[iwar] [fc:Battlefield.Intelligence]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-01-08 06:48:21
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Rotor &amp; Wing
January 2002
Battlefield Intelligence
How air power, troop mobility, and the unconventional war against terrorism
are putting rotorcraft on the cutting edge of U.S. military procurement.
By John R. Guardiano
First of a two-part series
At a House Armed Services Military Readiness Subcommittee hearing last
spring in Philadelphia, former Rep. Paul McHale (D-Pennsylvania), a retired
Marine Corps Reserve colonel and Gulf War veteran, eloquently made the case
for the V-22 Osprey.
McHale began his testimony with a "brief but significant reference...to one
of the most ferocious battles in our nation's history"-the Battle of Tarawa
in the South Pacific during World War II.
Five thousand Japanese troops and 200 artillery pieces made the entire
island a "nearly impregnable strong point," McHale noted. "Most
significantly, the Japanese knew the Marines were coming" in a horrific
full-scale frontal assault.
When their amphibious ships got mired in the water, the Marines were forced
to wade ashore 1,000 yards from the beach. Many drowned. Those who survived
had to overcome a "half-mile of raking machine gun fire and constant
Japanese artillery bombardment."
Thanks to their courage and tenacity, McHale observed, the Marines overcame
these obstacles and seized Tarawa from the Japanese. However, their victory
came at an extraordinarily high price: 1,085 killed and 3,318 total
casualties.
"It is a brutal fact that if the enemy knows when and where you're coming at
them, then you'll pay a high price in blood," McHale said. "No lance
corporal should ever be asked to pay that price when advanced technology
such as the speed and vertical landing capability of the MV-22 provides an
alternative.
"Fortunately," he continued, "emerging technology will soon allow our
Marines to rapidly bypass known positions of enemy strength in order to more
rapidly and effectively attack, from the over the horizon, weak spots on the
flank or in the enemy rear.
"Advanced intelligence assets will enable a better U.S. picture of the
battlefield. Improved communication will allow our forces to have a common
operating picture of the conflict, in real time. But the key to success will
be the United States' ability to introduce forces into a combat theater at
multiple entry points so that the enemy will be unable to predict with
certainty where the Marines will land."
Air power
McHale's insights are highly relevant to America's worldwide war against
terrorism, where the technological superiority of the United States has
resulted in a far swifter, more decisive and less costly victory in
Afghanistan than most experts had predicted.
Indeed, as we go to press in mid-December, after little more than two months
of war, the United States has destroyed Taliban combat capability and
suffered just one death from enemy fire. Three Americans, by contrast, have
died from "friendly fire."
Another two U.S. soldiers were killed in an accidental MH-60K Black Hawk
helicopter crash, and one serviceman committed suicide.
Most analysts have attributed this stunning and efficient victory to
technological advances in strategic air power and the use of highly accurate
precision guided munitions. Certainly, air power has come of age and is a
more decisive weapon today than at any time in the history of warfare.
But the Taliban had no air power to speak of, and the United States has
benefited immensely from its use of Northern Alliance proxy forces.
Unfortunately, these fortuitous conditions may not be replicated in other
anti-terrorism battles and future wars.
"We keep fighting these less than world-class adversaries like Serbia and
Afghanistan. That's giving us an exaggerated sense of our own military
capability and, I fear, a false sense of security," says Loren Thompson, a
defense analyst with the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia.
The situation would be very different, Thompson argues, were the United
States at war with a country that possesses a modern military
capability-China, for example. "We're not taking casualties now because
we're fighting fairly minor threats, but that won't always be the case," he
says.
Thompson acknowledges that "air power is the wave of the future." However,
he says this revolution in military affairs extends well beyond strategic
air power and precision guided munitions to include tactical air mobility
and infantry troop movements.
"You don't want to spend a lot of time moving vehicles across contested
territory," he says. "You want to conduct search and destroy operations from
the air. It's faster; you're less vulnerable; and you have greater
situational awareness. That really was the Army's model for Afghanistan, and
it worked quite well."
"More and more of the infantry," Thompson concludes, "are moving more and
more of the time on helicopters. It's the preferred way to use air power
today."
