F.O.B.s Afloat

There’s a quiet rev­o­lu­tion afoot in the Navy and Marine Corps, a new way of doing things that promises mas­sive leaps in capa­bil­ity. It’s called Seabasing, and nobody out­side of the ser­vices seems to know any­thing about it.
In a nut­shell, Seabasing involves group­ing together cargo ships and amphibi­ous assault ships into a huge off­shore logis­tics and avi­a­tion base. Think tra­di­tional amphibi­ous oper­a­tions times ten, and sus­tain­able for a month or more. Or think a huge Forward Operating Base (FOB), only afloat.
The idea behind Seabasing is to avoid the diplo­matic com­pli­ca­tions of bas­ing ground troops and air­craft in host coun­tries. Turkey showed us back in 2003 that even seem­ingly staunch allies can waver at the last minute when they blocked the 4th Infantry Division from open­ing a north­ern front in Iraq. Seabasing sticks to inter­na­tional waters and grants us flex­i­ble, sus­tain­able access to most of the world’s trou­ble spots.
Seabasing hinges on hard­ware, oh yes, but it’s mostly old hard­ware. In con­trast to the pet projects of other ser­vices like the Air Force’s F-22 or the Army’s Future Combat Systems, there is no sin­gle Seabasing bud­get line to attract the atten­tion of crit­ics. Rather, Seabasing calls for using exist­ing big-deck assault ships — the Tarawas and Wasps and their even­tual replace­ments, the LHA®s — to sup­port the avi­a­tion com­po­nent, and San Antonio–class LPDs and Maritime Prepositioning Ships (MPSs) to sup­port the peo­ple and cargo part. Lewis and Clark–class logis­tics ships, designed to sup­port car­rier bat­tle groups, will shut­tle between ports and the Seabase with fuel, dry goods and ammo. You see? Every piece of the puz­zle has a tra­di­tional use that dis­guises its future major role in the Seabase. Clever, huh?
Besides the big ships, the most impor­tant com­po­nent of the Seabase is what the Navy-Marine Corps team calls “con­nec­tors”. These are the smaller plat­forms that shut­tle peo­ple and stuff between the Seabase ships and between the Seabase and the beach­head. There are some con­nec­tors already in wide­spread use in the fleet, such as Landing Craft Air Cushion (LCACs), tra­di­tional land­ing craft and heli­copters. Emerging con­nec­tors include cata­ma­rans and V-22 tilt-rotors. There has been some talk of design­ing new tilt-rotors and air-cushions for the con­nec­tor role, too.
Really, Seabasing is a con­cept — or, to use an Army phrase, a “sys­tem of sys­tems”. The inher­ent mod­u­lar­ity of the idea means you can swap new plat­forms into the Seabase as nec­es­sary. Want a larger avi­a­tion com­po­nent? Add an air­craft car­rier or two. Want more forcible entry in a dense air-defense envi­ron­ment? Plug in some sub­marines car­ry­ing SEALs plus more LCACs and Expeditionary Fighting Vehicles. Need to sus­tain ground oper­a­tions against an armored oppo­nent? Base an Army divi­sion aboard your amphibs in place of the tra­di­tional Marine Expeditionary Force. Is it a nat­ural dis­as­ter you’re deal­ing with and not some rogue state? Convert berthing into med­ical wards, detach mede­vac chop­pers to the assault ships and maybe even add a hos­pi­tal ship.
The pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less.
One prob­lem: Just one quiet, lurk­ing diesel sub could mean seri­ous trou­ble for your big, fat immo­bile Seabase. That means work for flotil­las of Littoral Combat Ships equipped with anti-sub mod­ules, I imag­ine.
In March, Marine Commandant Michael Hagee addressed the Senate Appropriations Committee on the sub­ject of con­nec­tors. Read his testimony …

High-speed con­nec­tors will facil­i­tate the con­duct of sus­tained sea-based oper­a­tions by expe­dit­ing force clo­sure and allow­ing the per­sis­tence nec­es­sary for suc­cess in the lit­torals. Connectors … will link bases and sta­tions around the world to the Seabase and other advanced bases, as well as pro­vide link­ages between the Seabase and forces oper­at­ing ashore. High-speed con­nec­tors are crit­i­cal to pro­vide the force clo­sure and oper­a­tional flex­i­bil­ity to make Seabasing a real­ity.
