Lt Gen John Davis, deputy commandant for aviation, unveiled the new Conops at a conference in London. That meeting was followed by reports that Marine F-35Bs could be filling deck spots on the carrier Queen Elizabeth while the UK builds up its own force, suggesting that the Marines are already working to get the U.K. onboard with its plans. Davis also addressed some of the detail concerns: although some M-Farps could be resupplied with weapons by vertical lift, either surface transport or KC-130Js would be needed to deliver fuel.Read the entire article here.
The M-Farp concept would also be stressed in any kind of hybrid war scenario where the adversary has insurgent forces or sympathizers in the area where the forward bases are located. That could make the targeting cycle much shorter or expose the F-35s to direct threat from manportable air defense systems - particularly on landing, any Stovl jet is a hot and non-maneuverable target. It would also complicate resupply by land. Whether the new Marine Conops will work better than the RAF's old Warlocs remains to be seen.
How short is the tribal knowledge getting in the Marine Corps? Have they already forgotten about Camp Leatherneck and the loss of a harrier squadron? Do they really believe that these M-Farps won't be as vulnerable or more to enemy attack...especially in hybrid or conventional warfare?
If history is known and if they plan on increasing security then we're looking at an infantry battalion being taken out of the fight to provide security for the wing.
Awesome.
We're quickly heading toward the point of where everything and everyone is being focused on supporting the F-35.
That is NOT the USMC that I know, want to be apart of, or needs to exist. Much more of this and I'll be calling for us to be disbanded.
The concept behind M-FARPS is that they will be mobile - they will move every 24-48 hours, so the enemy supposedly won't have time to target them. I'm not buying it. The Marines couldn't support FARPS in the Gulf War - the logistics tail required was immense. The tail will be even longer with the F-35B, considering its fuel consumption and particularly the requirement for runway matting, plus munitions. They are going to need a bunch of CH-53Ks, considering that the relatively puny payload of the MV-22s will be gobbled up moving troops and performing tanker duties....
ReplyDeleteNot to throw salt but the article does state further down that the concept is for friendly areas like during the cold war planning. I would assume that would be Japan, underpopulated islands, Philippines, Taiwan, etc... These base will not be at the front or past the front in indian country, but instead are more along the lines of keeping the big bases defended during saturation missile raids. Without some dispersed units at X big air base all the Chinese have to do is build enough missiles to saturate attack X base to keep it closed just long enough for the chicom aircraft attack wave to reach the base and make the kill move. Missiles cannot carry the tonnage nor accuracy needed to destroy a full airbase infrastructure shelters ect...but a large aircraft wave could. Right now the Chinese have the ability to saturate our bases long enough to get the real knockout blow in, that is unacceptable. Of all the 35 models the B is a very niche but useful important model, the A & C should be two engined, sleek, super cruise, ect... all the stuff it would have had if not tied to a stol fat ungainly single engine.
ReplyDeleteBottom line when the Chinese saturate X base shutting it down the only aircraft to repel the inbound hoard will be those already on cap, at that moment those assets dispersed to the country side jumping off the highways and small makeshift fields will be worth their wieght.
Your "Indian country" has been expanded by improved surveillance and more capable missiles, which is why ships will stand off 150 nmi, and perhaps that is not enough. And according to the article, the M-Farps "will relocate every 24-48 hours, which is estimated to be inside an enemy's targeting cycle." --That's amusing (and convenient), having such a slow enemy.
Deleteits not amusing or convenient. its lazy, sloppy and wishful thinking. one undetected UAV, a sympathetic populace, spies, recon teams, or even a dedicated satellite to cover the region will detect these sites and then they will lob missiles, artillery, mortars or do another Camp Leatherneck.
