Helo Ambush. How to kill an air centric MEU during humanitarian relief ops.

Thanks to Paralus for ideas on this topic.

The Marine Corps is moving toward an air centric MEU.

It has me pulling my hair out, punching walls and yelling in the woods.

It makes no sense and recent combat has demonstrated the stupidity of such a move.  But since leadership is intent on following through with this, let run through a scenario of how you can ambush the MV-22 and basically destroy an MEUs Ground Combat Element that has been forced into being an airmobile, seagoing version of the 101st airborne.

Humanitarian Relief Scenario.

*The location is the Philippines.
*Blue force is an MEU providing disaster relief.
*Red force is anti government rebels.

The 15th MEU is tasked with providing disaster relief to the Philippines after they suffered a devastating earthquake.  Manilla is severly damaged and in addition to US forces, the Japanese, Chinese and Australia have also pledged support.

The 15th is forward deployed and will arrive some two weeks before other relief works get to the scene.  This is tasked as a disaster relief mission so the port that is still operational will be used to speed supplies to those affected.

Anti Government rebels are seeking to increase publicity for there cause and to take advantage of the situation to gain concessions from the government.

A large deck amphib sitting dockside at the former Subic Bay is too tempting a  target to pass up.  Normal government patrols are absent as all available Philippine personnel are already turning to on relief operations.

This is too good to be true and the rebel commander orders rocket attacks on the ship.  He's also smart and waits till MV-22s are returning from relief missions to launch his attack.

He's studied the MV-22.  From watching videos on the internet he knows the planes vulnerability.

Yes.  It flies high and fast.  Yes.  At speed it can effectively get away from any attack that isn't well planned.  But IT DOES have a vulnerability.  The commander has watched hundreds of videos and he notices that even in an assault, the plane is less maneuverable than ordinary helicopters.

If you catch it while taking off and landing then you can strike at its achilles heel.

And thats just what the commander does when he order the rocket attack on the big deck LHD.

The ship has 16 MV-22s.  They have been running missions with four airplanes on a continuous basis.  With those they also launch a AH-1Z or a UH-1Y to escort...but after watching them for a couple of days the escort seems to be off on other tasks.

The rebel commander has it well planned.  He has 20 teams out with 4 men in each.  They're armed with RPG-29s that can punch through a tank.  He's interested to see how they'll do against the hull of a ship sitting dockside.  He also has four teams armed with SA-14s.  They were smuggled via the blackmarket from Libyan stocks and should come as a surprise to the Americans.

They'll launch on command.

The last flight of MV-22s was coming in just at sunset.  It was a beautiful day in a land of devastation and the Marines felt proud of the role that they played in helping get the Philippine people back on their feet.  The Commandant (another air winger) had been bragging about the efficiency of this new air centric MEU and how it was tailor made for humanitarian relief operations.

We would soon see how it stacked up to a coordinated helo ambush.

The rebel  commander waited till two of the MV-22s were in a hover getting ready to land on the ship while two others were also hovering a bit behind and  further back from the deck.

The results were impressive.  He ordered his men to aim as close to the waterline of the ship as they could and his SAM teams were equally effective.

The MV-22 can hover if it loses power in an engine...but not if it loses an engine and the rotor.

Two of the MV-22s were shot down over the ship,causing secondary explosions and additional loss of life on the flight deck.  One other MV-22 got caught in a type of helter skelter unique to tilt rotors.  No altitude, no speed and no hope while trying to evade a missile.  He beat the missile but loss the fight against gravity.  It would be counted as pilot error for political purposes but the men of the 15th MEU knew better.  In essence enemy action caused him to attempt a maneuver that got his crew killed.  The last MEU successfully evaded the trap and landed at a Philippine military base.

The big deck didn't fare any better.  It wasn't designed to withstand relatively close range RPG fire. One lucky gunner managed to hit the engine compartment and the armor piercing warhead did the rest.

The Marine Corps first experiment with an aircentric MEU and humanitarian relief as its reason for being failed.

Grunts would once again be in charge of the Corps.