Adds aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group in Fairfax,
Virginia: "Helicopters have mobility and lethality, which is why they're
uniquely useful. They combine air and ground power into one asset. Their
mobility stems from their horizontal and vertical lift capability; their
lethality from their intelligent sensors and precision killing weaponry."
Analysis without paralysis
This ability to process, analyze and act upon real-time battlefield
intelligence is a tremendous but little-appreciated advantage inherent in
modern rotorcraft. It's why U.S. military helicopters are far more lethal
and less vulnerable to attack today than they were just a decade ago during
the Gulf War.
Army Apache Longbows, for instance, carry more than 800 pounds of
sophisticated electronic sensors. This capability enables the Apache to
classify 128 enemy targets almost instantaneously before destroying the 16
most dangerous targets at a standoff distance of eight kilometers.
This new digitized capability also means that the Apache can "fire and
forget" 16 Hellfire missiles or 76 Hydra 70mm rockets. The Army's armed
reconnaissance capability will be even more pronounced with the fielding of
Comanche, which is dramatically more maneuverable, stealthy, and
sophisticated than the Apache.
The enhanced capabilities of modern rotorcraft are "a recipe for military
boldness," asserts Tom Donnelly, a military analyst with the Project for the
New American Century, a Washington, DC, think tank.
Recent Pentagon actions suggest that senior U.S. military officials
understand the growing tactical importance of air power Most notably, there
is a big push across all of the services to procure fixed- and rotary-wing
tactical unmanned aerial vehicles (TUAVs) and to employ these drones
operationally in close coordination with manned military rotorcraft.
Most UAV press attention to date has focused on the Air Force's Predator and
Global Hawk, fixed-wing UAVs that have performed strategic strike and
reconnaissance missions over Afghanistan.
Less remarked upon have been the Army's concerted efforts to make vertical
takeoff and landing (VTOL) UAVs an integral part of its objective force
structure. Yet, this is an important Army priority that is being spearheaded
by the Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) at Ft. Eustis,
Virginia. AATD's goal is to successfully arm and utilize a VTOL UAV in
conjunction with an Army Apache or Black Hawk by late 2003.
Toward that end, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will
award four $12 million contracts next month to demonstrate the technical
feasibility of an unmanned combat rotorcraft (UCAR). The Army also is trying
to speed up implementation of its aviation modernization plan and hopes to
accelerate Comanche procurement.
"There are significant enabling capabilities that aviation brings to the
objective force which make it absolutely essential to realizing our vision"
of a more agile and versatile fighting force, notes Lt. Gen. Johnny Riggs,
who is overseeing the Army's sweeping transformation effort.
This sentiment is shared by the Navy, which says it cannot procure new
helicopters fast enough. "Armored naval helicopters [MH-60R and MH-60S] are
at the forefront of every battle group commander's priority list, and
rightfully so," says Cmdr. Ken Ryan, who oversees Naval rotorcraft
requirements at the Pentagon. "The helicopter has proven itself to be a
versatile, multi-dimensional force multiplier."
Pushing the envelope
Yet, when it comes to the V-22 Osprey, the Pentagon has proven stubbornly
reluctant to push the military envelope. Consequently, the program has been
slowed down considerably and procurement delayed by at least two years.
Moreover, outside of the Marine Corps and U.S. Special Forces, little
thought is being given to how tiltrotor aircraft may revolutionize American
warfighting doctrine and the U.S. military force structure. The Pentagon
instead treats the Osprey as a dangerous and unproven "experimental"
aircraft for which the Marines and Special Forces have an unwarranted
attraction.
But as the head of Marine Corps aviation, Lt. Gen. William L. Nyland,
observes: "One of the traps people often fall into is they that think of the
Osprey as a new 'phrog' [CH-46 helicopter], but it's not. It's a tiltrotor,
and it's entirely different. We have to be innovative and employ
out-of-the-box thinking as we consider the tactics, techniques and
procedures that we utilize for this new aircraft. We are at the point now
where we have pushed rotary-wing technology almost as far as it can go."
Thinking ahead, he asks rhetorically, "Why don't we have an all-tiltrotor
force?"
The Marines and Special Forces have been the quickest to embrace tiltrotor
technology because they are the first units to deploy to war and, therefore,
the most combat ready parts of the U.S. military. Thus, they understand
better than most the vital interplay of air and ground units and the
synergies inherent in a combined tactical arms team.
