 600 short tons 1,200 nm. at an average speed of 35 kt. They will be able to operate in shallow-draft waters, working with roll-on/roll-off discharge facilities, and on/off-loading a combat-loaded Abrams Main Battle Tank (M1A2), for example. Other joint requirements include an aviation flight deck to support 24-hr. air vehicle launch-and-recovery operations.

Illustration: Austal

[buglerbilly]

Pentagon Starts Study of Post-Afghan Marine Corps

By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

Published: 3 Aug 2010 18:34

Even as combat operations are causing the highest casualty rates of the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. Marine Corps has begun to examine the size and shape of a post-war force, a top service official said Aug. 3.

"We're turning our thinking to resetting the Corps - that's the code word - and it has to do with what do we want the Marine Corps to look like once we're out of Afghanistan and assuming there are no infantry battalions in sustained combat operations anywhere in the world," Navy Undersecretary Bob Work told a lunchtime audience in Washington.

"The basis for this thinking is going to be a Force Structure Review Group (FSRG)," Work said. "It's going to be done primarily at MCCDC [Marine Corps Combat Development Command] and the Marine Corps staffs. It will have input from the outgoing and the incoming Marine Corps commandants."

Gen. James Amos, the current assistant commandant of the Corps, has been nominated to relieve outgoing commandant Gen. James Conway later this summer.

The study, Work added, will consider the requirements of major defense planning documents including the Quadrennial Defense Review, completed earlier this year, as well as incorporating "lessons the Marine Corps has learned over the last seven years of war."

"The FSRG is going to outline the size and organization of the post-Afghanistan Marine Corps," Work explained. "We expect those results sometime in November or December so that they can be thoroughly vetted first, within the Department of the Navy, then within the Department of Defense. So the earliest you might see concrete change in the structure, organization and size of the Marine Corps is in POM 13."

The Program Objective Memorandum for 2013 is a Pentagon budget planning document that will be done next year.

"All of the changes are going to be conditions based on what happens in Afghanistan," Work said. "If we're still hard in the fight then the Marine Corps will stay focused on that fight. But we'll at least be thinking about what the Marine Corps might look like."

Work, who served as a Marine artillery colonel, spoke at a military strategy forum hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He listed six items "certain to define the character of the future Marine Corps."

■ The Marine Corps will "more reflect its naval character." The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have forced the Corps to focus on sustained land combat, Work said, but he noted that the last three commandants have said in their guidance that "we want to get back to our naval roots." The result, he said, would be a "tighter linkage with the United States Navy."

Marines will begin operating from a variety of new platforms like the Littoral Combat Ship and Joint High Speed Vessel, and "should come up with new and innovative ways to deploy Marines - in smaller packages, with distributed capabilities." The Corps will also review its tactical aviation plans to make sure the Navy and Marine Corps "are in complete sync" and can afford what they want.

■ "The Equipment Density List will be higher than the pre-war EDL." Even small Marine units, Work said, have become so spread out in combat that they need more equipment, including additional weapons and communications gear.

■ Increased reliance on unmanned systems. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Work said, will soon be unveiling a new vision of unmanned systems in the Navy and Marine Corps.

■ The future force will be more energy-efficient than today, Work declared, including more reliance on solar power. The Marine Corps is in the forefront of establishing tactical energy savings, Work said, with new systems that can have a major impact on the battlefield of the future. Less reliance on gas or oil fuel, he noted, would mean fewer logistics convoys, freeing vehicles and Marines for other duties.

■ Marine gear and vehicles will need to be lighter, he said, noting that "Marines have become heavier across the board." The Corps is producing, Work added, a ground vehicle strategy to address the issue.

■ The Corps, Work stressed, "will be capable of conducting amphibious assaults and joint forcible entry operations."

Work noted that the Corps and the Navy have settled on a fleet of 33 amphibious ships, having deemed the "high-end requirement" of 38 ships unaffordable. Those 33 ships, he said, could carry two Marine Expeditionary Brigades (MEBs), but not all their support equipment. "But it would accomplish the mission," he said.

In reviewing amphibious ship needs, the Navy Department - which includes the Navy and Marine Corps - "was not moved by arguments that amphibious assault is obsolete," he observed, and is working to adapt amphibious tactics to a world where potential enemies have greater access to precision weapons.

"We acknowledge the bad guys are getting guided weapons," he said, and that "we will be pushed out and we will have to operate differently."

Major questions, Work admitted, remain to be answered about the timing and sequence of amphibious assaults. "This will depend a lot on the U.S. Air Force," he said, noting the current effort to create a new concept of joint operations called Air Sea Battle. "The Air Force will be central, as will the Army with follow-on forces," he added.

Another major issue to be decided is how far from shore to launch an assault once local superiority has been achieved. "We haven't answered that since 1986," Work declared, even though many Marine Corps and Navy planners assume the distance to be 25 nautical miles. "It may turn out to be 25 nautical miles, it may be greater, it may be less. But we will make the case based on analysis."

The nature of an enemy's counter-attack also is being examined, he said, but he ended on an upbeat note.

"This is a time for a lot of innovation," Work said, "and I'm very bullish on the Marines and their future."

[buglerbilly]

Marines Future Bright, But EFV??

By Greg Grant Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010 6:03 pm



The post-Afghanistan future of the Marine Corps is a bright one, Navy Undersecretary Bob Work said today, and the naval infantry’s greatest value has been and will continue to be executing amphibious operations. Now, how you define amphibious operations versus forcible entry is a matter of often intense debate, in the Marine Corps, the Navy and DoD.

Since Work’s address at CSIS today was on the future of the Marines, let’s deal with the hot topic up front: he gave a very tepid endorsement of the Marine’s new armored amphibian, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. The EFV is a “tremendous machine,” he said, but it is “very expensive.” Its future, along with the future of all Marine platforms, is under scrutiny and will be decided during ongoing “affordability discussions.”

It was telling that, as Work talked about trade offs among costly platforms, he pivoted from the EFV to the MV-22, another very costly platform (about the same price as a KC-130J, he said), and the value and range of options the vertical lifter provides in forcible entry. I think the Marines leveraged their future to the Osprey many years ago and I’m guessing that in the final budget drills it squeezes out the EFV.

Back to amphibious operations. There are many ways to skin a cat, and crawling over coral in the face of an enemy’s hardened defenses is not the only, nor is it the preferable, way to get troops ashore. The definition of “amphibious assault” is establishing a ready to fight force on hostile shores, Work said. It does not mean piling Marines in front of a sea wall under heavy fire and then painstakingly carving out a blood-smeared beachhead. Better is to land troops where the enemy isn’t by performing some fancy “littoral maneuver.”

The mission the Marines should truly embrace, and the one at which they would excel, is providing the amphibious component of joint “theater entry” operations. The beauty of joint theater entry operations is the other services can buy into it, Work said. Historical examples have shown the importance of Army airborne brigades in theater entry; it also allows setting up bases ashore to conduct land-based air operations, always appealing to the Air Force and its short-legged tactical fighters.

The Navy leadership has never questioned the need for amphibious assault, Work said; the debate was over the number of amphibious ships. For a “full-up, absolutely high-end,” amphibious assault, studies showed 38 amphibs were needed, he said. Yet, that number was probably not defensible, so, after much debate, 33 amphibs was the number settled on as a “reasonable floor.” With 33 amphibious ships the Marines can land two expeditionary brigades; about 2 percent of the entire force structure, he said.

The flexibility of amphibious ships across a wide range of missions – regional patrolling, partnership building, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, raiding, shows of force — is what ultimately sold Defense Secretary Robert Gates on maintaining a large amphib fleet. They are the most highly demanded ships by the combatant commanders, he said, second only to Ballistic Missile Defense ships.

The Navy is “working hard” with Northrop Grumman to get a lower price for the new Landing Platform Dock (LPD) and LHA amphibious assault ships, he said: “We’re not going to put those ships on contract until we get the price that we think those ships should be.” The ultimate design of the new LHA and Landing Ship Dock (LSD) is also to be determined.

Work did give the Marines a bit of a warning that they are getting too big, literally; their heavier vehicles and kit are maxing out the available lift. “The amphibious system is a system which the Navy and Marine Corps operate together, and we have to be able to make trade-offs both in what we put in those ships as well as the number of ships we have.”

Marine Lt. Gen. George Flynn, who heads up Marine Corps Combat Development Command, and who spoke at the same CSIS event, said the Marines will shave 10,000 vehicles from their battle fleet to try and reduce weight, from the current 42,000 to about 32,000 over the next three years. He also said the Marines must re-reexamine their requirements across the board and decide where they can take risks.

Work was asked about the Independent QDR Panel’s recommendation to build to a 346-ship fleet, using the 1993 Bottom-Up Review as a force planning model. The Navy’s target for its future fleet, Work said, somewhere between 313 and 323 (up from 286 today), is not too different from the BUR’s proposed fleet. The composition of that future fleet, according to Work: 11 active carriers, 48 attack submarines, 88 to 96 large surface combatants and 55 Littoral Combat Ships and 33 amphibs.

[buglerbilly]

Amphibious Assault At Top Of USMC Priorities

Aug 4, 2010



By Bettina H. Chavanne

Amphibious assault remains at the top of the priorities the U.S. Marine Corps is setting for its post-Afghanistan force, according to a leading official at the Navy Department.

Robert “Bob” Work, undersecretary of the Navy, told a Center for Strategic and International Studies audience in Washington Aug. 3 that his top six priorities for the Marines will be reflected in the Force Structure Review Group findings, expected in November. Budget effects then would be felt in the Fiscal 2013 process.

“We will be capable of conducting amphibious assaults in joint forcible operations,” Work said emphatically. “Why is this true and why does it have to be done? We’re getting close to an answer. We’ve been working on it since last May in a very systematic way.”

The comments come as the need and role of amphibious assault, a traditional Corps specialty, has been debated in light of post-9/11 threats and increasing budget restrictions — leaving one of the Marines’ top acquisition programs, the embattled General Dynamics Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, in a precarious state.

Yet, Work — a retired USMC colonel and independent analyst before joining the Pentagon under the Obama administration — says the department “never, ever, ever questioned the need to conduct amphibious assaults,” and he underpinned amphibious assault in a list of capabilities “certain to define the future Marine Corps.”

Other priorities on the list include better reflection of the Corps’ “naval character,” Work says. He notes the service has expressed its desire to return to its naval heritage rather than acting as a second army, as has happened in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

“You should see the Marines operate from new platforms,” he says, citing the Littoral Combat Ship and Joint High Speed Vessel as examples. He also says that the “equipment density list” will be higher than it was before the wars. Equipment density refers to the amount of equipment a force takes into combat.

“In Afghanistan, units are spread out incredibly,” Work notes. “That’s required us to put more weapons, communications equipment, etc., into units to allow them to fight.”

But Work also cites the need for the Marines to become a lighter force. “Marine Corps units are heavier across the board,” he says. “The Marines have been asked to produce a Ground Combat Vehicle strategy and we are looking hard at the mix and types of vehicles.”

The Marines also will rely increasingly on unmanned systems, he says. Department Secretary Ray Mabus will unveil “a wide initiative on unmanned systems, and the Marines have been instrumental in establishing that vision,” according to Work.

Finally, the future Marine Corps also will be more energy efficient, Work says. “The Marines are at the forefront of establishing tactical energy savings.”

Photo: USMC

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Amphibious Ops Under Fire

Posted by Bill Sweetman at 8/4/2010 6:58 AM CDT

Navy Undersecretary Bob Work gave an intense and PowerPoint-free summary of the "after-Afghanistan" future of the Marine Corps at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Tuesday.

Bettina Chavanne has reported on the main points here (subscription no longer required) but the thrust of Work's message was this: The Navy and Marines have determined that landing large forces from the sea will continue to be vital, and on a large-scale, joint-force basis, and that any such landing must be equipped to overcome a hostile response. A Force Structure Review Group (FSRG) has been formed to determine a recommended force size and will report in November.

Work's presentation, however, drew some pointed comments from Dakota Wood of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments - where Work was a senior analyst before moving into the administration. (Like Work, Wood is a Marine.)

The Marine Corps, Wood said in a panel session after Work's talk, "is encumbered by an acquisition program that seems to be untenable." Wood pointed to several challenges in the way of a post-Afghanistan Corps, equipped to deploy troops in potentially hostile areas, in an era when the opposition has guided weapons.

Those challenges included "the growing weight of units" (such as F-35s replacing Harriers and V-22s replacing CH-46s), "the spiraling cost of acquisition programs and a limited number of amphibs". (On weight, Work also commented that, for the first time, the Navy's big amphibious ships are hitting their limits in payload weight, not volume.)


LHA-6 America with V-22s and JSFs

Wood stopped short of calling the Corps spoiled rotten, but noted that "with regard to combat, the current Corps is the most experienced since Korea. With regard to lean budgets, the current Corps is the least experienced since Carter."

The Marine budget has doubled in the last decade and the Corps plans another $16 billion in post-war reset, together with other goals such as replacing 5,500 $150,000 Humvees with the same number of $500,000 Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.

Another issue with the plan: although it presumes air force support, in terms of ISR, bombers and space assets, the FSRG is Marine-only and will be vetted only by the Navy. And although Work twice singled out USAF bombers as contributors to the Marine mission - in terms of providing fire support and helping to suppress guided rocket fire - the Marines (via the joint staff) have remained persistently hostile to the idea of a new USAF bomber.

Comments to this are noteworthy............

Marcase wrote:
It's been noted elsewhere, but the total mass (as in both size and curb weight) of Marine Corps vehicles have also risen dramatically. That is going to be a serious issue as most USN and MSC cargo spaces are equipped for soft-top Humvees (or even M-151 MUTTs) which are being replaced by modern, but massive, MRAPs, M-ATVs and/or JLTVs. Same goes for trucks and armor.

The Marines hostility towards a USAF NGB must come from the carrier navy; the USN wants its own deep strike 'optionally manned' platform. Marines in general are smart, and a PGM deep strike asset that allows them to do a MV-22 deep strike of their own would only be welcomed.

8/4/2010 3:43 PM CDT

[buglerbilly]

Caught on a Lee Shore (excerpt)

(Source: The American Interest; undated from Sept.-Oct. 2010 issue)

(by Dakota L. Wood)

Currently, the United States has two armies. At least that’s the growing concern of senior leaders in the Marine Corps and a point echoed as well by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates as recently as this May.

Their observation stems from the impact that seven years of sustained land operations have had on the Corps. Like the Army, the Marine Corps has had to increase its inventory of heavy-armored vehicles to counter the widespread use of powerful improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. The weight and size of its units have grown to the point that Marine Corps leaders worry about their ability to embark them aboard amphibious ships.

The complexity of protracted counterinsurgency and stability operations has also caused the Corps to dedicate its institutional attention to these challenges almost to the exclusion of everything else, especially amphibious operations.

To counter these trends—especially increasing weight and decreasing experience aboard ship—the Corps has begun reviewing its equipping, training and exercise initiatives and is working to regain proficiency in amphibious operations. Representative of this effort is the recently concluded “Dawn Blitz”, a two-week long major exercise that took place this past June at Camp Pendleton, California, culminating in a brigade-level amphibious assault, the first such exercise in nearly a decade.

The Corps’s concern about becoming a “second land army” touches a nerve within a service perpetually worried about its perceived relevance. Indeed, its identity as an amphibious force is the feature that most distinguishes the Corps from the Army, yet the need for such a capability is being increasingly questioned. America does not need two armies in the conventional sense, notwithstanding the fact that the operational demands of Iraq and Afghanistan exceeded the Army’s capacity, thus requiring the extended use of the Marine Corps. As U.S. involvement in these conflicts winds down, the Corps will need to refocus on those characteristics that distinguish it from the Army.

For example, the Army’s primary mission is to win major land wars. As a consequence, it fields large, heavy units that require lots of lift to move. Prerequisites for their employment include secure deepwater ports and large airfields through which they can deploy to the scene of conflict. Ideally, such infrastructure is in close proximity to the crisis for which such forces are being deployed. But what does the United States do when it isn’t? What options exist when the enemy can threaten the traditional transportation nodes on which land forces are typically dependent?

Amphibious forces provide the option of deploying ground combat power to a conflict where roads, ports or airfields are not available. They also provide the U.S. military a means to complicate an opponent’s defensive calculation by multiplying the areas he must defend, thus forcing him to spread his forces thin and dedicate a portion of his limited resources to this effort that he would otherwise use for other purposes.

Amphibious forces can also threaten an enemy’s lines of supply. This is particularly important when one considers how much material is transported by sea. The majority of the world’s maritime traffic flows through a relatively limited number of narrow chokepoints. Amphibious forces are well suited to the task of interdicting such commerce, thus posing a direct challenge to the ability of an opponent to sustain his combat operations over time.

But to pose such a threat, one has to be proficient at such operations and properly equipped for the task. The Marine Corps is increasingly concerned that its amphibious skills have atrophied to worrisome levels and that its selection of equipment may be both ill-suited for the task and more expensive than it can afford. Those worries are justified.

The service’s acquisition efforts and operational concepts have not kept pace with changes in the operational and threat environments with which it will have to contend. In addition, the Corps has not effectively challenged the U.S. Navy’s shipbuilding program, which has resulted in a steady decline in the number of amphibious ships it operates.

This latter point is most troubling; if there aren’t enough amphibious ships to get Marine Corps forces where they need to be, it won’t matter how light or well trained its forces are. (end of excerpt)

Click here for the complete article, on The American Interest website.

http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=859

Dakota L. Wood, a retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel, is currently a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

USMC Digs In To Save EFV

Aug 9, 2010



By Michael Fabey

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has proved to be a master at divesting the services of their most beloved programs. He stopped the U.S. Air Force’s longer-term production of the F-22 and killed its combat search-and-rescue replacement (CSAR-X) plans. The Army’s Future Combat System is now just a hollow cave filled with the echo of spinoffs.

But Gates may have met his match when taking on the U.S. Marine Corps and its expeditionary fighting vehicle (EFV), which Gates has started to speculate — quite publicly — might not be worth the risk and cost.

EFV is meant to pound through enemy surf and land Marines ashore, carrying them miles inland over contested terrain.

Gates raises sound questions about whether a vehicle like this is still relevant, given the current conflicts and changing needs of war.

But the Marines also make sound counter-arguments. True, the military really hasn’t needed to storm enemy shores with a vehicle like this since World War II, but that doesn’t mean the capability — or the threat of one — isn’t needed.

The U.S. hasn’t used an atomic or nuclear weapon since the World War II either, but few would argue the country needs to scrap all major programs dedicated to keeping that capability.

Further, the Marines point out, the proper Pentagon officials have already reviewed and blessed the EFV from a requirements and capability perspective. Of course, the Air Force also had made that argument for its CSAR-X program, which the service said was its second-highest priority procurement effort.

But when it comes to saving programs, no group is better than the Marines. No one need look any further than the V-22 Osprey for proof of that.

Plagued by fatal crashes during testing and tainted by efforts to cover up its development shortcomings, the program still stayed on track and took flight — thanks mostly to the Marines’ single-minded dedication to getting the aircraft deployed.

The Marines saw the Osprey as a linchpin for their aviation operations and they were determined to stop anything from grounding their bird, which made its appearance in Iraq at the end of the last decade.

To the Marines, saving a program is just like war. It’s a matter of tactics and strategy, especially information operations, the same used in counterinsurgency. The Marines know all about that — they wrote the manual decades ago. Now they are just as dedicated to saving their EFV and, in a way, to preserving their own ethos, their own sense of being.

As Lexington Institute military analyst Loren Thompson wrote recently, “If they don’t field a successor to their obsolete Cold War amphibious vehicles soon, they will have to begin abandoning the mission that has long been at the core of their identity.

“The question is whether the Obama administration is going to spend the money necessary to keep America in the amphibious-warfare business,” he added.

It’s a business the U.S. can’t afford to give up — not if the Marines have anything to do with it.

Photo: USMC

[buglerbilly]

The Future of the Marines and Forcible Entry in a Battle Network Regime



Last week, Navy Undersecretary Bob Work laid out the sea services’ vision for the Marine Corps post-Afghanistan at CSIS, in Washington, D.C. (audio here). Work echoed the theme outgoing Commandant James Conway, and others, have been repeatedly hammering away for a good year or so: that the Marines must return to their maritime roots to differentiate themselves enough so as not to be mistaken for the Army, as we already have one of those.

Work has some intriguing ideas, most still being refined, on how the Marines intend to operate in anti-access environments where enemies possesses large magazines filled with precision weaponry known as G-RAMM — guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles. Military planners have always said ground operations can only be conducted once the Air Force has achieved air superiority over the battlefield. Now, as Work points out, the precondition for conducting future ground operations at the –mid to high-end will be the imperative to achieve “battle network superiority.”

Achieving battle network superiority promises to be more challenging than achieving and maintaining air superiority. The proliferation of reconnaissance strike battle networks, either at the low-end by enemies tapping the potential of Google Earth, GPS, cell phones and guided weapons, or at the high-end with China putting into space GPS and maritime surveillance satellite constellations and building anti-ship ballistic missiles, raises the challenge of not only penetrating those networks but also operating within them, as redundancy and commercial options may allow continuous repair of a degraded recon and strike network.

Work said his is a very different vision of network warfare than the “network centric” ideas propagated by Adm. Bill Owens and Art Cebrowski in the heady “revolution in military affairs” days. Their failure was thinking the U.S. would always monopolize the guided weapons regime.

As it turned out, because of the relatively low cost of guided weapons and often commercially available command and control networks, we’re seeing the rapid and widespread proliferation of battle networks; Hezbollah employed a simple yet effective battle network in the 2006 war in Lebanon. “Any student of history would have anticipated this, in the 90s we drank our own Kool-Aid and we assumed we’d have this monopoly forever.”

Defeating an enemy’s reconnaissance strike battle network will demand a methodical, sustained fight in all dimensions, sea, air and land. The old mantra that “speed kills” doesn’t work in the battle network regime; rushing headlong into an enemy’s battle network, when that enemy has vast magazines of guided weapons, will result in one’s rapid demise.

Achieving battle network superiority will take time, Work said, requiring a phased campaign. The Navy and Air Force, employing operational concepts develop under the AirSea Battle initiative, will counter the higher-end or longer ranged GRAMM threat, while the Marine air ground task force, once ashore, will battle the shorter ranged rockets, artillery and mortars.

Once Marines have been built up ashore, they must be able to survive a counterattack. Yet, the expected counterattack will no longer come in the form of a motorized rifle regiment (for which the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle was originally designed to repel back in the 1980s), Work said, instead it will be a GRAMM threat. So, the Marines must think about how far out they must push that inner counter-GRAMM perimeter so that rockets and mortars aren’t impacting on the assembly area so men and equipment can be offloaded.

Work’s explication of the Marine’s role in theater entry sounded to me like it blew some big holes in the rationale for the EFV armored amphibian. When the EFV’s initial requirements were written, some 25 years ago, the need was to launch from over the horizon and get inland quickly before the Soviet motorized rifle battalion counterattack could pin you to the beach. Perhaps an extremely costly armored personnel carrier with a 30mm stabilized gun isn’t the best solution to the GRAAM problem set.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said, guided weapons in the hands of potential enemies will force Navy ships farther offshore. Work said he’s not so sure. After a period of time in which the joint force can achieve battle network superiority, or at least attrit the enemy’s reconnaissance strike network down to manageable levels, the amphibs might be able to move closer to shore before they launch.

Yet, as ships move closer to shore, they enter into a much dirtier and more cluttered electronic spectrum, they become more vulnerable to enemies in fast-attack craft, mines and they close within the envelope of a host of guided missiles (Hellfire, TOW, etc.) that can be pressed into service as anti-ship missiles fired from mobile or very low signature platforms.

Work made clear that has vision of amphibious landing isn’t the Tarawa or Iwo Jima island fortress assault model. Better, is to land troops where the enemy isn’t doing “littoral maneuver.” The mission the Marines should truly embrace, and one at which they would excel, is providing the amphibious component of joint “theater entry” operations. Work said the Army’s airborne brigades would provide a valuable force for theater entry. Theater entry would also allow setting up bases ashore to conduct land based air operations, always appealing to the Air Force and its short legged tactical fighters.

Yet, as another whip smart former Marine, CSBA’s Dakota Wood, told me, penetrating an enemy anti-access network is one thing. Operating inside it is something else. The real contest will come in close contact with enemy forces where short range GRAMM systems may take us back to attrition warfare, he said. That’s exactly what the Israelis, long the undisputed masters of maneuver warfare, ran into against Hezbollah in 2006.

A discussion I have yet to hear is how the Navy-Marines plan to conduct amphibious operations in heavily urbanized littorals; pretty much every analysis of the future operating environment points to the hyper-urbanization of the littorals. Offloading Marines and their equipment directly into somebody’s neighborhood introduces a host of complications such as restricting freedom of maneuver, canalization, etc. Not to mention that it’s really hard to do anything resembling a covert landing of a large force into an urban area.

Work said he and his staff are working on answers to the many questions surrounding amphibious operations and power projection in a reconnaissance strike battle network regime. We eagerly await the results.

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/08/11/the-future-of-the-marines-and-forcible-entry-in-a-battle-network-regime/#more-8650#ixzz0wOgIFczh
Defense.org

[Gubler, A.]

Comments to this are noteworthy............

Marcase wrote:
It's been noted elsewhere, but the total mass (as in both size and curb weight) of Marine Corps vehicles have also risen dramatically. That is going to be a serious issue as most USN and MSC cargo spaces are equipped for soft-top Humvees (or even M-151 MUTTs) which are being replaced by modern, but massive, MRAPs, M-ATVs and/or JLTVs. Same goes for trucks and armor.

Nah this is just armchair general static.

The most important metric for amphibious tranport is truck lane meters. Ie how much surface area on the vehicle deck floor the vehicle consumes. You'll never going to sink a LHD or RO-RO with vehicle weight and there is plenty of empty air above those Hummers. So heavier and higher MRAPs are no problem as they consume a very similar surface area to 2 1/2 ton trucks and the like. The only problem you would face would be driving a MRAP or JLTV to the flight deck via the internal ramp system but since you aren't going to be air lifting these vehicles to shore its not an issue.

[buglerbilly]

Gates Orders Marine Corps Force Structure Review

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued August 12, 2010)

SAN FRANCISCO --- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has ordered a thorough force structure review of the Marine Corps to determine what an expeditionary force in readiness should look like in the 21st century.

Gates gave the order today in a speech here at the Marines’ Memorial Club & Hotel as part of the George P. Shultz lecture series.

The Marine Corps review is part of a much larger effort throughout the department to understand the world as it is today and what the military needs will be tomorrow.

“All of the military services have been challenged to find the right balance between preserving what is unique and valuable in their traditions, while at the same time making the changes necessary to win the wars we are in and prepare for the likely future threats in the years and decades to come,” the secretary said.

There are questions about the mission of the Marine Corps, Gates said. Before World War II, the Marines very successfully conducted ”small wars” in the western hemisphere. The service also developed the rationale and logistics needed to conduct amphibious warfare.

During World War II, the Corps was wholly dedicated to landing on the beaches in the South and Central Pacific. America’s first offensive of World War II was when Marines landed on the beaches of Guadalcanal and began the campaign against Japan in August 1942. Tarawa, Saipan, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa are just a few of the landings Marines made.

Since then, Marines have fought on the beaches, mountains and trenches of Korea, the highlands and rice paddies of Vietnam, and the deserts of Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. Although many of these operations saw Marines initially projected from the sea, “they soon turned into long, grinding, ground engagements,” Gates said.

The nation does not need a second land army, Gates said, but rather forces that can deploy quickly and sustain themselves for a short period of time.

“Looking ahead, I do think it is proper to ask whether large-scale amphibious landings along the lines of Inchon (Korea in 1950) are feasible,” the secretary said. Anti-access technologies, such as more accurate cruise and ballistic missiles, will work to drive the starting point for amphibious operations farther and farther out to sea.

All will gain from a serious and balanced look at military missions, with an emphasis on balance, Gates said. “The United States will continue to face a diverse range of threats that will require a flexible portfolio of military capabilities,” he said. The military must be equally adept in counterinsurgency and full-spectrum operations. Any enemy is going to confront perceived American weaknesses, and how the military responds to asymmetric tactics must be considered, he added.

Gates said he is worried that in a time of austerity, that the Defense Department may be seen by some legislators as a cash cow to fix funding issues in other government agencies. “One of my favorite lines that I have invoked time and again is that experience is the ability to recognize a mistake when you make it again,” he said.

The United States has unilaterally disarmed four times since World War II, and each time it was a mistake, the secretary said. The United States cut its military significantly after World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War.

“After September 11th, the United States again rearmed and again strengthened our intelligence capabilities,” the secretary said. “It will be critically important to sustain those capabilities in the future – it will be important not to make the same mistake a fifth time.”

The spigot of defense spending that was turned up after the terrorist attacks is closing, Gates said. President Barack Obama has agreed to about 1 percent real growth in the base budget, but the department needs roughly three percent growth. Gates has said he will find the savings and allow the services to reinvest the money in more critical programs.

Part of this effort was his announcement of a series of efficiencies that will eliminate two department agencies and the U.S. Joint Forces Command. His initiative calls for reducing the number of contractors, eliminating 50 general/flag officers and 150 senior executive positions.

This is the first step in an effort to reshape the “corporate culture” at the Pentagon to make every dollar count, the secretary said. The culture must be agile and efficient and such that all personnel look at decisions with an eye to investing in warfighter needs, he said.

Click here for the full text of Gates’ speech, on the Pentagon website.

http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1498&41498=20100813

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Its worth looking at this article in relationship to the above...............from the Armed Forces Journal......

Hovering at a precipice

By Lt. Cmdr. Perry Solomon

The Marine Corps has embarked upon a comprehensive overhaul of its aviation force that is scheduled to culminate in 15 years with the replacement of every airframe currently in service.

To reduce the compounding costs associated with operating multiple varieties of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, the Marine Corps will transition from 13 to six types or models of manned aircraft over the next 10 years. In doing so, Marine Corps aviation will attain a goal 40 years in the making: the fielding of an entire light attack force capable of short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) operations.

To make an all-STOVL force attainable and affordable, the Corps intends to transition all four of its tactical fixed-wing platforms into one new airframe: the STOVL variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, also known as the F-35B Lightning II. The F-35B is four years behind schedule, and the per-unit acquisition cost has exceeded $120 million — almost triple the amount envisioned by the Joint Initial Requirements Document for the Joint Strike Fighter.

In proclaiming the F-35B a critical capability for the future of Marine Corps aviation and pursuing no viable alternatives to its full-scale procurement, the service’s leadership has accepted an untenable amount of risk. The Marine Corps must, at least privately, explore options to the wholesale procurement of the F-35B or prepare to weather the turbulence — as it did with the MV-22 Osprey — of a complex STOVL program entering flight testing and the inevitable setbacks that will cause pundits to question the viability of Marine Corps fixed-wing tactical aviation. The Corps needs the F-35B, but it cannot afford — doctrinally or fiscally — to have only the F-35B.

STOVL MYTHS AND FACTS

STOVL aircraft pay a penalty for their ability to land vertically. A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft of the same construction and dimensions as a STOVL aircraft can fly farther and deliver more ordnance to the target. The extra space and weight required by the STOVL-specific propulsion and mechanical controls equate to a reduction in the lifting capability of the aircraft (“useful load” in aviation speak).

The F-35 program offers a remarkable “apples-to-apples” comparison of the exact penalties STOVL aircraft pay for their unique capability when compared with CTOL aircraft. Historically there was room for debate, but with the F-35 program, there has never been a more impartial comparison. The F-35B and F-35C (the aircraft carrier variant) have similar dimensions and the same engine; however, the F-35B has 75 percent the combat radius of the F-35C and carries less than half as much ordnance for short takeoff.

After 30 years of STOVL aircraft operations with the AV-8B Harrier, the logistical challenge of supplying fuel and ordnance remains the critical constraint to the sustainability of operating STOVL aircraft near the forward edge of the battle area. In Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and Operation Iraqi Freedom since 2003, there has been no demand for sustained STOVL operations from forward bases or austere locations. Although battlefield conditions did not necessitate dispersed operations, the Harrier’s limited range and payload required forward basing so that higher sortie rates could compensate for inferior performance.

In Desert Storm, Harriers operated out of conventional bases alongside CTOL aircraft. There were instances of forward arming and refueling points (FARPs) established in soccer stadiums along the Saudi border, but only for contingency operations in the early hours of the offensive.

In the opening days of Iraqi Freedom, only one Harrier squadron was operating ashore, and that shore base was a conventional field with long runways. The remaining five Harrier squadrons operated from amphibious ships in the northern Arabian Gulf. Fuel tanker availability constricted the use of FARPs because it was difficult to keep fuel moving forward with the rapidly advancing coalition forces. On the one occasion that Marine Corps Harriers were able to operate on the side of a highway outside Baghdad, the FARP was rocketed minutes after the aircraft departed. After that incident, STOVL forward operations were limited to captured enemy airfields.

Forward basing is more than a logistical quagmire. As the price continues to climb and the number scheduled for purchase continues to descend, these aircraft will become national assets that are closely guarded, and the U.S. does not typically stage national assets within range of the enemy’s indirect fires.

In 2005, a rocket attack destroyed one British Harrier and damaged another while they sat on the ramp in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It seems unrealistic to expect $120-million, fifth-generation STOVL fighters like the F-35B to operate out of forward bases or austere locations. They may retain the capability to do so, but at the expense of range, useful load and a higher purchase price.

