Retour aux nouvelles

23 juin 2020 | International, Naval

The US Navy and Marine Corps should acquire Army watercraft

By: Capt. Walker D. Mills and Lt. Joseph Hanacek

The Navy intends to acquire up to 30 new light amphibious warships, or LAW, to support new Marine Corps requirements. The vessels are needed to meet the challenges of “evolving threats in the global maritime environment,” according to the Navy program office, and are tied to the new operational concepts of Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations and Distributed Maritime Operations as well as the Marine Corps' Force Design 2030 effort. Once complete, the acquisition will have almost doubled the number of L-class amphibious ships already in naval service. Rather than accepting a new amphibious design built from the ground up, however, decision-makers should take advantage of the fact that many key requirements of the new vessels are very similar to the capabilities of vessels operated by U.S. Army Transportation Command.

The Navy and Marine Corps should delay any new construction and immediately acquire some of these existing vessels to drive experimentation and better inform their requirements for the LAW program.

The key requirements of the future LAW include having 8,000 square feet of cargo space, a range of 3,500 miles, a speed of up to 14 knots, accommodation for a crew of up to 40 Navy personnel and 75 embarked Marines, and up to 200 feet in length. The vessel also needs to have a roll-on/roll-off capability, preferably with a stern ramp.

U.S. Army Transportation Command has over 100 vessels, and dozens have similar capabilities to those required of the LAW. The Army's LCU-2000s, also called the Runnymede-class large landing crafts, are smaller, with roughly half of the cargo space designed for the LAW and slightly slower, but they boast nearly double the range. The Runnymede-class vessels have nearly 4,000 square feet of cargo space and can travel 6,500 miles when loaded and at 12 knots; and they can unload at the beach with their bow ramp.

The Army's General Frank S. Besson-class logistics support vessels are larger than the future LAW, at 273 feet in length but can claim 10,500 square feet of cargo space and a 6,500-mile range loaded to match the LCU-2000. These vessels also have both a bow and stern ramp for roll-on/roll-off capability at the beach or ship-to-ship docking at sea. The version built for the Phillipine military also has a helipad.

Army Transportation Command has 32 Runnymede-class and eight General Frank S. Besson-class vessels in service. Mostly built in the 1990s, both classes of vessel have many years left in their life expectancy and more than meet the Navy's 10-year life expectancy for the LAW.

These vessels are operable today and could be transferred from the Army to the Navy or Marine Corps tomorrow. In fact, the Army was attempting to divest itself of these watercraft less than a year ago, which underscores the importance of this opportunity even further. Congress is firmly set against the Army getting rid of valuable, seaworthy vessels and has quashed all of the Army's efforts to do so thus far, but transferring this equipment to the Navy is a reasonable course of action that should satisfy all parties involved.

While acquiring “surplus” military equipment might lack the allure and promise of designing a new ship class from the ground up, the reality of the situation is that this overlapping of service needs couldn't come at a better time. By acquiring a watercraft that meets most of their requirements from the Army, the Navy and Marine Corps simultaneously fill current capability gaps and obtain an invaluable series of assets they can use to support the evaluation and experimentation of new designs and concepts. This will allow Navy and Marine leaders to give their units the maximum amount of time to evaluate and experiment with new designs to get a better idea of what they need both in future amphibious craft as well as operational and support equipment.

The significance of so rapidly acquiring the Army's amphibious craft isn't just limited to developing a better amphibious force either. There is a very real capability gap that exists in the fleet today in the areas of surplus seagoing capacity, and acquiring these Army watercraft would go an extremely long way toward addressing it. Often overlooked, the availability of surplus vessels is absolutely critical to the process of developing new technologies, developing the tactics to employ them, conducting training, and providing decision-makers the requisite capacity to remain flexible in the face of unexpected challenges.

The Navy and Marine Corps today are hurtling toward a new future of distributed operations and unprecedented levels of integration in the littorals. The Marine Corps commandant has clearly specified that force design is his No. 1 priority and that significant changes to the Marine Corps are in the works.

At the same time, the Navy and Marine Corps continue to serve as the first responders for many of the nation's emerging challenges around the globe. They've long been in need of a boost in their amphibious capabilities so as to be better positioned to meet the demands of today and prepare for the challenges of tomorrow, and taking possession of the Army's Runnymede- and Frank S. Benson-class vessels is a solution on a silver platter.

Capt. Walker D. Mills is a U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer serving in Cartagena, Colombia. Lt. Joseph Hanacek is a U.S. Navy surface warfare officer based in Dam Neck, Virginia. The views expressed here are theirs alone and do not necessarily represent the views of these military branches or the Defense Department.

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/06/22/the-us-navy-and-marine-corps-should-acquire-army-watercraft/

Sur le même sujet

  • Will U.S. Defense Cuts Delay Next-Gen Combat Aircraft Programs?

    18 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial

    Will U.S. Defense Cuts Delay Next-Gen Combat Aircraft Programs?

