Special Report On The Amphibious Ready Group

S E C O N D L I N E O F D E F E N S E
Delivering Capabilities to the War Fighter
THE KEY ROLE OF THE AMPHIBIOUS READY GROUP IN POWER PROJECTION
THE FUTURE OF POWER PROJECTION
REPORT 9
h t t p : / / w w w. s l d i n f o . c o m
THE KEY ROLE OF THE AMPHIBIOUS READY GROUP IN POWER PROJECTION
GAMECHANGER : THE EVOLVING AMPHIBIOUS READY GROUP! 2
THE FLEXIBILITY OF THE ARG! 8
THE ARG: A CORE NATIONAL CAPABILITY! 10
THE ARG AT THE VORTEX OF CHANGE! 20
THE LIBYAN CRISIS: BEYOND “BOSNIA ’96ʺ″! 23
ECHOES FROM HISTORY! 25
THE LPD 24 AND THE FUTURE! 28
BUILDING THE LPD-17! 29
S e c o n d L i n e o f D e f e n s e! M a y 2 0 11
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This report provides an overview of the role of the Amphibious Group today and
the potential impact of the expanded ARG. There is no clearer case of the impact
of 5th generation aircraft in shaping disruptive change than with the evolution of
the ARG. The ARG goes from a flexible force able to operate in a variety of mari-
time settings, to a key element in any engagement force.
The ARG will be transformed by adding the F-35 and related transformational as-
sets.
• The F-35B can be launched as the picket fence operating on the border of Libya
able to do electronic warfare, C4ISR and preparation for kinetic or non-kinetic
strike.
• The CH-53K can take off from the amphibious ships and carry three times the
cargo of a CH-53E, to include 463L pallets (normally used in KC-130s).
• The USMC Ospreys can support insertion operations with speed and range.
And new ships will provide greater capabilities as well, notably the LPD 17 and its
command and control capabilities as well as the new America class ships.
GAMECHANGER : THE EVOLVING AMPHIBIOUS

READY GROUP
An Interview With General “Dog” Davis
Flight deck crew members prepare an MV-22 Osprey with Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 266, 26th
Marine Expeditionary Unit, for take off during flight operations aboard USS Kearsarge, April 23, 2010
(Credit: 26th MEU)
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05/02/2011 – Recently, Second Line of Defense looked at the role of the ARG and the
evolution of the ARG in the years ahead. A key point was that the newly empowered
ARG with an Osprey, F-35B, and CH-53K helo would become a gamechanger.
We argued that “[the] force can of course secure an airfield for humanitarian airlift; the
picket fence of the F-35s replace the AWACs and can guide coalition airpower into Lib-
yan airspace to support agreed upon missions. The USAF does not need to move a
large air operation into place to send combat air; the USN does not need to move a
large aircraft carrier battle group into place to prepare to strike Libya.
What the newly equipped ARG does is provide a significant shaping function for the
President. And this shaping function allows significant flexibility and, is in fact, a redefi-
nition of the dichotomy between hard and soft power. The USN-USMC amphibious team
can provide for a wide-range of options for the President simply by being offshore, with
5th generation aircraft capability on board which provides 360 situational awareness,
deep visibility over the air and ground space, and carrying significant capability on board
to empower a full spectrum force as needed.”
The evolution of the ARG and its impact on national security policy was discussed dur-
ing a March 2011 interview with General “Dog” Davis. General Davis is currently the
Commander of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing at Cherry Point, North Carolina. His last po-
sition was in the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Commandant for Aviation. He has two
sons, both currently serving in the USMC.
SLD: How would you describe the changes, which the new aircraft provide to enhance
the capabilities of the ARG?
General Davis: I would start with the impact of the Osprey. The range and speed of the
Osprey create a whole different situation in terms of the radius of operational impact of
the ARG. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about.
We are still scratching the surface in the art of the possible with MV-22s. From the deck
of an amphibious ship they quadruple the ranges we have been able to fly from those
decks at twice the speed we have been accustomed to in the past. The MV-22
changes all the equations in the Med, the Persian Gulf and will do the same when we
start deploying that machine on our MEUs to the Pacific. For each of our MEUs, we
tether 2 KC-130Js and send them overseas whenever the scenario calls for them.