FROM THE SEA: STOVL OPTIMIZED

The doctrinal concept of Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS) recognizes the challenges faced by Marine logisticians as they phase combat power ashore. Gen. Charles C. Krulak envisioned that “with sea-based logistics, fire support, medical facilities, and command and control assets, [the] force maximizes its protection by limiting its footprint — and hence its vulnerability — ashore.” For the low-intensity littoral conflicts of the future, OMFTS will be the touchstone doctrine. Ship to Objective Maneuver (STOM) is the tactical application of OMFTS. With the publication of the STOM concept of operations, the Marine Corps paid recognition to the sometimes unnecessary and untenable requirements of amphibious lodgment and the inherent attrition-based strategy that accompanies securing an actively contested beachhead. With OMFTS and STOM, aviation units are not phased ashore. Therefore, STOVL attack aircraft capable of sustained operations from sea are a critical requirement for the successful execution of OMFTS.

Marines deploying from the deck of an amphibious assault ship and operating independently of a larger carrier strike group need fixed-wing tactical aircraft organic to the amphibious ready group that will support their movement ashore. The idea of a fifth-generation STOVL stealth fighter based near the front that will bring “unprecedented responsiveness to the fight” is a red herring that continues to propagate from the highest levels of the Marine Corps.

CORE COMPETENCIES

The Corps has been making a concerted effort to refocus on its core competencies while serving as a second land army in Iraq and Afghanistan. The culmination of those efforts has been the release of a new “Service Campaign Plan” that outlines the way the Marines will march back to the sea after Afghanistan.

In the early 1990s, the Marine Corps transitioned four models of fixed-wing attack aircraft into just two: the F/A-18 Hornet and the AV-8 Harrier. When these communities begin their transition to the F-35B in 2012 and the EA-6B is retired, the Corps will begin to realize its goal of not only an all-STOVL force, but also a fixed-wing attack force flying a single model of aircraft. The benefits of this consolidation are almost self-evident: an economy of scale that eliminates the overhead requirements (training squadrons, spare parts, maintenance depots, etc.) associated with operating multiple types of aircraft.

MAGTF SYNERGY

The Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) relies on rotary- and fixed-wing aviation assets to provide transport and close-air support. Aviation fires are crucial to OMFTS and the principles of maneuver warfare as practiced by the lightly armored Marines. Marine aviators operate as forward air controllers and provide or call in the necessary heavy ordnance that can come only from a fixed-wing asset.

The MAGTF is a self-sufficient and self-sustaining force (not for extended operations ashore) that develops synergy from integrated training and employment. Before deploying, the MAGTF trains as a team to build the professional and interpersonal relationships that make it a more efficient and deadly fighting force. Taking dedicated Marine aircraft out of the MAGTF or replacing them with nonorganic assets reduces the strength of the force back to merely the sum of its parts. Without Marine air, there is no MAGTF. Therefore, the notion that future joint operations will supplant the need for Marines to have organic and dedicated air assets is indefensible.

TOO BIG TO FAIL

At $300 billion, the F-35 program is the most expensive acquisition project ever undertaken by the Defense Department. With three variants of the F-35 in concurrent production, it will be difficult to assign a per-unit cost for each aircraft. Lockheed Martin is producing the most complex variant, the F-35B, first. As the first airframe in full-scale production, the F-35B will experience the greatest fluctuation in price if quantities later in the production run are changed. The Air Force, for example, initially planned to buy enough F-35As to replace all of its A-10s, F-16s and F-15Es. With a recently announced decision to extend the life of those legacy strike platforms, the Air Force clearly signaled that it would be reducing the number of F-35s required to modernize its strike-fighter fleet. The Air Force buy of 1,763 F-35As represents more than two-thirds of the planned domestic production run. Recent estimates of Air Force requirements for the F-35A indicate the service likely will require between 800 and 1,200 aircraft. At best, this would drive the per-unit cost over $200 million.

“Commonality” is the buzzword for what was supposed to be a monumental cost-saving manufacturing procedure. All three variants of the F-35 come off the same assembly line at the Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas. Commonalities in the design and manufacturing process theoretically provide efficiencies in cost and production time. In an ideal engineering and production environment, concurrent production is without a doubt a cost-saving practice. The problem faced by Lockheed Martin is that the customers declared the initial operational capability (IOC) dates for all three variants before the first production aircraft ever left the ground. The IOC dates set by the services have remained steady for several years. What has continued to slide is the operational test and evaluation dates. IOC has become somewhat of a publicity stunt: The F-35B will reach IOC while it is still in operational test — a phase of production during which the Department of the Navy has historically made significant changes to its airframes. In this case, commonality may turn out to be a cost multiplier.

The cancellation of the entire F-35 program is unlikely, but the customers of the STOVL variant remain those with the most to lose. The program is certainly essential to national security, and new cost controls are in place — lead-turn actions for a Nunn-McCurdy breach. What the Defense Department has not demonstrated is the third requirement for such a breach: that there is no lesser-cost alternative.

The Air Force and the Navy have viable alternatives in place to await the maturation of the F-35. The Block 60 F-16E/F and the Block II F/A-18E/F are still in production, and their designs incorporate modern technology that makes them 4.5-generation strike fighters capable of bridging the gap between legacy aircraft and the fifth-generation F-22 and F-35. Making them even more attractive, the aircraft currently in production represent mature technology available at affordable and fixed costs. Extending multiyear procurements of the 4.5-generation aircraft will in fact drive down their per-unit cost and get newer technology out to the fleet faster than waiting for the perpetually delayed F-35 program.

UNMITIGATED RISK

Marine Corps aviation is in an unnecessarily precarious position. As the price of the F-35 continues to climb, budgetary restrictions will force the Corps to make cuts in other programs or purchase fewer STOVL stealth fighters. Without argument, the F-35B is crucial to the future of Marine Corps tactical fixed-wing aviation. Without the F-35B to replace the aging Harrier fleet, Operational Maneuver from the Sea is a hollow shell of a concept. Marine Corps leadership is making an existential gamble on an untested and unproven weapons system. To guarantee that future amphibious assaults have organic fixed-wing assets in direct support, the Marine Corps must at least acknowledge a second course of action that involves a more diversified air arm.

The Department of the Navy should reduce the number of F-35Bs procured for the Marine Corps and buy only the number of aircraft required to fill Marine air wings dedicated to deploying with amphibious assets. This will cause the per-unit cost to rise even more, but the increased cost can be offset by transitioning F/A-18D squadrons to the much cheaper F/A-18F. The Marine Corps can buy three F/A-18Fs for the cost of a single F-35B.

The Corps should also pay close attention to the other services’ testing of small turboprop light attack aircraft, which are already popular in several South American nations for fighting insurgencies. The “AT-X” competition is weighing several low-cost, off-the-shelf designs that could be in operational service very rapidly and with great utility to current counterinsurgency operations. For low-intensity conflicts, these aircraft may become the close-air support asset of choice. With the ability to operate out of small unprepared fields, these new light attack aircraft would provide a low-tech, low-cost alternative to (and complement of) the F-35B. Though envisioned as shore-based assets only, turboprop light attack aircraft have a drastically smaller logistical support requirement and cost much less per hour to operate than fuel-thirsty jet aircraft. Though counter to the cost-saving principles of the homogenized force, a small cadre of light attack aircraft would provide the Corps a more versatile ground-attack capability.

ARGUMENTS FOR THE F/A-18F

The F/A-18F would revolutionize the way Marines provide close-air support. Using an active electronically scanned array radar, an advanced targeting pod, the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) and an expanded communications suite, the dual-seat F/A-18F has the potential to be the most capable airborne forward air controller, or FAC(A), platform in the world. No matter how “sensor-fused,” single-seat aircraft are not optimum FAC(A) platforms.

Since the retirement of the A-4 and A-6, the Marine Corps has not possessed a tactical tanker. Marine Air Group (MAG) assets rely on the slower KC-130 for aerial refueling. An F/A-18F equipped with an aerial refueling store is capable of delivering more than 20,000 pounds of fuel to other jet aircraft at tactical airspeeds and altitudes. Having an organic tactical tanker would be a force multiplier for the MAG commander and would provide an internal capability to increase the range of the F-35B in a high-threat scenario.

The Navy operates the F/A-18F exclusively within its carrier air wings. Continuing to employ an aircraft capable of operating in a carrier air wing would provide the Marine Corps with basing flexibility and a stake in the future of naval aviation. Flying a common tactical-air platform ensures uncomplicated interoperability should the need arise.

Keeping a two-seat tac-air platform in the Marine Corps also retains a high-value asset that once lost will be expensive and time-consuming to replace: the weapon systems officer (WSO). As it makes its way toward an all-STOVL force, the Marine Corps is phasing out WSOs who fly in the F/A-18D and EA-6B. However, a WSO operating the advanced crew station in the back seat of an F/A-18F while wearing a JHMCS would provide a capability for close-air support that is unequaled in any current single-seat platform.

Finally, procuring the F/A-18F at the end of its production run allows the Marine Corps to get the most refined version of the aircraft with the least amount of risk at one-third the price of the F-35B. This is how the Corps has historically procured aircraft, and with good reason. As a smaller service with a smaller budget, it is necessary to leverage cost advantages when so blatantly presented with the option. Looking beyond per-unit cost to the total ownership cost of the aircraft over its projected service life, the latest study by Naval Air Systems Command suggests that the F-35B/C will cost up to 40 percent more to operate than the aircraft they replace.

STEERING THE TRAIN

Marine Corps aviation is going through exciting and monumental changes in force structure. The service needs a new STOVL aircraft to enable Operational Maneuver from the Sea as a viable doctrine and to support Marines on the ground no matter where they land. The F-35B is the only aircraft poised to fill that role in time to replace the aging Harrier fleet, but alternatives to its wholesale adoption exist. Inexorably tying the future of Marine Corps aviation to a publicly flailing program, however, is not prudent.

The highly politicized nature of an acquisition program as big as the F-35 is inescapable. There are international political and fiscal consequences that demand the seemingly mandatory success of an ambitious and complicated program. In a fiscal environment where the phrase “too big to fail” has become a metaphor for a program requiring significant input from the American taxpayer to prevent it from collapsing under its own weight, the F-35 program indeed seems too big to fail.

The organizational ethos of the Marine Corps dissuades dissenting opinions, especially from field-grade officers. Senior Marine aviators need to seek honest assessments of planned force structures instead of creating planning environments where no feasible alternatives exist. The Corps sends its brightest tacticians and operational planners to the aviation hallway in the Pentagon and ties their hands with preordained courses of action. Until all of the options are truly on the table, Marine Corps aviation is in danger of collapsing under the weight of its “inside the Beltway” leadership. AFJ

Lt. Cmdr. Perry Solomon is a department head in Strike Fighter Squadron 213 aboard Naval Air Station Oceana, Va. His operational assignments include deployments as an F/A-18 pilot in support of operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and Unified Assistance.

[Gubler, A.]

Its worth looking at this article in relationship to the above...............from the Armed Forces Journal......

Hovering at a precipice

By Lt. Cmdr. Perry Solomon

While all this makes sense it doesn’t address the *core* agenda of maintaining a separate USMC. The F-35B, V-22, EFV, etc could all be comfortably replaced by conventional naval aviation, helicopters and IFVs with some subtle linking systems for the amphibious mission. As was proposed at various stages in the development of these programs. But then if that was the case the USMC would look the same as US Naval Aviation and the US Army. So in which case why would you need a USMC? The later is the Corps fear though obviously you would need special training to provide amphibious capability.

Imagine the difference:

USN Gator Navy: 3-4 common “LHD/LPD/LSD” type ships per group with additional high speed amphibious LCM and additional carriers (2-4 extra CSGs) providing air support
USMC Air Element: Hornets, Super Hornets and F-35Cs on the horizon as per US Naval Aviation flying from shore bases and carriers, rotor fold Chinooks, Apaches, Black Hawks operating from ESGs
USMC Ground Element: Mix of heavy, stryker and light regiments as per US Army

The only new program is the high speed amphibious LCM to replace the EFV in getting medium armour ashore and the US has had plenty of ideas for this capability. Without a fixed wing element in the ESG air wing the amphibious ships can be a common type perhaps like the Juan Carlos I class LHD(-). With the funds saved from the huge cost of developing F-35B, V-22, EFV and building LHDs additional carriers can be sustained to provide serious fixed wing combat power.

[buglerbilly]

Agreed BUT the USMC has massive support on the both the Congress and the Senate..........mind you Gates is determined to see a STEP Change occur in ALL aspects and he sure is proceeding along the painful path of making sure SOME change actually does occur across the board.

Similar may occur with the RM and I personally wouldn't be surprised to see them amalgamated with the Para's and other groups in SpecFor-type revised set-up.............

As a by-the-by, I also expect to see the UK dispose of part of its Amphib fleet, most probably the Enforcer-design-based BAY Class, two or all four of them..........one or two coud make a good ancilliary force for our needs along with the two LHD's......



ps: LATTER has two "T"s.............

[Gubler, A.]

I don't see any reason for the USMC to be abolished it is big enough to be self sustaining. But the specific equipment is a real waste of a lot of money. But its all water under the bridge.

The sealift ship requirement for JP 2048 is pretty much written to be a Bay class LSD. If two can be brought near new from the RFA that would be a great opportunity for the RAN.

[buglerbilly]

New EFV Prototype Tests at Camp Pendleton

(Source: US Marine Corps; issued Aug. 19, 2010)


The latest prototype of the troubled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle demonstrates its high speed water maneuverability off the coast of Camp Pendleton. (USMC photo)

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. --- Approaching a black dot on the GPS system, a squawk of radio static is followed by "this is command, approaching buoy alpha." The vehicle commander replies with an affirming "roger command," and a powerful roar erupts off to the left of Col. Keith Moore's rigid-hulled inflatable boat, more commonly known as a RHIB.

The newest variant of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle throttles all 2,700 horsepower and lifts out of the glassy water gliding like a jet ski.

Although the EFV program manager's RHIB has no problem keeping up with the 30 mph speed of the 78,000-pound EFV, it is a breathtaking advancement from its venerable predecessor, the Amphibious Assault Vehicle, which comparatively crawls at 9 mph in water.

Moore is observing a demonstration of the newest prototype, EFV Personnel Variant, System Development and Demonstration-2, at the Amphibious Vehicle Test Branch (AVTB) at Camp Del Mar. The temperate climate, rigid terrain, and access to 17 miles of coastline and live-fire ranges, makes Camp Pendleton an ideal test bed for amphibious vehicles.

"We can debark from ship, land on the beach, maneuver through the training areas and [conduct live fire] without interruption," says Sgt. Tom Bauras, a test operator and one of the vehicle crew members in the demonstration. "That's why it makes sense to have the test branch here."

Bauras noted that in addition to Camp Pendleton, his team has also tested the EFV at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, as well as DoD facilities in Alaska and Hawaii, ensuring that Marines can employ the vehicle in any clime and place.

The vehicles are subjected to a list of prescribed tests designed to stress the EFV in every aspect according to Maj. Shaun Doheney, deputy director of the test branch.

Throughout the developmental testing, Marines, program managers and engineers from General Dynamics Land Systems, the main contractor, collaborate on necessary improvement to the prototypes. To date, more than 400 engineering design improvements have been implemented since AVTB became involved with testing the first EFV prototype in 2003.

Test operators like Bauras contributed to the vehicles’ overall development and improvement such as the addition of a whale-tail exhaust system. The new exhaust system disperses heat down and outward from the vehicle, instead of straight upward, reducing the heat signature of the vehicle.

The AVTB is staffed by 53 Marines and 25 civilians who are currently conducting testing on eight EFVs manufactured in Lima, Ohio.

The EFV is expected to enter limited production in 2012 and the Marine Corps has planned to field 573 vehicles by 2026 according to the EFV Program Office in Woodbridge, Va.

Dating back to the Landing Vehicle Tracked (LVT), the AVTB at Camp Pendleton has been able to subject amphibious vehicles to the various rigors of Western installations and training ranges since 1946.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Some pics of the new prototypes taken at a ceremony in June this year..........


Marine Corps Col. Keith Moore, EFV Program Manager, stands near the front end of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle prototype from General Dynamics Land Systems, as he speaks with media on hand at Camp Pendleton Tuesday morning about the new land and water vehicle.
MARK RIGHTMIRE, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER















And as a comparison, the current Amphibious Assault Vehicle, AAV, used by the Marine Corps, which entered service in 1972.

[buglerbilly]

Conway Sticks With EFV, Or Similar

By Colin Clark Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 11:03 am



Even if the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle made by General Dynamics is killed, departing Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway says the country will need the same sort of capability and will end up buying it.

“It’s my believe if that program was canceled outright we would still go with another weapon systemn like EFV,” he said this morning at what may well be his final Pentagon press conference.

The EFV is no longer on life support in terms of its program performance, according to Marine sources, but GD’s efforts to bring it back from near coma status may well be too little too late. It will be interesting once the budget comes out in February to see if Conway was offering us hints that EFV will be killed or reduced to a research and development program pending a new effort.

Conway repeated his mantra that if the Marines are going to storm ashore from “over the horizon” then they need something fast, amphibious and armored. Navy Undersecretary Bob Work didn’t exactly endorse EFV when he spoke about the Marines’ future recently at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The EFV is a “tremendous machine,” he said, but it is “very expensive.” Its future, along with the future of all Marine platforms, is under scrutiny and will be decided during ongoing “affordability discussions.” We betcha!

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2010/08/24/conway-sticks-with-efv-or-similar/#ixzz0xZDw2Kw5

[buglerbilly]

Marine’s Conway Gives (Another) Tepid Endorsement of EFV; Capability That Is



Every time I listen to outgoing Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Conway talk about the perennially challenged Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) program, it sounds like he really wishes there was some alternative. Problem is, there isn’t; there just aren’t a lot of companies out there building armored amphibians.

The Marines need something, anything, to transport them from ships offshore to the beachhead and then get them inland at least some distance; oh, and it has to be fast, both at sea and on land, carry lots of Marines and keep them under armor during the whole process. So, after investing lots of time and money into the General Dynamics EFV, the Marines have the EFV. It’s a costly and so far anyway, unreliable vehicle. But it’s all they got.

“It is not the platform it’s the capability,” Conway said, the Marines need an armored amphibian as the Marines get back to the sea and onboard ships. “It’s not necessarily the EFV made by General Dynamics that goes 25 knots, its the capability that we need to be wed to… if that program were canceled outright we would still be looking to come up with that capability.”

He said the new batch of eight EFVs provided by General Dynamics for extensive testing are more reliable than the original prototypes and the Marines hope they’ll show marked improvement. “It has been a beleaguered program,” Conway said today at a Pentagon presser. “We are looking at affordability of the program in the out years… we have to ask ourselves are 573 (EFVs) affordable.”

Conway said he feels very confident that the Marines, which provide planners an “asymmetric advantage” will emerge from the ongoing force structure review in pretty good shape, if not a bit smaller. A strong Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard team is the linchpin of a strategy based on engaging potential enemies far from American shores, through forward deployment and basing.

“Although we have been fortunate the last couple of times our nation has engaged that a host country would allow us to come in and build the iron mountain, mass the forces and cross the border into attack. There are not a lot of places like that in the world,” he said.

How much amphibious assault capability is enough? “Right now, that is pretty much laid out by a previous QDR that says we will have two brigades prepared to conduct joint operational access,” he said.

– Greg Grant

Read more: http://defensetech.org/2010/08/24/marine%e2%80%99s-conway-gives-another-tepid-endorsement-of-efv-capability-that-is/#more-8781#ixzz0xZHUvMZd
Defense.org

[buglerbilly]

The Beginning of the End for the Marine Corps?

(Source: Lexington Institute; issued August 25, 2010)

(© Lexington Institute; reproduced by permission)

The official mission of the Marine Corps as established in the National Security Act of 1947 is to be trained, organized and equipped for offensive amphibious employment. This means doing Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Inchon. The Marine Corps is also to be a “force in readiness” which is reflected in its non-amphibious role from Belleau Wood to Fallujah and now Afghanistan.

But in its heart (and that of the American people) what makes the Marine Corps special strategically, operationally, tactically and morally is its dedication to assaulting hostile beaches.

But is there a future for offensive amphibious operations? The last time the Marines conducted a true large-scale offensive amphibious operation was at Inchon in 1950. The threat of such a maneuver did pin a number of Iraqi divisions down during Operation Desert Storm allowing the rest of the Coalition’s forces, including the 2nd Marine Division on the right flank, to drive Iraq from Kuwait. Battalion size Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) have been deployed frequently and to great effect around the world. But when it comes to the prospects for another Iwo Jima or Inchon, there does not appear to be one.

The capability for serious offensive amphibious operations is very expensive and very heavy. It requires lots of specialized equipment and ships. The Marine Corps has a vision for its future as an amphibious force that requires 38 large amphibious ships, the V-22 Osprey, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), a new Marine Personnel Carrier and a special vertical/short take-off and landing (V/STOL) variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Doing offensive amphibious operations across defended beaches also requires a Navy that can operate close to shore and suppress hostile defenses.

In a speech last May to the Navy League, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates criticized both the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ force structure and modernization plans. He raised the issue of long-range threats to large naval vessels. Secretary Gates specifically questioned the rationale for the number of large-deck amphibious ships (10) and the overall size of the Marine Corps (202,000). He is reported to also be desirous of canceling the EFV.

The two sea services, the Navy and Marine Corps, appear increasingly at odds over the future of offensive amphibious operations. Confronted with a growing anti-access/area denial capability in the hands not only of the Chinese but of Iran, North Korea and even Hezbollah, the Navy is looking at having to operate in the future from greater standoff distances, rendering moot the question of providing the necessary suppressive fires to support offensive amphibious operations. The Marine Corps says it requires 38 large amphibious ships; the Navy has refused to acquire more than 33. Also, Navy admirals are reported to be highly critical of the Marine Corps determination to acquire the V/STOL F-35.

Most recently, the Navy has proposed saving money by tying up dockside two of its three squadrons of maritime prepositioning force ships (MPF) that provide equipment and supplies for the Marines once the beaches have been taken and reducing the number of Mobile Landing Platforms it will acquire for those squadrons. While this does not mean that the capability for offensive amphibious operations would disappear tomorrow, it may be putting the Marine Corps on a slippery slope.

Taken together, these moves would seem to signal a reduced role for large-scale offensive amphibious operations in the plans for future conflicts. Absent the prospect of large-scale offensive amphibious operations, the rationale for the current size, composition and equipment of the Marine Corps disappears.

Given its history of winning battles inside the Beltway, one needs to be careful counting the Marine Corps out on any of its plans and programs. Just look at its unwavering support of the V-22 Osprey. In this case, the Marines were proven right; the V-22 is proving itself in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, do not expect the Marine Corps to quietly give up on any part of its defining mission or the capabilities it believes necessary.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Senate May Finally Sink Marines’ Swimming Tank

By Spencer Ackerman September 17, 2010 | 11:03 am



Two defense contractors, AEgis Technologies and the Carley Corporation, celebrated their good fortune yesterday. The Marine Corps awarded them a four-year, $36 million contract to produce a training regimen for one of its top priorities for the future: the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a $12-billion tank that swims Marines from a big ship to an enemy-controlled beach, the Corps’ traditional forte. Only the deal didn’t exactly come at the best time.

The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle has been in trouble for years – billions over-budget, years late, and possibly susceptible to improvised bombs. Practically at the same time as the AEgis/Carley announcement, the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee finished its mark-up of a $669.9 billion bill funding next year’s Defense Department operations. One of its casualties: the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. And that’s going to accelerate a heated debate over the Corps’ future: do the Marines still need to be specialists in storming beaches, or should they just be a quicker, meaner version of the Army?

The committee effectively gave the 38-ton tank a final warning. It authorized $38 million for one more round of tests, according to a statement issued after the vote yesterday afternoon — and $184 in “termination costs in the event of test failure,” allowing the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles’ contractors to recoup their costs if the program ultimately gets iced.

“After the investment of nearly $2,900,000,000 in research and development funds over more than two decades, the Committee believes that further investment in the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is not warranted if improved performance of the new prototypes cannot be demonstrated,” the committee wrote, per subscription-only InsideDefense. It added an additional vote of no confidence: “The Committee further notes that if the program is successful in demonstrating improved performance, the program would likely continue to face challenges in the areas of cost, schedule, weight, and other factors.”

That doesn’t mean the EFV is totally dead. The House Appropriations Committee hasn’t completed its version of the fiscal 2011 defense appropriations bill, a necessary step for getting the bill to the House floor. Pro-EFV senators could try to attach an amendment providing additional money for the vehicle when the bill goes to the Senate floor. And it’s an open question whether either Congress can actually pass the bill at all this year, thanks to a compressed and politicized pre-election schedule, meaning there are opportunities for the EFV’s advocates to protect funding for the vehicle. But chances are that the EFV will have to pass its next round of tests — currently scheduled to run from October to February — if it’s to avoid the axe.

The vehicle is a huge priority for the current Marine leadership, as it’s a proxy for how the Corps views its place in the nation’s defense. Traditionally, Corps’ specialty has been storming beaches. Marine General James Conway, the departing Commandant of the Corps, has defended the EFV as synonymous with the Marines’ amphibious nature — that ability to fight on both sea and land and transit rapidly between each. “The country needs to have that capability,” Conway said at Camp Pendleton earlier this week, a statement he’s repeatedly made as part of his valedictory speeches and interviews.

So-called “Amphib” is dear to Conway and other Marine leaders because the Corps has spent the past decade as effectively a second Army, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan far, far away from the water. Some Marine leaders are more comfortable than others with that change. But most are hesitant to institutionalize it, fearing that they’ll effectively abandon what makes the Marines unique.

Killing the EFV is a stand-in for that debate. When the service finally unveiled its latest prototype in May, it didn’t hesitate to call the EFV “the future of Marine Corps amphibious capability.” Lieutenant Colonel Matthew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Corps, says the service’s position is unchanged, despite the committee’s vote: “The EFV fills a gap in our ability to project our nation’s power from sea to shore, assuring access from the sea. If the nation continues to demand the flexibility to come from the sea, then we need the capability represented by the EFV.”

But the EFV has been an albatross for Amphib — and the Corps. First conceived in the 1980s to replace the current Amphibious Assault Vehicle, decades of testing failures and re-designs have plagued the development of the EFV. Even as the Marine Corps placated skeptical legislators by slashing their planned purchases of the vehicle from 1025 EFVs to 573, the price tag still managed to grow from $8.5 billion to $13.2 billion, a 168 percent increase. A report from the Congressional Research Service last year suggested that the vehicle’s problems run far beyond its expense, as there “continue to be major concerns about the EFV’s reliability, vulnerability to improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and escalating costs.” Says Laura Peterson, a defense analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense, “This thing isn’t just fighting the last war, it’s fighting last century’s wars.”

All these failings didn’t convince successive Pentagon, Navy, Marine and congressional leaders to cancel the EFV. Last year, during an orgy of program-cutting, Defense Secretary Robert Gates punted the cancellation question to the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, which ultimately gave EFV a qualified thumbs-up. But Pentagon and Marine bigwigs are wary of tethering the Corps’ future too tightly to an over-budget vehicle that was conceived to overcome decades-old threats, not future ones. Robert Work, the Navy undersecretary, defended Amphib in an August speech in Washington — but gave the vehicle only tepid praise, noting that it’s “very expensive.” If it turns out the latest EFV prototype can’t hold up to testing, Conway pledged this week, “we’ll be the first to put the bullet in it.”

But Conway is out the door this year. On Tuesday, Marine General James Amos, whom Gates tapped as Conway’s successor, will go before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing. What he says about the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle may signal a lot for its future — and that of the Marine Corps as a whole.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/senate-may-finally-sink-marines-swimming-tank/#more-31043#ixzz0zo6wb5re

[buglerbilly]

Northrop Grumman Hosts Marine Corps Reps as Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) Enters Final Stages of Development

(Source: Northrop Grumman Corp.; issued September 21, 2010)

LINTHICUM, Md. --- Northrop Grumman Corporation recently hosted key representatives from the U.S. Marine Corps, as the AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR (Ground/Air Task Oriented Radar) multi role radar enters its final stages of development. When deployed, G/ATOR will replace five legacy Marine Corps ground-based radars with advanced operational capabilities and enhanced mobility and reliability, while also providing large reductions in operating and maintenance costs.

G/ATOR is the first ground-based, multi-role radar to be developed for the U.S Department of Defense. By virtue of its ability to intelligently and adaptively allocate its resources, G/ATOR will detect and track a wide variety of threats, including manned aircraft, cruise missiles and unmanned autonomous systems, as well as mortar, rocket and artillery rounds.

"G/ATOR represents a new era in critical air and ground warfighting capabilities for the Marine Corps," said Jeff Palombo, vice president and general manager of Northrop Grumman's Land Forces and Self Protection Systems Division. "When deployed, G/ATOR will deliver unprecedented mission functionality and versatility that the U.S. Marine Corps needs to fight in the modern battlespace."

The day's events were centered on the successful mechanical and electrical integration of the G/ATOR Radar Equipment Group (REG). The REG is the heart of the G/ATOR system, and includes the Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) antenna, all AESA control electronics, the integrated receiver/exciter, and all data and signal processing. The REG has been integrated onto a mobile pallet and trailer for maximum mobility and ease of deployment.

Leading the delegation of Marine Corps officials at the G/ATOR event at Northrop Grumman's Electronic Systems sector's headquarters in Linthicum, Md., was Lt. Gen. George J. Trautman III, the Marine Corps' Deputy Commandant for Aviation, and the principal G/ATOR program sponsor.

The G/ATOR REG will now undergo additional electronic testing in preparation for integration with the other G/ATOR subsystems: the Communications Equipment Group (CEG) and the Power Equipment Group (PEG). This integration will be immediately followed by system level performance testing.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Construction Commences on First Navy Joint High Speed Vessel

(Source: US Naval Sea Systems Command; issued Sept. 23, 2010)

MOBILE, Ala. --- Fabrication of the future USNS Vigilant (JHSV 2), the first joint high speed vessel (JHSV) to be operated by the Navy, began Sept. 13 at the Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala.

The JHSV will be used for fast intra-theater transportation of troops, military vehicles and equipment. The Navy's Strategic and Theater Sealift Program (PMS 385) in the Program Executive Office (PEO) Ships is procuring the vessels for both the Army and the Navy.

Vigilant is the second vessel in the class. The first, the future U.S. Army vessel USAV Spearhead (JHSV 1), is scheduled for delivery to the Army in 2012.

"I am proud to see construction begin for the first Navy JHSV," said Capt. George M. Sutton, PMS 385 program manager. "The implementation of proven commercial technology will help us deliver better value to the taxpayer, producing a top-quality ship delivered on time and within budget."

The JHSV program merges the previous Army theater support vessel and the Navy high speed connector to decrease costs by taking advantage of the inherent commonality between the existing programs. Significant production and financial risk has been avoided by implementing proven technology, ensuring stable requirements, minimizing change and through the ruthless pursuit of cost reduction and efficiency.

"Our drive for affordability and efficiency are the cornerstones of the JHSV program," said Sutton.

PEO Ships is responsible for the development and acquisition of U.S. Navy surface ships and is currently managing the design and construction of 10 major surface ships classes and small boats and craft.

The PEO is committed to ensuring that prior to the start of ship construction, each program completes an exhaustive production readiness review to demonstrate the design is mature and the requirements are well understood. Fully maturing the design prior to the start of construction is one of a number of initiatives the PEO is undertaking to reduce costs in shipbuilding.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Decision Week for the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle

(Source: Lexington Institute; issued September 27, 2010)

(© Lexington Institute; reproduced by permission)

This may be the week that the future of the U.S. Marine Corps is decided. In separate meetings with Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Conway and Navy secretary Ray Mabus will offer their recommendations on whether to continue developing the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). EFV is the top ground-system acquisition priority of the Marine Corps, a system that both Conway and his designated successor have said is essential to sustaining their service's amphibious warfare capability. If Secretary Mabus agreed, there wouldn't be a need for two meetings.

The political dynamics of the meetings are interesting, because both Conway and Gates will soon depart government service. Secretary Mabus, the most politically adept and charismatic of the current service secretaries, knows that Conway will retire sometime in the autumn -- removing the biggest obstacle in his efforts to cut EFV. But he also knows that Senator Reed of Rhode Island has turned down an offer to be defense secretary, making Mabus an attractive candidate for the top Pentagon job when Gates leaves early next year. Although Mabus has been gunning for EFV almost from the first day he became Navy secretary, he has to think through the political consequences of killing a big Marine Corps program on the eve of midterm elections.

At the very least, Mabus needs to have a convincing explanation of why killing EFV won't put the lives of thousands of Marines at risk. The Department of the Navy has embraced "forcible entry" as the defining mission of the Marine Corps, which means storming enemy beaches under heavy fire. It also acknowledges that forcible entry requires an "amphibious tractor" like EFV that can maneuver warfighters from ship to shore and then quickly transition to land operations upon hitting the beach. Having made those two concessions, it has put itself in a box in explaining how to fashion a credible force structure in the absence of EFV.

Even if EFV didn't have three times the water speed and twice the armor of the existing amphibious [vehicle] -- which it does -- the simple reality is that the existing vehicle was developed in the 1970s, and littoral regions have become more dangerous since then.