Deletewhat this is telling us is something a bit more stark.
the USMC doesn't have a real plan to utilize these aircraft and i'm beginning to wonder if there is a problem with ship operations. the talk about utilizing the Queen Elizabeth class indicates to me that as big as our LHDs are they still aren't big enough to properly use the F-35B.
i'm betting that the next shoe to drop will be that the F-35B has so "revolutionized" combat operations that they need their own ship to operate separately from the rest of the MEU that will carry the ground combat element and rotary winged aviation.
China cannot launch missiles at every side street along the highway were a B could be hiding. Spies and surveillance will be very limited on both sides once the shooting starts, jamming etc... and UAV's especially ones with enough range to run from the chicom mainland out to the first island chain are easy targets for both aircraft and air defenses. You are not flying anything less a predator class across such distance. We have vastly more surveillance ability and we are not omnipotent all seeing even in benign environments, in a first rate war setting we are going to see even less and our enemies are going to have our problem times a hundred unless they can project air power over our areas which I doubt. I like how china finding a B with a tanker truck, some cargo trucks, hidden along highways and cities without air dominance is easy but the US with air dominance and 0 emjamming couldn't locate scud launchers and their LIQUID fuel missile tails. Bottom line it aint that easy on a good clear uncontested day, and during a hot war contested with full em and, (china's case) likely no air surveillance it is going to be a real reach.
DeleteIf a war starts and say China smothers Okinawa, Kadima and those other huge juicy target US bases running the aircraft into the shelters and potting the runways it will be one hell of a ride watching the approaching bomber raid praying you can get a window of missile stop long enough for the engineers to get the runway up so you can launch a intercept. In those hours a few hundred or hell a few dozen B scattered about the highways and local runways will be invaluable.
The STOVL idea in a straight up comparison of runway based front line fighters are garbage but when you compare them to not having any air power or cap they are a hell allot better than nothing. PAC3 Thad and all the rest are not going to be able to carry it all and I doubt their magazines can be made large enough to make those big honkin airbases invulnerable to saturation taking them off line.
There is nothing "revolutionary" about the B it is just a modernized STOVL harrier. Same pros same cons same niche specialty circumstance uses values, just brought up to modern spec with some stealthing etc...
The RAF Regiment had the best defensive scheme of any of the Cold War 'FARP/FOL' activities with Scimitar and Blindfire Rapier as well as bunches of Mean People to keep the Harriers at Wildenrath and Bruggen 'safe' in what was basically an open secret as far as their FOLdets and roadbasing was concerned.
DeleteBut what you have to recall is that, until the 1970s, we had no LDSD to speak of because the computation for Doppler filters, even with fixed PRF ranges and Kalman filters, was beyond the SOA. The best we could do was spoof their IFF and backtrack their commo traffic as we had with QRC-249 and Teaball back in SEA.
By the 1980s that had all changed, for both sides, and just the ability to backtrack jets in-air would bring the MiG-27 and Su-24 a-runnin'. At that point, the lack of Patriots and TAB-V (even if only for frag absorption on near misses) made the open-field airpower ideal untenable.
Think Bodenplatte and 400 fighters gone in a day.
These days, the DF-15 has some pretty decent, secure, Beidou guidance options and Iskander is essentially SS-23 Spyder without the nuclear option but retaining the SRAM-like low-MARV approach to beat the Patriot. These missiles are -very- accurate, can digitize radar or optical maps for the seeker to pick contrast differentials from in about 5 minutes and will not be deterred by anything up to and including SLAMRAAM which the Marines are likely to bring to the fight.
I'm actually more worried about the opposite. You have 2-3 CAS stacks in daylight and a jet on the hot pad at some centralized location like Kandahar or Bagram at night. Someone launches a snap raid on one of your outposts over here in the East, near the border where they can run, gets COMINT confirmation on the alert jet's launch and fights _really hard_, for about 10-15 minutes.
And then they run.
And five minutes later, here's the jet arriving with it's super duper TFLIR, DAS and SAR/MTI package. And it's a total black hole for targets.