Lately, they have been called for a lot. Add in a KC-130J, that can lift from a short or
austere field and provide fuel for our MV-22s, AV-8s and CH-53Es, and we expand the
“reach” of our MEUs exponentially. We took off last month ago with four V-22s and two
C-130s, to practice a self deploy to Central America.
We are looking at trying to train with the Belize military, have our infantry use their Jun-
gle Training Center, and wanted to check the profiles on a training mission. With the
internal fuel load we had on the C-130s and what we had even without even fuel blad-
ders in the V-22s, we could have topped them off once over Key West and flown all the
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way to Belize and landed in the Jungle Warfare Training Center, dropped off our Ma-
rines then binged out to the international airfield (or joined on the tanker for a top off and
headed home). From North Carolina to Belize would have been about a five and a half
hour flight.
What is really interesting is on this training mission, we took off with four v-22s, but one
had a problem. It had to turn around after takeoff. We joined three with the tankers
over New River and proceeded south. The fourth turned around, landed at New River,
got another airplane, took off and joined us over Gainesville, Florida, and hit the tank-
ers.
We were all doing about 200/210 miles an hour in behind the tankers going down there,
and in this case, about 10,000 feet. This guy got another airplane, got it turned up,
launched and caught us. You wouldn’t be able to do that in a conventional helo. I had
never seen that before in my life. I thought that was pretty special. So if I launch off a
ship off the coast of North Carolina, it’d been easy to get the Marines and all their gear
for the Jungle Warfare Training Center over 700 miles away. That’s operational reach
with potentially strategic impacts. We did another tanker mission a week later with 7
MV-22s flying non-stop from 29 Palms to New River in about 8 hours time at 17,000’.
SLD: How important will it be to get the larger ship, LPD 17, as the launch deck for the
new aircraft?
General Davis: We just finished SPS 11, which is Southern Partnership Station 11,
which is Special Purpose MAGTF. They’re getting ready to offload today. We visited
this SPMAGTF in Belize, and they did a fantastic job, but they were limited in how much
they could do by the fact they didn’t have aircraft with them on their ship. The Gunston
Hall is a smaller ship whose flight deck wouldn’t accommodate aircraft at sea for an ex-
tended period of time. You could land them on there but you couldn’t sustain them.
With the LPD-17, I’ve got command and control, and I’ve also got a flight deck where I
can take some of the bigger airplanes aboard and go operate. It is absolutely key to
have the LPD-17 in numbers. It’s a fantastic vessel and it offers the nation a capability
that is in very short supply (as compared to the demand).
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Flight of BF-2, second F-35B (Credit: Lockheed Martin)
SLD: Let us look at the Libyan scenario and flash forward to the newly enabled ARG.
Could you talk to that a little bit to that scenario?
General Davis: Currently we have C-130s flying in the Libyan situation. If I could pair
those C-130s with the F-35Bs, I can provide multi-mission support and be available for
other operations. You have an EW capability resident in the F-35 that no one else does
that can actually help jam and support those platforms flying from point A to point B.
You put a Next Gen jammer on the F-35B, now you’ve got a very high end EW/jamming
capability. We can use it for self-protect – but also to protect our assault support assets
and grunts on the ground in a way we have never been able to in the past with organic
MEU assets. For many years our MEUs have not had an aviation EW capability. With
the introduction of the F-35B to the FMF, we will now have that capability and it will
change the way we view those MEUs and open the aperture into a much wider range of
missions, expanding the utility of what is already a very capable and utilitarian force –
the MEU.
You’ve also got a very high-end air defense capability with F-35Bs. VLO, fantastic ra-
dar and SA, and state of the art air to air weaponry – that’s a big difference than what
we can offer today. Add in that tethered KC-130J, and you have an even greater capa-
bility.
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Flight of BF-3 (Credit: Lockheed Martin)
SLD: The ARG is a shaping function force. How will adversaries look at this role in the
future?
General Davis: I’m Muammar Gaddafi. I’m whoever, and I’ve got an ARG with this new
gear embarked – and I can’t help but think its going to change the way I view that force.
That ARG can reach out and touch me from long range, landing high-end infantry forces
deep inside my territory, and do so with a speed that twice as fast as anyone else can.