* Joint High Speed Sealift. The Joint High Speed Sealift (JHSS) is an inter-theater con­nec­tor that pro­vides strate­gic force clo­sure for CONUS-based forces. The JHSS is envi­sioned to trans­port the Marine Corps non self-deploying air­craft, per­son­nel, and high demand-low den­sity equip­ment, as well as the Armys non self-deploying air­craft and per­son­nel, and Brigade Combat Team rolling stock and per­son­nel, per­mit­ting rapid force clo­sure of this equip­ment. Additionally, the JHSS will alle­vi­ate the need to com­pete for lim­ited strate­gic air­lift assets, and reduce clo­sure time­lines by deploy­ing directly to the sea base rather than via an inter­me­di­ate stag­ing base or advanced base. The JHSS pro­gram is cur­rently in the early states of capa­bil­ity devel­op­ment and has merged with the Armys Austere Access High Speed Ship pro­gram. Current field­ing of the JHSS is pro­jected in Fiscal Year 2017.
* Joint High Speed Vessel. The Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) will address the Combatant Commanders require­ments for a for­ward deployed rapid force clo­sure capa­bil­ity to sup­port the Global War on Terror. The JHSV will enable the rapid force clo­sure of fly-in Marine forces to the sea base from advanced bases, logis­tics from pre-positioned ships to assault ship­ping, ship-to-ship replen­ish­ment, and in appro­pri­ate threat envi­ron­ments, maneu­ver of assault forces to in-theater ports and aus­tere ports. Army and Navy pro­grams were recently merged into a Navy-led pro­gram office with an acqui­si­tion strat­egy intended to lever­age cur­rent com­mer­cial fast ferry tech­nol­ogy, and acqui­si­tion of a mod­i­fied non-developmental item (NDI). Contract award for new ves­sels is expected in Fiscal Year 2008, with deliv­ery in 2010. To meet the cur­rent and near-term Combatant Commanders require­ments, the Department of the Navy con­tin­ues to lease for­eign built ves­sels until the JHSV is deliv­ered.
* Westpac Express (WPE) is pro­vid­ing sup­port to III MEF and other Okinawa-based forces, enabling III MEF to expand off-island train­ing and engage­ment while reduc­ing battalion-training days spent off island. Additionally, WPE played a key role sup­port­ing the Indian Ocean tsunami relief effort. HSV-2 Swift pro­vides a test bed for research and devel­op­ment pro­to­types as well as an oper­a­tional plat­form in sup­port of cur­rent real world require­ments. Most recently, HSC-2 played a key role in sup­port of JTF Katrina, pro­vid­ing high-speed deliv­ery of sup­plies, equip­ment, and per­son­nel to ships and ports along the US Gulf Coast.
* Joint Maritime Assault Connector. The Joint Maritime Assault Connector (JMAC), pre­vi­ously known as the Seabase-to-shore con­nec­tor, will replace the ven­er­a­ble legacy land­ing craft air cush­ion (LCAC) as a crit­i­cal tac­ti­cal level plat­form sup­port­ing Marine Corps assault forces, as well as joint forces oper­at­ing within the Sea Base. In com­par­i­son to the LCAC, the JMAC is envi­sioned to have many enhanced capa­bil­i­ties, such as the abil­ity to oper­ate in higher sea states, increased range, speed, and pay­load, increased obsta­cle clear­ance, and reduced oper­at­ing and main­te­nance costs. The JMAC is planned for fleet intro­duc­tion in Fiscal Year 2015.