"For us it all comes back to MAGTAF, the Marine Air Ground Task Force,"
Nyland says. "Air power is a vital piece here, but it's only a piece. Air
power doesn't hold ground. If you want to have a desired and lasting impact,
then you have to put troops on the ground. That means putting Marines or
soldiers ashore and holding key terrain to enable things to happen such as
the establishment of a transitional government."
In fact, as Donnelly points out, the resounding success of American
strategic bombing in Afghanistan underscores the need for tiltrotor
aircraft.
"The tactical maneuver elements of the force structure have got to keep pace
with our strategic strike capabilities," he explains. "You don't want to
limit your strike capability to the pace of your maneuver units. You want to
keep those elements in sync."
Long-range precision bombing and improved battlefield intelligence, for
example, may flush out enemy targets-Osama bin Laden, for example-into the
open. But if the tactical maneuver elements of the force structure cannot
move quickly enough to capitalize on these opportunities, then battlefield
intelligence and precision bombing may be of little practical use.
"It seems to me that our [strike and maneuver] elements are now out of
balance. We need to take full advantage of the military capabilities now
available to us," Donnelly says.
Black Hawk down
Perhaps nowhere did this imbalance meet with more tragic results than in
Mogadishu on that fateful day in October 1993 when two U.S. Army Black Hawks
were shot down with surface-to-air missiles. The incident triggered a chain
of events that culminated in the death of 18 U.S. soldiers.
The Black Hawk, especially the Special Operations Black Hawk that the Army
employed in Somalia, is one of the world's finest helicopters. But as former
Rep. McHale observed during his congressional testimony, it is "undeniably
vulnerable to even crude shoulder-fired RPGs [rocket propelled grenades]."
U.S. Special Forces encountered many problems in Somalia, and there is no
guarantee that the Osprey necessarily would have fared better than the Black
Hawk. But clearly, the V-22 would have enabled U.S. Special Forces to move
in and out of Mogadishu with much greater speed and versatility as they
sought to find and capture Somalia warlord Mohamed Farah Aidid and two of
his top lieutenants.
As it turned out, though, Aidid and his lieutenants managed to stay one step
ahead of the United States and thus evaded capture. This despite the fact
that the military had fairly good intelligence on his whereabouts.
Show me the money
The "procurement holiday," serious financial constraints, and a
preoccupation with current operations all help to explain a lack of balance
in the U.S. military force structure over the past decade. The Army, for
instance, is buying just 17% of the airframes per year that it needs simply
to maintain its current capabilities, according to a Pentagon joint staff
study.
The Navy and Marine Corps similarly believe that they ought to be buying
around 200 airplanes annually. "We're not buying anywhere near that number
and haven't for the previous 10 years," Gen. Nyland says. This procurement
shortfall particularly impacts the Marines' medium-lift and attack
rotorcraft, he notes.
Pentagon officials are remarkably tolerant-perhaps too tolerant-of this
worrisome situation.
"Do we have a funding shortfall?" asks Col. Stephen Mundt, the Army's chief
aviation requirements officer. "Sure, Army aviation needs more money; and if
more money was available to any of us, we'd all want to go out and buy other
things," he says. "But when you consider the fiscal reality of what our
nation can afford and what we budget for, we're doing OK. We're pursuing
balanced readiness across the force [structure]."
Gen. Nyland is less sanguine, but also quite accepting of the military's
funding shortfall. "Barring a great influx of money, I think we're going to
continue to have to balance current readiness, infrastructure needs, and
modernization," he says.
"We're trying to be good stewards of what we have and use the SLEPs [service
life extension programs] and the upgrades to stay relevant. But the truth is
we're fast approaching the point where we'll be driving lots of legacy
airplanes, and we're going to have to procure new aircraft to maintain our
capability and our relevance."
The situation has gotten so bad, Nyland says, that many Marine Corps
helicopters are older than the pilots who now fly them. Indeed, the fathers
of today's Marine pilots flew many of the same rotorcraft.
The U.S. Air Force faces a similar predicament.
"The average age of our aircraft is almost 22 years old," Air Force Chief of
Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan told Congress last summer, well before the
September 11 terrorist attacks further strained U.S. military assets.