The biggest operational complaint against the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is that it was developed before the era of improvised explosive devices, and its flat bottom might be vulnerable to such devices once ashore. That is a dubious argument, though, since it is precisely the flat bottom that allows the vehicle to plane through water at 30 miles per hour, enabling Marines to survive hostile fire and then go ashore at places where improvised explosives are least likely to have been laid. Once ashore, it has all the power and traction needed to stay off dangerous roads while keeping up with an Abrams tank.

Improvements have already been devised to assure the EFV's planing design does not compromise survivability ashore, but maybe policymakers ought to be paying more attention to whether Marines are likely to make it to shore in the first place. The current amphibious vehicle lacks the speed and range to maneuver ashore from warships over the horizon, meaning the ships must come within range of shore fire to launch a vehicle that itself is highly vulnerable. In fact, the ships must come so close to shore that their on-board defenses won't have the time to sort out threats from topographical clutter if attacked. EFV is the only solution available that remedies this dangerous situation, so Secretary Mabus will have a tough time explaining how his bid to save money doesn't mean putting young Marines at greater risk than necessary for many years to come.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: If the EFV is needed to “stay off dangerous roads while keeping up with an Abrams tank,” as its backers claim, why does it need to be capable of high speeds on the water? The M-1 must be transported ashore, so why not use the same transporter for the infantry carrier?)

-ends-

OMG! WTF did the Editor say...........thats so stupid its almost imbecilic!!! :stfu

[buglerbilly]

M Cubed Technologies, Inc. Wins Contract to Develop Armor for U.S. Marine Corps Fighting Vehicles

(Source: M Cubed Technologies, Inc.; issued October 13, 2010)

TRUMBULL, Conn. --- The United States Navy has awarded M Cubed Technologies, Inc. a contract to develop advanced, high-performance, lightweight armor for the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), the company announced today. The contract was part of the U.S. Navy's Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

"We are honored the U.S. Navy has chosen us for this important project," said Randall D. Price, Sr., CEO and President of M Cubed. "New and ever-changing threats require constant innovation and improvement in body and vehicle armor. The mission of our defense business is to utilize M Cubed's breakthrough ceramic technology to equip U.S. military personnel with state-of-the-art armor that provides maximum protection for our troops."

The Marine Corps EFV is a 78,000+ pound armored vehicle designed to carry U.S. combat forces over harsh terrain, both off-road and amphibiously. The contract provides the initial funding for the development of new, ceramic-based armor that will offer the U.S. Marines and their EFVs better protection against enemy ballistics, enhanced survivability in combat areas and reduced weight for greater maneuverability.

M Cubed's unique technology allows the company to design and manufacture armor-grade ceramics in very complex shapes to suit a wide variety of military applications, including body armor, helmet appliques and armor for aircraft and vehicles. The company has a long history as a trusted supplier to the U.S. military.

M Cubed Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of advanced ceramic and metal matrix composite materials to globally diverse markets. For more than 15 years, M Cubed's patent-protected technologies and materials science expertise have enabled the company to supply innovative products to companies in the defense, precision and industrial markets. A privately-held company headquartered in Trumbull, CT, M Cubed maintains research, development and manufacturing facilities in Monroe, CT and Newark, DE.

-ends-

[Weasel]

One of the many reasons that the above is a bit of a yawn.



The technology behind the GDLS EFV has been made redundant some 3 years ago. The separation of water flow around the track is easy to do, making entirely possible for a "rival power" to develop a vehicle for 100 times less cost that can out perform the EFV. I think the common parlance is "bitch slap".

If you'll note the little demonstrator in the vid is doing 55mph over water.

An opportunity for Australia, to get into the amphib game, perhaps?

cheers

w

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Marines Cutting 10,000 Vehicles

Posted by Paul McLeary at 10/20/2010 7:45 AM CDT



The Marine Corps is about to get leaner, according to the USMC’s Lt. Gen. George Flynn, who said recently that the service is planning on ditching 10,000 of the current 42,000 tactical vehicles it has in its fleet.

Flynn, who is the deputy commandant for combat development and integration, told This Week in Defense News that although the USMC’s Ground Combat Tactical Vehicle Strategy is still evolving, the service is committed to the cut, but he failed to elaborate which vehicles will be jettisoned. “We’re going to cut 10,000 vehicles from the inventory because we’ve decided what capabilities we need,” he said.

The Marines have some tough decisions to make when it comes to their ground vehicle fleet. The biggest, of course, is the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the $2.5 billion, decades-long program to replace the ancient Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAVs) which was first fielded in the 1970s. The Corps has estimated that the EFV will run them over $16 million per vehicle and hopes to build a total of 573 of them, although leadership has made some noises lately talking up the capabilities they provide--amphibious forced entry, speed, armor--rather than the EFV specifically.

When it comes to the other big-ticket vehicles actually being used, just last month Flynn said that the Corps has plans to keep 2,500 MRAPs, half of that total being made up of the smaller, lighter, M-ATVs and the other half the larger Cougar MRAP. And then there is the good old Humvee, which the Marines are taking a second look at. Earlier this month Gen. James Conway told the Expeditionary Warfare Conference that “we’ve got thousands of up-armored Humvees out there sitting around [and the service is] wondering what we’re going to do with them.” And then he essentially answered his own question: “Is there a possibility that we can take the up-armored Humvee, elevate it off the deck, give it a v-shaped bottom, perhaps secure the hull and make it our next Joint Light Tactical Vehicle? We don’t know the answer to that, but we’ve got to find out, because I don’t think we’re going to have the money to buy new.” By “buying new” it’s safe to say that Conway probably meant the increasingly expensive JLTV program, which the Corps has been downplaying in recent months due to cost issues.

(Pic: USMC)

[McFriday]

One of the many reasons that the above is a bit of a yawn.



The technology behind the GDLS EFV has been made redundant some 3 years ago. The separation of water flow around the track is easy to do, making entirely possible for a "rival power" to develop a vehicle for 100 times less cost that can out perform the EFV. I think the common parlance is "bitch slap".

If you'll note the little demonstrator in the vid is doing 55mph over water.

An opportunity for Australia, to get into the amphib game, perhaps?

cheers

w

Hi Weasel,
Do you have any further info on this amphib, notwithstanding any military applications having one would really simplify getting to awkward dive sites. LOL [not that I could afford it, he reflects wistfully]
Cheers,
Mac

[buglerbilly]

Amos Plans Lighter, More Mobile Corps

October 29, 2010

Stars and Stripes|by Kevin Baron



WASHINGTON -- Tasked to redefine the future of the Marine Corps, Commandant Gen. James Amos has pledged to aggressively experiment with unit sizes and the Corps’ overall structure in a rebalancing effort he says will make the Marines a lighter force, ready to fight anywhere they’re called.

Amos’ “planning guidance,” issued Wednesday, is his formal answer to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who this summer asked Marine Corps leaders to determine what kind of service they want to be. In recent years, Gates and the previous commandant, retiring Gen. James Conway, have worried the Corps has strayed too far from its amphibious roots and were used too long as a second land army in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Where Amos, who assumed command last Friday, decides to steer the Corps will affect everything from the types of combat for which the Corps trains to how big it will be and what equipment it needs.

“While we remain focused on combat operations in Afghanistan, leaders at all levels must consider the likely challenges of the next two decades and how the Corps will meet them,” said Amos.

Amos’ priorities begin with preparing Marines for Afghanistan, followed by reorganizing, resizing and equipping the Corps, providing better education and training for Marines fighting in complex geopolitical environments, and keeping the promise to care for Marines and their families.

The commandant set several deadlines early next year for the Marines to complete tasks or studies that change its structures and missions, all of which would make the Corps more flexible and mobile. His targets include consolidating and boosting training elements such as special operations, foreign advisory units and irregular warfare training organizations, as well as decreasing the size of deployed expeditionary units.

Amos said he also aims to institutionalize “values-based training,” adding that “the objective is to markedly reduce incidents of illegal/immoral/indecent acts among Marines.”

Additionally, the Marines must decide whether to continue pursuing key procurement items such as the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, the only viable new amphibious landing craft the Pentagon is considering purchasing.

“The Marine Corps is wedded to the capability,” said Maj. Joseph Plenzler, Amos’ spokesman. “We need to have the ship-to-shore capability that projects power from the sea, over shore, and into another county.”

The next assessment of the EFV is due early 2011.

[Weasel]

Hi Weasel,
Do you have any further info on this amphib, notwithstanding any military applications having one would really simplify getting to awkward dive sites. LOL [not that I could afford it, he reflects wistfully]
Cheers,
Mac
Just do a google search for the website and call the guy. He (as I understand) has been trying to promote recreational use. It would be a custom build, so expect the price to be a bit steep, unless he has more orders on the books.

cheers

w

[Gubler, A.]

Just do a google search for the website and call the guy. He (as I understand) has been trying to promote recreational use. It would be a custom build, so expect the price to be a bit steep, unless he has more orders on the books.

This is great stuff W. but can it be scalled up? Using the tracks as the sole propulsion system and as the planers is brilliant.

http://www.fasttrackamphibian.com


The FastTrack company is not your normal company. Located in Hurst, Texas (between Dallas and Fort Worth), FastTrack was founded by Ken and Rod Wernicke, both retired engineers from Bell Helicopter. Ken led the design and development of the XV-15 and V-22 Osprey tilt-rotors and Rod, his identical twin brother, was also instrumental in the development of tilt-rotor technology. Keith, Kent and Tim, their engineer/inventor sons, are also in the company. Research and development began after the Wernickes answered a Navy request for information on concepts for a scout vehicle that could travel on water at high speed and proceed with all terrain capability for reconnaissance on land. The Wernickes conducted research for ten years before fabricating the first Fast Track vehicle, a full-scale demonstrator model, FastTrack 1. The patent-pending technology that enables the tracks to work as the sole means of high-speed propulsion on water is unique. It enables a vehicle to “get out of the hole, over the hump and on to the plane from dead in the water. Videos of what this means in the real world can be found here. The first vehicles the company produces for non-military customers will be hand built and custom made for those who can afford to be the first owners of this unique machine. The all-terrain vehicles will boast aggressive styling, two or five place plush seating with a 300 plus horsepower for speeds of 60 mph on water and 80 mph on land. The vehicles will be priced proportionately to the volume of sales. But, if you have to ask it, then a custom car sized vehicle would be priced for $250,000 and up.

[Gubler, A.]

Here's a more detailed tech brief on the Fast Track. They are only planning on scaling up to 10-12 tonnes GVW. I want 150!

http://www.foils.org/01_Mtg_Pres%20dnloads/091210%20MEETING/FTA%20Briefing%20to%20SD-5%20&%20IHS%20.pdf

[McFriday]

Here's a more detailed tech brief on the Fast Track. They are only planning on scaling up to 10-12 tonnes GVW. I want 150!
Geez Abe 150t, what sized lobsters are you after!! The fisheries are bound to be curious. LOL
First thanks to Weasel for posting further info and thanks to you for saving me a search.
Perhaps a share of the $2.9b R&D could persuade the brothers to upscale their efforts?

'“After the investment of nearly $2,900,000,000 in research and development funds over more than two decades, the Committee believes that further investment in the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is not warranted if improved performance of the new prototypes cannot be demonstrated,”

I know, I know, it wasn't all spent on the propulsion system but twenty years and all that dough... it must be a bit galling to have a pair of chopper heads produce this little flyer from their own pocket money. More power to them!
Cheers,
Mac

[Gubler, A.]

Geez Abe 150t, what sized lobsters are you after!! The fisheries are bound to be curious. LOL

The only Lobsters are M1 Abrams and ship to shore, dry and no need for a flooding well dock...

[McFriday]

The only Lobsters are M1 Abrams and ship to shore, dry and no need for a flooding well dock...

I admit I guessed that but still pursued the least obvious as an attempt at humor, and I'm definitely not deriding the obvious value a successful 150t adaption of this vehicle/vessel to operations would provide.

The pdf certainly illustrates the company's desire to supply military versions and even a 22k lb model would be most useful in many scenarios starting with civilian disaster relief etc.
I'm guessing that would be roughly comparable to the old DUKW in CONOPS but so much more capable.

I doubt that they'd take my old Falcon as a trade in on their custom made number, so I'll be stuck with the Avon for a few more years.
Cheers,
Mac

[buglerbilly]

Marines Put EFV Through Crucial Tests

Nov 6, 2010

By Michael Fabey



The U.S. Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is undergoing a critical testing phase that it must pass, program officials acknowledge, if the service expects to continue building what it considers the linchpin of its expeditionary future.

“The focus now is on RGT — our reliability and growth testing,” says Manny Pacheco, program spokesman. “We’re doing developmental tests to make sure all the engineering changes work the way they’re supposed to.”

While all major programs undergo such testing, the current round for the EFV is particularly important. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made it clear that the EFV is on the chopping block and, given the economic climate, any Congress — current or waiting in the wings — is going to scrutinize a project that proposes a vehicle slated to cost $22 million per copy, with an overall procurement cost of $9.5 billion and total program cost of about $13 billion.

Meanwhile, EFV officials got a morale boost from the planning guidance of the new Marine commandant, Gen. James Amos, which emphasizes the service’s need to focus on its expeditionary roots.

“The Marine Corps is America’s expeditionary force in readiness,” Amos wrote in the 20-page guidance that mentions “expeditionary” 15 times. “To a Marine, the term ‘expeditionary’ is more than a slogan; it is our state of mind. It drives the way we organize our forces, how we train, and what kind of equipment we buy.”

The one defining “expeditionary” tool for Marines now is the EFV. For the moment, the program is funded through the current test phase. The vehicle needs, Pacheco says, to meet all of the objectives if the Marines want to go further.

EFV prototypes are now undergoing mission-profile testing, and one major goal is to reduce the time between failures.

William Taylor, EFV program executive officer who helped navigate the service’s V-22 Osprey through development and deployment, maintains that such reliability issues are common during this stage of development, and the Pentagon’s director of operational testing and evaluation’s most recent annual report notes the program’s efforts to improve reliability.

The vehicle is averaging 16.4 hr. between vehicle system failures; the Marines want to increase that to the low 22s for the more immediate term. The program requirement is 43.5.

Some of the changes the Marines are evaluating concern high-water speed, mobility and a redesign of the turret ammunition feed system to fix a jamming problem.

Marines put most of the focus into the turret redesign, according to Pacheco. “We have confidence in the [vehicle’s] high-water speed,” he says.

Loren Thompson, defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, says the EFV has “three times the water speed and twice the armor of the existing, Nixon-era amphibious assault vehicle,” despite tipping the scale at 40 tons, fully loaded.

Photo: USMC

[buglerbilly]

Marines To Lighten Load For Future Conflicts

Nov 8, 2010

By Michael Fabey

The U.S. Marine Corps will have to think small to win big in current military conflicts. That’s the general message in the first official planning guidance released to the corps from its new commandant, Gen. James Amos.

Amos focuses on the need to better develop small-unit capabilities with lighter equipment that is more compact and energy-efficient. From a procurement perspective, it appears the Marines will be looking for more cyber-relevant equipment and ways to grease the logistical chain to deal with irregular threats.

“Small-unit leadership, unit cohesion, an expeditionary mind-set, education [and] the spirit of innovation are fundamental to how we approach warfighting,” Amos writes.

The corps is “a balanced air-ground-logistics team,” he says. “We are forward-deployed and forward-engaged: shaping, training, deterring, and responding to all manner of crises and contingencies.”

Small-unit development has been an area of growing focus among the military services during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

H. John Poole, a former advanced infantry training company instructor at Camp Lejeune, N.C., who spent 28 years in the Marine Corps, has written several books that emphasize such a mind-set when fighting in those regions. “In deference to all good things at Quantico and TRADOC (U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command), doctrine may partially [be] to blame for U.S. squads not keeping pace with tactical innovation worldwide,” Poole writes in his most recent book, “Expeditionary Eagles: Outmaneuvering the Taliban.”

Poole points out that Marines and soldiers now have to worry about Afghan drug lords as well as irregular fighters. U.S. forces need to be able to stealthily navigate enemy-infested turf using “terrain association” — mentally drawing streets through the country like you have in the city, he says. “Since the American military’s widespread use of the GPS system, that skill has been largely lost.”

The Marines specifically need to consolidate and strengthen their irregular warfare segments to develop more unified, effective and efficient strategies for those types of operations, Amos says. And they especially need to increase their “capability and capacity to conduct cyberwarfare,” he adds.

Also, “the future security environment requires a mind-set geared toward increased energy efficiency and reduced consumption, thus allowing us to operate lighter and faster. We will aggressively continue our pioneering efforts in energy through our Expeditionary Energy Office, with goals of reduced energy demand in our platforms and systems, self-sufficiency in our battlefield sustainment, and a reduced expeditionary footprint on the battlefield.”

Amos is asking the Marines to develop logistics training groups and devise a plan for reducing the size and weight of Marine expeditionary units and related forces. The units and Marine Air-Ground Task Forces need to be able to fly “within likely lift constraints,” he says.

Amos plans to stand up an Expeditionary Equipment Review Board that provides final approval and oversight of all new equipment proposals, “viewing them through an ‘expeditionary footprint and lighten the load’ lens.”

[buglerbilly]

Marines Don’t Have A Swimming-Tank Alternative [Updated]

By Spencer Ackerman November 16, 2010 | 1:15 pm | Categories: Army and Marines



By February, the latest round of tests for the Marine Corps’ much-delayed Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle — a tank that gets Marines ashore from a ship — ought to be complete. And the corps better hope the so-called swimming tank passes, because it doesn’t have a replacement.

Three years ago, after Pentagon acquisition officials decided not to kill the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle during a review of its ballooning costs, the corps asked engineers if alternative technologies or designs were mature enough to use. “At the time we did that re-certification, there was nothing out there,” Lieutenant General George Flynn, the leader of the Marines’ Combat Development Command, told reporters Tuesday. “We have not done anything since then that tells me if there’s anything else out there.”

It might be time to start looking. After years of delays and cost overruns, Senate appropriators voted in September to put the $24-million-per-tank EFV program out to pasture if it can’t pass its final round of tests. The chairmen of the White House deficit commission marked it for termination in their cost-cutting proposal last week. At this point, the swimming tank is a pinata for defense reformers: Another member of the commission, Alice Rivlin, is going to release a different plan for trimming the defense budget tomorrow; we’ll see if the swimming-tank is on her chopping block, too.

But a September study from the Government Accountability Office found few alternatives to the swimming tank (.PDF). Either the Marines could continue to use their decades-old Amphibious Assault Vehicles, or they can modify their planned Marine Personnel Carrier for ship-to-shore operations. (One option for the carrier, GAO writes, is the Italian Supernav 8×8 tank, “a 24-ton vehicle that can carry 13 Marines and their equipment and can travel up to 500 miles nonstop on land and 40 miles on water.”) But the carrier won’t be ready until 2015 as it is.

From Commandant James Amos on down, though, the Corps insists it’s not married to the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle per se. But it is married to idea that it remain able to fight on both sea and land, so it’ll need some armored vehicle that can get Marines onto an enemy beach.

“What is crucial is the ability to be able to come from the surface and to be able to do a seamless transition from the maritime domain to the land domain. And that requires you, then, to have some kind of amphibious vehicle that is a tracked vehicle,” said Flynn, who helps determine the Corps’ requirements for its future weapons, vehicles, sensors and training. “That is the requirement and that is what is key… The capability is what is important.”

As it happens, the Senate appropriators’ repudiation of the EFV may not actually become law. The House Armed Services Committee’s incoming chairman, Representative Buck McKeon, expressed doubt yesterday that Congress will actually pass a defense bill this year. But that wouldn’t stop the calls for canceling the tank.

Update, 1:25 p.m.: Sure enough, another member of the White House deficit commission, Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, takes the budgetary axe to the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.

Photo: DoD

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Marine Corps Seeks Correct 21st Century Balance

09:47 GMT, November 17, 2010

WASHINGTON | The U.S. Marine Corps needs to be like a middleweight boxer –- agile, quick and deadly, the commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command said here today.

Speaking to the Defense Writers’ Group, Lt. Gen. George J. Flynn noted that the Marine Corps has the mission to be America’s expeditionary force in readiness.

“A middleweight fighter has to have a knockout punch,” the general said. “But I also don’t think a middleweight should go 15 rounds with a heavyweight.”

Finding the right balance to define what the Corps should look like and what capabilities it should contain is Flynn’s mission. “It means that we are going to be truly expeditionary -- that we can go wherever we need to go today, not tomorrow, and that we put a premium on readiness,” he said.

“A crisis response force does all the things you see the Marine Corps do right now,” he told the group, from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan to providing aid to Pakistan, to helping countries in Africa, South America and Asia. The Marine Corps is taking the lessons of 10 years of war to heart, he added.

“One of the top lessons is that we’re doing things at a much lower level than we ever did in the past,” Flynn said.

Marine Corps companies are doing what battalions did in the past, he explained. The strategy calls for pushing intelligence and operations planning to company level.

“We’re asking a lot of the young leaders to do this,” he said. “Tactical actions have strategic implications, and that really is a key factor in pushing those things down there and asking them to coordinate these in a very complex battle space.”

Strategists talk about a three-block war, and the Marines have embraced that notion, Flynn said. “It is not uncommon to have a unit doing pretty heavy combat, at the same time they train their replacements -– be it police or army support -– and the other part is enabling governance to take place,” Flynn said.

Another lesson is integrating new technology into battle plans and integrating lessons on the fly. Pre-deployment training is an area of concentration for Marines, Flynn said. The training, he said, enables Marines at all levels to understand the mission ahead.

“We use the pre-deployment training to integrate the new things that are on the battlefield – not just equipment, but the tactics, techniques and procedures as well,” Flynn said.

For example, he said, the Marine Corps just opened the expanded immersive infantry trainer at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and is building similar facilities at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and in Hawaii. The trainer gives ground Marines the same leg up that pilots receive, Flynn said.

“For those who fly airplanes, you would never think of giving a pilot the keys to a commercial airliner or a fighter aircraft without some simulator time,” he said. “Why would we give a young squad leader the keys to a rifle squad without going through a simulator? The simulator gives you the pre-combat check ride to make sure you can deal with what you’re going to have to deal with.”

The Marines have been criticized as functioning simply as a second land army, but Flynn said he doesn’t agree.

“I would argue that since 9/11, we’ve been at sea quite a bit as well,” he said. A Marine expeditionary unit based on ships responded to the earthquake in Haiti in January, he noted. Another responded from the sea to the flooding in Pakistan. Still another responded to Haiti as a hurricane struck the island nation earlier this month, Flynn said.

Integrating new equipment into the Corps also is part of Flynn’s mission, and he is looking at new ground combat vehicles, the F-35 joint strike fighter and many other pieces of equipment, he said. He acknowledged, however, that such programs can present fiscal pitfalls. “How do programs get in trouble? We over-reach on technology, and as a result we underestimate the cost and we underestimate the time to be able to do it,” he said.

To remedy that, the general said, the military needs a better dialogue with industry from the beginning of the process.

“We need to be more informed of what we’re asking and to be able to really know the cost of what we’re asking them to do,” he said.

----
Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

[buglerbilly]

Give the Marine Fighting Vehicle A Final Chance to Prove Itself

(Source: Lexington Institute; issued November 17, 2010)

(© Lexington Institute; reproduced by permission)

The fate of the Marine Corps' Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) has been hanging by a thread ever since the military services delivered their proposed fiscal 2012 budgets to the defense secretary last Summer. If assembly of the final budget request for submission to Congress in February is following a normal schedule, then this is the month when decisions on controversial programs like EFV will be made.

However, trying to fit an EFV decision inside the usual budget schedule could doom both the program and many Marines going ashore in the future, because the data needed to make an informed decision won't be available until January.

Most people who follow the sea services by now know the EFV story. It's supposed to replace aged Cold War amphibious vehicles that have become sitting ducks in an era of precision guided munitions. It has more speed, more range, more firepower and more protection than any amphibious vehicle in history, with a price-tag to match. But the price-tag wouldn't matter were it not for reliability problems that cropped up in early testing of the vehicle, because everybody knows that the service has no backup plan if EVF falters. In other words, it will either be out of the amphibious warfare business or it will be facing heavy casualties every time it goes ashore in an opposed landing.

The service has adopted a series of modifications to compensate for the fact that it underfunded reliability at the beginning of the program, and more resilient prototypes began testing this week. The tests will be completed in January.

That isn't such a long wait to find out whether the $2 billion investment in EFV made to date was worth it, but it may be too long for some Pentagon budgeteers. They will be urging a final decision before the test results are in, so the budget can be locked down and they can go wherever bureaucrats go during the holidays. Given the past pronouncements of defense secretary Robert Gates on the future of amphibious warfare, that probably would mean the end of the road for EFV.

This is a moment that calls for some reflection on the part of policymakers and military leaders. Whether we like it or not, the U.S. Marine Corps will need to go ashore in the face of hostile fire in the future. If its warfighters do not get the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle or something like it after waiting decades for a new amphibious vehicle, then hundreds, maybe thousands, of them could die unnecessarily in future conflicts.

So if EFV fails in its reliability testing, then the Pentagon needs to start over fast on something better. But if it does well, then the government needs to find a way of funding it. What the government should not do is kill a vital warfighting system before it knows whether that system is suitable for future combat needs. To act precipitously now, without the necessary data, wouldn't just waste money spent to date on the program, it would squander the lives of Marines who put themselves in harm’s way to protect America.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Marines Look To Protect Major Programs

Dec 3, 2010

By Paul McLeary, Kimberly Johnson, Mike Fabey
Washington, Washington, Washington



In November, President Barack Obama’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform released a stunning report detailing areas where commission members say they found $200 billion of proposed cuts in the federal government—and although the report was released on the Marine Corps’ 235th birthday (Nov. 10), the USMC took a beating.

The commission, whose full report was to be released Dec. 1, called for cancellation of the troubled V-22 Osprey program, capping it at 288 aircraft, while substituting MH-60 helicopters to meet some of the Osprey’s planned missions. The commission also called for cancellation of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) and the F-35B version of the Joint Strike Fighter, all of which would add up to almost $43 billion in savings, but at severe emotional cost to the Corps, which has long held the Osprey and EFV as centerpieces of its modernization strategy.

While no one expects all of the suggestions to be adopted, the report is a good indication of the level of congressional frustration with long-term, expensive Pentagon projects.

The Bell/Boeing MV-22 Osprey is in many ways the Marines’ flagship program. Only the Marines and Air Force special operations selected the tiltrotor to meet their needs for lift.

The V-22 has been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and took part in the assault on Marja in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in 2009, ferrying Marines to the battlefield. A second squadron is deployed in Afghanistan, and another is making the type’s third at-sea cruise with a Marine Expeditionary Unit. The Corps has 130 aircraft and is progressing toward a goal of a 330-aircraft fleet.

At this point, increasing reliability and reducing operational costs are primary goals. The V-22 has a high disk loading and higher-velocity downwash than most rotorcraft, kicking up heavy clouds of sand and debris during landing and takeoff. The result has been premature wear on the engine air particle separator and on the engines. One of the most experienced Osprey pilots, Col. Chris Seymour, commented at a November meeting in Washington that the V-22 downwash is like that of the CH-53E but “concentrated at the 12 and 6 o’clock positions—the ground people don’t go there because it’s dangerous.” He says, however, that the V-22 is the “only [Marine] platform that goes into open desert” in Iraq or Afghanistan because of its advanced avionics.

Other than the Marja assault, the Marines have not been specific about V-22 missions in Afghanistan. In the latter stages of Iraq operations, it was often used for “governance” missions—flying dignitaries around.

A problem, Seymour says, is that the Corps has “a strategic communications challenge in educating battle staffs,” with the result that the V-22 has often been used in the same way as a helicopter. For example, planners routinely assign two V‑22s to a regular long-distance night mission with a half-dozen passengers. “We had blue-force tracking, satcoms, over-the-horizon communications, and there was no reason we needed another Osprey.” Seymour blames “blogs and other propaganda” for the aircraft’s image.

Seemingly destined for the Pentagon ax, the EFV program has survived several rounds of budget cuts under Defense Secretary Robert Gates. After several false starts the program appeared to get back into gear during the fall with the coming of Gen. James Amos, the new Marine commandant. Program officials revved up to complete a crucial series of tests throughout the winter and spring. The Marines say that will keep the EFV on track for development and deployment.

Program officials acknowledge, however, that the EFV faces a long, hard battle to stay viable. One miscue during the current round of tests could halt development.

Many in and out of the Pentagon thought the EFV was on its way to the junk heap by mid-2010. Gates had the program in his sights and no one was sure what kind of support Amos would lend. Like other programs that have been decades in development, the EFV became a target for defense industry reformers who questioned the relevance of equipment they say is more suited to warfare from another era.

For example, it is designed to carry a large enough gun to engage hostile armored vehicles but not—in its basic form—to withstand large mines or improvised explosive devices.

The kind of amphibious assault landings for which the EFV was initially designed no longer make sense, critics added. But Amos presents a new idea of what constitutes an amphibious landing. In his first planning guidance, released in October, he cites global disasters in Haiti and Pakistan that required the deployment of 5,000 Marines from seven amphibious ships. Amos also made clear in his guidance that he was for anything that bolstered the Marines’ expeditionary capabilities.

“The Marine Corps is America’s expeditionary force in readiness,” he wrote in the guidance, which mentions “expeditionary” 15 times. “To a Marine, the term ‘expeditionary’ is more than a slogan; it is our state of mind. It drives the way we organize our forces, how we train and what kind of equipment we buy.” The defining expeditionary tool now is the EFV.

The Marines remain focused on proving the EFV merits not only the support of their commandant, but the Pentagon and, of course, Congress. Given the economic climate, Congress is going to scrutinize a program that proposes a vehicle slated to cost $22 million per copy (two-thirds the cost of a CH-47F helicopter and far more than any other combat vehicle), has an overall procurement cost of $9.5 billion and total acquisition cost of $13 billion.

The EFV for now is funded through the current testing phase, designed to meet the program’s Knowledge Point 2, which the service hopes to finish by mid-January. The vehicle needs to meet all testing objectives if the Marines want to go further, says program spokesman Manny Pacheco. EFV prototypes are going through mission-profile testing. Marines are making sure that, among other things, the vehicles’ electrical and communication systems don’t interfere with Navy ship platforms, or vice versa.

One major goal during this round of testing is to reduce time between failures. William Taylor, EFV program executive officer, who helped navigate the V-22 through development and deployment, maintains such reliability issues are common in this stage of development. The most recent annual report from the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DOTE) noted the program’s efforts to improve reliability.

The vehicle averages 16.4 hr. between failures. The Marines want to increase this to the low 20s for the near term. The program requirement is 43.5 hr. Some changes the Marines are evaluating concern high-speed water performance, mobility and a redesign of the turret ammunition feed system to fix a jamming problem.

Marines put most of the focus into the turret redesign, Pacheco says. “We have confidence in the (vehicle’s) high-water speed.”

One recent design change, according to program manager Col. Keith Moore, is meant to prevent debris from clogging the water jet and cooling systems. The DOTE report cited problems with silt on the radiator. Marines must prove the redesigned vehicles perform as expected if they want Congress to continue funding the program.

Should EFV not survive, the Marine Corps is expected to fall back on its 35-year-old Amphibious Assault Vehicle “amtrac” to bridge the capability gap until an alternative is found. The AAV program is slated to run through 2025. That timeline, however, will soon be extended 10 years, says Gary Leymeister, weapons system support manager for AAV at Marine Corps Logistics Command, Albany, Ga.

“The estimated life of this vehicle is expected somewhere around the 2025 time frame; however, that is being pushed out to probably 2035,” Leymeister says, “because other weapons systems that are supposed to come along to replace it may be delayed.”

While the Marine Corps remains coy about the EFV’s future until conclusion of the ongoing Force Structure Review, observers point to major amtrac rebuilds as proof it’s not a total relic. “The AAV7 A1 can be sustained for the foreseeable future,” Dennis Boucher, acting program manager of Assault Amphibious Vehicle Systems at Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., writes via e-mail. The AAV program was launched in the 1970s. “However, it is important to note that a large portion of the vehicles’ original major sub-components have been replaced by more current versions,” he notes.

The AAV fleet is kept current through rehab done on an inspect and repair only as necessary (Iroan) basis, which requires the vehicles to be transported to Marine Corps maintenance depots in Albany, Ga., or Barstow, Calif. “In short, the Iroan process entails evaluating and restoring major components (e.g., engine, transmission, track, bilge pumps), so each vehicle returning from it is in the proper configuration and condition,” Boucher says.

“They look like a brand new vehicle,” Leymeister says. “What that means is, you do whatever you have to do to bring that vehicle to an operational condition to give back to the Marines and, for the most part, that means taking it down to the hull.” Each of the Corps’ 1,057 AAVs goes through the 100-day maintenance rehab every six years, Leymeister adds. The last major system overhaul of the fleet began in 1998, with the launch of the RAM/RS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability/Rebuild to Standard) program, which increased ground clearance and speed, as well as reliability, back to the vehicle’s original operating capability.

That engine and suspension replacement program spanned eight years. The Corps is looking at another major upgrade program within the next few years, with possible further upgrades beyond that to get the vehicle out to 2035, Leymeister says. Whether or not AAV could go beyond 2035 “probably depends on what happens with EFV.”