Marine avi­a­tion will undergo sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tion over the next ten years as we tran­si­tion from 13 types of legacy air­craft to seven new plat­forms. We devel­oped a new tran­si­tion strat­egy to bet­ter bal­ance num­bers of assault sup­port and TacAir air­craft based on oper­a­tional require­ments. This strat­egy sup­ports our Seabasing con­cept and enables Ship-to-Objective Maneuver uti­liz­ing the Joint Strike Fighter, MV-22, and Heavy Lift Replacement, recently des­ig­nated CH-53K. At a dis­tance of 110 nau­ti­cal miles, a squadron of MV-22s will lift a 975-Marine bat­tal­ion in four waves in under four hours. Similarly, the CH-53K will replace our aging, legacy CH-53E heli­copter, lift­ing more than twice as much over the same range and serv­ing as the only sea-based air assault and logis­tics con­nec­tor capa­ble of trans­port­ing crit­i­cal heavy vehi­cles and fire sup­port assets. An Assault Support Capability Analysis is under­way to deter­mine the opti­mal mix of MV-22 and CH-53K air­craft required to sup­port Ship-to-Objective Maneuver and Distributed Operations. Similarly, the Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing vari­ant of the Joint Strike Fighter rep­re­sents a trans­for­ma­tional plat­form that will gen­er­ate 25 per­cent more sor­ties and pro­vide a multi-spectral engage­ment capa­bil­ity for the Expeditionary Strike Force.
* CH-53K. The CH-53K is our num­ber one avi­a­tion acqui­si­tion pri­or­ity. Consequently, the CH-53K received full fund­ing in 2005 and has reached “Milestone B” sta­tusini­ti­a­tion of sys­tem devel­op­ment and demon­stra­tions. Our cur­rent fleet of CH-53E Super Stallion air­craft enters its fatigue life dur­ing this decade. The CH-53K will deliver increased range and pay­load, reduced oper­a­tions and sup­port costs, increased com­mon­al­ity with other assault sup­port plat­forms, and dig­i­tal inter­op­er­abil­ity for the next 25 years. The CH-53K pro­gram will both improve oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties and reduce life-cycle costs. Commonality between other Marine Corps air­craft in terms of engines and avion­ics will greatly enhance the main­tain­abil­ity and deploy­a­bil­ity of the air­craft within the Air Combat Element. The CH-53K will vastly improve the abil­ity of the MAGTF and Joint force to project and sus­tain forces ashore from a sea-based cen­ter of oper­a­tions in sup­port of EMW, Ship-to-Objective Maneuver, and Distributed Operations.
* Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) is our num­ber one ground acqui­si­tion pro­gram, and it replaces the aging Assault Amphibious Vehicle (AAV) that has been in ser­vice since 1972. It will pro­vide Marine sur­face assault ele­ments with bet­ter oper­a­tional and tac­ti­cal mobil­ity both in the water and ashore, and will exploit fleet­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in the fluid oper­a­tional envi­ron­ment of the future. Designed to launch from amphibi­ous ships sta­tioned over the hori­zon, it will be capa­ble of car­ry­ing a rein­forced Marine rifle squad. The EFV will travel at speeds in excess of 20 nau­ti­cal miles per hour in a wave height of three feet. This capa­bil­ity will reduce the vul­ner­a­bil­ity of our naval forces to enemy threats at sea and ashore. Our sur­face assault forces mounted in EFVs will have the mobil­ity to react and exploit gaps in enemy defenses ashore. Once ashore, EFV will pro­vide Marines with an armored per­son­nel car­rier designed to meet the threats of the future. The EFV has high-speed land and water maneu­ver­abil­ity, highly lethal day/night fight­ing abil­ity, and enhanced com­mu­ni­ca­tions capa­bil­ity. It has advanced armor and nuclear, bio­log­i­cal, and chem­i­cal col­lec­tive pro­tec­tion. These attrib­utes will sig­nif­i­cantly enhance the lethal­ity and sur­viv­abil­ity of Marine maneu­ver units.

April 25th, 2006 | Ships and Subs | 3173444 Comments »http://defensetech.org/2006/04/25/f-o-b-s-afloat/F.O.B.s+Afloat2006-04-26+01%3A33%3A40hambling You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.