Our MEUs have never been used as effectively as they are today. These new capabili-
ties are going to make them exponentially more potent and useful to our nation’s lead-
ership.
The F-35Bs give the new ARG a very high-end air superiority fighter, that’s low observ-
able if I want it to be. I can roll from Air to Air to Air to Ground quickly and be superior to
all comers in both missions. That’s bad news for our adversaries. I can use the F-35s
to escort the V-22s deep into enemy territory. With those V-22s we can range out to a
400-500-mile radius from the ship without air refueling. I can go deliver Marines deep in
the enemy territory or wherever and do it at 250 miles an hour, so my speed of action,
my agility is exponentially increased, and I think if you’re a bad guy, that would probably
give you a reason to pause. It’s a very different animal that’s out there. We are good
now, but will be even more so (by more than a factor of two in the future).
I also have significant mix and match capability. And this capability can change the im-
pact of the ARG on the evolving situation. It is a forcing function enabled by variant
mixes of capability. If I wanted to strip some V-22s off the deck, to accommodate more
F-35s – I could do so easily. Their long legs allow them to lily pad for a limited period of
time — off a much large array of shore FOBs – while still supporting the MEU. It’s
much easier to do that in a V-22 than it is a traditional helicopter.
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I open up that flight deck, or I can TRANSLANT or PAC additional F-35s. If I had six on
the deck and I want to fly over another six or another four, we could do it rather quickly.
Now the MEU has ten strike platforms. So if I need to have a TACAIR surge for a pe-
riod of time, that deck provides a great platform for us. We’ve got the maintenance on-
board that ship, so we can actually turn that Amphib very quickly from being a heliocen-
tric Amphib to a fast jet Amphib. Conversely, I could also take the F-35s off, send them
to a FOB and load it up with V-22s, 53Ks, or AH-1Zs and UH-1Ys. Flexible machines
and flexible ships. The combination is exceptional.
We will have a very configurable, agile ship to reconfigure almost on a dime based on
the situation at hand. I think the enemy would look at the ARG as something completely
different from what we have now. I think we have to change the way we do things a bit
in order to allow for that, but I think we will once we get the new air assets. The newly
enabled ARG, or newly whichever the term you’re using, will force our opponents to look
at things very differently. We will use it differently, and our opponents are going to look
at it differently.
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THE FLEXIBILITY OF THE ARG
A Day in the Life of the PELEULIU ARG and 15th MEU
Colonel Roy "Ozzie" Osborn, commanding officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, concentrates as
he performs a difficult hover drop of relief supplies during humanitarian relief efforts in the southern prov-
ince of Sindh, Pakistan
Credit: 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit Public Affairs, 9/26/10
03/10/2011 – During an interview with Colonel Roy “Ozzie” Osborn, recently command-
ing officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, SLD discussed the flexibility of the
Amphibious Ready Group and Marine Expeditionary Unit team demonstrated by three
concurrent operations on September 9th, 2010.
On that day:
• part of the ARG using Harriers provided close air support in Afghanistan.
• Part of the ARG, took the Magellan Star away from Pirates.
• Another part of the ARG provided flood relief in Pakistan via helo support from
the ARG .
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Helicopters from USS DUBUQUE provide aerial watch as Marines from the 15th Marine Expeditionary
Unit’s Maritime Raid Force board and seize control of the Antigua and Barbuda-flagged, German-owned
vessel M/V Magellan Star, left, Sept. 9, a day after pirates attacked and boarded the vessel.
Credit: www.quantico.usmc.mil
Colonel Osborn explained these concurrent activities as follows:
On September the 8th, we had the USS DUBUQUE off the coast of Somalia, Horn of
Africa in the Gulf of Aden, doing counter-piracy patrols and stuff. The USS PEARL
HARBOR was also further down off the coast of Somalia doing counter-piracy opera-
tions as well. It was basically just doing intelligence operations.The USS PELELIU is off
the coast of Karachi. I’m actually inland in Pakistan. I’m 220 miles inland in Pakistan
with part of the ACE and part of my command element – a very small part. Pakistan
has limited us to 300 boots on the ground.