Just how any EFV cuts are made could have a lasting impact on its replacement program, and consequently, the amphibious assault capability the Marines see as the nexus of their identity, according to one defense analyst.

“My sense from talking with people is that there is a growing expectation the EFV program will be reduced or canceled,” says analyst Dakota Wood of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “The greatest fear is probably that if the program is canceled, they also lose the funding associated with that. What they would like to see is that if the program is canceled, the funding is preserved so you can still invest in a more modern combat vehicle, ship-to-shore capability than is resident in the AAV.”

One post-EFV scenario would be that with the Corps’ fleet of more than 1,000 AAVs, half could be modernized to meet the current call for 573 EFVs, with the other half put in storage until needed.

“They’re going to have a sympathetic ear in Congress, even with the turnover,” Wood says. “They’ve got to have something, otherwise why do we have amphibs? I don’t think they would retain the entire program amount. But if you retained 50% you get some cost savings, which is what the defense secretary is looking for, but you have a pretty good amount for research and development into alternatives.”

Not all of the Marines’ new pieces of kit are so large, controversial or expensive. Members of Co. I, 3rd Btn., 5th Marines deployed to Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in September with new gear that could prove as significant as any multibillion-dollar floating tank or high-speed air platform. In a combat zone first, the Marines brought with them portable solar panels, energy-conserving lights, solar tent shields and solar power chargers that allow them to do away with bulky, fuel-guzzling diesel and kerosene generators, and let them live and fight in austere environments partially removed from the logistics of fuel and battery resupply. The “green” equipment cost $50,000-70,000, but considering that transportation costs to Afghanistan can drive the price of fuel to $400/gal., if the test is successful, the investment will quickly pay for itself.

The Corps is testing other green technologies in its Experimental Forward Operating Base (ExFOB) program, and announced in October that Raytheon successfully completed all phases of testing on the gear. ExFOB revolves around the ReGenerator, a self-contained power system that runs on an integrated 1.2-kw. solar array and wind power, with integrated battery storage, power-conditioning and power-conversion electronics. The system can also plug in to external a.c. sources and provide power to dismounted units.

Raytheon’s Arlan Sheets says “we focused on the [program’s] expeditionary size and having something that’s really scalable and ruggedized.” One of the goals was to create a platform “that’s very parts-agnostic,” so it can be easily repaired in the field. Sheets says the system fits in a Light Tactical Trailer, and two people can set it up and produce power in less than 5 min.

No word on when or if the Marines plan to ship the system to grunts in the field, but the gear is an example of important technologies that don’t require decades of tests and billions of dollars to make a difference.

Photo: USAF

[buglerbilly]

Marines, Navy to Conduct Synthetic Amphibious Exercise

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued December 6, 2010)

WASHINGTON --- For nearly a decade the Marines have been heavily involved in land-locked battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, the Marine Corps’ II Marine Expeditionary Force is teaming up with the U.S. Navy’s Second Fleet for Exercise Bold Alligator 2011, a synthetic training exercise that’ll test the Marines’ famed amphibious capabilities.

Commander, Expeditionary Strike Group Two, and Commander, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade in coordination with ships assigned to the U.S. Navy’s Second Fleet will conduct a joint large-scale fleet synthetic amphibious exercise Dec. 11-17, which will concentrate on the fundamental roles as “fighters from the sea.”

The synthetic exercise, which Owens says will "make extensive use of modeling and simulation in an effort to simulate weather, battlefield conditions, and force-on- force opposition," will focus on the command element in order to replicate live combat situations. Exercise Bold Alligator 2011 also serves as a test run for a planned live exercise in 2012.

“It's the first brigade-level amphibious exercise on the East Coast in nearly ten years, but it's also a first step in our revitalization of our amphibious proficiency,” Brig. Gen. Christopher Owens, deputy commanding general, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine, said during a "DoDLive" bloggers roundtable Dec. 2.

“During the exercise, we plan to refine our current concepts involving sea-basing, forcible-entry operations, and command-and-control,” because “so much of what the U.S. does, in terms of international security, relies on amphibious access to areas of conflict,” he explained.

Owens alluded to Navy assault amphibious ships like USS Iwo Jima, USS Tarawa, and USS Inchon as to how amphibious operations have been perceived, but was quick to point out that not all amphibious operations are assaults. In fact, of the 100 amphibious operations that have taken place in the last 20 years, many were non-combat situations like disaster response, noncombatant evacuations, and humanitarian assistance.

Although numerous military analysts have thought amphibious operations to be obsolete, time and again they have proven their worth in a variety of combat situations -- including possible pre-emptive action. This is why planners for the exercise are working to refine and emerging amphibious concepts and improve amphibious operations overall.

“We do have to find a way to keep our amphibious capability and proficiency, and keep it relevant to the types of operations that we are going to be called upon to provide,” said Owens. “I think [Defense] Secretary [Robert M.] Gates is challenging us to make sure that we remain relevant and ready,” he continued.

Owens believes that the close link between the Marines and the Navy is the backbone of successful amphibious operations.

"What the Marine Corps provides that is unique is that amphibious capability that we provide in conjunction with our Navy partners," he explained. "It is only through that link -- that inextricable link between us and the Navy -- that provides that unique capability."

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Navy, Marines Game Out Their Future

Posted by Paul McLeary at 12/15/2010 8:36 AM CST


U.S. Navy delivering humanitarian supplies ashore in Colombia. (Pic: Paul McLeary)

With the Marine Corps leadership itching to get “expeditionary” again and start placing their Marines back on U.S. Naval vessels after a decade fighting in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, the sea services are starting from square one.

On December 11, the Navy and Marine Corps kicked off Bold Alligator, a simulation that marks the largest joint fleet simulated amphibious exercise in the last 10 years. Brig. Gen. Christopher S. Owens of the II Marine Expeditionary Force, the Marine component of Exercise Bold Alligator, said in a conference call last week that while it's the first brigade-level amphibious exercise in quite some time, “it's also a first step in our revitalization of our amphibious proficiency with larger or brigade-size units” after a decade of kicking sand.

The synthetic exercise—a real, physical exercise is planned for 2012—will be run out of Norfolk from two amphibious assault ships, the USS Bataan and USS Iwo Jima, and will simulate a “hybrid threat environment where U.S. forces have been requested by friendly nations to help bring a measure of security and stability to the area,” Owens said. “With one nation, we'll support their fight against an externally-supported insurgency and repel foreign invaders from within their borders; at the same time, in a neighboring country, we will likely conduct a noncombatant evacuation operation of U.S. citizens in the midst of sectarian violence that is related to the more conventional conflict next door.”

It’s a complicated task, and one that Owens says is structured to refine the ability of the Navy and Marines to conduct seabasing operations, forcible-entry operations, and command-and-control, “as well as explore a growing issue of antiaccess/area-denial operations.” Rear Admiral Kevin Scott, who will command Naval forces as commander, Expeditionary Strike Group Two, said that the simulation will have over 29 participating commands with eight ships and fourteen different units operating out of seven training centers.

In calls with journalists neither Owens nor Scott would comment on the specific gear that will be gamed out in the exercise, so we don’t know if the Corps’ V-22 Osprey or the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle are slated to have a role in the game.

[buglerbilly]

More Countries Invest In Marine Forces

Dec 22, 2010

By Andy Nativi
Genoa



Most nations have marines—amphibious assault forces that act as first responders when governments project power. Theater commanders will say the benefits of a mobile force of marines, operating with naval support and dedicated air and ground assets, cannot be overstated, especially in an era of asymmetric warfare and littoral operations. So effective is this model of rapid light infantry that even landlocked Paraguay has a battalion of marines.

The number, capabilities and support of marine forces varies. Most nations, ironically, lack the ships and logistics necessary to optimize such forces. This may be changing. Although industrial militaries in the West periodically examine the structure and value of marine forces (see related story on p. 30), many developing countries are expanding their units. The reasons involve regional influence, coastal security, protection of trade and suppression of criminal activity, notably piracy. Moreover, with more countries participating in security and peacekeeping coalitions, fielding and maintaining an effective amphibious force is vital to a successful deployment.

Amphibious forces are among the most complex and expensive in a navy. They need dedicated naval assault forces to project and sustain power, well-trained and motivated personnel, specific and costly equipment, and must hone their skills with constant training. As a result, only a few nations can afford true amphibious forces. Nevertheless, countries in many regions are looking to increase the size and capabilities of their marine forces.

Some NATO members such as the U.K., Italy, Spain and the Netherlands have marine units. Others assign marine activities throughout their forces. France, while having an amphibious naval capability, does not have a true marine force, even though the army fields three regiments called marines and there is a special forces component of the navy. Germany also has no marine force, primarily because an amphibious force projects power, which Germany is reluctant to do.

NATO, which has a doctrine for amphibious operations, has studied and wargamed amphibious raids and larger operations to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden and elsewhere, but a lack of political will keeps such plans off the table. The only recent amphibious operations among NATO members were landings by Italy and France for the initial deployment of their Unifil (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) troops, disaster relief operations and non-combatant evacuations.

Still, NATO can rely on joint Spanish-Italian and U.K.-Dutch amphibious forces. The U.K. has a Royal Marines force at brigade level and a strong amphibious naval force. The Dutch maintain a brigade of 3,000 marines and two modern LPD (landing platform dock) amphibious craft. One Dutch battalion is integrated with the U.K.’s 3 Commando Brigade to form the U.K./Netherlands Amphibious Land Force.

Spain fields a brigade of 6,200 marines and relevant amphibious naval forces, while Italy has created a peculiar joint amphibious brigade, combining naval infantry units and a regiment of army riverine and delta troops converted to amphibious assault duties.

Elsewhere in the region, Portugal relies on two marine battalions with 2,000 troops, but has limited naval transport. Greece has a marine infantry brigade that is part of the army, which the navy supports with limited amphibious forces. Turkey is increasing its amphibious naval component; Romania has a marine battalion but lacks transport vessels; and Russia is rebuilding its naval amphibious force. Moscow believes that the quickest approach entails acquiring LPDs from the West to support elite naval infantry forces, which include 8,000 in one division, two brigades and some regiments. The Russian navy has been negotiating with France to buy Mistral amphibious craft, but recently announced an open tender for the ships.

Large amphibious forces are common in the Pacific Rim. China has 7,000 marines and special forces in five regiments. This is likely to expand as the navy builds more amphibious assault vehicles and strengthens its blue water fleet. Taiwan has a bigger marine force, with two active divisions and one in reserve totaling 35,000 troops. They are primarily for defensive operations—e.g., repelling an invasion by China.

If China attempts to invade Taiwan, and its missile, naval and air attacks and blockades do not force surrender, amphibious assault operations would take place. China, however, is also looking at naval power projection to defend territorial claims and economic exclusion zones in the Western Pacific.

India has a marine force of only 1,000, which is surprising since experts believe the country will eventually vie with China for influence in the region. The country also has a large coastline to patrol, is committed to keeping shipping lanes open and faces ongoing insurgencies in parts of the country. India’s naval amphibious component is adequate, and being reinforced.

South Korea fields a large and capable naval infantry that mirrors the U.S. Marine Corps, with 25,000 men in two divisions and a brigade supported by a growing and modern navy amphibious component including two LHDs (landing helicopter docks). Marines in South Korea would play a defensive role or launch a naval attack in a conflict with Pyongyang.

Geography—including a large coastline—and decades of war drove Vietnam to build a powerful marine force of 25,000, even though the navy lacks the means to project their power and support them. Vietnamese marines are mostly for coastal defense and riverine and delta operations.

Geography also led Indonesia to build up naval infantry, given its need to protect the hundreds of islands in the country. The marine force of 15,000 in two brigades will increase to 22,000 with the planned addition of two brigades. The navy has a patchwork of amphibious vessels, with four LPDs in service or under construction, 18 LSTs (landing ship, tank) and 14 LCUs (landing craft utility).

The Philippines, with many islands to protect, has more than 8,000 marines, but minimal naval transport and assault capabilities. The troops are for counter-insurgency missions.

Japan’s navy is building an amphibious force, which will include LPDs and LHDs and a helicopter air wing. Given the sensitivity of Asian countries to a real or perceived Japanese offensive capability, establishing a dedicated naval amphibious assault infantry is not an immediate move for Tokyo. Naval forces will instead transport and support army units.

Australia has an integrated military force and, while lacking a large marine infantry, is increasing its naval transportation and power projection capability, including amphibious assault assets.

Most of Africa has no significant amphibious forces. Some countries on the Mediterranean have such capabilities, notably Morocco, which has a naval infantry force of 2,000 but only one LST. Algeria plans to develop an amphibious capability, but has no marines. The navy is to acquire at least one LPD, and is increasing rotary wing assets.

Saudi Arabia has the most powerful marine force in the Middle East—3,000 naval infantry who rely on LCUs for coastal operations. The growing Iraqi forces include a marine battalion for coastal and riverine operations, mainly defense on the Shatt al-Arab waterway, whose southern end borders Iran. (Iran has no amphibious assault capabilities to speak of.)

Almost all South American countries with a coast have marine forces, even if they are not matched by naval amphibious capabilities. Brazil’s marine force is 15,000 strong. The navy has several amphibious assault vessels and wants more. Chile has four regiments with more than 2,700 marines, but no naval amphibious force. Venezuela has 10,000 naval infantry, which also operate in riverine roles. The force comprises five brigades, with two more being equipped. Its four LSTs, however, are not sufficient.

Peru has a naval infantry force of 3,500 and is expanding its naval amphibious arm by acquiring decommissioned U.S. vessels. Argentina’s 2,000 marines are among the country’s best troops, though the navy has few airborne and assault capabilities. Colombia has a powerful naval infantry, with four brigades and 22,000 troops, but its main role is guerrilla warfare. Ecuador has three marine battalions, with 1,500 men, and small amphibious vessels. Bolivia has a naval infantry force of 1,000, but no amphibious capabilities.

Mexico plans to increase its naval infantry force to 16,000 from 10,000, but has a small amphibious force. Honduras has a battalion of marines but only one LCU. Guatemala has a marine battalion, two LCUs and one mechanized landing craft. Cuba’s naval infantry, despite a large coastline, is only 500.

Photo: Indonesian Defense Ministry

[Gubler, A.]

Here's the presento on the state of ADF amphibious transformation from the Chief of Army's Exercise:

http://www.defence.gov.au/opex/exercises/caex/pdf/hawkins.pdf

[buglerbilly]

Is This The End for The Marines’ Swimming Tank?

By Spencer Ackerman January 4, 2011 | 5:17 pm



In this corner: a defense secretary who takes a dim view of an expensive, delayed vehicle. In the other corner: a Marine Corps that views that vehicle as a symbol of its cherished ship-to-shore ethos. The long-awaited budgetary showdown may be about to begin.

The Marines are twitchy with anticipation that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is finally going to kill the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, a swimming tank designed to help Marines storm a beach. It would be an understatement to say the writing’s been on the wall for the landing craft. The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program is so old it can legally buy cigarettes, but even after $3 billion in research costs, it’s not ready for development. And it’ll cost the Pentagon an estimated $13 billion to meet the Corps’ goal of buying 573 of them from General Dynamics.

Reuters reports that Gates is ready to say he’s through with the program — maybe as early as Thursday. The Senate’s moneymen are ready to see it go: in September, they approved funding for one last round of tests, and a final $184 million to buy off the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle’s contractors if the tests fail. According to Manny Pacheco, a spokesman for the program, the tests, performed out at Camp Pendleton, should be wrapped up in another two and a half weeks.

The official line from the Corps is that they’re not married to the swimming tank, as now-commandant Gen. James Amos told the Senate in September, but they are married to its amphibious nature, as amphibious warfare is central to the Marines’ existence. But in practice, that’s not much of a distinction. The head of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Lt. Gen. George Flynn, told reporters in November that no other vehicle has the ability to take Marines from a Navy ship to an enemy-held beach.

“Our position remains that the nation needs the capability inherent in the EFV,” says Lt. Col. Matthew Mclaughlin, a corps spokesman. “If the EFV were to be canceled, we’d have to reexamine our existing and future power-projection, ship-to-shore capabilities and balance those present and future capabilities against future operational scenarios.”

That reexamination may be in the cards. Pacheco says that the Marines have performed 300 out of 500 scheduled hours’ worth of tests on the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. To pass, the swimming tank needs to go 16.4 hours without breaking down in any way — whether it’s the turret failing or the engine conking out or the hydraulics giving out, whatever — and currently “we’re in the low 20s,” he says.

Tests should wrap up by the end of the month, in time for the issuance of next year’s Pentagon budget request to Congress. But Gates might act to pull the plug before then. He’s proven himself more than willing to kill off the services’ top priorities, like the Army’s networked personnel carriers of the future or the Air Force’s favorite jet fighter. At the same time, previous rumors of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

For now, we’re still in the shadowboxing and trash-talking stage of any swimming-tank showdown. Heritage Foundation defense wonk Mackenzie Eaglen tweeted in response to the Reuters story, “Defense cuts now past muscle and into bone.”

Until there’s an announcement about the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle’s future from the Pentagon, the Marines are focusing on finishing the tests. “We’re doing what we need to do to get it to the finish line,” Pacheco says, “provided we’re allowed to get it to the finish line.”

Photo: DoD

[buglerbilly]

Statement by the Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Amos on Efficiencies

(Source: US Department of Defense; issued Jan. 6, 2011)

The Marine Corps will shortly issue a request for information to industry calling for ideas to develop an “affordable” successor to the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (above).(USMC photo)“Today the Secretary of Defense announced the termination of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) program. I support his decision. After a thorough review of the program within the context of a broader Marine Corps force structure review, I personally recommended to both the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Navy that the EFV be cancelled and that the Marine Corps pursue a more affordable amphibious tracked fighting vehicle.

“Despite the critical amphibious and warfighting capability the EFV represents, the program is simply not affordable given likely Marine Corps procurement budgets. The procurement and operations/maintenance costs of this vehicle are onerous. After examining multiple options to preserve the EFV, I concluded that none of the options meets what we consider reasonable affordability criteria. As a result, I decided to pursue a more affordable vehicle.

“Our nation’s amphibious capability remains the Corps’ priority. In the complex security environment we face, the execution of amphibious operations requires the use of the sea as maneuver space. A modern amphibious tracked vehicle is the means towards this end. It enables the seamless projection of ready-to-fight Marine rifle squads from sea to land. It is thus the key to allowing ship-to-shore operations in permissive, uncertain, and hostile environments; assuring access where infrastructure is destroyed or nonexistent; and creating joint access in defended areas. It is also central to the entire Marine tactical vehicle strategy for operations ashore. Once on land, an amphibious armored fighting vehicle provides the Marine rifle squad with the protected mobility and firepower to maneuver to a position of advantage to rapidly close with, engage, and defeat the enemy.

“The Marine Corps remains committed to develop and field an effective, survivable and affordable amphibious tracked vehicle. To bring this capability to the force sooner rather than later, we intend to capitalize on the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s recent efforts to streamline procurement and to rapidly accelerate the acquisition and contracting processes in developing our new amphibious tracked vehicle requirement.

“Shortly, we will issue a special notice to industry requesting information relative to supporting our required amphibious capabilities. We look forward to working with industry in meeting this challenge to field a modern and affordable amphibious tracked vehicle that will support our nation’s needs.”

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

“The Corps will never be defined by a program, but rather by the capabilities we bring to the fight”

January 7, 2011


Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle at sea, during technical trials. Photo: GDLS

“We ought not to look back, unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors and for the purpose of profiting by dear bought experience.” (George Washington)

Written By LtGen. George Flynn, Commander, Marine Corps Combat Development Support.

There is no guarantee we will learn from the bloody combat lessons of the last century. The current penchant by some for questioning the Marine Corps’ need for an amphibious tracked vehicle suggests an ignorance of history and a lack of understanding of the future; it is unsupported by hard lessons learned, world trends, and a security environment characterized by a high degree of uncertainty. Our Nation will most certainly require continued global access from the sea, and just as certainly there are forces at work that are actively and aggressively attempting to deny us that much needed access.


Lt General George Flynn, Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command (MCCDC)

The Secretary of Defense clearly stated that his decision to cut the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program does not call into question the amphibious assault mission of the Marine Corps. Moreover, he stated the requirement of developing a more affordable and sustainable amphibious tractor to provide the Marines a ship-to-shore capability into the future.

As America’s expeditionary force in readiness, the Marine Corps specializes in rapidly deploying anywhere in the world to develop access through partnership building activities, to create access in response to crises, and to provide the ability to force access to deter and/or defeat threats. The Corps will never be defined by a program, but rather by the capabilities we bring to the fight.

As a maritime Nation the tyranny of distance, geography, and topography remain constant challenges to our global influence. As demonstrated countless times, our ability to come from the sea and overcome the challenges of natural and manmade barriers allows us to protect and defend U.S. interests. Our continued ability to respond is dependent on our ability to operate in uncertain environments, create opportunities and ensure freedom of action regardless of access challenges.

The Marine Corps has learned that amphibious operations should avoid fixed defenses whenever possible. This option is not always available, however. In such cases the amphibious tracked vehicle is essential to success. The tracked amphibious vehicle provides the ability to perform three critical tasks: ship-to-shore movement, breakout from the beach and protected land mobility and firepower. As a result, the amphibious tracked vehicle has been a mainstay of amphibious capability. It has often proven the indispensible, enabling capability that Marines employ to both solve the sea/land mobility challenge and to gain advantage over our enemies.

Recent operational experience and history attest to the effectiveness of amphibious tracked vehicles in providing the capability and capacity demanded by numerous operating environments—permissive, uncertain, or hostile. Most recently, amphibious tracked vehicles assisted in overcoming the devastated infrastructure in Haiti. These same vehicles were used to rescue stranded citizens and deliver relief supplies following Katrina’s devastation of the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005. In the 1990s these vehicles enabled relief efforts in Somalia during Operation RESTORE HOPE and subsequently provided the key capability necessary to safely withdraw U.N. forces in UNITED SHIELD. During the Korean War they allowed us to project power from the sea at Inchon to reverse the looming defeat of U.S. forces trapped at Pusan. Given the proliferation of area denial weapons among both state and non-state actors, we believe that future operations—even those conducted for benign reasons—will be conducted under uncertain and highly dangerous conditions.

Amphibious tracked vehicles employed from ships at sea provide the means to assure littoral access that no other capability can provide. They are the only combat vehicles built to operate effectively in the littorals: a complex environment of salt and fresh water, muddy marshes and estuaries, and dry land; rural, suburban and urban landscapes; wildly varying terrain; high to low population densities; and temperature extremes. They can quickly and seamlessly transit from ship-to-shore as well as swim rivers and negotiate inland water obstacles, providing the ability to achieve tactical and operational surprise. They protect their occupants as they maneuver on sea and land to a position of advantage and can close with an enemy or rescue our friends. Their known presence off shore historically has been a powerful deterrent and effective capability across the range of military operations.

A modern amphibious tracked vehicle uses the sea as maneuver space, creates opportunities in the littorals, optimizes employment of amphibious forces, and enhances survivability in the face of area denial threats. An amphibious tracked vehicle is the proven means to overcome access challenges, natural or manmade, ranging from tsunami-ravaged infrastructure to an armed aggressor seeking to oppose our maneuver. Amphibious tracked vehicles empower a flexible, ship-borne force to wait off shore for the opportunity to shape the security environment or alter an outcome. This unique capability provides our Nation with a critical power projection asset.

There is no doubt that the sustainment and further development of our Nation’s amphibious capability is important for continued access to strategically vital regions of the world. We see a clear mandate to be ready to shape, influence, deter, and if necessary defeat would be forces that seek to deny us access. Meeting this mandate will allow us to profit “by dear bought experience” rather than repeat the errors of the past.

This article was provided by the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, Quantico, Va.

[buglerbilly]

Marines Lose EFV During DoD Spending Cuts

(Source: US Marine Corps; issued Jan. 7, 2011)

ARLINGTON, Va. --- As spending cuts and downsizing continue across America, the Marine Corps faces a similar future.

Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, laid out his plan for more than $150 billion in savings over the next five years from spending cuts in a written statement Jan. 6.

Two future Marine Corps programs will draw significant blows.

The termination of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) program will be first on the fiscal chopping block. The commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James F. Amos, said he agrees with the cancelation of what would have been the Corps’ newest amphibious tracked fighting vehicle.

“After a thorough review of the program within the context of a broader Marine Corps force structure review,” said Amos in a written statement. “I personally recommended to both the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of the Navy that the EFV be cancelled and that the Marine Corps pursue a more affordable amphibious tracked fighting vehicle.”

With the termination of the EFV, the Marine Corps is poised to meet the challenge of fielding a modern and affordable amphibious vehicle that will meet the needs of defending America’s interest.

“Our Nation’s amphibious capability remains the Corps’ priority,” Amos said. “In the complex security environment we face, the execution of amphibious operations requires the use of the sea as maneuver space.”

Amos added that a modern and affordable amphibious tracked vehicle is the means toward this end.

Another Marine Corps program not being spared in the cuts will be the Marine variant of the Joint Strike fighter. The stealth fighter jet capable of vertical flight will take a two-year backseat to the overall production of the aircrafts. Defense Department official said this is due to significant testing problems.

The Marine Corps has not purchased a fixed wing tactical aircraft in 11 years. The JSF is scheduled to replace the Navy and Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet and EA-6B Prowler, and the Corps’ AV-8B Harrier II.

Due largely to significant cuts in programs like the EFV and JSF, Gates has become known as a budget hawk in recent months as he continues his assault on wasteful and excess defense spending.

In his view, “these are all things that we should do as a department and as a military regardless of the time and circumstance. But they are more important than ever at a time of extreme fiscal duress, when budget pressures and scrutiny fall on all areas of government, including defense.”

Not all news is grim for Marines though.

According to the Defends Department’s statement, the Department of the Navy plans to use part of their efficiencies savings to increase the repair and refurbishment of Marine equipment used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The refurbishment plans come at a time of need for the Marine Corps. In the Corps’ global presence throughout the last decade, the amount of equipment remaining for non-deployed units to use for training has demised. According to the Corps’ 2010 report to Congress, the supply rating of units in Afghanistan is near 100 percent, while the supply rating of units at home is less than 60 percent.

With a refocused spending policy on shoring up equipment shortfalls, and wasteful and excess spending, the Marine Corps can continue to act as America’s force in readiness across the spectrum of future security challenges.

-ends-

[Nomad]

Here's the presento on the state of ADF amphibious transformation from the Chief of Army's Exercise:

http://www.defence.gov.au/opex/exercises/caex/pdf/hawkins.pdf





Abe

In the powerpoint you posted showing the unit make-up of an ARG, the uint icon under the SACC shows a medical company icon,
but the abbreviation/acronyom "PCRF" i have googled and czme up blank.
Could you please translate

Thanks

[Gubler, A.]

Primary Casualty Reception Facility

http://www.navy.gov.au/'Amphibious_MASH'_-_HMAS_Kanimbla's_Primary_Casualty_Reception_Facili ties

[JimWH]

Evening Nomad. PCRF means 'Primary Casualty Receiving Facility' and it equate roughly to a Role 2E medical facility*. In practice (post Nov 2011) it's going to mean the deployable PCRF of 2HSB with augmentation from the rest of Joint Health Command (most of the army personnel will actually belong to 3HSB, for instance).

*Role 2E means that as a facility it is able to process about 10 surgical cases per 24 hour period. It's also got the ability to handle a few high intensity patients simultaneously. The PCRF aboard the LHD with a fully developed PCRF is probably going to be quite a bit bigger. Total manning for a basic Role 2 is about 20 personnel, for a basic 2E it's probably about 30, and for a fully pimped out PCRF it'll probably be more like 50.

[buglerbilly]

Does The United States Still Need An Amphibious Warfare Capability?

(Source: Lexington Institute; issued January 10, 2011)

(© Lexington Institute; reproduced by permission)

Initial impressions of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ defense budget were that the Marine Corps was particularly hard hit. Not only did the Secretary cancel the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) but he also put the Marine Corps’ variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter on two-year probation.

If the short-takeoff version of the F-35 were cancelled this would be a serious blow to the Marine Corps’ concept of amphibious operations since it is the only jet aircraft in development that can be launched from large deck amphibious ships. Finally, he announced a reduction in Marine Corps end-strength of 15-20,000 personnel beginning in 2015.

Some observers have set the EFV decision in the wider context of the Secretary’s past criticisms of U.S. Navy and Marine Corps programs. Last year, the Secretary publicly questioned the former’s retention of 11 large deck aircraft carriers and the latter’s commitment to amphibious warfare. As a result, there has been speculation that the Secretary would also announce cutbacks or even the outright cancellation of other major Sea Services’ programs such as the V-22 Osprey and the LPD-17.

The EFV decision begs the larger question; does the United States still require a major amphibious warfare capability? The cost of maintaining such a capability is substantial. If it is to be continued then there must be additional investments to modernize this capability, including ships, vehicles, aircraft and helicopters. Critics of amphibious warfare point out that the United States has not conducted an opposed amphibious landing since Inchon in 1950. In addition, the proliferation of so-called anti-access/area denial capabilities will pose new challenges to future amphibious operations.

The principal argument in favor of maintaining a significant amphibious warfare capability is that it provides an unparalleled flexible response capability to deal with a range of contingencies in an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world. Large deck amphibious warfare ships have become one of the best platforms from which to conduct humanitarian operations or develop partnership capacity. A related argument to be made is that it is increasingly difficult for the United States to maintain its existing overseas basing structure, much less acquire new bases. As a result, the requirement to deploy expeditionary forces from the sea can only grow over time.

An amphibious warfare capability includes the means to move forces overseas, the capacity to rapidly transfer such forces from ships to the shore, including under fire, and the ability to support them once they are ashore. The EFV was intended to move Marines from ship to shore rapidly and then to support them in combat once there. Even if the EFV is cancelled, the requirement will persist. The V-22 has a similar mission, one it is now doing in Afghanistan. The F-35B will provide unparalleled air support to units ashore without the requirement to have large deck aircraft carriers or land-based airpower in proximity to the theater of operations.

If the U.S. needs a significant amphibious warfare capability it will also need to invest more in enablers. This means continuing the LPD-17 program, finishing acquisition of the V-22, replacing the Landing Craft Air Cushion, upgrading the AAV (the platform the EFV was supposed to replace) and figuring out how to provide enhanced naval fire support for Marine units deploying across defended beaches. It also means developing a new Marine Corps armored vehicle strategy.

There are important reasons to maintain an amphibious warfare capability in the 21st Century. Therefore, the Pentagon needs to invest in modernizing this capability. If Secretary Gates cancels the EFV, somebody will have to invent its replacement.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Marines’ Next Swimming Tank May Look Reeeaaally Familiar

By Spencer Ackerman January 12, 2011 | 1:11 pm



Don’t pour out any liquor for the Marines’ swimming tank. The Marines have reacted to the death of their next-generation “Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle” landing craft by asking for a cheaper version. Only the problem is that cheap missiles and tanks may make the next-next generation New Amphibious Vehicle irrelevant before it ever gets Marines to a beach.

The trouble with the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, killed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week, was the “fiscal environment,” Lt. Gen. George Flynn, commander of the Combat Development Command, told reporters this morning. In other words, its ballooning, $13 billion total cost — and not the landing craft itself. What’s now being called the New Amphibious Vehicle will still have to bring Marines ashore in an armored, armed tracked vehicle that can maneuver on a beach against an enemy.

The important thing is keeping the costs down. “We have to nail the requirements right at the front end,” Flynn said, in the “90-95 percent range,” so the Marines aren’t going back and forth with the manufacturer for expensive upgrades.

Flynn doubted that the New Amphibious Vehicle would “be operating from further out” at sea than the 25 nautical miles its predecessor swam — even though the Navy’s concerned about the brushback “anti-access” missile tech that push its ships further from the shore. (All Flynn specified was that the landing craft would have to go from “beyond the horizon.”) He doesn’t want the New Amphibious Vehicle to be heavier than the EFV’s 38 tons, since increasing the bulkiness of its armor will reduce its mobility. The Marines may seek upgrades on “new firepower [and] armor suspension technology.” But for the most part, Flynn said, the service is “not going to have to plow old ground.”

That may explain how the Marines are almost ready to ask industry what it can design for the New Amphibious Vehicle. Flynn said the Marines’ request will be ready by the end of the month or the first week in February, along with requests to upgrade its ancient Amphibious Assault Vehicle fleet with new digital communications tools as a gap-filler and accelerate the Marine Personnel Carrier. He hesitated to give a date for when the New Amphibious Vehicle could be ready before he talks with potential manufacturers, but said that he would like it to be ready in “under eight years.”

But eight years is a long time when considering the proliferation of missiles that make it easier to defend a beach from the arrival of amphibious vehicles. And the rise of cheap, homemade bombs makes it easier to stop them once they get ashore. That leaves two options. “You would have to think about beginning the assault from a distance greater than 25 miles, or beyond the EFV’s assault range,” says Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Or you’d have to look at “intense battlefield prep,” using a combination of air assault, cyberattacks and missile attacks before landing the Marines.

And raises a basic question: is coming from the sea the only way to storm a beach these days? Or is coming from the air as well going to be what distinguishes tomorrow’s beach charges from the Inchon landing of six decades ago?

“The goal is to so erode the enemy defenses that you can establish air superiority over the assault point and mount a successful attack from well within the 25-mile zone,” Krepinevich continues. “If you can’t, well, then you’re back at the more modest capability.”