"Even if we execute every modernization program on our books, which amounts
to procuring about 100 aircraft per year in the near future, our aircraft
average age will continue to rise, reaching nearly 30 years old by 2020. We
are working to slow down the aging of our fleet and infrastructure, but the
climbing costs of operations and maintenance, as well as competing
modernization effectiveness goals, continue to prevent that from happening."
The Air Force employs three rotorcraft types: the Special Operations
MH-53J/M Pave Low; HH-60G Pave Hawk; and UH-1N Huey.
What would it take to modernize U.S. military rotorcraft for the 21st
century? According to Thompson, funding for aviation procurement, research
and development needs to be "more than doubled every year for the
foreseeable future." The entire military, but the Army in particular, has
accumulated a deficit of technology that will take a generation to reverse,
he says.
"The problem is not that the Army is shortchanging aviation; it's that
everyone is shortchanging the Army," argues the Teal Group's Aboulafia.
Other analysts, like Donnelly, estimate that the U.S. military needs "at
least $100 billion more per year." However, he cautions, this figure may be
a low estimate, given the events of the past few months.
The Army's biggest technological omission may be its failure to procure
tiltrotor aircraft, which many Army aviation planners consider absolutely
essential for dominant maneuvers in a nonlinear, noncontiguous battlespace.
Financial constraints, though, have forced the Army to procure only one new
rotorcraft type, and the service has chosen Comanche.
The Army needs Comanche for an effective 21st century armed reconnaissance
capability. The Comanche also is slated to replace the Apache as the Army's
sole attack helicopter in the next decade. These are important mission
requirements; but so, too, is the need for rapid troop transport over a
widespread and often ill-defined battlespace.
The future
The future for U.S. military rotary wing aviation will hinge on how
America's war against terrorism progresses and what lessons policymakers
take from that conflict. The war certainly underscores the importance of
advanced technology to the U.S. military, and, in that sense, points to the
need for new and better rotorcraft like the Osprey and Comanche.
On the other hand, if the war continues to be waged almost exclusively
through the use of strategic air power and proxy forces, and if the United
States continues to suffer remarkably few casualties, then U.S. policymakers
may draw the wrong lessons from this conflict.
Indeed, like the proverbial general who mistakenly fights the last war, U.S.
policymakers may conclude that strategic air power alone can be decisive.
Rotorcraft development, then, might suffer; and the promised revolution in
military affairs will remain elusive. The dire result most assuredly will be
significantly more American combat casualties in the next war.
The Pentagon can prevent this from happening only by waging two wars
simultaneously: one against terrorism and the other against budgetary drift
and indifference. The fate of the terrorists is certain. Prospects for the
U.S. military, however, are considerably more dicey.
A review and analysis of the U.S. military's two most important and
innovative rotorcraft procurements-the Army's RAH-66 Comanche and the Marine
Corps's V-22 Osprey-are published below.
RAH-66 Comanche -- FY02 Budget Appropriation: $816 million
Army Aviation officials say the RAH-66 is the "quarterback of the
battlefield," the franchise player that the team is counting on to take it
to the Super Bowl. That may be, but like many star prospects who struggle to
make it in the big leagues, the Comanche is not yet ready for prime time,
and there is some question about how much longer the Pentagon will indulge
this promising but temperamental player.
Pentagon acquisition chief Pete Aldridge has said publicly that the program
is "in trouble." Army Secretary Thomas White also is frustrated that, after
18 years in development, the Comanche still is not yet ready for active
duty. Aldridge, White and other Pentagon chieftains don't want to cut the
Comanche; they simply want the helicopter to realize its potential, and
sooner rather than later. Toward that end, the program is being restructured
for the sixth time in the last decade.
The Comanche's difficulties are not technological, says program manager Col.
Robert P. Birmingham. "We had a very successful design review in July, and
OSD's [Office of the Secretary of Defense] Tri-Services Assessment said
that, technologically, we're in good shape. What we're trying to achieve is
highly doable," he says.
Rather, the problem is inadequate funding and an overly ambitious and
high-risk development schedule designed to meet an aggressive timeline. But
Birmingham says this latest restructuring underscores the Army's renewed
commitment to Comanche.