The MV Magellan Star gets captured by Somali pirates. The crew on the Magellan Star
did exactly what they’re supposed to do – which is put the ship dead in the water, lock
themselves in the citadel, get on their SAT phone and asking for help. The USS
PRINCETON was in the vicinity and so was the USS DUBUQUE, they pushed the USS
PRINCETON up close to provide assistance. The USS DUBUQUE moved into position,
and by about midnight on the 8th, we had approval from Admiral Fox to do the recovery,
to do the takedown.The issue with that was we had spent months training — months
and months, almost a year — we had also briefed every 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, all the way
up to Admiral Fox and anyone we could in CENTCOM and 5th Fleet on our capabilities.
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To the point where Admiral Fox was comfortable that we could execute the mission and
succeed. That’s critical.
SLD: So the Admiral could be confident that you could do the job.
Colonel Osborne: High confidence. I get the call, they were going to do the mission,
I’m in Pakistan, so I’m up on chat and I’m up on the secure comms system talking to the
guys. The Commodore aboard the PELELIU is off the coast of Karachi, he’s up on chat
and secure voice with me. The USS DUBUQUE is over a 1,000 miles away executing
the mission. That morning, they were getting ready to do the mission from the DU-
BUQUE to take down the Magellan Star. Aboard the USS PELELIU at 04:30 in the
morning we launched the first section of jets into Afghanistan. At 07:00, we launched
two more jets.
SLD: Off of?
Colonel Osborne: Off the PELELIU. That morning at 08:00, we launched six aircraft to
fly relief missions up in Pakistan. So by now, I’ve got Marines and Sailors in Pakistan
doing missions. Marines over Afghanistan and that day, they dropped two GBU-54s on
a tree line, took out a whole bunch of insurgents. And we recovered the Magellan Star
with our Maritime Raid Force and the USS DUBUQUE. I also had Marines and Sailors
supporting operations in the Horn of Africa. I had Marines in Saudi Arabia getting ready
to do a training event. I had Marines that were getting set up to do a training event with
the Yemenis. I also had Marines in Bahrain, had Marines that were getting ready to go
to India, and I had Marines that were transiting back to the states. The day that we did
the Magellan Star, we had Marines and Sailors from our MEU in nine countries, on three
continents, and we executed three separate missions all in the same day that were pri-
mary missions. That’s what our ARG/MEUs are doing.
THE ARG: A CORE NATIONAL CAPABILITY

An Interview With Colonel “Ozzie” Osborn, Former 15th MEU Commander
04/20/2011 – Second Line of Defense during its interview with Colonel “Ozzie” Osborn
discussed the flexibility of the Amphibious Ready Group and Marine Expeditionary Unit
team. Colonel Osborn provided an overview of capabilities now in play with a
disaggregate/distributed Ops ARG/MEU and the potential expansion of those capabili-
ties with the addition of new enablers. These enablers are the F-35B Lighting II, the
MV-22 Osprey, the CH-53K Super Stallion, the LPD-17 and robotics. Colonel Osborn
was the 15th MEU commander during its last operational deployment.
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Harrier Landing on USS Kearsarge During Operation Odyssey Dawn After Night Operation
Credit: USN Visual News Service, March 20, 2011
Colonel Osborn: Basically, I’m a CH-46 helicopter pilot in terms of background. I’ve
deployed both on the west coast and east coasts. And I started off with everything from
the Alaska oil cleanup to Desert Shield/Desert Storm to Operation Iraqi Freedom. I flew
missions during the race riots in LA back in the early 90s.I was in Somalia in 93/94; we
got there 14 days after Black Hawk Down and spent four and a half months in Moga-
dishu.
SLD: That’s a lot of time.
Colonel Osborn: It was a very long time. I have flown missions in support of the libera-
tion of Kosovo and in OIF I. In OIF II, I was an ACE commander for 24th MEU in Iraq
and then came back to the fleet as a MEU commander. I’ve done just about everything
you can do, amphibious operations wise, and a term that we’ve kind of coined now-
which is Sea-based Expeditionary Operations. The concept now is that you take the se-
abase, and whether the sea base is a big deck carrier, or whether it’s an LHA, or an
LHD, or it could be something as small as an LCS. It’s a sea base and you conduct ex-
peditionary ops from that base.
SLD: You are therefore operating in modular terms and you’re tailoring to the mission.