It’s not like Flynn thinks coming from the sea is the only way to take the beaches of the future. The Marines’ V-22 tiltrotor aircraft could fly behind an enemy’s defenses, he said, to “go where enemy’s not — [to] get behind them or come over the horizon and use the sea as a maneuver space.” But there’s no backing off a new tracked amphibious vehicle as a key component of future invasions.

Accordingly, it didn’t sound like the Combat Development Command leader wanted to see the EFV go. Asked if he recommended its cancellation, Flynn simply replied, “I believe that the program is unaffordable.”

Photo: U.S. Marine Corps

[buglerbilly]

Amos: MRAP-Like Acquisition Strategy For EFV Follow-on

By John Reed Thursday, January 13th, 2011 4:44 pm



The U.S. Marine Corps should use an MRAP-style acquisition strategy to field a replacement for the cancelled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle as soon as possible, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos said today.

“What we did for MRAP should be the model for” how the Corps’ replaces its ancient Amphibious Assault Vehicles now that the EFV is out of the picture, said Amos during a Surface Navy Association conference in Arlington, Va. He was referring to the fact that thousands of MRAPS were purchased and fielded in an extremely short amount of time by compared to standard military weapons buys. In the case of the MRAP, which became the DoD’s top weapons buying priority late in the last decade, the Pentagon bought designs based on existing technology rather than develop all-new trucks and kept the requirements simple.

........EDITED............

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/01/13/amos-mrap-like-acquisition-strategy-for-efv-follow-on/#ixzz1AxziBM6C

[buglerbilly]

HASC Asks Gates to Maintain Work On EFV

(Source: Politico.com; published Jan. 25, 2010)

Bankrupting the USMC isn't reason enough?!!

[House Armed Services Committee Chairman Congressman Howard “Buck”] McKeon and the HASC subcommittee chairmen sent a letter to [US Defense Secretary Robert] Gates on Monday asking him not to issue any stop-work orders on the EFV or the Army missile program that DOD wants to cancel under this month's "efficiencies" program.

Even though [Marine Corps Commandant General James] Amos has said he signed the death warrant for the EFV himself because it would've vacuumed up almost his entire vehicle budget, McKeon and his colleagues said "it was unclear what analysis" led to its termination and that of the Army's SLAMRAAM.

Until such analyses materialize, the lawmakers wrote, they want DOD to keep the programs going.

Click here to read the letter (2 pages in PDF format) on the Politoc.com website.

http://www.politico.com/static/PPM195_110124_letter1a.html

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

General Dynamics, Congress Not Letting EFV Go Quietly

Posted by Paul McLeary at 1/25/2011 4:36 PM CST



While the White House, Secretary of Defense Gates, and the Commandant of the Marine Corps all support the cancellation of the costly and problematic Marine Corps experimental Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, General Dynamics and Congress haven’t given up hope yet.

EFV maker General Dynamics announced this afternoon that prototypes of vehicle—which would cost the $18 million apiece—have completed the required 500-hour reliability growth test at the Marine Corps’ Amphibious Vehicle Test Branch at Camp Pendleton, “demonstrating reliability that exceeds the testing threshold by 90 percent,” according to a company statement. GD says that the vehicle is currently reaching 31.2 hours mean time between operational mission failures, almost doubling the 16.4-hour performance required to meet the tests threshold for success. General Dynamics delivered seven prototype vehicles to the Marine Corps last year for testing, and says that the latest round puts the program on track “to successfully complete the System Development and Demonstration-2 phase.” The company goes on to report that the preliminary failures it has recorded “are low-consequence issues…no systems redesign work is required as a result of test findings.”

The new Congress is also getting in on the act. On Monday, House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., wrote to Gates, saying “we specifically request that no ‘stop work’ orders be issued until our committee has the opportunity to fully examine all of the efficiencies you have proposed.”

Pic of Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle courtesy USMC

[buglerbilly]

EFV Prototypes Successfully Complete Tests, Exceed Threshold by 90 Percent

(Source: General Dynamics Land Systems; issued January 25, 2011)

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. --- The U.S. Marine Corps' latest-generation Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) prototypes have completed the required 500-hour reliability growth test at the Marine Corps' Amphibious Vehicle Test Branch, Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., demonstrating reliability that exceeds the testing threshold by 90 percent.

The raw score performance of the vehicles in the reliability testing is 31.2 hours mean time between operational mission failure, nearly double the 16.4-hour performance required for test success. In addition, vehicle operational readiness rates steadily remained at 97 percent throughout testing.

General Dynamics delivered seven new prototype vehicles to the Marine Corps in 2010. Reliability growth testing began in October 2010. The vehicles' performance indicates the program is on track to successfully complete the System Development and Demonstration-2 phase.

All reported preliminary failures are low-consequence issues, a tribute to the rigor and commitment of the EFV team, and the most significant aspect of this testing. No systems redesign work is required as a result of test findings.

These indicate significant endorsement of the "design for reliability" concept and processes, as well as the General Dynamics Land Systems team's capabilities and discipline.

The EFV program is Earned Value Management System (EVMS) certified. EVMS measures actual performance of work scope and the associated cost and schedule versus an agreed-to baseline plan, while using disciplined means of baseline change control for documenting any changes to the agreed baseline plan. EVMS is a best-practice standard, required by the Office of Management and Budget and the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is the U.S. Marine Corps' next-generation amphibious combat vehicle. It features superior water speeds of up to 25 knots, and an operating sea range of 56 nautical miles. On land, the EFV travels at speeds of up to 42 mph and has an operational range of 300 miles. The fully stabilized Mk 46 weapons station significantly bolsters lethality, and the EFV's blast protection is far superior to the current system. EFV's Command Variant represents a major leap in command and control on the move and situational awareness.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

I'm glad to see that GDLS's support of Loren Thompson is paying off............I didn't say that did I? Nah, couldn't possibly have said that..............:razz


The Pentagon's New Thinking About Amphibious Warfare Makes No Sense

16:26 GMT, January 25, 2011

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has proposed canceling production of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, an amphibious system the Marine Corps has been developing to move troops from ship to shore in forcible entry operations. The main complaint Gates has with the program is that it costs too much, but since the existing amphibious vehicle is four decades old and cancellation will result in another decade of delays before it is replaced, the defense secretary had to offer some operational rationale for his decision. So in the months leading up to the announcement the program was being targeted for termination, Gates and several key subordinates began building the case for a new "concept of operations" in amphibious warfare. The new concept is dangerously naive, and will probably end up getting Marines killed. Let's go through the steps in official thinking as reflected in recent pronouncements by Gates and other officials, to see whether their reasoning makes any sense.

1. "We have to take a hard look at where it would be necessary or sensible to launch another major amphibious landing again -- especially as advances in antiship systems keep pushing the launch point further from shore." (Gates)

2. "On a more basic level, in the 21st century, what kind of amphibious capability do we really need to deal with the most likely scenarios, and then how much?" (Gates)

3. "The Navy-Marine Corps team thus needs to think in terms of a joint approach that seeks to gain entry then develop and secure a lodgment of sufficient breadth and depth as part of a joint campaign." (Navy Under Secretary Robert O. Work)

4. "The Navy-Marine team will never contemplate littoral maneuver until an enemy's battle network, capable of firing dense salvos of guided weapons, is suppressed... Air Force bombers, naval strike assets, Marine reconnaissance, and special operations forces would work to degrade and destroy enemy antiship capabilities." (Work)

5. "Once the [Joint Force Commander] judged the risks to be acceptable, Marines would then land at a time and place of their choosing... Unlike in the past, then, no [Joint Force Commander] will equate a theater-entry operation with a rapid, decisive operation conducted along tight timelines." (Work)

6. "The Marine Corps is not going to be defined by its programs. It is going to be defined by the capability it brings to the fight." (Lt. Gen. George J. Flynn, Marine Corps Combat Development Command)

To summarize, enemy acquisition of antiship weapons and other precision-guided munitions has made it too dangerous to go ashore early in a war, and the Marines therefore need to rely on other services to defeat defenders before risking an amphibious landing. So what's wrong with that reasoning?

First, few littoral nations can sustain a dense barrage of antiship missiles for long because they lack the technology and skills. Even those who possess such capabilities must disperse them along coastlines that measure hundreds or thousands of miles in length.

Second, the notion that we know what the most likely future warfighting scenarios are is wrong. The U.S. intelligence community failed to anticipate every major strategic development from Pearl Harbor to the Tet Offensive to 9-11. And scaling back U.S. amphibious capabilities will encourage scenarios currently deemed unlikely.

Third, planning for joint operations means relying on other services to show up in a timely fashion. What if the handful of bases that the Air Force relies on to operate in any given region are destroyed or closed by host nations? What if the Army is too far away to help, or occupied dealing with some other threat?

Fourth, the expectation defenders can be deprived of their antiship capabilities through the application of air power is optimistic. U.S. long-range strike aircraft are a decrepit assortment of aging airframes that probably cannot sustain operations for long against a capable adversary.

Fifth, war often presents attacking forces with the need to act quickly if they are to avert defeat or some other disaster. Perhaps an adversary is in danger of seizing nuclear weapons or killing hostages if action is not taken immediately. In such circumstances, the Marines can't simply wait until it's safe before going ashore, they have to move now.

Sixth, you can't separate Marine capabilities from the warfighting systems they possess. If the Corps lacks a survivable, well-equipped vehicle for conducting opposed landings, then it will be out of the forcible entry business. That's why every Commandant for the last two decades (until now) has insisted that the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle was indispensable to future amphibious operations.

I could go on, but you get the point. Pentagon policymakers have invented a series of convenient pretexts for killing EFV, but those pretexts don't have much to do with the real world. In the real world, circumstances often present warfighters with horrible choices that cannot be avoided. Like going ashore at Omaha Beach or Iwo Jima despite withering fire from heavily entrenched defenders. The challenge in planning for war isn't to imagine ways we can avoid making hard choices, but making sure we are prepared when those choices arise. The Pentagon's new thinking on amphibious warfare doesn't do that, and it therefore dooms future warfighters to going ashore with less firepower and protection than they might need to survive.

----
Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.
Early Warning Blog

[buglerbilly]

Marine Corps to release vehicle requests for information

February 08, 2011

With the cancellation of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) program on 6 January 2011, the United States Marine Corps (USMC) is preparing to release four separate requests for industry assistance in crafting a revised ground mobility strategy.

Brigadier General Daniel O’Donohue, director of the USMC Capabilities Development Directorate, outlined aspects of the current plan in a 7 February panel presentation to the 2011 Tactical Wheeled Vehicles Conference, in Monterey, California.

'We’re in a little bit of flux,' he admitted pointing to both 'the recent termination of the EFV' as well as 'a huge effort for the Marine Corps to shape itself in a post OEF environment as an expeditionary force in readiness.'

'The [Marine Corps] Commandant will be giving a speech on 8 February where I think he will lay out the Force Structure Review Group and from that will follow an equipping strategy, through some studies that go through the spring, to inform either the POM [Program Objective Memorandum] ’13 ‘end game’ or POM ’14,' he said.

O’Donohue emphasized that it was 'for affordability reasons' that the service lost the planned 573 EFVs, adding, 'but the mission is still a priority. In fact, importantly, when the EFV was terminated, we kept the money.'

He went on to outline a current service tracked and wheeled vehicle strategy that already contains some elements of what he dubbed 'risk.'

'If we look at an MCO – Major Combat Operation – requirement we are looking for a 20 battalion lift,' he explained.

'We currently have 27 active battalions and another nine reserves. So you can see that there is already risk in terms of their mobility. Within that lift for 20 battalions, one third [eight] are by air and the remaining 12 battalions are by ground. Eight of those will be by the replacement for the EFV – the next AV [Amphibious Vehicle] and then we have the MPC [Marine Personnel Carrier], which will be an eight-wheeled vehicle that will carry about nine troops and three crew. That would round out our ground combat mobility.'

The outline was accompanied by fleet projection charts that showed a potential fleet of 579 MPCs with IOC of FY22 as well as the current fleet of 694 aging Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAVs) decreased to 392 platforms and then upgraded as ‘a bridge’ to a next generation amphibious platform.

'So clearly an area of risk for us will be at ‘the high end’ – amphibious assault and the use of a vehicle in terrain and circumstances that are semi-permissive where you can’t use other vehicles,' O’Donohue added.

'The other area of risk is the HMMWV replacement. We have got the JLTV – and we are obviously very interested in the technology demonstrations that are ongoing.

'In conjunction with that we are doing the HMMWV recap. And the idea is that if we don’t make the decisions right today, then tomorrow we will have today’s force. We need to modernize as we go. We need to minimize the reset. And we’ve got to be smart about how we’re doing it.'

As part of Marine Corps investigations of its future fleet, O’Donohue pointed to a planned 11 February 2011 release of four “Requests for Information” covering: HMMWV Survivability; AAV Service Life Extension Program; Marine Personnel Carrier; and Amphibious Vehicle.

[I]By Scott R. Gourley

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Gates Accepts Marines' Future Plan

Posted by Bill Sweetman at 2/17/2011 8:23 AM CST

The Marine Corps Force Structure Review Group reported to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Monday of last week, and Gates endorsed its conclusions, according to Corps assistant commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford.

The review supports the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter and the need for a new amphibious vehicle, Dunford said, and a request for information on the latter will be issued this week.

The questions raised last summer by deputy Navy Secretary Robert Work and by Gates himself about the Marines' future "created not a little bit of angst," in the Corps, Dunford said.

"Paranoia is one of our core competencies," he added, "but rumors of our demise have been greatly exaggerated."

The FSRG aims at restructuring the Marines as a high-readiness force aimed at irregular and hybrid warfare. Core recommendations from the group include:

The force will be "rightsized" for the post-Afghanistan environment, which means no immediate reductions, and that it will be 2014-15.

The USMC will support a crisis force built around two Marine Expeditionary Unit brigades and 33 ships.

The Corps command structure will be leaned and flattened.

The Marines will increase their cyberwarfare and special operations forces.

"In the next 6-8 months we'll be taking a detailed look at timing, organization, equipment and strategy," Dunford added.

The initial operational capability (IOC) date of the new amphibious vehicle is "not 2024 - that's not accurate", Dunford told the conference. (2024 was the IOC date given on Monday by Navy budget chief RAdm Joseph Mulloy.) "We're confident that we can deliver the new vehicle in four to seven years."

The Marines will have a single program and single budget for life-extension on the current AAV7, an off-the-shelf Marine Personnel Carrier and the new amphibious vehicle.

The Marines are working on "a presumption of success" with the Joint Strike Fighter, Dunford says. "We continue to believe that STOVL is vital." Marine Commandant Gen James Amos "will be the program manager for the B", Dunford says.

Thursday morning, Navy acquisition chief Sean Stackley said that he was "in Gen Dunford's camp" on the F-35B issue and that he had "high confidence" that the F-35B will succeed. However, he described the amphibious vehicle goal as "aggressive, particularly at the four-year end."

Defining requirements, Stackley said, will involve a look at the entire amphibious warfare concept of operations, including the anti-ship cruise missile threat, because that will determine how closely the Navy's ships can stand-in. "If we start the new amphibious vehicle with the same requirements as the EFV, we'll likely get the same outcome."

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Marines Seek Ideas for New Vehicles

By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS

Published: 21 Feb 2011 17:11

The U.S. Marine Corps wants a new family of vehicles to carry out the business of amphibious warfare, and has issued a series of requests for information (RFIs) seeking industry input.


The U.S. Marines want to upgrade about half the existing fleet of amphibious assault vehicles while a new amphibious combat vehicle is developed. Here, an AAV comes ashore Feb. 6 during an exercise in Thailand. (Staff Sgt. Leo A. Salinas / U.S. Marine Corps)

The Corps needs a replacement for the canceled Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV), a complex, high-speed amphibious vehicle that had grown too expensive to buy and operate and no longer fit the tactical bill for the way amphibious assaults will be carried out.

In lieu of buying EFVs, the Marines are seeking industry proposals to upgrade the service's existing AAV7A1 amphibious assault vehicles (AAVs), and to create an amphibious combat vehicle (ACV) able to perform across a full range of military operations.

Additionally, the Marines issued an RFI for a new Marine personnel carrier (MPC) that would complement the AAV in land operations.

The RFIs were published Feb. 18 on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website at www.fbo.gov.

The moves were expected after Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced his decision Jan. 6 to cancel the EFV and develop a lower-cost alternative. A number of requirements for the ACV were set out in the RFI, including:

* The ability to autonomously deliver a Marine infantry squad from an amphibious ship to shore a minimum distance of 12 nautical miles, at "a speed to enable the element of surprise in the buildup ashore." The notice acknowledges that a high rate of speed "may prove to be unaffordable."

* Protection against direct and indirect fire, mines and improvised explosive devices. The protection can be modular, "applied incrementally as the situation dictates."

* Employ open architecture principles to rapidly integrate new technologies, and be reconfigurable to carry out alternative roles, including operation of heavy mortars or rockets, and logistic or medical evacuation missions.

* Be powerful enough to engage and destroy similar vehicles, provide direct fire support to dismounted infantry and maneuver with M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks.

The Marines want the vehicle to be configured in several variants, including as a squad maneuver/fighting vehicle, a command-and-control vehicle, and for recovery and maintenance.

The AAV sustainment and survivability upgrade effort seeks to modernize about half the Corps' 1,057 existing AAV7s. The new request builds on a previous RFI issued Aug. 18, and adds new requirements to improve the vehicles' lethality, propulsion system, command-and-control facilities and water mobility.

The accelerated MPC development effort is being made in conjunction with the Army, which issued the RFI on behalf of both services. The Marines intend to carry out "an aggressive, competitive acquisition approach with the intent to field an MPC fleet as rapidly as possible," and the notice directs competitors to assume a start date of Oct. 1, 2011. The wheeled vehicle is intended as a replacement for the existing Light Armored Vehicles operated by the Marines.

The Marines are seeking responses to the AAV RFI by March 4, and those to the ACV and MPC on April 22.

[buglerbilly]

First Osprey landing on West Coast amphib ship

By Jeanette Steele

Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 8:11 a.m.


John Lill / U.S. Navy
A MV-22 Osprey attached to Marine squadron VMM-166 approaches the flight deck of Makin Island. This is the first time an Osprey has conducted flight operations on a West Coast amphibious assault ship since being introduced to the fleet.

A MV-22 Osprey from Miramar Marine Corps Air Station this week made the first landing of its kind on a West Coast amphibious ship.

The Marines' tilt-rotor aircraft is replacing the aged CH-46 Sea Knight, whose signature dual-rotor silhouette has been a common sight in the skies over Camp Pendleton and Miramar but is now being retired.

The Osprey landing on Tuesday took place off the Southern California coast on the amphibious assault ship Makin Island, itself a first as the Navy's only "green" ship with a hybrid electric-gas engine under the hood. The Makin Island is scheduled to make its first deployment with a Marine expeditionary unit in the fall.


John Lill - U.S. Navy
Osprey landing on the amphibious assault ship Makin Island.
Squadrons of the Osprey are coming to Miramar, after being first introduced on the East Coast. The MV-22, which flies like a plane but lands like a helicopter, has been used on the battlefield in Iraq and now Afghanistan.

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Marine Amphib Upgrades Coming Fast and Furious

Posted by Paul McLeary at 3/3/2011 9:23 AM CST



With the cancellation of its amphibious Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program, the Marine Corps has released several requests for information (RFIs) looking for industry solutions to its future amphibious needs. Instead of buying EFVs, the Marines have issued RFIs to upgrade its existing AAV7A1 amphibious assault vehicles (AAVs); while creating a new amphibious combat vehicle (ACV); and a new Marine Personnel Carrier that would work alongside the AAV on land. The Corps has instructed industry that it is only looking for “mature” solutions that require little development. In the near-term, the Marines are looking for an upgrade of their entire AAV fleet—1,057 vehicles—in a 4-6 year timeframe, but BAE Systems’ Ann Hoholick, VP of New Vehicles and Amphibious Systems (maker of the AAV) says the company “could probably do that [upgrade] sooner” if the Corps were interested. While BAE is pitching the upgrade to the AAV, it also plans to bid on the follow-on to the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle—the Amphibious Combat Vehicle—but Hoholick said that the company is in the early stages of putting together its package.

Hoholick says that for the AAV, the company has a survivability upgrade concept, as well as improvements to its land mobility with a new power pack and suspension design, and will be able to increase water speed by about 40 percent, but would still not be able to “get to the high speed requirement that the EFV program has.” With the addition of a cooling system and a 25mm or 30mm remote weapons station, Hoholick says that the new vehicle would see an additional 10,000 lbs in weight added, though with the new power pack—or a new engine that the company is prepared to install—no speed or maneuverability would be lost. The Corps has set the deadlines for responding to the AAV RFI on March 4, while responses to the ACV and MPC requests are due April 22.

Pic: USMC

[buglerbilly]

Marines Face Huge CR Procurement Loss

By Colin Clark Tuesday, March 8th, 2011 2:44 pm



The Marines face the “catastrophic” loss of up to one-third of their acquisition money –$563 million — if Congress does not pass an annual defense spending bill, Commandant Gen. James Amos told the Senate Armed Services Committee today.

A Continuing Resolution, Amos said, “could prove catastrophic” to Marine procurement.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said in his prepared remarks that a CR would “prevent equipment replacement or purchase of 4 H-1 helicopters, numerous LAVs, MTVR.s, LVSRs; tech upgrades to counter IED jammers; communication and intelligence equipment; tactical fuel systems to power our vehicles and generators; engineering equipment to move ammo, gear and supplies; air conditioners and heaters to take care of Marines and sensitive gear; and EOD improvements to protect them.”

The CR would have even greater effects on the civilian population that relies on Navy and Marine funding, Mabus said, touching 10,000 jobs at facilities around the country. And it may cost more than the CR would save over this year’s budget. “The degradation or loss of perishable skillsets within our workforce, including many nuclear workers, and the disruption to both our fleet and shore maintenance and modernization schedules will take three years to recover based on rotational schedules alone – and only at significantly greater cost than requested in the FY 2011 President’s Budget,” he said.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine picked up on this, saying a CR may put “into jeopardy as many as 10,000 private sector jobs.” And she aimed straight at some of her fellow senators, saying they “argue that a CR will save us money… but i think it will end up costing us more noney in the long run.”

Over to you, Sen. Rand Paul and fellow Tea Party supporters.

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/03/08/marines-may-face-huge-procurement-loss/#ixzz1GC4qTH00

[buglerbilly]

EFV Replace: ‘What’s Best Deal’

By Colin Clark Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 4:42 pm



The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle became the focal point again for congressional unhappiness with the secrecy with which the Gates’ Pentagon does business during a hearing of the House Armed Services seapower and projections forces subcommittee.

“It’s a systemic problem,” Rep. Todd Akin, chairman of the committee, told me after the hearing. “it’s an increasingly systemic problem”

In his prepared statement, Akin said he feared “that when it is all said and done, the Marine Corps will probably only get an upgraded version of the current Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV).” However, Stackley said that would not happen. The service had concluded that upgrading the AAV would just be too expensive. Marine Lt. Gen. George Flynn told Akin the next key step would come when the Marines host an industry day at the end of the month.

Akin was not alone in expressing his unhappiness with how the Pentagon made its decision about canceling the EFV. The chairman was joined by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, chairman of the of the HASC air and land forces subcommittee, raised the issue during the hearing, telling the Navy and Marine leaders testifying before him that he wanted to be involved in the process for determining the replacement for the EFV. A scientist by training, Bartlett noted that Akin is an engineer and they would both be capable of knowledgeably participating in the process.

Bartlett told reporters after the hearing that he would like to take part in war games involved in crafting the new amphibious requirements and to be regularly briefed on important program decisions before they are made. He said he’d been invited to two or three war games in his 17 years in the House. It was unclear whether he had participated or attended those to which he had been invited.

As part of that effort to open up the Gates Pentagon, Akin pressed Sean Stackley, head of Navy acquisition, to brief his subcommittee on the EFV’s possible replacements. They tentatively set a date of April 7. Akin’s ultimate criteria for an EFV replacement? “What’s the best deal” that also gets Marines in relatively safety and comfort from ships at sea 12 miles out into the shore with enough speed.

Flynn told the panel that the Marines have modified the requirement from 10–22 miles to 12 miles.

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/03/16/efv-replace-whats-best-deal/#ixzz1GoKw7vnd

[buglerbilly]

EFV Ousted for Less Costly Triumvirate

(Source: US Marine Corps; issued March 22, 2011)

MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. --- After the Secretary of Defense cancelled the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle in January, [citing] the project was taking too long and the costs exceeded expected amounts, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Amos, recently stated he would be driving a working replacement for the EFV before his term was up.

Now members of the Fires and Maneuvers Integration Division at Headquarters Marine Corps Combat Development and Integration Command aboard Quantico are working feverishly to make the commandant’s goal a reality.

Three different vehicle programs will replace the responsibilities the EFV would have held, said Kevin McConnell, the deputy director of Fires and Maneuvers Integration Division. The Assault Amphibian Vehicle Service Life Extension Program, the Marine Personnel Carrier and the Amphibious Combat Vehicle are being developed to be a less costly replacement for the EFV.

While the EFV would [have] cost an estimated $16.8 million a unit, the ACV is estimated to cost $10-12 million, the MPC $4.5 million and the AAV is still under evaluation.

Separate plans from the EFV have been in place for both the AAV SLEP and MPC since 2005, McConnell said.

“Until the ACV is fielded, the AAV will continue to provide the fully amphibious, self-deploying, armored combat vehicle capability required for the [Marine Air Ground Task Force] in support of amphibious operations and sustained operations ashore,” said Kurt Koch, the combat vehicle capabilities integration officer for Fires and Maneuvers Integration Division.

Upgrades will begin to be implemented on the AAV SLEP in 2012 and not finished until around 2021.

“At a minimum the AAV will receive upgrades to increase its survivability and force protection capacity,” Koch said. “Probable related improvements to the vehicle include integration of a modern power-train and higher capacity suspension components to maintain required performance levels, as well as improve reliability.”

The MPC will be a compliment to both the AAV and in the future ACV, as a wheeled armored personnel carrier, said McConnell.

“The MPC will reside in the Assault Amphibian Battalion,” Koch said. “It possesses the capability of negotiating water obstacles in support of the task force maneuver and provide a high degree of all around protection in a highly mobile, balanced medium armored personnel carrier platform.”

The MPC can conduct operations ashore in both open and restrictive terrain during operations in permissive, uncertain and hostile environments, Koch said.

“We already have a demonstration vehicle,” McConnell said. “We plan to start making our final version of it in 2013, and see them operational in 2018.”

But the future of amphibious assault resides with the ACV.

“You heard the commandant say he will drive a vehicle before his term is done,” McConnell said. “Our challenge is how do we resolve that. We have a solid plan in place. We will have a technical demonstration vehicle completed by the end of FY12 that will give us an idea of the real of possibilities for this project. Then we will work to have a fully operational demonstration vehicle done by the end of 2013 or 2014.”

As a replacement for the AAV, the ACV will be operationally mobile in the water, capable of ship-to-objective maneuver from over the horizon, Koch said. The ACV must be highly mobile on land also in order to support the Ground Combat Element-based maneuver task force. It must be lethal in the assault and capable of carrying the reinforced rifle squad through the surf, over natural and man-made obstacles and into the attack. The ACV must be sufficiently protected in order to be effective across the full range of operations.

“Of course these are the plans and nothing is written in stone,” McConnell said. “These plans haven’t even been approved yet. They just help us get in the right mindset of where we need to be.

“After our technical demonstration vehicle is completed, we will allow for a competition between contractors,” McConnell said. “We will give them three or four years to build their own model and then we will choose one or two contractors to carry on the program to its completion, around 2020.”

Changing the direction of the Marine Corps’ amphibious assault is not an easy task and requires patience to ensure it’s done right, McConnell said.

“All of these programs are on relatively aggressive schedules,” McConnell said. “It takes a lot of coordination between the Marine Corps, Secretary of Defense and other stake holders to make this happen quickly and successfully. We all want to make this happen and we here to see this project through.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This article shows the Marine Corps continues to live in a world of its own. It is remarkable that Corps leaders seriously hope to develop three separate vehicles (just two of which would cost up to $16.5 million), to replace the EFV, which was canceled at least in part because of its prohibitively expensive $16.8 million unit cost.
Add the third new vehicle, an improved AAV it will take ten years to upgrade, and the Marines’ proposed solution would cost more than the EFV to buy, and at least three times as much to operate counting crew costs alone.
If it continues in this same vein, the Marine Corps will end up pricing itself out of relevance and of existence.

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

U.S. Army, Navy Near JHSV Deal

By KATE BRANNEN

Published: 23 Mar 2011 16:36

The U.S. Army is nearing a deal to transfer its Joint High Speed Vessels (JHSVs) to the U.S. Navy to operate and maintain.

"I think Adm. [Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations] and I are in the final throes here of working out the transfer of the Joint High Speed Vessel, and I think we'll get that done before I leave," Gen. George Casey, chief of staff of the Army, said March 22. He is scheduled to retire in April, when he will be replaced by Gen. Martin Dempsey.

The JHSV is a shallow draft vessel designed for rapid intratheater transport of troops, equipment and military vehicles. Both services are buying the ships, which are under construction in Alabama. The Army had planned to buy 12 JHSVs, while the Navy may buy even more.

"One of the things that we have to do in the Army, especially in a period of declining resources, is we have to put our money against the things that give us the most value," Casey said. "Driving ships is not our core competency; it's the Navy's."

At Casey's direction, the Army has been in talks with the Navy for some months over which of the Army's watercraft could be transferred to the Navy to take over manning and maintenance. The services have not reached a decision on the rest of the Army's watercraft, Casey said. "We'll continue to work on that."

In it 2012 budget request, the Pentagon asked for $416 million to buy two JHSV ships, one each for the Army and Navy, at a cost of roughly $204.5 million each. According to the Pentagon's 2012 budget documents, the first ship, which was supposed to be an Army ship, is scheduled for delivery in the first quarter of FY 2013.

Under the new plan, that Army ship will be manned and operated by the Navy.

Similar thinking was behind the decision to transfer the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) and its supporting mission to the Air Force, a move introduced in April 2009 with the unveiling of the 2010 defense budget.

"We need the support, we don't necessarily have to fly the planes ourselves," Casey said. "Same thing with the JHSV and that's what we'll work out."

There are those within the Army, particularly in the logistics and aviation community, who have privately questioned Casey's logic and doubted the Air Force's commitment to the direct cargo support mission.

With the JCA decision, advocates for the National Guard went public with their concerns as it was Guard units who were scheduled to get the aircraft to replace their aging fleet of C-23 Sherpa aircraft.

However, with budget pressures growing, Casey said the Army cannot afford to throw money at everything.

"We have to put our money in places that give the ground forces the most value," he said.

When asked if there were other assets or missions the Army should shed, Casey said that none immediately came to mind.

However, the Army is talking to the Air Force about putting Army radios on Air Force platforms to help form the aerial layer of the network, the four-star said.

But, "there are no big functions like the Joint Cargo Aircraft or the Joint High Speed Vessel that are out there that I can put my finger on right now," he said.

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

The USMC Strategy Paper You Haven't Heard About[/B]

Posted by Paul McLeary at 3/25/2011 10:02 AM CDT



The Marine Corps, after a decade of fighting two land wars, is ready to get expeditionary again. As we’ve seen in Afghanistan, the service is working hard at untethering itself from the long fuel supply chains that suck up time, money, and keep units tied to big, gas-guzzling generators.

To that end, while you may not know it, the Corps released a brand-new Marine Corps Expeditionary Energy Strategy and Implementation Plan along with a snazzy new website this week, where it states very simply:

http://marines.mil/community/Pages/ExpeditionaryEnergy.aspx


Over the last ten years, we have become more lethal, but we have become heavy. We have lost speed. To reset the balance, we must return to our Spartan roots—fast, lethal, and austere.

The Marine commandant, Gen. James Amos, writes in the preface that he wants his Marines to break free from the gas-sucking generators at forward operating bases and be able to go on week-long patrols unburdened from the tyranny of multiple heavy batteries to power radios and other electronic equipment. The increased power needs of today’s Marine relies too much on “vulnerable supply lines,” he writes, which “degrades our expeditionary capabilities and ultimately puts Marines at risk. To maintain our lethal edge, we must change the way we use energy.”


The current and future operating environment requires an expeditionary mindset geared toward increased efficiency and reduced consumption, which will make our forces lighter and faster. We will aggressively pursue innovative solutions to reduce energy demand in our platforms and systems, increase our self-sufficiency in our sustainment, and reduce our expeditionary foot print on the battlefield. Transforming the way we use energy is essential to rebalance our Corps and prepare it for the future.

Conducting operations in Afghanistan, the Corps currently consumes over 200,000 gallons of fuel per day running more than 100 forward operating bases, a figure the service wants to decrease. The Strategy also says that:

In the future, the burden of fuel is likely to increase because our investments in modernizing our forces are fuel hungry. Fifty-eight Marine Corps’ acquisition programs require direct generator support, with a critical or dedicated requirement for power. Fuel-burning engines power 54 of our programs and major end items. Among all programs, more than 600 end items require battery power.

And check this out: A $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil, at current consumption levels, would be equivalent to the entire Marine Corps’ procurement budget.