"This the first time we're restructuring the program to fix it," he notes.
"Every other restructuring took money out of the program or forced more
requirements onto us without any additional funding. What we're doing now
decreases the risk and makes the program more executable."
The Army is postponing low-rate initial production (LRIP) from March 2005 to
March 2006. Six training aircraft will be delivered to Ft. Rucker in
December 2006, and the Comanche's initial operating capability (IOC) is
scheduled for December 2008. The Army also plans to accelerate procurement
from 62 to 96 aircraft per year. This costs more money initially, but is far
more economical over the lifecycle of the aircraft.
In addition, Boeing and Sikorsky are consolidating their three program
offices (Philadelphia, St. Louis and Stratford, Connecticut) into one
unified command structure with a single set of analysts, integration teams,
and integrated product teams.
Program officials say this will help resolve bureaucratic disputes and
management problems, which have stymied aircraft development. The unified
Comanche program office will be based in Stratford, the longtime
headquarters of Sikorsky, and the place where Comanche will undergo final
assembly.
Dan Hunter was appointed chief engineer for the Comanche in October.
Considered one of Sikorsky's brightest stars, Hunter possesses both
engineering talent and management smarts. Company officials say his
appointment is a clear indication that Boeing and Sikorsky now are committed
to putting their best people on the program. "Unfortunately, that has not
always been true for Comanche," says one official who asked not to be
identified.
V-22 Osprey -- FY02 Budget Appropriation: $787 million for nine MV-22, $187
million for two CV-22s
After a year in which the program all but shut down to accommodate some of
the most rigorous reviews in the annals of military aviation, the V-22
Osprey is poised to resume flight testing this spring. That's no small
accomplishment, given the two high-profile, fatal crashes that killed a
total of 23 Marines in April and December, 2000.
Critics attribute the Osprey's resilience to the dogged persistence and
political clout of the United States Marine Corps. The Marines'
steadfastness under fire certainly has helped save the Osprey. However, the
salient fact is that two independent, outside reviews of the program,
conducted by some of the world's most respected aviation and rotary-wing
authorities, validated the safety and effectiveness of tiltrotor technology.
Both the Blue Ribbon Panel and NASA found that "there are no known
aeromechanics phenomena that would stop the safe and orderly development and
deployment of the V-22." Moreover, "given the evolving mission of our armed
forces in the 21st century, the [NASA] Panel believes that this vehicle
should be deployed at the earliest opportunity."
Political constraints mean that the "earliest opportunity" likely will not
arise until May 2003. The Marines realize that one more catastrophic crash
could well kill the program. Consequently, they have adopted an
extraordinarily risk-averse approach to procurement.
The Marines also have yet to convince Pentagon acquisition chief Pete
Aldridge that the V-22 is safe, operationally suitable and cost-effective.
Flight testing to better define the Osprey's flight envelope should help to
allay Aldridge's concern about safety and operational suitability. Flight
tests will be conducted on four engineering manufacturing and development
(EMD) aircraft and will involve upgraded software that is scheduled for
release next month.
A software failure was implicated in the December 11, 2000 Osprey crash that
killed four Marines. Program officials spent the better part of the last
year thoroughly "scrubbing" the software in a lengthy and time consuming
effort to identify and correct any flaws or problems. To help address the
Pentagon's cost concerns, program officials have planned three block
upgrades-A, B and C-for the V-22.
The aircraft's EMD configuration will have the new flight control software,
and a partial incorporation of the Block A nacelle redesign recommended by
the Blue Ribbon Panel. To ensure safety of flight, the problematic hydraulic
lines on the EMD aircraft will undergo more rigorous and more frequent
inspections, program officials say.
The Block A configuration will incorporate the recommended nacelle redesign.
Block B aircraft will include additional design changes aimed at making the
hydraulic lines even more accessible to Marine Corps maintenance personnel,
while Block C aircraft will improve the Osprey's mission capabilities.
The four EMD aircraft literally were taken apart last year and are being
reassembled in anticipation of a return to flight this April at the Naval
Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland. Marine
maintainers say they taped many hydraulic lines to help guard against
premature line chafing. Flight testing on the Air Force Special Operations
CV-22 is scheduled to resume in May at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
Look for Part II of our Military Outlook in next month's issue. 

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