Colonel Osborn: We focus upon multi-mission capabilities. Every platform out there
has to be multi-mission. It cannot be single-mission. That doesn’t mean that you have
to be able to do every mission 100-percent. But you need to be able to do a significant
percentage of every mission that’s out there. With the last deployment of the 15th MEU,
I went out completely old school. I had CH-46s, which is the core for the ACE, I had
AV8B Harriers, a mix of Night Attack and Radar Birds. I had Whiskey Cobras, I had No-
vember Hueys, and I had three of them. I had CH-53 Echoes. The only new piece of
gear in the ACE that we had, really two new pieces of gear, we were the first ones to go
out with an ACE COC, a CapSet for the ACE. I could actually send the ACE to a sepa-
rate environment, and they’ve got their own command and control capability. And I had
KC-130Js, I had two of those assigned to the MEU. Every one of my major subordinate
elements, my MSEs, the BLT, the CLB and the ACE, had the ability to operate as an in-
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dependent command and control headquarters, separate from the MEU and independ-
ent from the ships.
We brought extra SWAN-Ds, which are our new satellite link systems. We also had a
small suitcase portable type satellite communication systems – BGANs. And we
brought extra generators. We really went out with a distributed ops mentality. As 24th
MEU ACE in OIF II, I had half of my command at Camp Kalsu 55 miles away from the
main ACE command at Al Taqaddum in a stand alone position. I had another chunk of
my command at Al Assad. So distributed Ops was not new for me. But it was distrib-
uted ops the hard way; the separate chunks of the commands had no Combat Opera-
tions Center (COC) capability.
All we had were laptop computers that we normally had in Garrison. But we had no ra-
dios and no telephones. I didn’t even have an Iridium phone as an ACE commander. I
had no way to hook up any of the nets or anything like that. And so, we had to beg, bor-
row, steal and tag in on other assets – not the way you want to operate . I would never
again want to go out with a unit that could be distributed and not have the ability to link.
So, when we started really looking hard at 15th MEU, that was one of the core items we
focused on. I wanted to be able to do distributed ops across as much of the battle
space as I could.
SLD: So, you visualized the technology necessary to accomplish that. Now, with the
evolution of the V-22 and maybe the K, and the ability to drop in further, farther, faster,
that just comes together?
Colonel Osborn: It absolutely comes together, and it’s even bigger than that. We’ve
classically defined the littorals as about 200 miles but the littorals are as deep as you
can go. The ARG/MEU had assets that were operating in Northern Pakistan with the
operational airbase 650 nautical miles feet dry.
SLD: And we kick around the term enduring littoral operations. Increasingly, you’re go-
ing to have to get engaged for counter-piracy and you might move to something else.
And you may need to assemble assets that are going to be there for 60-90 days. So
now, the question is how do you manage such a situation?
Colonel Osborn: One of the questions that keeps getting asked to me was how do you
do C2? And how do you manage this? Well, you don’t. And that’s the fundamental
thing. Get away from the idea that you have to manage everything. You’ve got to get to
the point where you operate with trust tactics. But you’ve also got to get to the point
where you can shift assets to the greatest need, and you can balance the risk versus
the gain. If I pull an asset off from here, can I shift it to there? And can I get it there
quickly. That’s where the range, speed, and payload of the V-22 and the KC-130J come
into play — and in my case, it was KC-130J. That’s how I really expanded my battle
space. If I’d had V-22s, I would’ve been able to do the mission easier, faster and with
less risk. That’s just a fundamental bottom line. You can draw the charts and you can
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actually show that. Speed, range, and payload become overwhelming factors when you
are operating well over 200 nautical miles from the seabase.
SLD: Well now, if we just hover on this point, when you have the Osprey and the F-
35B, it’s going to affect the decision-making choices you’re going to be able to make.
Colonel Osborn: Absolutely, especially in how intelligence impacts your decisions. The
capabilities of the Osprey and F35 dramatically expand the real and potential bat-
tlespace for the ARG/MEU. We have for years, gone with the idea that we do intelli-
gence operations where we collect and process intelligence. Mission and intel drive the
operation based upon the capability of the platforms you are using. We need to do op-
erational intelligence, which is I need to know everything’s that going on. But what I
need to know from an operator’s point of view is I need to know the intelligence that im-
pacts this mission. And so, I need to be able to take that intelligence and not turn it into
some PowerPoint brief that sits up at the head shed. That intel has to be given to the
shooter.