'Meanwhile' over near Shindand where we have built a bargeload of small tactical bases to keep the Iranians thinking, a secondary attack happens and it brings the heat, with heavy, crew-served, weapons and an intent, not to harass but to obliterate the defenses.
Your F-35B is sucking vapor and has to coast to a tanker which may or may not be up itself. And only then once it has confirmed that the bad guys are all gone for real.
And in the hour it takes for someone to get 500nm back across the country. People who left walking come home horizontal in plastic.
The best insurgent CAS is the CAS which is on-station, overhead, providing night watchmen to a cluster of in-field unit dispositions which themselves can cross cover each other with preregistered heavy mortar missions including PGMM and Spikes if you got'em (i.e. you are not locked into 4 Hellfire and 2 GBU-12 and then harsh language). When you have a jet running on 3,000lbs of gas for 20-24hrs in the Reaper at 270 knots cruise, you can come a long way, stay on station and generally be part of the security guards console monitor of shifting video pictures as your MCS are equipped to run a dozen different drone CAPs in rotation.
DeleteNow everyone sleeps well because you tend to see the numbnuts coming about 2-3 miles out and you have superior FLIR/MMW (hemispheric coverage over the bottom of the jet) to pick and choose whose hair teeth and eyeballs get splattered all over their friends.
It's not pretty, it's not sexy. But it brings Marines home in roughly the same condition they left.
For anything high-intensity else, your CAS has to be scheduled in waves with rollback of the HyperSAM radars by F-22 (and tankers) coming out of Anderson, Kadena or Misawa. To lower the threat down to Tor-thru-Buk level battlefield stuff. And then you have to have a BARCAP set across the likely threatlanes so that you can look up into the crossing traffic and get best picture on their high-RCS flanks. Hopefully with something like Sea Shadow, crossed with JHSV and a bunch of palletized 'missiles in a box' SM6.
ONLY THEN, when you have that narrow window of Fast-A$$-CAS (think Hurribombers doing their worst to French Luftwaffe fields in the 1940-41 period) that come in with a shootlist of of their own (N-UCAS with max-LO treatment, a commo package and high rez sensors in a bay pallet) to drop 8X GBU-53 each in 3-4 waves of four pulling the air to ground (AMSTE+SALH) equivalent to Chainsaw BVR. Before retiring out at whatever max-warp they can sustain.
And the reason why you don't loiter about looking to be persistently _shot_ is again: Tanking. You give a 500nm radius platform a sip from 2-4 KA-18Es and you get maybe another 150-200nm of radius. You give them a big gulp from a KC-46 and you get a full 550 more. But that's just one way.
Because your carrier needs to be at least 1,000nm out to be safe from DF-21D. _At Least_ 500nm.
And the only variant which comes close to this, with a nominal 700nm (actual is about 584nm last I heard) is the F-35C. You try any of that with an F-35B and the combination of low internal carriage, high airframe residuals and things like hot'n'high reserves operating in the West Pacific area will make you luck if you can take off with 10-12,000lbs of fuel and land with 1,000-1,500lbs of bring back (AMRAAM and naught else).
And your radius on that .9lb/lb/hr F135 is going to be about 180-220nm. Which means your 900 foot long LHA-6 is going to have been a submarine for 24hrs plus by the time you motor up behind Taiwan.
CAS in a high intensity TMA is more like strike warfare: highly intermittent and tied to fragged ATO requests for response time. If you want to do CAS correctly, put Hoplite on a speedy, stealthy, SSC. Or fire them by the dozen out of a VPM module on an SS(G)N.
Do not count on simple dispersal to give you a survivable air option. You will be dead disappointed.
If somebody wants to jiggle figures, calculate sortie usage, delivery requirements, etc.--
ReplyDelete--F-35B 13,000 lbs fuel capacity
--F-35B range (radius) - 900 nmi (diminished by vertical use)
--truck/trailer 78,880lbs fuel
--KC-130J - 81,892 lbs fuel w/internal tank