The upshot of the report is that by 2020, a full 50 percent of Marine Corps bases will be net-zero energy consumers, and by 2025 the only liquid fuel a Marine Expeditionary Force operating from the sea will consume will be for vehicles—the rest will be fueled by renewable energy.

Pic: A Marine in Afghanistan powers radio batteries with a solar panel. USMC photo


HooRah for the Marines! BUT one would have to ask WHY they have not been in the forefront of adoption of Oshkosh's PROPULSE system especially when it gives them a 17-20% fuel saving per vehicle never mind the potential to reduce or eradicate the necessity for separate Generators...............

[buglerbilly]

China Boosts it Amphibious Options



It does 16 knots does it? Hmmmm I say, hmmmmmmmmmmm :sleep

Our good friend Martin Andrew forwarded us his latest analysis newsletter of the Chinese military and in it we noticed a profile of the PLAN’s new ZBD05 Amphibious Fighting Vehicle.

According to Andrew, the new ship-to-shore APC sports a 30mm cannon, a 7.62 coaxial machine gun and anti-tank guided missiles. The vehicle is armored against artillery and 12.7mm armor-piercing rounds.


The ZDB05 has a maximum speed in water of 30 km/hr which equals 16 knots, with the crew of three navigating by GPS. It can transport between five and seven infantry with two in tandem behind the driver with their own roof hatches and five behind in the rear behind the turret. It uses a small hinged door for rear entry and egress. There are also two roof hatches behind the turret.

Andrew writes about an exercise that occurred last year where Chinese commanders conducted a simulated amphibious assault against a contested shoreline. This was the first time the PLAN could do a Marine Corps-style landing, he said.


This was the result of ten years of planning, training and the re-equipping of the PLA’s amphibious units and the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN Marines). Prior to this upgrading the PLAN Marines admitted that when compared to the United States Marine Corps, any talk of a battlefield capability was ‘only idle talk’. The PLA’s amphibious forces and the PLAN Marines now believe they can breakout from the beachhead and fight outside of it.

The interesting thing to me is that the PLAN has managed to produce, field and successfully test an amphibious fighting vehicle, the same year the US Marine Corps had to cancel its Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.

Read more: http://defensetech.org/#ixzz1IK8NGox9
Defense.org

[Gubler, A.]

Navigating by GPS? That will work when the US denies civilian code service to East Asia... Apparantly one of the design team of the ZDB 2000 was claiming that the rear plate acts as a hydrofoil when it chuggs through the water because it doesn't have enough power to weight to plan.

[buglerbilly]

Expect Changes, Cuts in Pacific Realignment Strategy

May 17, 2011

Stars and Stripes|by Erik Slavin

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan -- The first thing to know about the $10 billion plan to move 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam by 2014 is that all of the numbers in this sentence are either misleading or obsolete.

The cost is a years-old estimate based on a still-unfinished master plan. The troop figures represent only about one-third of the Guam population boom expected, which both Navy and local officials say would overwhelm the island territory of 180,000 if the project somehow finished on time.

Nevertheless, these numbers still represent the only official plans stemming from a 2006 U.S.-Japan roadmap agreement designed to lessen the impact of U.S. forces on Okinawa, where U.S. bases take up 20 percent of an island crowded with 1.2 million Japanese.

Last week, the roadmap was criticized as “unrealistic, unworkable, and unaffordable” by senators Carl Levin, D-Mich., John McCain, R-Ariz., and Jim Webb, D-Va., all of whom hold key positions on the Senate Armed Services Committee and carry enough clout to effect major changes to the Pacific defense realignment budget.

Their calls for change appear well-timed. As Japan reels from the cost of the March 11 earthquake and U.S. voters rage against mounting federal deficits, analysts and government officials say changes to the roadmap have gone from a possibility to an expectation.

“No one knows for certain how the buildup plans will change -- not Congress, not the Obama administration, not the military,” Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo in said a written statement following a Friday phone conversation with Navy Undersecretary Robert Work.

Calvo’s statement added that he was told the Defense Department is reassessing all of its realignment plans in the Pacific to make them more cost-effective, on the heels of President Obama’s April announcement calling for $400 billion in defense cuts over the next 12 years.

The senators’ statement last week kick-started debate on where those cuts could start in the Pacific. It also left Japanese officials in an awkward position.

In the absence of a new proposal from the Obama administration, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa and other Cabinet members were left with no choice but to reiterate government support for the moribund roadmap.

“[The senators’ statement] was a shock to the Japanese government,” said Kazuya Sakamoto, professor of law and politics at the University of Osaka's graduate school.

However, Prime Minister Naoto Kan -- if he remains in power amid public approval ratings hovering around 30 percent -- could jump at the chance for renegotiation when his defense and foreign ministers meet with their U.S. counterparts this summer.

Japan has agreed to spend $6 billion to move the Marines to Guam, a figure it would like to reduce as it gears up to spend hundreds of billions for earthquake recovery, Sakamoto added.

For Japan, the thorniest part of any revised roadmap will be the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. The base is surrounded by a large civilian population center on Okinawa, and fears of accidents have coupled with noise complaints to fuel regular protests since the 1990s.

The current roadmap calls for relocating the helicopter base to Camp Schwab, in the island’s less populated north.

However, that idea is broadly unpopular with Okinawans and talk of it in Tokyo is politically treacherous. When Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama admitted in 2010 that he wouldn’t be able to fulfill his campaign promise of scuttling the Futenma relocation plan because of its importance to regional security, it collapsed his governing coalition and forced his resignation.

The three U.S. senators last week called for both countries to abandon the stalled relocation and move Futenma’s assets to the Air Force’s Kadena Air Base, and possibly make room for the helicopters by shifting some of Kadena’s assets to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam.

Moving to Kadena has been rejected in the past on operational grounds by military officials, and proved no more popular among Okinawa’s residents.

Kadena Town is part of an ongoing lawsuit calling for $544 million in compensation because of aircraft noise, and its residents also took part in a 2009 suit that resulted in a Japanese court awarding more than $68 million in compensation.

“The noise levels are beyond human endurance,” said Hiroshi Toyama, mayor of Kadena Town. “On top of this, moving the Marine operations to Kadena? There is no way for us to accept such a proposal.”

U.S. officials made the deal in 2006 to move the Marines to Guam only after the Japanese government agreed to U.S. wishes for the Futenma replacement. Without a plan for Futenma, the scope of the Guam buildup becomes even less certain than it is now.

The prospect of major changes to the buildup isn’t a surprise to many Guam political leaders. Guam Senate Speaker Judi Won Pat says she has been watching Defense Department and political hesitancy grow in recent months through congressional transcripts.

Won Pat noted that during a March 17 meeting of the Senate Armed Services’ readiness and management support subcommittee, Navy officials conceded that completing the move by 2014 would cripple Guam’s infrastructure. At the same meeting Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., asked whether the whole project was due for a “time out.”

Given that hesitancy, the three senators’ statement last week came as little surprise, Won Pat said.

“It’s hard for us to even plan, not knowing what [the federal government] is planning for us,” she said. “I want to make sure they bring us to the table if they’re going to downsize, get some input from us, and be up front about what it is they really want to do.”

-- Stars and Stripes reporter Chiyomi Sumida contributed to this report.

[buglerbilly]

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Marine Commandant: Real Talk About Acquisitions

Posted by Paul McLeary at 5/26/2011 12:50 PM CDT



“The acquisition cycle has been extended to mitigate risk,” Marine Corps Commandant James F. Amos told a packed house at the Brookings Institution this morning, charging that the Pentagon has handed off too much responsibility to industry in program management.

Amos brought up the example of the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, which went from blueprint to operational flight in just 18 months, and the MRAP program, which started cranking pretty quickly starting in 2006, as examples of what can happen when the Pentagon and industry really decide that there is an urgent need for a technology.

“The service chiefs need to reclaim ownership of these major programs” Amos added, telling the crowd that when it comes to the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter, he has taken a personal role in its development—so much so that no one can “put a pound of weight on that airplane without me knowing about it.” Speaking of the F-35B, Amos also argued that once the Marine Harrier fleet is retired due to old age, without the F-35B the United States would effectively go from twenty-two Capital ships to just eleven, since it would mean that the nation’s eleven amphibious ships which currently carry Harriers would be taken out of the Marine fighter plane business.

The Commandant also touched on a few other programs, calling the V-22 Osprey “the safest airplane in the Marine Corps inventory,” which, amazing Libyan rescue operation aside, might not be as significant as it might first appear, since the Osprey isn’t involved in day-to-day combat operations.

Still, Amos’ comments about the acquisition process are important, since he also said that he is “more concerned now than I ever have been before” about budgetary issues. His solution for the acquisition community in the Pentagon is to firmly establish requirements and make trades between cost and capability up front, and for the service chiefs to take more of an active, hands-on role in the progress of major programs so schedule and budget slips ups don’t come as a surprise. Or better yet, they are anticipated at the outset of the program, and avoided.

[buglerbilly]

iPad proving invaluable for Marine Corps aviators

May 31, 2011

USMC aviators in Afghanistan are using iPads loaded up with maps of the southern regions of the country to reduce their workload in the cockpit.

Since November last year, marine pilots have been using iPads and more recently iPad 2s with digital maps, which allow the crews to search out locations in the region at the tap of the screen rather than flicking through map packs that are heavy and take up room in the cramped cockpits of aircraft such as the AH-1W Cobra and the F/A-18 Hornet.

The idea was developed by an enterprising Cobra pilot from one of the deployed HMLA squadrons, and has spread rapidly through the deployed squadrons.

Because of the nature of international operations in Afghanistan, crews have to carry a vast range of maps covering the country to be able to work with troops on the ground. Across the region, ground forces use a numbering system for the compounds located within a particular grid reference.

Often it's difficult to be sure which compound is which, but the map removes much of the guesswork, particularly for those on fixed-wing types which get an almost top-down view of the region. Identifying compounds from helicopters that fly at lower levels is trickier but has been made significantly easier.

'It's a game changer,' said Capt John Belsha, one of the sensor operators on the KC-130J Harvest Hawk, which is also making use of the iPads in the close air support role.

'In the past we have had to carry all the paper charts and the grid reference graphics we use as a reference for the ground forces in the area. If we had to carry every single one of them – we could on the Hercules, we have the room – but if you have a small cockpit like on the Cobra it's not feasible.'

Work is now ongoing to get the iPads equipped on aircraft based in the US, so they can be used in training.

'It's all about sharing situational awareness and using the iPad is much better than using a paper chart,' Belsha said.

'It takes five minutes to teach someone how to use the thing – it’s so intuitive and easy, you don't really have to think about it.’

Tony Osborne, Camp Dwyer, Afghanistan

[buglerbilly]

KC-130s help light the way

May 31, 2011



USMC KC-130Js are being employed in Afghanistan to illuminate safe landing zones when the nights are exceptionally dark.

While the KC-130Js are busy in-theatre refuelling Harriers and carrying tonnes of cargo to outlying bases, in a role that harks back to the Vietnam conflict the aircraft are also being fitted with battlefield illuminating flares to give helicopter crews an enhanced view of the landing zones they will use during major assault operations.

Major Scott Koltick, CO of Kandahar-based VMGR-252 Det Bravo that flies KC-130Js crewed jointly from bases at Cherry Point, Miramar and Okinawa, said the battlefield illumination role was a regular mission for his crews in Afghanistan.

'Let's say once a week, we will conduct battlefield illumination for helicopter assaults. One of the problems the helicopters will have during an assault or an insert is being able to pick up the terrain and that is made worse because it’s so dusty here,' said Koltick.

Using parachute flares dropped from a hand-built launcher sitting on the back of the aircraft's ramp, the flares drop away and burn for up to four minutes.

'They are 1960s’ technology' said Koltick, 'We have overt flares, which are very bright, you can see them with the naked eye, and the covert flares, which are infra-red and you can only see them on night-vision goggles.'

The flares are particularly useful in Afghanistan when aircraft are operating without moonlight to stimulate the night vision goggles, a situation known as 'black illium'.

This has its own dangers in Afghanistan as there is little cultural lighting, which means that NVG goggles struggle to pick out features of the terrain.

This forces crews to use alternatives such as forward looking infrared (FLIR) systems that detect the heat off the ground surfaces and generate a picture of the terrain for the crew.

Tony Osborne, Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan

[buglerbilly]

USMC Expedites EFV Analysis Of Alternatives

Jun 10, 2011

By Michael Fabey



The U.S. Marine Corps is looking to cut down the time it takes to complete its analysis of alternatives (AOA) for the replacement for its Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) by at least half, according to Marine Lt. Gen. George Flynn, deputy commandant for combat development and integration and commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

Traditionally, an AOA of this type would take about 18 months, Flynn said June 9 at an event in Washington sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“We’re trying to get to six to nine months,” Flynn says, adding that he hoped the aggressive schedule would “energize the acquisition process” for the vehicle.

The EFV is considered the signature vehicle for the Marines, ferrying them and their equipment from ships to land and providing that link that highlights their expeditionary nature. The Marines have embarked on a campaign in the Pentagon recently to underscore the importance of retaining those expeditionary roots and ability.

Part of the Marines’ expeditionary refocus has been the development of the EFV. But the Pentagon recently canceled the $15 billion development program, saying the vehicle needed to be scaled down in both requirements and costs. The corps is doing just that, Flynn says.

Marines are using data from the EFV development — and still conducting further tests on the vehicles for even more information — to fast-track a more complete analysis of what is really needed for such a vehicle, he says.

The corps is using the current EFV prototypes, for example, to design better “habitability” inside the vehicle, looking to develop items like an artificial horizon. The Marines also have reached out to shipbuilders, Flynn says, to help develop a better hull design. “We’re trying to get a fix on the requirements side,” he says.

While the Marines are trying to get a bead on a better and more affordable EFV, the corps also remains concerned about the number of amphibious ships being planned for the fleet. While the Marines say they need 38 and could manage with 33, Navy fleet plans call for 29. The reduced number of ships will mean more maintenance, which will cut into training time.

“What do you think is going to change,” Flynn asks, “that will reduce the need for these ships?”

Photo: Michael Fabey

[buglerbilly]

Marines want to fast-track EFV replacement

By Philip Ewing Monday, June 13th, 2011 11:30 am



The Marine Corps would like to cut by half the amount of time it spends studying a replacement for its never-was Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, reports Michael Fabey of AvWeek. Ideally, the Corps would like to complete its analysis of alternatives in about six to nine months — as opposed to the year or 18 months it might normally take, said Lt. Gen. George Flynn, the head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

Sometimes, DoD uses its culture of “analysis” and “study” as a way to delay decision-making — oh, senator, we don’t know what color the drapes should be in the secretary’s new office; we’re waiting on an AoA that looks at the full range of options from soup to nuts. In this case, however, the Marines know they need to get started on this post-EFV vehicle ricky tick, because in Austerity America the services are going to be at each other’s throats trying to get their priorities into the budget. The longer the Marines take deciding what to buy, the slimmer their chances they’ll get it.

So can they do it? The Corps seems to think it’s got a good head-start with all it has learned from its decades of work on the EFV. Fabey writes:

Marines are using data from the EFV development — and still conducting further tests on the vehicles for even more information — to fast-track a more complete analysis of what is really needed for such a vehicle, he says.

The corps is using the current EFV prototypes, for example, to design better “habitability” inside the vehicle, looking to develop items like an artificial horizon. The Marines also have reached out to shipbuilders, Flynn says, to help develop a better hull design. “We’re trying to get a fix on the requirements side,” he says.

In an ideal world, then, the Marines would be able to take the things they know worked well about the EFV, including its weapons, for example, or engine and other components, and graft them onto a new, more reliable swimming hull. But that goal of reliability may mean the new vehicle doesn’t have the transforming bow ramp that the EFV had, and as such may not be able to skim over the water at its same high speeds.

What’ll be interesting is whether the Navy and Marines update their amphibious doctrines to make room for their new vehicle, or whether they’ll keep the same assumptions and try to somehow get a cheaper EFV Lite. The Navy and Marines believe that in tomorrow’s amphibious operations, the proliferation of guided anti-ship missiles will make it too dangerous for Navy assault ships to stand very close to the coast. So the Marines needed the high-speed EFV to get to shore quickly on the assumption the fleet would take station over the horizon, far away from the beach.

If that scenario changes, the Marines might be able to get away with a slower, compromise vehicle. Using the magic of doctrine and strategy, for example, the Navy and the Marines might decide that because tomorrow’s fleet will have smothering fire support from the Advanced Gun Systems aboard the new Zumwalt-class destroyers, or better protection from the Navy’s planed integrated air and missile defense systems, the missile risk is diminished. That, in turn, could mean the fleet would come closer to the beach to loose its New Amphibious Vehicles and their dangerous cargoes of Marines.

Whatever the services decide, it sounds like the Marine Corps wants to get there as quickly as it can.

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/06/13/marines-want-to-fast-track-efv-replacement/#ixzz1PD4NFnkf
DoDBuzz.com

[buglerbilly]

DATE:20/06/11

SOURCE:Flight Daily News

PARIS: Operational USMC AH-1Z Viper makes first show appearance

By Greg Waldron

The US Marine Corps' Bell AH-1Z Viper attack helicopter is making its first Paris appearance as an operational asset.

The 'Zulu' was originally seen as an update of the USMC's venerable AH-1 Super Cobra, but this evolved into an entirely new aircraft. While its armament is identical - one 20mm cannon, eight Lockheed Martin AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and unguided rockets - the Zulu has better aerodynamic performance and improved avionics over its predecessor.


© Billypix

The USMC cleared the Zulu for operations in September 2010.

[buglerbilly]

Defense Logistics: Actions Needed to Improve the Marine Corps' Equipment Reset Strategies and the Reporting of Total Reset Costs

(Source: Government Accountability Office; issued Aug. 4, 2011)

The Marine Corps has developed a strategic plan that addresses the reset of aviation equipment used in operations in Afghanistan and includes the elements of a comprehensive, results-oriented strategic planning framework.

However, a reset strategy for ground equipment has not yet been developed. The Marine Corps is taking steps to develop such a strategy; however, the timeline for completing and issuing this strategy is uncertain. Although Marine Corps officials agreed that a reset strategy for ground equipment will be needed, they stated that they do not plan to issue a strategy until there is a better understanding of the dates for drawdown of forces from Afghanistan.

While more specific drawdown information is desirable and will be needed to firm up reset plans, the President stated that troops would begin to withdraw in July 2011, working towards a transfer of all security operations to Afghan National Security Forces by 2014. Until the ground equipment reset strategy is issued, establishing firm plans for reset may be difficult for the Marine Corps Logistics Command to effectively manage the rotation of equipment to units to sustain combat operations. It is also uncertain to what extent the Marine Corps plans to align its ground equipment reset strategy with its ground equipment modernization plan.

GAO found that the Iraq reset strategy for ground equipment contained no direct reference to the service’s equipment modernization plans, leaving unclear the relationship between reset and modernization. A clear alignment of the ground equipment reset strategy for Afghanistan and modernization plans would help to ensure that the identification, development, and integration of warfighting capabilities also factor in equipment reset strategies so that equipment planned for modernization is not unnecessarily repaired.

The total costs of reset estimated by the Marine Corps may not be accurate or consistent because of differing definitions of reset that have been used for aviation and ground equipment. These differing definitions exist because DOD has not established a single standard definition for use in DOD’s budget process. Specifically, the Marine Corps does not include aviation equipment procurement costs when estimating total reset costs.

According to Marine Corps officials, procurement costs are excluded because such costs are not consistent with its definition of aviation equipment reset. In contrast, the Marine Corps’ definition of reset for ground equipment includes procurement costs to replace theater losses.

However, GAO found that the Office of the Secretary of Defense Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation had obtained a procurement cost estimate for Marine Corps aviation equipment as part of its efforts to track reset costs for the department.

DOD’s Resource Management Decision 700 tasks the Office of the Secretary of Defense Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation to provide annual department-wide reset updates. Based on this tasking, the Marine Corps provided total reset costs that included procurement costs for equipment replacement, as well as maintenance costs, for both ground and aviation equipment.

GAO was not able to determine the reasons for this apparent inconsistency between what the Marine Corps considers to be valid aviation equipment reset costs and what was reported in the 2010 DOD Reset Planning Projections annual update. Without a single standard definition for reset for the services to use, the Marine Corps may continue to report its total reset costs for aviation equipment inconsistently.

Click here for the full report (35 pages in PDF format) on the GAO website.

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-523

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Larger Drawdown Possible For U.S. Marine Corps

By GINA CAVALLARO and DAN LAMOTHE

Published: 30 Aug 2011 10:24

NEW ORLEANS - The national budget crisis could force the U.S. Marine Corps to start cutting the force as soon as next fall, and below the 186,800-troop end strength top officers have pushed to maintain after the war in Afghanistan ends.

Commandant Gen. Jim Amos said the options must be considered as the federal government ponders widespread cuts to the defense budget to help the U.S. reduce its ballooning deficit. For months, the commandant has advocated a gradual drawdown of about 15,000 Marines from the service's 202,000 active-duty end strength, but political and fiscal realities may require the Corps to cut deeper.

"There is pressure to go below the 186,800, I don't want to lie to you," Amos told Marine Corps Times recently during a two-day trip to Marine Corps Forces Reserve headquarters here and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C. "We just don't know what that is going to look like yet and we won't know for months."

Budget pressures ratcheted up after President Barack Obama signed a deal Aug. 2 to reduce the U.S. government's estimated $1.5 trillion budget deficit. That deal, reached after weeks of haggling in Congress, likely means at least $350 billion in cuts to defense spending over the next decade, and potentially up to $1 trillion.

It's not clear how much of that burden the Corps will be forced to shoulder, but the numbers could prime the service for considerable change. It depends on how much of the Corps' $26 billion budget is slashed during the coming year, Amos said.

Earlier this year, recently retired Defense Secretary Robert Gates "blessed" the Corps' force-structure review recommendations, Amos said. He did so on the condition that force reductions not begin until after U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan are complete, likely in 2014.

That was before the deficit deal was reached, however. Amos could be pushed into a corner by budget decisions that will affect the entire military. Marine planners have developed a blueprint that lays out options for a force smaller than 186,800 Marines, and with the drawdown beginning as soon as fiscal 2013 - which begins in October 2012 - to meet fiscal requirements, Amos said.

The commandant declined to say how small the service could eventually be, but sources at Marine Corps headquarters said planners have discussed cuts that could reduce the service by at least 25,000 Marines. That would leave the Corps with fewer than 180,000 troops on active duty. There were about 172,000 Marines on active duty at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and about 175,000 when the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.

What to expect

Where there could be cuts

Recommendations made last year by the Corps' Force Structure Review Group are expected to serve as the drawdown's framework. Outlined broadly in February, it calls for the estimated 15,000-troop reduction and elimination of several units. It's unclear how deeper cuts would be implemented if they are required.

The force-structure recommendations call for one regimental headquarters to be cut, dropping the total to seven. The Corps also will cut its active-duty infantry battalions from 27 to 24, its artillery batteries from nine to seven and its armor companies from 10 to eight, Marine officials said.

Three active and one reserve Marine wing support group headquarters also will be cut, with aviation logistics expertise kept within the Marine air wing staff. Command and control of the Marine wing support squadrons will instead fall under the Marine air group headquarters.

Additionally, Marine logistics groups will be trimmed, with key pieces aligned with Marine expeditionary units and infantry regiments. By being a part of those units, logistics Marines will train with the operational units instead of assigned to them shortly ahead of a deployment.

Marine officials in several commands also have disclosed expected troop reductions. For example, The Basic School at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., is planning to see its staff of more than 800 Marines reduced by 27 captains and 103 enlisted billets.

The Corps also has started to build two new one-star Marine expeditionary brigade headquarters, with one falling under Marine Corps Forces Central Command, out of Tampa, Fla., and the other falling under Marine Corps Forces Africa Command, based in Germany.

The manpower will be available for the MEB headquarters as the Corps flattens the command staff at Marine Corps Installations East and West. The two-star MCI commands manage bases, stations and regional strategies for the Corps, and will be streamlined as part of force restructuring. Details on the MCI cuts have not been disclosed.

The Corps also recently adopted a significant change to its top-end service limits for sergeants, from 13 to 10 years. Each Marine will still be guaranteed at least one chance to go before a staff sergeant promotion board, even in the slowest promoting military occupational specialties. However, once a Marine is passed over twice or reaches 10 years of service without being promoted, he will be shown the door either at the end of his current contract or seven months after the release of promotion board results - whichever offers more time.

This change is partly a return to normal following rapid growth during the 202,000 push, Manpower officials said. The service limit for sergeants was 10 years from 1992 to 2001. However, senior leaders also said it is part of developing a new, more competitive environment that will make a drawdown less painful by moving top noncommissioned officers into zone for promotion faster than they otherwise would be, preventing stagnation.

"I would say it's a combination of all things," Barrett said. "I would say that's fair."

[buglerbilly]

EFV Replacement Effort Moved To War Room

Sep 2, 2011

By Jen DiMascio



In the aftermath of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle’s (EFV) cancellation, the U.S. Marines are charged with coming up with an amphibious vehicle that is actually affordable and fast. Their answer to the challenge could put a crimp on the Pentagon’s intractable problem of requirements creep.

The analysis of alternatives (AOA) is scheduled to start in mid-October. Lt. Gen. George Flynn, commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, says the process needs to be wrapped up in about nine months, which is half the time the lumbering acquisition process typically takes.

Along those lines, Marine Corps Systems Command created a systems engineering “war room” in which engineers work elbow-to-elbow with cost estimators. That way the effect of every trade in weight, speed, survivability or other areas can be assessed and priced.

The whole thing involves about a dozen people at the core along with experts from across the Defense Department, government and academia. For instance, a top engineer from Naval Sea Systems Command is working with the nation’s best experts in hydrodynamics on a water-speed red team, says Jim Smerchansky, deputy commander for systems engineering, interoperability, architectures and technology at Marine Corps Systems Command.

Industry is not included in this discussion, but Smerchansky says the process will enable the Marines to draw up requirements in a more detailed way and have a decent idea of the price, enabling them to reject bids that are too high or too low.

And while that may seem like a commonsense approach to buying weapons, it is not how the Pentagon typically does business. “We have not done it on a program of this magnitude in the Marine Corps this early in the program,” Smerchansky says.

Navy Involvement

The effort has top-level Navy involvement; Flynn considers himself a member of the team and acquisition chief Sean Stackley receives weekly briefings on its work. Staff on Capitol Hill have been informed.

Come mid-October, the Marines are looking for a green light from the Pentagon’s acquisition shop on its material development decision leading. During the AOA, the team will prepare a number of options, including the new amphibious vehicle.

“Whether it’s a son of, or a cousin of, or the Auntie Mame version of the EFV,” the Marines will have to address the problem of cost and viability on land that the original program could not overcome, says Dakota Wood, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

That means the program has to come down in cost from about $20 million per vehicle to $10 million to $12 million apiece. And the new vehicle will have to arrive on shore ready to fight in an environment with rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank munitions and improvised explosive devices, he says.

Since the commandant has asked for an EFV alternative very quickly, the Marines are likely to rely on existing vehicles or existing technologies. They could offer something like the existing Amphibious Assault Vehicle, the EFV, or marry a wheeled vehicle with a craft optimized for at-sea work, Wood says.

Regardless of how vigilant the Marines can be in necking down the cost of the EFV’s successor, larger budget-cutting efforts in the Marine Corps and the Pentagon that are feeding into the mammoth effort to trim trillions from the federal deficit could get in the way.

“It’s going to be a challenge,” says Kevin McConnell, director of the fires and maneuver integration division for the Marines Combat Development and Integration division. “If this were the only iron we had in the fire, it’d be a walk in the park.”

Other Priorities

The Marine Corps investment portfolio also is juggling an aging fleet of Humvees, command and control and intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities. “We could negotiate our way to a cheap vehicle and find we couldn’t afford it,” McConnell says. “While it is about this one vehicle, it’s about one vehicle in a portfolio that’s pretty expensive.”

But Smerchansky feels that the process undertaken for this small piece of the Pentagon weapons-buying establishment is one that should be replicated, particularly in tight economic times.

“This will be the way we have to conduct business in the future, and not just for the big programs,” Smerchansky says. “Programs tend to get in trouble for technical reasons. … We’re trying to reduce that risk right up front or understand it and know how to manage it so we won’t be surprised by it.”

Photo: Michael Fabey

[buglerbilly]

Russia

05.09.2011 11:48


The first Ka-52K helicopters for the Mistral class amphibious assault ships will be built in Russia in 2012. Photo from talks.guns.ru

First Ka-52K Alligator helicopters for Mistral LHDs to be built in Russia in 2012

The first experimental batch of the Ka-52K Alligator attack helicopters for the Mistral class helicopter carriers will be built in Russia in 2012. This was announced September 3 by the Managing Director of the Progress Helicopter Holding, Yury Denisenko.

All the Mistral LHDs, the first of which is to enter service in the Russian Navy in 2014, are planned to be equipped with helicopters Ka-52K and Ka-29.

"The Ka-52K helicopters shall be industrialized in 2014, while the pilot batch is going to be produced in 2012", he said.

Control of Russia’s littoral regions, which includes large stretches of coasts and zones like the Baltic Sea and much of the Black Sea, depends heavily on helicopters and UAVs. The Mistral Class LHDs would go a long way toward improving Russia’s capabilities in these areas, if coupled with the necessary training and equipment investments. The introduction of Russia’s Ka-52 Alligator coaxial scout/attack helicopter, for instance, would also add considerable attack punch to any Russian LHD and to the Mistrals in particular.

[buglerbilly]

More on this.........

Ares

A Defense Technology Blog

Ka-52 Takes To Sea

Posted by Robert Wall at 9/5/2011 5:25 AM CDT

Using attack helicopters from the sea appears to be in vogue, again.

The concept appeared dormant, but gained new attention in Europe when the French and U.K. moved to deploy on ships the Tiger and Apache helicopters in support of military operations in Libya.

Australia also has plans to deploy its Tiger ARHs from ships.

Now Russia is joining the mix. The country's military is conducting trials to clear the Ka-52 for ship-borne operations, with the Northern Fleet using the Vice Adm. Kulakov for at-sea trials.

More on Russia's plans for the navalized Ka-52 can be found in this Aviation Week & Space Technology report in the Aug. 15 issue.





(Photos: Russian MOD)

[buglerbilly]

Can the Marines’ ‘war room’ save their new EFV?

By Philip Ewing Thursday, September 8th, 2011 4:15 pm



The Marine Corps is racing to beat the clock as it tries to jump-start work on a cheaper replacement for its Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. It was another of those Pentagon programs that supporters said was just about to turn the corner when it was eliminated by Secretary Gates. The Marines had been bracing for that contingency by modifying their official lexicon to call for an “EFV-capability,” rather than the specific vehicle itself, but it isn’t clear how much other Plan B-style fallback planning they had done — so they’ve got to shoot through it now most ricky-tick.

The Corps’ Amphibious Assault Vehicles are worn out, and it wanted the EFV to whisk Marines from Navy amphibious ships at high speeds over long distances, so the gators could stand well away from shore and keep safe from dangerous, cheap anti-ship missiles. So if that basic construct still applies, how can the Marines build a new EFV-like EFV without running into the same problems that killed the original EFV? That is the subject of a fascinating writeup by my former Politi-pal Jen DiMascio, now of AvWeek, who reports that the Marines are using an acquisition ‘war room’ to try to clamp down on design and requirements issues as early and as quickly as possible in the process:

Wrote DiMascio:


The analysis of alternatives (AOA) is scheduled to start in mid-October. Lt. Gen. George Flynn, commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, says the process needs to be wrapped up in about nine months, which is half the time the lumbering acquisition process typically takes.

Along those lines, Marine Corps Systems Command created a systems engineering “war room” in which engineers work elbow-to-elbow with cost estimators. That way the effect of every trade in weight, speed, survivability or other areas can be assessed and priced.

The whole thing involves about a dozen people at the core along with experts from across the Defense Department, government and academia. For instance, a top engineer from Naval Sea Systems Command is working with the nation’s best experts in hydrodynamics on a water-speed red team, says Jim Smerchansky, deputy commander for systems engineering, interoperability, architectures and technology at Marine Corps Systems Command.

Industry is not included in this discussion, but Smerchansky says the process will enable the Marines to draw up requirements in a more detailed way and have a decent idea of the price, enabling them to reject bids that are too high or too low.

And while that may seem like a commonsense approach to buying weapons, it is not how the Pentagon typically does business. “We have not done it on a program of this magnitude in the Marine Corps this early in the program,” Smerchansky says.

The full story is worth your time, and it raises some interesting questions about what effect this could have for other programs in Austerity America. Does the Air Force need a ‘war room’ like this for its bomber, or does the Navy need one for SSBN(X)? If it speeds up the process, this might become more common. One reason the Marines want to get this new amphibious vehicle going yesterday is they know the sooner they start the program, the likelier it is to survive — just like the Army’s Ground Combat Vehicle. In fact, because it’s already dedicated to an armored troop carrier, albeit one with a very different details, could the Marines’ new ‘war room’ concept become a model the Army could borrow to control the costs of GCV?

Then again, there may not be enough budget cuts in Christendom to get the Army to willingly emulate the Marines.

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/09/08/can-the-marines-war-room-save-their-new-efv/#ixzz1XPdAlMSx
DoDBuzz.com

The full article from DiMascio................

EFV Replacement Effort Moved to War Room

Aviation Week's DTI | Jen DiMascio | September 06, 2011

This article first appeared in Aerospace Daily & Defense Report.