    August 17, 2020 Many nations have suffered significant financial losses as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Will next-generation combat aircraft programs be delayed by future defense budgets cuts? Aviation Week's Executive Editor for Defense and Space, Jen DiMascio, answers: Even though defense budgets are likely to remain stable in the U.S. during the coming year, relief funding to combat the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to put pressure on spending over time. As a result, projects such as the U.S. Air Force's Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program could be slowed. Pentagon spending was already predicted to level off in the next few years, and the economic drop-off caused by the novel coronavirus and the torrent of debt the government is taking on to combat the pandemic adds even more pressure. The situation today is even more extreme than during the 2008-09 global economic crisis, according to Craig Caffrey, senior aerospace industry analyst for forecast and MRO at the Aviation Week Network. Caffrey forecasts that COVID-19 could shrink the global economy by 4-6% over the next five years, sending worldwide defense spending down 5%, or $70-80 billion. What all that means for next-generation fighter programs is difficult to say. The U.S. is already sacrificing NGAD funding for near-term needs. A bill to provide $700 billion for defense in fiscal 2021 in the House of Representatives would approximately halve funding for NGAD by $500 million for fiscal 2021 to offset an Air Force shortfall in fighter availability. Could such cutbacks slow development of next-generation efforts? It is hard to say, but constraints on spending are unlikely to ease. In Europe, the UK is aiming to field its next-generation Tempest in 2035. So far, £2 billion ($2.6 billion) has been allocated for technology development and maturation, but Caffrey foresees strong economic headwinds over the next five years. “I don't see where the money comes from for the full scope of Tempest as currently envisaged,” he says. The French-German Future Air Combat System (FCAS) may have more breathing room because the program is not expected to enter service until 2040. In the near-term, France, Germany and their new partner, Spain, are providing government aid to such high-tech programs to retain jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The real test will be whether funding can be sustained in 2022-23. Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury is lobbying for efforts such as EuroDrone and FCAS to continue, saying they will be required in the future. “We have the DNA to make them successful,” Faury told Aviation Week's Jens Flottau recently. “Europe feels the need to prepare for the sovereignty of the future, which includes the air and space power to protect your territory from the skies. I am very happy and optimistic that this is moving forward.” https://aviationweek.com/defense-space/budget-policy-operations/will-us-defense-cuts-delay-next-gen-combat-aircraft-programs

  • Leopard 2 MBTs to be used in Lithuania’s new ‘National Division’ - Army Technology

    24 octobre 2024 | International, Terrestre

    Leopard 2 MBTs to be used in Lithuania’s new ‘National Division’ - Army Technology

    Lithuania has concluded its acquisition of Leopard 2 tanks, adding to the Land Forces' growing list of military armoured vehicles.

  • From the lab to the battlefield: Soldiers put new network tools to the test

    31 juillet 2020 | International, C4ISR

    From the lab to the battlefield: Soldiers put new network tools to the test

    Andrew Eversden The Army's new network tools, set to be deployed to units in 2021, were heavily influenced by a new factor: soldiers. Through exercises and training events, the Army's Network Cross-Functional Team received feedback on its design decisions for Capability Set '21, the set of new network tools set to be delivered to soldiers next year as part of the service's network modernization efforts. “This is the first time really in recent history that the network has really focused on soldier feedback. And it's important and it played a huge role in that,” said Col. Garth Winterle, project manager for tactical radios at the Army's Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communication-Tactical. The Army recently completed its critical design review of Capability Set '21 and is in the beginning stages of procuring network pieces for delivery. In the lead-up to making purchases, feedback from units helped show the differences between how the new network tools perform in the field versus in a lab. “Soldier ingenuity, leader know-how, the skill craft that our soldiers bring and the tradecraft they utilize in the field is a lot different than how we conceptualize it back here,” Col. Rob Ryan, deputy director of the Network CFT at Army Futures Command, said at a C4ISRNET event in June. Testing for the capability set has been ongoing in lab-run experiments and with limited field tests in the last few months. Through the field experiments, the Army modernization team received feedback from units on what volume of various capabilities the soldiers needed, what capabilities were usable and what “attributes” of each capability soldiers found to be more important than others, said Winterle. Disruptions caused by both the coronavirus pandemic and a deployment of the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East at the end of December forced the modernization team adjust its testing plans. Defender 2020, a massive exercise scheduled to take place in June with European allies, was altered. Army leaders had planned to use the event to test network equipment with allies. However, network tests are “back on the calendar” in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, Winterle said. “The design decisions that were made at critical design review are still up on the table for revision or reassessing after continual soldier feedback,” Winterle said. “This is a continual evaluation, continual process.” Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, director of the Network CFT, said in a June 9 webinar with industry that several testing events, like a Joint Warfighting Assessment and Defender 2020, were altered, as were combat training center rotations and other exercises. Those “are always great venues for us getting feedback from soldiers and leaders on improving the network design,” Gallagher said. Ryan said that the network team received feedback from soldiers during the development, build and delivery phases of network design. In forthcoming testing events, the Army wants to figure out how many radios are needed and where they need to be located, Winterle said. The service also plans to evaluate if it undervalued and overvalued certain capabilities. https://www.c4isrnet.com/yahoo-syndication/2020/07/30/from-the-lab-to-the-battlefield-soldiers-put-new-network-tools-to-the-test/

Toutes les nouvelles