In the aftermath of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle's (EFV) cancellation, the U.S. Marines are charged with coming up with an amphibious vehicle that is actually affordable and fast. Their answer to the challenge could put a crimp on the Pentagon's intractable problem of requirements creep.

The analysis of alternatives (AOA) is scheduled to start in mid-October. Lt. Gen. George Flynn, commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, says the process needs to be wrapped up in about nine months, which is half the time the lumbering acquisition process typically takes.

Along those lines, Marine Corps Systems Command created a systems engineering "war room" in which engineers work elbow-to-elbow with cost estimators. That way the effect of every trade in weight, speed, survivability or other areas can be assessed and priced.

The whole thing involves about a dozen people at the core along with experts from across the Defense Department, government and academia. For instance, a top engineer from Naval Sea Systems Command is working with the nation's best experts in hydrodynamics on a water-speed red team, says Jim Smerchansky, deputy commander for systems engineering, interoperability, architectures and technology at Marine Corps Systems Command.

Industry is not included in this discussion, but Smerchansky says the process will enable the Marines to draw up requirements in a more detailed way and have a decent idea of the price, enabling them to reject bids that are too high or too low.

And while that may seem like a commonsense approach to buying weapons, it is not how the Pentagon typically does business. "We have not done it on a program of this magnitude in the Marine Corps this early in the program," Smerchansky says.

Navy Involvement

The effort has top-level Navy involvement; Flynn considers himself a member of the team and acquisition chief Sean Stackley receives weekly briefings on its work. Staff on Capitol Hill have been informed.

Come mid-October, the Marines are looking for a green light from the Pentagon's acquisition shop on its material development decision leading. During the AOA, the team will prepare a number of options, including the new amphibious vehicle.

"Whether it's a son of, or a cousin of, or the Auntie Mame version of the EFV," the Marines will have to address the problem of cost and viability on land that the original program could not overcome, says Dakota Wood, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

That means the program has to come down in cost from about $20 million per vehicle to $10 million to $12 million apiece. And the new vehicle will have to arrive on shore ready to fight in an environment with rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank munitions and improvised explosive devices, he says.

Since the commandant has asked for an EFV alternative very quickly, the Marines are likely to rely on existing vehicles or existing technologies. They could offer something like the existing Amphibious Assault Vehicle, the EFV, or marry a wheeled vehicle with a craft optimized for at-sea work, Wood says.

Regardless of how vigilant the Marines can be in necking down the cost of the EFV's successor, larger budget-cutting efforts in the Marine Corps and the Pentagon that are feeding into the mammoth effort to trim trillions from the federal deficit could get in the way.

"It's going to be a challenge," says Kevin McConnell, director of the fires and maneuver integration division for the Marines Combat Development and Integration division. "If this were the only iron we had in the fire, it'd be a walk in the park."

Other Priorities

The Marine Corps investment portfolio also is juggling an aging fleet of Humvees, command and control and intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance capabilities. "We could negotiate our way to a cheap vehicle and find we couldn't afford it," McConnell says. "While it is about this one vehicle, it's about one vehicle in a portfolio that's pretty expensive."

But Smerchansky feels that the process undertaken for this small piece of the Pentagon weapons-buying establishment is one that should be replicated, particularly in tight economic times.

"This will be the way we have to conduct business in the future, and not just for the big programs," Smerchansky says. "Programs tend to get in trouble for technical reasons. … We're trying to reduce that risk right up front or understand it and know how to manage it so we won't be surprised by it."

Sound Off...What do you think? Join the discussion.

Copyright 2011 Aviation Week's DTI. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.

[buglerbilly]

Marines Create Group To Push For More Amphibs

By Carlo Munoz

Published: September 12, 2011



Washington: The Marine Corps says it needs more amphibious ships. Now, thanks to a new working group, they will finally have the numbers to prove it.

The working group, started today by Marine Corps Combat Development Command, will take information from upcoming amphibious exercises and use that data to as it presents the service's arguments to Capitol Hill and DoD for more ships, according to a source familiar with the group.

Those exercises will run the gamut from large-scale amphibious drills such as the upcoming Bold Alligator to smaller exercises geared toward specific combat scenarios, the source said.

The Marines are looking to increase the 28-ship amphibious fleet up to 33, which the service says is the base number of vessels needed to support two brigade-sized Marine Expeditionary units.

It remains unclear what types of individual combat scenarios the group use for their analysis will drill down into since those details will likely be classified.

The Marines are already compiling information from past exercises for the working group as part of that effort, according to one Marine Corps official.

Once information will be key to Marine Corps as it makes its argument to the Hill for more amphibious ships in their spending proposal for fiscal year 2013.

Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Amos has been publicly touting the effectiveness of amphibious ships in recent months.

Citing successful operations in Libya and humanitarian efforts in Haiti, the four-star general claimed DoD could get more bang for the buck by putting more amphibs in the fleet.

Despite all that rhetoric, the Marines have not done a good enough job in putting hard numbers in place to clearly show the service needs more amphibious ships, the source said.

The data provided by the new Marine Corps working group will look to fill that gap. Given the growing pressure on defense spending, the Marines will need all the help they can get.

The service has already put a plan in place to shrink its total force once as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down.

But many in DoD and on the Hill are expecting troop levels within the services to drop much lower than had been expected, with some anticipating a 100,000-man cut across the services.

[buglerbilly]

Amos Takes Marine Corps Case Directly To Panetta
By Carlo Munoz

Published: September 15, 2011



Washington: With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down, the U.S. military will need a rapidly mobile, highly lethal force that can respond to any national security crisis around the globe.

The Marine Corps is that force and will be for the foreseeable future, according to service Commandant Gen. James Amos.

In a letter sent to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta today, Amos clearly laid out his vision for the Marine Corps -- a "middleweight force" that fits neatly between big Army and special operations forces.

"The Corps is not a second land army," Amos wrote, attempting to shake the image that has defined the Marine Corps over the past decade in Iraq and Afghanistan. The service is also not a bigger version of special operations forces, Amos added. "Marine Corps and SOF roles are complementary, not redundant," the four-star general wrote.

That said, the Marines occupy "a unique lane in the capability range of America's armed forces" Amos said.

A lane, he makes clear, only the Marines can fill at the bargain basement price of only "7.8 percent of the total DoD budget."

Much of the letter echoes what top Marine Corps leaders have been preaching for some time.
But this statement -- sent directly to Panetta himself -- is the latest in a series of moves the service is making to position itself for the tough budget battles ahead.

The Marines were the first of all the services to set up a plan for how it will drawdown its forces as operations in Southwest Asia come to an end.

While the Navy continued to send mixed signals to Congress on what it planned to do about its future carrier fleet, Amos and others banged the drum on the need for more amphibious ships.

Furthermore, the Marines created a new working group tasked specifically to come up with statistical proof to back up the service's arguments for more amphibious ships.

In his letter to Panetta, Amos again made clear that the future of the Navy's amphibious forces and the future of the service as a whole were intrinsically intertwined.

Amos also took personal ownership over the struggles with the service's version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the cancellation of the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.

The Marine Corps chief took on a "player-coach" role in getting vertical lift variant of the F-35 back on schedule, personally tracking the ongoing work on the fighter

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates gave the Navy and Marine Corps two years to fix the F-35 or risk cancellation. Amos has almost guaranteed that the fighter would be ready well before that two-year window closes.

On EFV, Amos boldly stated that he wanted to be able to drive some version of the vehicle's replacement, known as the Amphibious Combat Vehicle, before his four-year term as Marine Corps commandant was complete.

By doing all these things, the Marines have put themselves in a near-perfect position to push back against those in DoD and on the Hill who are looking to the services to foot part of the national deficit bill.

When spending cuts come, and they will come, the Marine Corps should be ready. We will just have to wait and see if all this work ends up paying off in the end.

Gen. Amos 'Role Of The Marine Corps' Letter To Panetta

A Sept. 12 letter from Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. James Amos entitled "The Role of the Marine Corps" to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, arguing the Marines' role as a "middleweight force" for post-Afghanistan operations.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0BxWUADutnijUY2YzNDE0MzItNDZlYy00MmI5LWEyYzA tYjRkYzMxZjM0NmNh&hl=en&pli=1

[buglerbilly]

The Latest Marine Hymn

Posted by Mark Thompson

Monday, September 19, 2011 at 8:51 am


Marines storm Inchon, 1950 / Dod photo

As Battleland comrade Chuck Spinney predicted last week, the warfare among the services for bigger pieces of a shrinking pie has begun. All the services are engaged, although most tend to do it covertly. But the Marine Corps is different – their leader has written Defense Secretary Leon Panetta a letter implicitly pleading for special treatment.

Commandant James Amos makes a good case for how vital the nation's smallest military service is. "Naval forces" – that would be the Navy, and the Navy's army, which would be Amos' Marines – "are not reliant on host nation support" – take that, Army! – "or permission." – Take that Air Force, and your pesky requirement for overflight rights! "With the increasing concentration of the world's population close to a coastline, the ability to operate simultaneously on the sea, ashore and in the air" – Amos is the first Marine aviator to serve as commandant – "and to move seamlessly between" -- Proofreader! -- "these three domains represents the unique value of amphibious forces."

He concludes his two-page letter to his new boss by declaring that the "Marine Corps and [emphasis in the original] the Navy's amphibious forces, represent a very efficient and effective hedge against the Nation's most likely risks."

The letter raises a couple of questions.

First of all, when did military leaders start capitalizing the first letter of Nation? The Marines, among the four services, have always won capitalization for their troops: there are Marines, but only airmen, sailors and soldiers (the Army has fought to get Soldier capitalized, but that rarely occurs outside of official Army documents. A couple of years later, it mandated the Family of a Soldier also must be capitalized; that has been even less successful. Nonetheless, it's a Worrisome Trend.)

Secondly, and more importantly, no one is arguing that the Marines don't play an important role in the defense of the Nation. But so do the Air Force, Army and Navy. What's insidious about Amos' missive is the suggestion that the Marines deserve special handling as the U.S. military prepares for deep cuts. It's a safe bet the other three services could – and probably already have, just not so publicly – detailed their particular rucksack of unique contributions to National security.

The Marines are never shy about their clout. "The Marine Corps was specifically directed by the 82nd Congress as the force intended to be `the most ready when the Nation is least ready,'" General Amos let Panetta know with all the subtlety of a tactical nuclear weapon (the SecDef, after all, merely served in the Army). The corps loves to point out its standing on Capitol Hill, and that mere defense secretaries ignore at their peril. Just not sure the Marines should be brandishing poor U.S. preparedness for the Korean War – which is when that congressional direction came down – as justification for continued special treatment for the corps. The Korean War, after all, also was the last time the corps launched an amphibious assault, the primary reason for its existence.

Read more: http://battleland.blogs.time.com/2011/09/19/the-latest-marine-hymn/#ixzz1YRbAQRuD

[buglerbilly]

Camper Joins the Amphibious Circle

Analysis by Christina Ortiz

Fri Sep 23, 2011 09:11 AM ET



Sealander Amphibious Camper: $24,000

Right let's stop all this serious discussion on Amphibious Warfare, here you go, an amphibious craft you can use for all sorts of camping and cruising needs...........paint in Multicam, add a machine gun or two and hey presto a Sleeper Amphib Assault vehicle.........(ps: I'd expect something a lot better for my $24K!)

Campers serve as home bases when exploring the outdoors; they aren't usually involved in the action. But in cases where water-centric adventures are part of the camping routine, the Sealander Amphibious Camper (site translated from German) could serve as both boat and home at the same time. The German-designed camper allows its dwellers to be out on the water without actually having to be “out” on it. (Though that may defeat the purpose for some die-hard outdoors enthusiasts.) Its interior includes two benches and a table that can be stowed away and turned into a bed.

The Sealander can be towed by just about any vehicle, and according to the dramatically scored demo video (see below), it takes to the water quickly.The electric motor can be controlled to maneuver the camper to ensure smooth sailing. It’s set to release in 2012 and will come in different (unspecified) versions.

Credit: Sealander

[buglerbilly]

Marines Redefining Amphib Ops From The Ground Up

By Carlo Munoz

Published: September 27, 2011



Quantico, Va: In a nondescript room on a secure floor here at Marine Corps headquarters, a cadre of civilian and military personnel are busy redefining how the service does amphibious operations.

Amid various Power Points, diagrams and computerized templates, the members of the Amphibious Capabilities Working Group have been assigned a fairly formidable task -- take one of the Marine Corps most important (and most misunderstood) missions and redefine it for a post-Afghanistan world.

"What's changed over the last ten years" in amphibious operations, ACWG co-chair Col. Michael Groen asked me during an interview today. Finding that answer, he added, was one of the main jobs service leaders want the group to figure out.

After a decade of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Marine Corps found themselves being pigeonholed as a second ground army, far removed from its historical roots as an highly-mobile amphibious force.

With the wars in Southwest Asia now winding down, service leaders are now pushing hard to get the Marines back to the sea. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos made the importance of moving the Marines back to the shoreline crystal clear in a Sept. 15 letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

In that letter, the four-star general essentially tied the entire future of the Marine Corps to the success or failure of getting the service's focus back to amphibious operations.

With that marker clearly laid down by Gen. Amos and others, it is now up to this new working group to help make that happen.

While a number of factors will play into how the Marines do that, including the significant financial pressures the service and the rest of DoD are under, the group has taken an approach that, they say, will make this effort more than just another budget drill.

The way they're doing that, according to ACWG co-chair Col. Christopher Naler, is by focusing mainly on what kinds of amphibious threats the Marines are likely to face in the future, and build a number of new concepts of operations around that.

The group plans to hold a series of wargames to evaluate those new CONOPS for amphib missions over the next few weeks. The results of those wargames will then be briefed to Navy and Marine Corps leaders at the three and four-star level, Groen said.

Discussion over what types of ships, planes or helicopters -- and how much they will cost -- will certainly play a part in the group's work, according to Naler. But, in the end, "we are not going to be held hostage by a [particular] system," he said, regarding the group's work.

But developing new CONOPS for amphibious operations could also mean getting modifying or plain getting rid of old concepts that just don't fit on the modern battlefield, Naler and Groen said.

The iconic beach assaults on Tarawa and Inchon, which are staples of Marine Corps tradition, won't necessarily be the best template for future amphib missions, Groen pointed out.

"There are different ways of getting [amphibious] missions accomplished," he said, noting advent of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones, precision weapons and advanced communications, a full-on beachfront assault may not even be needed.

An attack of any kind may not even be needed, depending on what kinds of threats and in what kind of environment Marine amphibious forces find themselves in, Capt. Samuel Howard, the Navy Fleet Forces representative on the group, said.

"A humanitarian mission is a [amphibious operation]," he said.

But changing or abandoning classic approaches to amphibious operations will "initially hurt," Groen admitted, but he noted that was what the group was tasked do to -- make recommendations, "even the painful ones" to make sure the Marines are ready for the future.

Those painful decisions, Naler pointed out, will pay off in the long term, since the Marines are not getting out of the amphibious warfare business anytime soon.

"It's got to continue," he said of the group's ongoing work. "We know that [amphibious operations] are the future."

[buglerbilly]

Larger drawdown possible for Corps

By Gina Cavallaro and Dan Lamothe - Staff writers

Posted : Tuesday Aug 30, 2011 10:24:37 EDT


Cpl. Reece Lodder / Marine Corps
A mortarman with 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines, conducts pre-deployment training at Twentynine Palms, Calif.

NEW ORLEANS — The national budget crisis could force the Marine Corps to start cutting the force as soon as next fall, and below the 186,800-troop end strength top officers have pushed to maintain after the war in Afghanistan ends.

Commandant Gen. Jim Amos said the options must be considered as the federal government ponders widespread cuts to the defense budget to help the U.S. reduce its ballooning deficit. For months, the commandant has advocated a gradual drawdown of about 15,000 Marines from the service’s 202,000 active-duty end strength, but political and fiscal realities may require the Corps to cut deeper.

“There is pressure to go below the 186,800, I don’t want to lie to you,” Amos told Marine Corps Times recently during a two-day trip to Marine Corps Forces Reserve headquarters here and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C. “We just don’t know what that is going to look like yet and we won’t know for months.”

Be heard

What programs, commands or largesse would you cut from the Marine Corps’ coffers? What is the service paying for that it just doesn’t need? We want to hear how you would wield the budget ax. Send an email to managing editor Andrew deGrandpré, adegrandpre@marinecorpstimes.com. Please be sure to include your name, rank and duty station. Your comments could appear in a future issue of Marine Corps Times.

Budget pressures ratcheted up after President Obama signed a deal Aug. 2 to reduce the U.S. government’s estimated $1.5 trillion budget deficit. That deal, reached after weeks of haggling in Congress, likely means at least $350 billion in cuts to defense spending over the next decade, and potentially up to $1 trillion.

It’s not clear how much of that burden the Corps will be forced to shoulder, but the numbers could prime the service for considerable change. It depends on how much of the Corps’ $26 billion budget is slashed during the coming year, Amos said.

Earlier this year, recently retired Defense Secretary Robert Gates “blessed” the Corps’ force-structure review recommendations, Amos said. He did so on the condition that force reductions not begin until after U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan are complete, likely in 2014.

That was before the deficit deal was reached, however. Amos could be pushed into a corner by budget decisions that will affect the entire military. Marine planners have developed a blueprint that lays out options for a force smaller than 186,800 Marines, and with the drawdown beginning as soon as fiscal 2013 — which begins in October 2012 — to meet fiscal requirements, Amos said.

The commandant declined to say how small the service could eventually be, but sources at Marine Corps headquarters said planners have discussed cuts that could reduce the service by at least 25,000 Marines. That would leave the Corps with fewer than 180,000 troops on active duty. There were about 172,000 Marines on active duty at the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and about 175,000 when the U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.

What to expect

Regardless, Amos said the drawdown will be conducted in a way that’s fair to Marines. Existing contracts will be honored, transition assistance will be beefed up and Marines will be encouraged to prepare for the future while still on active duty, Marine officials said.

The first step of the drawdown may be a reduction of up to 2,500 recruits the Corps brings in during fiscal 2013, with additional cuts of other kinds in later years. The service will not slash 10,000 personnel in a year — an unpopular move made in the early 1990s — but it will reduce manpower by between 3,500 and 5,000 per year, Amos said. A combination of reducing re-enlistment options, shrinking annual recruiting accessions and limiting some careers to 20 years likely will be used.

To determine a possible rate for the drawdown, Marine officials reviewed what its accession rates were as the Corps grew from 180,000 Marines to 202,100 between 2007 and 2009. They decided they could reduce end strength most easily four years after some of the largest recruiting classes came in, as tens of thousands of Marines reached the end of their contracts, Amos said.

The Corps brought in 38,217 recruits in fiscal 2006, before the 202,000 push began. That number ballooned to 40,890 in 2007 and 42,226 in 2008. It then dropped to 37,114 in 2009 and 33,887 in 2010. Marines who entered in fiscal 2006 and most of 2007 have been up for re-enlistment, but those who joined in fiscal 2008 and 2009 haven’t reached the end of their contracts.

Regardless what the final end strength is, Marines who want to stay in the Corps will need to stand out among their peers. Amos and Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Mike Barrett, the Corps’ top enlisted adviser, have urged Marines to pursue excellence to ensure a chance to stay.

“I’m not going to go around and say, ‘Let Daddy give you a hug!’” Barrett said in an interview at his Pentagon office. “I’m not going to do that. What I’m going to tell you is, ‘Prepare yourself.’ If you want to stay in the Marine Corps, you can absolutely stay in the Marine Corps. But you’re going to have to be the best. You’re going to have to bring your A-game every single day.”

Barrett said that means pursuing top scores on the rifle range, the Physical Fitness Test, the Combat Fitness Test and in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program.

“Going to the range and being happy that you qualified is bulls—-,” Barrett said. “You better go to the range and go, ‘How high of an ‘expert’ am I going to shoot today?’ Not, ‘Alright! Yay! I qualified!’ That’s JV nonsense.”

Where there could be cuts

Recommendations made last year by the Corps’ Force Structure Review Group are expected to serve as the drawdown’s framework. Outlined broadly in February, it calls for the estimated 15,000-troop reduction and elimination of several units. It’s unclear how deeper cuts would be implemented if they are required.

The force-structure recommendations call for one regimental headquarters to be cut, dropping the total to seven. The Corps also will cut its active-duty infantry battalions from 27 to 24, its artillery batteries from nine to seven and its armor companies from 10 to eight, Marine officials said.

Three active and one reserve Marine wing support group headquarters also will be cut, with aviation logistics expertise kept within the Marine air wing staff. Command and control of the Marine wing support squadrons will instead fall under the Marine air group headquarters.

Additionally, Marine logistics groups will be trimmed, with key pieces aligned with Marine expeditionary units and infantry regiments. By being a part of those units, logistics Marines will train with the operational units instead of assigned to them shortly ahead of a deployment.

Marine officials in several commands also have disclosed expected troop reductions. For example, The Basic School at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., is planning to see its staff of more than 800 Marines reduced by 27 captains and 103 enlisted billets.

The Corps also has started to build two new one-star Marine expeditionary brigade headquarters, with one falling under Marine Corps Forces Central Command, out of Tampa, Fla., and the other falling under Marine Corps Forces Africa Command, based in Germany.

The manpower will be available for the MEB headquarters as the Corps flattens the command staff at Marine Corps Installations East and West. The two-star MCI commands manage bases, stations and regional strategies for the Corps, and will be streamlined as part of force restructuring. Details on the MCI cuts have not been disclosed.

The Corps also recently adopted a significant change to its top-end service limits for sergeants, from 13 to 10 years. Each Marine will still be guaranteed at least one chance to go before a staff sergeant promotion board, even in the slowest promoting military occupational specialties. However, once a Marine is passed over twice or reaches 10 years of service without being promoted, he will be shown the door either at the end of his current contract or seven months after the release of promotion board results — whichever offers more time.

This change is partly a return to normal following rapid growth during the 202,000 push, Manpower officials said. The service limit for sergeants was 10 years from 1992 to 2001. However, senior leaders also said it is part of developing a new, more competitive environment that will make a drawdown less painful by moving top noncommissioned officers into zone for promotion faster than they otherwise would be, preventing stagnation.

“I would say it’s a combination of all things,” Barrett said. “I would say that’s fair.”

[buglerbilly]

Marine Libya Lessons: Short Command-Control Links, STOVL Flexibility

By Robbin Laird

Published: October 6, 2011



The French operational experience in and off of Libya has neatly dovetailed with that of the U.S. Marines and suggests a way forward for American thinking about littoral operations.

With the decision of the U.S. national command authority to "lead from behind," the Marines were almost inadvertently given a leading role. What "lead from behind" meant operationally was that the U.S. was not going to commit significant combat air capabilities to the fight, so the F-22 returned from Middle East exercises and the aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean was sent elsewhere, to support US ground troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. was to provide a C2 package to support the operation, as well as ground attack capabilities such as A-10s and C-130 gunships. Most importantly, the U.S. provided airborne tanking and related air support to the allied operations.

This piece is really all about the performance of the Marines and the US Navy-Marine amphibious ready group team. What the ARG ended up doing was re-shaping the next phase of operational history. The recently departed Secretary of Defense confused amphibious with Inchon, whereas the ARG really is a seabase from which one can conduct a variety of operations across the spectrum of warfare.

The ARG is in the throes of fundamental change, with new ships and new planes providing new capabilities. These new capabilities are nicely congruent with the Libyan operational experiences. Given the Marines battle hymn, it seems that "off the shores of Tripoli" can have a whole new meaning for the evolution of the US force structure.

The ARG was used in several unprecedented ways in the Libyan operation. First, the V-22 Osprey was a key element of changing how U.S. forces operated. The Osprey provided a logistical linchpin which allowed the ARG to stay on station and allowed the Harriers to generate greater sortie generation rates and ops tempo. The use of the Osprey in the operation underscored the game changing possibilities of the ARG in littoral operations of the future.

For the Marine Expeditionary Unit, the combat elements might be on the ship, might be ashore, or might be in transit. The challenge for the MEU commander is to be able to concentrate force on the task at hand. Prior to the Libyan operations, Col. Dessens, the 26th MEU commander, faced the challenge of assembling his capability to fight the battle and then to be able to flexibly change the mix of forces at sea. What this meant was that some of his Ospreys were in Afghanistan, and not on his ARG ships.

The key point here is that the sea base, which in effect the ARG is, can provide a very flexible strike package. Given their proximity to shore, the Harriers could operate with significant sortie rates against enemy forces. Not only could the Harriers come and go rapidly, but the information they obtained with their Litening pods could be delivered to the ship and be processed and used to inform the next strike package. Commanders did not need a long C2 or C4ISR chain to inform combat. This meant that the ground forces of Gadaffi would not have moved far from the last positions Harriers noted before the new Harriers moved into attack positions. This combination of compressed C4ISR and sortie rates created a deadly combination for enemy forces and underscored that using sea bases in a compressed strike package had clear advantages over land-based aircraft several hours from the fight dependent on C4ISR coming from hundreds or even thousands of miles away.

One more point about the ARG's operations. The Osprey and the Harrier worked closely together to enhance combat capabilities. One aspect of this was the ability of the Osprey to bring parts and support elements to the Harriers. Instead of waiting for ships to bring parts, or for much slower legacy rotorcraft to fly them out, the 300-mph Osprey could bring parts from land bases to keep the ops temp up of the Harriers.

The well known pilot rescue mission certainly highlighted how a vertically-launched aircraft working with the Osprey off of the ARG can create new capabilities. The elapsed time of authorization to the recovery of the pilot and his return to the USS Kearsarge was 43 minutes.

This rescue took place even though the US Air Force had a rescue helo aboard the USS Ponce. In my view, having discussed this with the relevant personnel, it was not used for two reasons. It would have gotten to the pilot much later than an Osprey team and the command and control would have been much slower than what the Marines could deliver. The key to the Marines' C2 was that the pilots of the Ospreys and Harriers planned the operation together in the ready room of the USS Kearsarge. They did not meet in virtual space. They exchanged information in real time and were in the same room. They could look at the briefing materials together. The Harriers were informed by fresh intelligence ABOARD the USS Kearsarge. The sea base brought together the assets and intelligence to execute the mission.

If we look at the French experience several Libyan lessons can be highlighted. First, the centrality of leveraging multiple bases in a littoral operation is significant. The French used several land bases and incorporated the sea base – whether the carrier or their amphibious ships – to work with land-based aircraft. The U.S. Marines used their land base largely to supply the sea-based air ops via Ospreys. Second, having the C4ISR forward-deployed with the pilot as the key decision maker is crucial to mission success.

The classic Air Force CAOC system was challenged by what the Marines demonstrated in the operation; the French experience reinforces that lesson. In a recent story from London on AOL Defense, the point was made that some French pilots felt the release authority from Predator information was too slow. The interpretation was unhappiness with the US, but I would argue that it is more the case that the information in a fluid and dynamic situation must be provided in a more timely fashion than a system built for 1991 air operations permits. Third, new air capabilities make a significant difference. For the Marines, the Osprey was the game changer in this operation. For the French, it was the new recce pods off of the Rafales. Fourth, the dynamic targeting problem discussed in the first article was also highlighted by the USMC experience. Getting accurate information from the ground is central to operations.

The USN-USMC team has a number of new capabilities being deployed or acquired which will
enhance their ability to do such operations. The F-35B will give the Marines an integrated electronic warfare and C4ISR capability. The new LPDs have significant command and control capabilities. The new LCS could provide -- along with the Osprey -- significant combat insertion capability for ground forces and rapid withdrawal capability.

For the French, UAVs could become wingmen for the Rafaels. Also, the role of C2 capabilities of the new amphibious ships were underscored as well. Fifth, the pick-up quality of this operation may become more a norm than an aberration in the future. The old paradigm of days or weeks of significant planning and then roll out of a fleet of C4ISR aircraft and other capabilities may be challenged.

Deploying air assets that can be tapped by the sea base to shape an operation may become a key requirement for future battles on the littoral. As with any operation, each one's characteristics are unique and thus not predetermined. What the Marines and the French forces have demonstrated is that 2011 certainly is not Iraq 1991 or Bosnia 1996.

Robbin Laird is a member of the AOL Board of Contributors. An international defense consultant, he has served in and worked with all the US military services.

[buglerbilly]

Marines to review their ‘amphibious future’

By Philip Ewing Monday, October 10th, 2011 8:30 am



The Marine Corps wants a new, less-expensive amtrac to replace its infamous Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, but it’s in a bind: How do you build a whole new fast, wave-skimming personnel carrier without falling into the same cost and delay traps that claimed the original? Maybe you build one that doesn’t need to be as fast or cover as much distance. Before you can do that, though, you need to change the assumptions that underpin the whole project. In the world of the military services that can only mean one thing: a review.

Marine Corps Times’ eminent correspondent Gidget Fuentes has a story this week that says the Corps is doing just that, though officials would never be so vulgar as to mention “specific platforms,” she writes. Still, today the Marines have doctrine and concepts written to justify the EFV: Back in the day, naval and Marine planners assumed that a Navy expeditionary armada would need to stand well away from a hostile beach — completely out of sight, in fact — to keep the ships, crews and devil dogs all safe from today’s cheap guided missiles. That meant if you wanted the Marines to reach out and touch anybody on the shore, they needed fast, high-end equipment, including their beloved MV-22 Osprey and the EFV. F-35B Lightning IIs would provide your local air support, and everything would have to fit aboard Navy amphibious warships.

Today, however, the EFV is a dead duck, and the Marines want to double-time its replacement so they can start the program before Congress makes any more of its nihilistic spending agreements. Trouble is, maybe you can’t send a new amphibious vehicle into the theoretical scenarios for which the EFV was built without building another EFV — which you can’t. So as Marine officials told Fuentes, now they’re going to look at this amphibious situation from soup to nuts, gather input from all the key stakeholders, etc.:


Col. Mike Groen, one of two co-chairs, said the group’s marching orders are “to take a good look at the operating concept and our role and strategy.” The work, he said, may be “somewhat of a revalidation.” “After eight years of (counterinsurgency) operations, we haven’t paid attention as much as we should have [to the Corps’ amphibious role],” he said.

The working group will weigh military threats, fiscal constraints and strategies such as “operational maneuver from the sea” and “ship-to-objective maneuvers. Are these still valid?” Groen asked. “How would we really execute these today and in the mid-term?”

The panel’s work comes amid Amos’ campaign to reinvigorate the Marine Corps’s amphibious roots and its crisis-response role. It also comes as the Marine Corps and Navy brace for major budget cuts. Adding to the problems are the delays and high costs of war-fighting modernization programs, such as the Joint Strike Fighter and Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.

“We are certainly cognizant of the strategic and the fiscal environments,” Groen said. With that in mind, “let’s make sure that our methodologies and our operating concepts are sound. Budgets are going to drive capacity, at least in the near years,” he said.

The Marines have been saying for years that they get the big picture here: The United States will probably not have to invade Tarawa or Inchon again; tomorrow’s potential amphibious scenarios won’t look like that. But the Marines do argue the U.S. must keep some ability to knock on a bad guy’s door from the sea, though they don’t like to be pinned down about exactly how many amphibs, troops or other equipment that requires. The Marine Corps also argues that the blue-green team works great in non-hostile scenarios as well; they cite the U.S. response to the earthquakes in Haiti, Pakistan and Japan, among others, in which American sailors and Marines were among the first to deliver international assistance.

Now the trick for the Marines will be writing up an amphibious doctrine that fits their new amtrac, and fast — defending all this stuff against the Army and Air Force, as well as think-tank skeptics, is going to be a big job in the coming crunch years.

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2011/10/10/marines-to-review-their-amphibious-future/#ixzz1aQGjqSH9
DoDBuzz.com

[buglerbilly]

2nd Time Lucky: Chile Buys French Amphibious Ship

Oct 13, 2011 17:36 EDT


FS Foudre

When 2010 British budget cuts forced the Royal Navy to sell RFA Largs Bay just a few years into its service life, Chile’s need to deliver disaster relief from the sea made them one of the reported bidders. Largs Bay ended up heading to Australia, but France’s replacement of its Foudre Class LSDs with larger Mistral Class LHD helicopter carriers gave Chile another opportunity. In October 2011, Chile reportedly beat out Brazil and Argentina for the deal, which is said to be worth $80 million.

The 12,000t FS Foudre was commissioned in 1990, so she is many years older than Largs Bay. On the other hand, Chile’s needs a replacement for its 8,687t Valdivia Newport Class LST, which was retired in January after almost 40 years of combined US/Chilean service…

Chile’s 2010 earthquake underlined the importance of being able to deliver aid by sea, and LSD/ LPD/ LHD amphibious ships’ combination of landing craft and helicopters makes them invaluable for that role. Foudre will reportedly be renamed “Sergeant Village” when she joins Chile’s smaller 1,400t ships, LST-92 Rancagua and LST-95 Chacabuco.

Foudre Class LSDs hold about 200 crew and up to 467 troops/passengers, which can grow to 1,400 passengers in a dire emergency. Outside of emergencies, the ship can hold 100 vehicles, or up to 22 of Chile’s new Leopard 2A4 tanks. To deliver them ashore, her 13,000 square meter well deck can hold a tank landing ship (LSM) and 4 medium landing craft (LCM), or remove the LSM and operate a total of 10 LCMs. Up to 11 medium helicopters can be carried between her landing deck and hangar, but in order to take advantage of that, Chile would need to either buy more helicopters, or divert them from other services.

There is some question regarding the ship’s defensive systems, and whether they will be included in the purchase. In French service, Foudre has relied on 3 Breda-Mauser 30mm cannons, 4 12.7mm Browning machine guns, and 2 Sinbad twin-launchers for MBDA’s Mistral short-range air defense missile. Chile is not currently a Mistral operator.

Over the longer term, the 1,400t LST-92 Rancagua and LST-95 Chacabuco will also need to be retired and replaced. One obvious option for Chile will be FS Sirocco, Foudre’s sister ship, which was commissioned in 1998.

Chile’s plan that uses part of the proceeds from copper sales to fund its national defense gives the country some financial flexibility, and has helped that country make a number of improvements and purchases in recent years. Amphibious ships are a politically popular place to spend that money, but the larger ships will require associated outlays for more helicopters, in order to take full advantage of their capabilities.

[buglerbilly]

USMC Prepares For Pacific Mind-set

Oct 27, 2011

By Michael Fabey



As the U.S. Marine Corps slackens its efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the service is shifting its priority to the Pacific, where the Marines will focus more on expeditionary operations than ground forces, says Gen. James Amos, the Corps Commandant.

The shift will determine how the Marines train and what they invest their money in, Amos says.

“The Pacific is huge,” Amos said during an Oct. 26 Washington Meetings Event hosted by the Council On Foreign Relations. “Seventy percent of the world is covered with water and the Pacific is the largest. It’s an important part of the world. You can look around the globe and ask where are areas where the U.S. has to focus its efforts. The Pacific is one of those.”

The Pacific shift will mark a return for the Marines, Amos says, to its expeditionary nature in a part of the world where the Corps has been active for nearly seven decades.

Still, the Marines will have to reorient themselves after years of intensive ground operations.

“It’s going to require more shipboard operations,” Amos said. “It’s going to require more combined arms operations. Some of it is the bread and butter of the Marine Corps, pre-9/11.”

Next year, Amos says, the Corps will start rebuilding its training bases with the new Pacific mind-set.

The Marines’ Pacific refocus will also likely mean a shift in certain ship maintenance resources to the U.S. West Coast.

Over the past decade or so, the $12.5 billion that the Navy has spent on non-nuclear vessel repairs has been fairly evenly split between the U.S. East and West coasts, according to an exclusive Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN) analysis of an AWIN database created by information aggregated by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.

The Corps also will be looking for better ways of conducting counterintelligence with equipment like radios, unmanned aerial vehicles, space-based assets and other stealthier operations to work in areas of the Pacific – like Chinese territorial waters – where access can be an issue.

“There are ways you can decrease the degree of difficulty that the enemy can deny you access,” Amos said. “It’s not going to be insurmountable.”

One asset that can help is the relatively new Marine Special Operations Command (Marsoc), which has proven itself in areas like cyberwarfare.

“I’m a huge fan,” Amos said, adding the Corps is building up Marsoc even as it reduces overall Marine personnel.

Marsoc, Seals and other units represent the “ultimate economy of force,” he said.

The military can use small teams of these forces to accomplish significant missions. “You can put small teams of guys in there and they can occupy a space and provide a lot of effect,” Amos said.

As Marines gear up for the change in operational mind-set, the Corp is also returning to its belt-tightening ways before the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, Amos says.

“We were known as the frugal force, the penny-pinchers,” he said. “We’re going back to that. Money is a problem now. I won’t ask for things I want, I’ll ask for things I need.”

Photo: US Navy

[buglerbilly]

Marine War Games Drive Wholesale Amphibious Shakeup

By Carlo Munoz

Published: November 4, 2011



Washington: A series of war games led by a special Marine Corps task force could dramatically change the way the service fights their way from ship to shore in the future.

The Marines' Amphibious Capabilities Working Group kicked off its first war game this week at Marine Corps Headquarters in Quantico, Lt. Gen Richard Mills, head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command told me. This is the first of two the working group will conduct over the next few months, Mills said. This week's war game will test and examine core Navy and Marine Corps tactics and see how they can be adapted to the modern battlefield. The follow-on war game will explore how other services and "governmental agencies" can sharpen those core capabilities, Mills added.

Every aspect of amphibious ops is under the microscope, the three-star general said, from how far offshore the Marines launch beach assaults to the way they secure a beachhead. One scenario being fleshed out is how to integrate special forces into service-led amphibious missions, Mills said. Traditionally, those missions are carried out by Marines alone.

These games will be the first real test of the group's preliminary proposals to change the way Marines do amphibious operations. The group briefed Assistant Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford earlier this week on their progress. The early proposals briefed to Dunford will likely spur major changes to the Marines' amphibious warfare doctrine, according to Mills. "They're looking at [changing] tactics, techniques and procedures and those sorts of things," Mills told me yesterday.

The group is also looking at changing the way Marines are resupplied after storming a beach head, Mills explained. Marines usually carry supplies and equipment on board their assault vehicles during a mission so that units can carry on the fight from the water's edge without resupplying. But what if supplies were airlifted to Marines after the beach head is secured? What will that do to the Marines' ability to press the battle inland? Group members plan to answer those questions and myriad others during the war games, Mills said.

In some cases, long-standing service concepts for amphib ops may end up on the cutting room floor. Iconic beach assaults on Tarawa and Inchon -- staples of Marine Corps lore -- may not fit into the working group's vision for future amphib ops. "There are different ways of getting [amphibious] missions accomplished," working group co-chair Col. Michael Groen told me during a September visit to the group's headquarters at Quantico.

One thing that will remain unquestioned is the need for amphibious operations in U.S. national security strategy, Mills told me today. "The theory is solid; we need it," said Mills. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos staked the entire future of the service on amphibious operations. In a September letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Amos made clear the future of the Marine Corps lay on the shoreline and not as a "second land army."

[buglerbilly]

Marines Grope For Answers As Uncertain Future Looms

By Carlo Munoz

Published: November 18, 2011



Washington: Last fall, the Marine Corps had a plan for what it would look like after Afghanistan. That picture appears increasingly out of focus as the service braces itself for impending budget cuts, the commandant said today.

The Marines' will fall far below the 186,000-man total force it had initially aimed for once combat operations wind down in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gen. James Amos said this morning. The four-star general couldn't comment on how far that number will fall, saying it was being worked inside the Pentagon. But the final figure will likely be part of the Pentagon's fiscal year 2012 budget plan to be released this February. That plan will detail at least $260 billion in defense cuts over the next decade.

If approved, that budget plan means the Marines will have to do more will less. Less troops. Less equipment. Less of . . . well, pretty much everything. But that is something the service has grown accustomed to "over the past 236 years," according to the four-star general. Taking only 7 percent to 8 percent of the entire defense budget on average, the Marines will be the Pentagon's "risk mitigation force" as the department prepares to drop down to force levels not seen since World War I and II. Marines "eat [meals ready-to-eat] and sleep on the ground," and don't need "fancy" amenities that other services may require when they operate. Simply put, the Marines will still be able to do their job anywhere in the world no matter how many troops are in the force.

But service bravado aside, dropping below 186,000 troops does put the service's entire post-Afghanistan force strategy at risk. That total force number was the lynchpin to the service's force structure review completed last fall. That plan sought to move the Marines away from its image as a "second land Army" to a more agile and lethal force. It focused more on special operations and cyberwarfare. It brought the Marines back to its amphibious roots. It was also an attempt by the Marines to dictate the terms on how small it would have to get to meet the Pentagon's deficit reduction goals. But ever since "things started unraveling" economically, much of that plan is now in doubt, Amos said. If or when the Marines drop below that 186,000 figure, the service will be "at risk . . . for being able to take your Marine Corps and deploy it to a major contingency operation to do what our nation expects us to do," Amos told members of the House Armed Services Committee on Nov. 3.

The future of the Marines' plan hangs largely on what the congressional Super Committee ends up doing, Amos said. The bipartisan panel has just a few days left to cut $1.2 trillion from the national budget. If the panel can't do its job, the military will -- in theory -- be automatically hit with a $500 billion cut. Added to the cuts already mandated by the Obama administration, the department will have to find $1 trillion to slice. The commandant admitted he does not know what will happen to the Marines if that doomsday scenario takes place. But, in classic fashion, Amos said that regardless of what happens on Capitol Hill the Marines will get the job done.

[buglerbilly]

An Analysis of the Navy’s Amphibious Warfare Ships

(Source: Congressional Budget Office; issued Nov. 18, 2011)

The U.S. Navy’s fleet numbers 284 ships, including 29 amphibious warfare ships that are designed primarily to carry marines and their equipment into combat but also to perform peacetime missions.

Today CBO released a report—requested in the report of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011—reviewing the size, missions, and use of the Navy’s amphibious warfare ships and related expeditionary forces under the Navy’s 2012 shipbuilding plan.

CBO’s Main Findings

• The number of amphibious warfare ships falls short of the Navy’s goal of 33 ships in 15 of the next 30 years.
• The current amphibious force is not sufficient to meet the “unconstrained” needs (18 ships) for overseas deployment identified by combatant commanders (the four-star generals or admirals who head the regional commands responsible for all military operations within their geographic areas) in 2010—that is, the number of ships they desired in the absence of any fiscal or force structure constraint.
• Meeting the combatant commanders’ goal of 18 ships with the existing force would substantially increase deployment time and reduce time in ships’ home ports.

The Navy’s Amphibious Force Will Fall Below Its Objective in Half of the Next 30 Years

The Navy established a goal for a fleet of 33 amphibious ships in its 2012 30-year shipbuilding plan. (In 2012, it will have 30 such ships.) Between 2012 and 2041, it currently plans to purchase 20 amphibious ships at a cost of about $50 billion, and to retire 22 amphibious ships.

Under that 2012 plan, the Navy’s inventory of amphibious ships would reach at least 33 ships for 15 of the next 30 years—between 2017 and 2031. The rest of the time, from 2012 to 2016 and from 2032 to 2041, the size of the amphibious force would fall below that objective.

The Amphibious Force Met Commanders’ 2007 Request for Overseas Presence but Not Their 2010 “Unconstrained” Demand

The Navy partially uses its amphibious force to meet combatant commanders’ goals for overseas presence. At any given time:

• About 30 percent of the total force of amphibious ships is deployed overseas conducting operations;
• About 74 percent is “deployable”—that is, in good condition and with the crew sufficiently trained to perform a variety of missions;
• About 90 percent could be made available for an amphibious assault if the Navy had about three months to prepare.

In 2007, the commanders generally aligned their reported demand for deployed amphibious ships with the number of ships available for routine deployment. At that time, the combatant commanders requested nine ships, which could be accommodated with the existing fleet.

In 2010, commanders’ requests were no longer limited to the number of ships available; rather, the commanders could seek an unconstrained amount. In that year, the combatant commanders requested 18 ships.

But meeting the request for 18 ships deployed overseas with the existing force—30 ships—would substantially increase deployment time and reduce time in ships’ home ports. Specifically, over a 27-month (117-week) operating cycle for such ships:

• Deployment time would more than double—from 26 weeks to 62 weeks.
• Time in home port would fall from 57 percent to 36 percent, well short of the Navy’s goal of 50 percent.

However, it is unclear how useful an unconstrained measure of demand is for force planning: Without constraints, the desire for any asset usually exceeds its supply.

Click here for the full report (28 pages in PDF format) on the CBO website.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12481/11-18-AmphibiousShips.pdf

-ends-

[buglerbilly]

Postwar Marines: Smaller, Less Focused on Land War

December 05, 2011

Associated Press|by Robert Burns

WASHINGTON -- With the Iraq war ending and an Afghanistan exit in sight, the Marine Corps is beginning a historic shift -- a return to its roots as a seafaring force that will get smaller, lighter and, it hopes, less bogged down in land wars.

This moment of change happens to coincide with a reorienting of American security priorities to the Asia-Pacific region, where China has been building military muscle during a decade of U.S. preoccupation in the greater Middle East. That suits the Marines, who see the Pacific as a home away from home.

After two turns at combat in Iraq -- first as invaders in the 2003 march to Baghdad and later as occupiers of landlocked Anbar province -- the Marines left the country in early 2010 to reinforce the fight in southern Afghanistan. Over that stretch, the Marines became what the former Joint Chiefs chairman, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, has called their own "worst nightmare:" a second American land army, a static, ground-pounding auxiliary force.

That's scary for the Marines because for some in Congress it raises this question: Does a nation drowning in debt really need two armies?

Gen. James F. Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, says that misses the real point. He argues that the Marines, while willing and able to operate from dug-in positions on land, are uniquely equipped and trained to do much more -- to get to any crisis, on land, at sea or in the air, on a moment's notice. He is eager to see the Iraq and Afghanistan missions completed so the Marines can return to their traditional role as an expeditionary force.

"We need to get back to our bread and butter," Amos told Marines Nov. 23 at Camp Lawton, a U.S. special operations base in Afghanistan's Herat province.

That begins, he said, with moves like returning to a pattern of continuous rotations of Marines to the Japanese island of Okinawa, home of the 3rd Marine Division formed in the early days of World War II. The rotation of infantry battalions to Okinawa was interrupted by the Iraq war, which after the March 2003 invasion evolved into a bigger, costlier and longer-lasting counterinsurgency campaign than the Pentagon or the Marines had anticipated.

Amos says he plans to begin lining up infantry battalion rotations for Okinawa even before the 2014 target date for ending U.S. combat in Afghanistan.

Another element of this return-to-our-roots approach is the decision announced in late November to rotate Marines to Australia for training with Australian forces from an Australian army base in Darwin, beginning in 2012. Up to 2,500 Marines -- comprising not just infantry units but also aviation squadrons and combat logistic battalions -- will go there from Okinawa or other Marine stations in Japan and elsewhere in the Pacific for a few months at a time.

"As we draw down [troops in Afghanistan] and we reorient the Marine Corps, it will be primarily to the Pacific," he told Marine aviators at a U.S. base in Kandahar, noting as an aside that he doubted any of them had ever deployed to the Pacific. "The main focus of effort is going to be the Pacific for the Marines." He added that Marines will remain present in the Persian Gulf area and elsewhere as required, but not in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Versatility is the key to keeping the Marines relevant to U.S. national security requirements, he says.

"We're not a one-trick pony," he said. "We're the ultimate Swiss army knife."

The decade of war following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington began for the Marines in late November 2001 with an airborne assault on al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's turf in the desert south of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

Marines of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit flew 650 kilometers (more than 400 miles) aboard helicopters launched from the USS Peleliu in the North Arabian Sea. A month later, the Taliban regime, which had provided haven for bin Laden as al-Qaida plotted the 9/11 attacks, was routed and the war seemed largely over. It was not until 2010 that the Marines returned in large numbers to Afghanistan, where fighting had evolved into a stalemate.

By late 2002, the Marines and other U.S. forces were preparing for another land war, this time in Iraq. In March 2003 the Marines pushed north from Kuwait along with the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, for the main assault on Baghdad. This war, too, seemed to be over within a few months. But it also took an unexpected turn even as the Marines left Iraq in September 2003. An insurgency took hold that fall and in March 2004 the Marines returned, this time to Anbar province in Iraq's western desert, where the Sunni insurgency was entrenched and the outlook appeared grim.

The Marines' death toll in Iraq was 1,022 -- nearly one-quarter of the U.S. total, according to Pentagon statistics. Thus far in Afghanistan, at least 376 Marines have died. For both wars combined, the Marines had the highest death rate among the four major services -- 0.47 percent of all Marines who served in the two countries, according to an Associated Press analysis. That compares to 0.38 percent for the Army, which played the dominant ground combat role.

Marines also had by far the highest rate of wounded in action for both wars combined: 4.28 percent, compared to 2.75 percent for the Army.

With an eye on the postwar outlook, Amos came into his job as the commandant in 2010 intending to slim down his force and shed some of its ground-oriented capabilities. He has developed a plan to reduce the service from its current total of 202,000 Marines to 186,800 -- perhaps even fewer because of additional budget pressures, he told Marines in Afghanistan in late November.

Regardless of the number, Amos says he is determined to shape a postwar force that is smaller and better equipped for the kind of flexible duty he champions. He plans to reduce the number of infantry battalions from 27 to 24, shed some artillery and armored vehicles and reduce the number of flying squadrons from 70 to 61. The idea is a force whose forte is not protracted ground combat but pop-up crises like the Libya mission, as well as "power projection," which the Marines do by keeping expeditionary forces aboard Navy ships in Asia, the Mideast and elsewhere.

It was evident on Amos's tour of Afghanistan's frontlines over Thanksgiving that ordinary Marines, too, are looking beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Who do you want us to fight next, sir?" a Marine asked Amos.

© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[buglerbilly]

DoD Sinks FANG Into Acquisition; Marines, DARPA Join for New Amphib

By Carlo Munoz

Published: December 5, 2011



WASHINGTON: The Pentagon thinks it may have found a way to build weapon systems five times faster than it does now and wants to test it with the Marine Corps.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is seeking industry partners to run the Fast Adaptable, Next-Generation vehicle program. The FANG program will basically use this new acquisition plan to meet the Marines' requirements for a new Amphibious Combat Vehicle.

In a nutshell, whoever wins the FANG award will end up building little to none of the actual vehicle. The award winner will manage and coordinate a series of prize-based, mini-competitions or "challenges" for each element of the FANG vehicle. The FANG awardee will also "ensure the smooth integration of each step in the end-to-end "make" process," according to the notice.

The FANG program won't replace what the Marines are doing now for ACV. Both programs will run side by side, according to the notice. The service will stay on its traditional contract award and development track. The FANG program will be run on this new DARPA-developed acquisition track. Once complete, the Marines will pick which vehicle it wants to move into full production. The agency claims FANG will end up shrinking system development timelines "five-fold," according to the industry notice released today. Schedule delays and cost growth forced the Marine Corps to cancel the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle earlier this year. ACV is the Marines' second attempt to build a combat amphib.

This "challenge" approach has been a staple in various DARPA-led competitions focused at colleges and technical institutions. Three challenges are planned for the FANG program. The first will focus on the vehicle's mobility and drive-train system. The second will look at chassis durability in a combat environment. The final challenge will integrate the results of the first two and produce a prototype version of the FANG "with the exception of the command, control, communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance suite, the battle management system and weapons."

Competitors will use a modeling and simulation program built by DARPA to develop their proposals in each of the challenges. DARPA has also built an open-source database where potential designs can be shared between competitors and the department. These systems "significantly change the design experience and open the aperture for design innovation," DARPA claims.

Improving the "design experience" and opening the creative aperture is all well and good. But how will this save the Pentagon and the Marines time and money? Initial research and development costs should drop significantly, since all a prime contractor has to do is pony up the award money for each challenge. Having multiple teams working on a single challenge means multiple design ideas and theories can be tested simultaneously. The trial-and-error cycle that so often bogs down R&D work would be truncated significantly. The prime contractor can skim the best design ideas from the various challenges and put them into the vehicle. In theory, R&D and design integration costs and schedules drop to virtually nothing. Add in DARPA's virtual design simulation and open-source database, and costs drop even more.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos has famously claimed he wants to drive an ACV prototype into the Potomac River before his stint as commandant ends. If FANG works, the four-star general could be in deep water -- in a good way -- sooner than he thinks.

[buglerbilly]

Navy Amphib Plan Delivers What Marines Need, General Says

By Carlo Munoz

Published: December 6, 2011



WASHINGTON: In the military, you can't always get what you want but you can usually get what you need. And looming budget cuts are forcing the Marine Corps to do just that with its future amphibious fleet, according to a top service general.

Neither the Marines nor the Navy have backed off the Corps' requirement for a 38-ship amphibious fleet, Marine Corps Lt. Gen Dennis Hejlik said last week. But "together . . . we've accepted that in light of fiscal constraints the Navy will sustain a lesser total of 33 ships in the assault echelon," the Marine Corps Forces Command chief said in a Dec. 2 post on the command's blog.

A recent Congressional Budget Office review of the Navy's shipbuilding plan said the Navy won't be able to reach 33 amphibs in the fleet until 2016. That number of amphibs will dip below 33 ships and "at no point . . . would the force reach the Marine Corps' objective of 38 amphibious ships," according to the report. Taking the glass-half-full approach, Hejlik points out the Marines are still getting 20 new ships from the Navy plan. Ships that represent "a significant investment for a U.S. Navy that has a lot of other demands placed on it," he wrote. There will be no shortage of work once those ships hit the fleet, he added.

Hejlik dismissed the "absurd notion" the Marines tacked on additional missions to the amphib fleet to make the case for more ships. "The reality is quite the opposite; it is the combatant commanders that are driving the demand, and that demand is dramatically outstripping U.S. naval capacity across the board," the three-star general added. The Marines have been well aware of this problem for some time and have been lobbying hard to fit it. But so has the Navy, according to Hejlik.

The question over how many amphibs to put into the fleet is not a case of Navy versus the Marine Corps, the three-star general said emphatically. The sea service is feeling the crunch just as much as their service brethren. "The requirement for amphibious ships is a naval issue," he said. "The Navy and Marine Corps. . . share the common view that investment in naval forces to meet [combat commander] demands not only serves our current national interests, it also stands to mitigate substantial risk in the future security environment."

Turf wars inside the Pentagon are nothing new. And things are almost guaranteed to get more tense as the department and services begin really feeling the heat from looming budget cuts. But in the bureaucratic battle to keep the amphibious fleet viable, there's no question that the Navy and Marine Corps are on the same team, according to Hejlik.

[buglerbilly]

Marines Clamor To Close Gaps In Amphib Fleet

By Carlo Munoz

Published: December 7, 2011



WASHINGTON: The Navy's decision to cut its future amphibious fleet from 38 ships to 33 has left the Marines clamoring for any and all options on how to close that gap, Assistant Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Joseph Dunford said today.

The typically stoic and reserved Dunford got a little gung-ho when I asked him what the Marines stand to lose with a 33-ship amphibious fleet. "We lose capacity, we assume more risk," Dunford said with vigor after a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But just as quickly, the four-star general returned to form and explained that the Navy and Marine Corps came to the decision together and would make due with the situation as a team.

The Marines are looking at everything -- from the Littoral Combat Ship to the Navy's fleet of prepositioning supply ships -- as a way to get more amphibious capability into the water, Dunford said. He suggested the Navy could "put a flight deck" on some of its large, Bob Hope-class supply ships and use them for amphibious operations. Those ships can support helicopters but not fixed-wing aircraft.

So what has the Marines so eager to slap landing decks on container ships? The answer lies in the Navy's future shipbuilding plan. The standing requirement for the amphibious fleet, or the "Gator Navy" as its known inside the service, has been a 38-ship force. The Marines say that's still the requirement. So does the Navy. But that's not what the services are going to get over the next few years. Instead they'll get 33 ships. And that won't happen until 2016.

Meanwhile, Marine and Navy officials are pressing ahead with a new Marine Corps-specific mission package for the LCS, Dunford said today. Options on what that mission package may look like are making the rounds inside the Pentagon. Getting a Marine Corps package aboard the LCS will help meet the service's amphibious needs. The four-star general did not comment on the specifics of that ongoing work. LCS program executive officer Rear Adm. James Murdoch all but guaranteed Marine Corps would get their own mission package on the ship. But service leaders decided to officially move forward with the plan during Navy-Marine Corps warfighter talks held earlier this year, Dunford said.

Dunford was clear that increasing budget pressures put the Navy and Marine Corps in this predicament. It was also clear that he, and probably most of the service's top leadership, were not happy about it.

[buglerbilly]

SNA: Marines say they’ve got no choice but to modernize

By Philip Ewing Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 5:53 pm



Military.com’s senior sports correspondent, Michael Hoffman, also occasionally writes about land and expeditionary power, when the service academy college football schedule allows. Here’s the dispatch he filed Wednesday from the Surface Navy Association’s Marine Corps presentation:

The Marine Corps can’t sacrifice its wholesale modernization plans to budget cuts because another “bow wave” of programs await the Corps in the 2020s, said Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, Marine Corps deputy commandant for combat development and integration.

Marine Corps leaders will look to the president’s new defense strategy for guidance as they proceeds with two of their top modernization priorities, the Amphibious Combat Vehicle and the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle.

Mills said he’s tired of hearing how the Corps “needs to return to ships.” Despite the past ten years fighting mostly ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “we’ve never left the ships,” he the Surface Navy Association’s trade show on Wednesday.

The Corps has gotten heavier, though. As it builds the Humvee replacement, the Corps must maintain a mobile, agile force. In his last tour as the Marine Corps’ top officer in Afghanistan, Mills said he saw how many heavy trucks his Marines drive.

That means a top priority is ensuring the JLTV program does not drown under unrealistic requirements, yet remains light. The Corps reached a set of compromises with the Army in a last ditch effort to make the program affordable and avoid Congress’ budget ax.

Corps acquisition officials also remain focused on the ACV program and ensuring it doesn’t meet the same fate as the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. Much like the JLTV, Marines can’t allow requirements for the program to spiral out of control in this budget environment.

Setting realistic expectations for its fighting vehicles in light of an evolving battlefield remains a challenge, Mills said. For example, Marine Corps officials must figure out just how far Marines must plan to travel from ship to shore and determine if current combat strategies meet those expectations.

As part of that strategy, the Corps must decide if the force structure review done in 2010 is affordable with the upcoming budget cuts. Marine Corps leaders told Congress that 186,800 troops is a realistic end strength for the Corps. However, budget cuts might force the Corps to cut its force below 180,000.

“Is that the final number? I don’t know,” Mills said. “If not, we’re ready to adjust.”

The Marine Corps must look to grow certain portions of its force despite the future drawdown. Mills listed special operations, cyber warfare, civil affairs, intelligence, route clearance and reconnaissance, military police and unmanned aerial vehicles as areas the Corps needs to expand.

He commended Lockheed Martin’s K-MAX unmanned helicopter and its first flights in Afghanistan as an example of how the Corps can continue to innovate even in the face of the tough budget environment. He said he’s been pleased with reports of the first operations and looks forward to increasing its cargo payload.

“We’ve had a number of missions flown some in very bad weather … but we’ve received very good reports thus far,” Mills said.

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/01/11/sna-marines-say-theyve-got-no-choice-but-to-modernize/#ixzz1jDDFbZJz
DoDBuzz.com

[buglerbilly]

Marines 'Can't Be Left Out' Of AirSea Battle

By Carlo Munoz

Published: January 12, 2012



WASHINGTON: As the Pentagon continues to build up its AirSea Battle strategy, the Marine Corps is working hard to make sure they are not left out of that plan.

The amphibious capabilities the Marines bring "can't be left out" of the ongoing AirSea battle debate, Lt. Gen Richard Mills, commander of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, said yesterday. The Marines and their Navy counterparts in the amphibious fleet -- known as the Gator Navy inside the services -- "play at each and every level" of combat operations, Mills said during his speech at the Surface Navy Association's annual conference in Arlington. Marine Corps assets wage war in the air, on land and at sea, Mills pointed out. That kind ability to fight across all three areas make the Marines invaluable to any AirSea strategy developed by the Pentagon. The AirSea Battle strategy is a new concept that will redefine how sea and air assets fly and fight in the future. Once complete, the plan will likely serve as the blueprint for any potential military operations in the Western Pacific.

Mills' comments were not in response to any notion within the Corps they had been unfairly sidelined by the department or other services in the AirSea Battle debate, the three-star general told me after his speech. The new Pentagon office created in November to flesh out the AirSea concept has Marines at the table, Mills pointed out. That said, AirSea planners may not be leveraging the the inherent combat capabilities within the Corps as much as they could be, according to Mills. The Marines' play for an AirSea Battle role comes as the Army is making efforts to get in on the ground floor of the strategy.

Army leaders have been harping recently on the threat of China in the Western Pacific during senior-level talks held late last year. With Army and Marine Corps forces are set to shrink over the coming decade as combat operations wind down in Southwest Asia, both services are both eying roles in the Pacific. Marine Corps leaders have been working with their Army counterparts on amphibious operations, Mills told AOL Defense. That work has focused on a number of potential combat scenarios where Army and Marine Corps forces could would in tandem. One example is how Army air assault units could help Marine amphibious forces secure a beachhead, Mills explained. This type of cooperation goes back to World War II, when both services cooperated closely on operations in the Pacific and European theaters.

[buglerbilly]

Marines Shift Amphib Task Force To Full Time

By Carlo Munoz

Published: January 17, 2012



WASHINGTON: A special Marine Corps task force created specifically to drag the service's amphibious operations into the 21st century will be sticking around for awhile longer, according to a top service general.

The current Amphibious Capabilities Working Group will be renamed the Ellis Group and be permanently assigned to Marine Corps headquarters in Quantico, Lt. Gen. Richard Mills, head of Marine Corps Combat Development Command said last week. The name pays homage to former Marine Lt. Col. Earl Ellis, considered to be the founding father of amphibious warfare. The group's ongoing work will give the Marines "the seed corn for the changes" needed to update amphibious ops to the modern day battlefield, Mills said during his speech at the Surface Warfare Association's annual symposium. Created last September, the group already wrapped up its initial review of Marine Corps amphib ops, the three-star general said. Group members will submit their final recommendations to top service brass by the end of this month, according to a service spokesman. Those recommendations will likely be folded into the Corps' upcoming large-scale amphibious exercise, dubbed "Bold Alligator", set for next month.

The September review put every every aspect of amphibious operations on the table. Everything from changing how Marines are resupplied ashore to use of unmanned surveillance drones during beach assaults were up for debate. Group members ran potential scenarios through multiple wargames to see if they'd fit into the Marines' future vision of amphib ops. And in some cases, time-honored concepts on how Marines fight from ship to shore ended up on the cutting room floor. But senior service leaders seemed to be pleased with the task force's work, prompting the decision to make the group a permanent fixture at Marine Corps headquarters.

The group's next assignment will be to help plan and execute Expeditionary Warrior 2012 scheduled for March. The wargame will further flesh out the tactics, techniques and procedures tested during the Bold Alligator exercises. It will also look to build upon the group's initial slate of recommendations for future amphibious ops. Results from the March wargame will also have "realistic inputs into the POM," Mills said. The POM, or program objective memorandum, is the service's plan on what weapons and equipment it plans to buy over the next six years. Building that POM, beginning with the service's fiscal 2012 budget proposal, will be no easy task.

The Corps is expected to drop far below the 186,000-man total force it had initially aimed for once combat operations wind down in Iraq and Afghanistan. The service won't be getting the 38-ship amphibious fleet it says it needs for future operations, leaving service leaders clamoring for ways to close that gap. On top of all that, the Marines still don't have a viable replacement for the aging Amphibious Assault Vehicle. Their last attempt, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, was scuttled by the Pentagon due to cost overruns and schedule delays. The new Ellis Group seems to have their work cut out for them.

[buglerbilly]

MARSOC, Intel Teams Spotlighted In 'Bold Alligator'

By Carlo Munoz

Published: February 7, 2012



ABOARD THE USS WASP: Ship to shore operations were not the only thing the Navy and Marine Corps looked to sharpen during the biggest amphibious exercise in over a decade.

Bold Alligator 2012 featured a significant role for special operations, intelligence and civil affairs units, Col. Scott Aiken, chief of staff for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, said this week. The exercise replicated a sea-to-shore assault spearheaded by U.S. and coalition forces against enemy troops from a fictional country. This year, American and allied forces from the 2nd MEB and the 2nd Expeditionary Strike Group will push back enemy troops from the country of "Garnet", who invaded the neighboring country of "Amberland" yesterday.

The special operations element -- the first time they've been used in a major amphibious exercise like this, according to a senior Marine commander -- used during the exercise was a mix of simulated forces and actual boots on the ground, Aiken said. The real-world special operations elements were pulled from units in Marine Corps Special Operations Command and force recon troops from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Those forces were used for "shaping" operations, or for missions designed to prepare the shoreline and areas inland for the arriving Marine Corps. Those troops also provided intelligence for a planned deep insert air assault against an enemy encampment at Ft. Pickett, VA, Aiken said. That raid will be led by the 24th MEU later this week, Aiken said.

Hejlik stressed the importance of integrating special operations forces into Marine operations during a breakfast in Washington last week. The three-star general said getting those two groups to work closer together was a key goal for Bold Alligator planners. Increasing the ranks within MARSOC is a key part of the Marines post-Afghanistan force structure, especially as the service's total force drops to 181,000 troops. But current budget pressures may hinder that growth, Hejlik said at the time. The Marines "will not get the plus-up we expected" for their special forces cadre in the upcoming fiscal 2013 defense bill, Hejlik said. He did not go into specifics on how low that potential MARSOC troop increase could go. But the three-star general did note his lowered expectations for the Corps' special operations force was tied to the service's pending troop drawdown.

Aside from special operations forces, service planners also inserted Navy and Marine Corps intelligence exploitation and maritime civil affairs teams as part of the exercise. The teams carried out a simulated insertion into Amberland to meet with local leaders prior to the beach assault, Lt. Cmdr George Pastoor, a Dutch naval officer attached to Expeditionary Strike Group 2, explained. Along with coordinating and supporting indigenous forces, the teams also fed key intelligence back to Marine Corps and Navy planners here, Pastoor said. In guidance sent to Bold Alligator planners, U.S. Fleet Forces Command chief Adm. John Harvey directed service strategists to explore possible modifications to maritime intelligence requirements via the exercise.