SLD: That’s very Marine, Colonel.
Colonel Osborn: As an example, I wanted live video feed during the counter-piracy
mission where we took the MV Magellan Star back from the Somali pirates. I wanted
live video feed for overall command and control, but more importantly to the Assault
Force Team Leads in the boats. When they are about 500 meters out, heading in to
take that ship down, they need control of the ISR asset and the ability to see the target.
SLD: It’s basically a flying telescope.
Colonel Osborn: That’s exactly what it is. And it’s a flying telescope that has three-
dimensional view.
SLD: So essentially, what you’re describing is trying to have modular C2, appropriate
to the command level. We’re trying to evolve ISR that’s also appropriate to the com-
mand level or operationally. And if we can get to this point where we’re delivering to the
tip of the spear. Because we don’t care about the guys hundreds of miles back or
somewhere in Nevada, are really smart about overall situational awareness. It’s irrele-
vant.
Colonel Osborn: That’s right. In higher-level command, I got it. You’ve got to have the
big battle picture. But when you’re looking at where it really gets down to the success of
the mission, especially in the modern battlefield environment where one single sailor,
soldier, airman or Marine shoots the wrong dog or the wrong water buffalo, and it makes
international news, it changes the entire strategic picture. So what you’ve got now is you
need to make sure that down to that fire team level, down to that individual saying “you
and you shoot that building, or hey, F-18, F-35, F-16 take out that building”.
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An MH-60S Sea Hawk helicopter takes off from the amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu with a pallet of
ammunition. Peleliu is underway off the coast of Southern California conducting an ammunition offload
and transfer with the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island.
Credit: USN Visual Service, March 16, 2011
SLD: Where should the D on that be, Colonel?
Colonel Osborn: I’m a much bigger fan of pushing decisions down as far as you can.
You provide the guidance, you provide the mission, you provide the parameters, and
you provide the support from higher command levels. But let the guy on the ground
execute.
SLD: Right. And that’s why from my point of view, the F-35B fits the Marine Corps per-
fectly…
Colonel Osborn: Well, they’re living it in the F-22 right now. The F-22 is kicking butt as
a Fifth generation fighter when it comes to capability. The F-35B will give the amphibi-
ous forces that Fifth generation capability to include stealth and a host of other
capabilities. Command and control across the battlespace becomes even more sophis-
ticated and at times challenging.
SLD: How then would you use the AWACS?
Colonel Osborn: Here’s what I like about AWACS type capability from the view of our
recent deployment, having lived this in Pakistan… So many of the places that we oper-
ate in the world do not have a radar capable ATC system. Pakistan has a very good
one, down to about 2,000 feet AGL. So anything below 2,000 feet is flying without radar
support. That’s what an AWACS type system can do especially in a Joint/Combined
operation. If the AWACS did nothing more than tell you Dragon 01, you got a flight of
six, at your one o’clock at 5 miles. It’s a safety of flight thing. But it’s a very expensive
safety of flight. It is a different picture and challenge when operating with stealth and
UAV aircraft at higher altitudes.
SLD: So you took a typical MEU with old equipment.

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Colonel Osborn: Right now, it’s the current pattern for the west coast MEUs, and it’s
what we called an old school MEU. Plus we fit aboard those three amphibs, and
strangely enough, that’s the smallest square footage of embark space you can get with
any three amphibs. When you take the LHA with the model of LPD and LSD that we
had. We had the smallest embarkable footprint. So we left a lot of equipment at home.
We had to prioritize the multi-mission capable assets. If it wasn’t multi-mission, I didn’t
take it. So, I left things like the armored seven-ton, the Armadillo. I left those at home;
because it has one mission. It’s an armored bus. I didn’t want an armored bus, I
needed a truck. So you follow that mentality. We also trained as an aggregate force
during our normal workup. We trained as a three-ship operating together within relative
distance of each other, line of sight most of the time. We trained where our deepest op-
erations were about 140 miles, 150 miles deep. That was our training package. That’s
a standard MEU workup-training package. We were tasked to be the Proof of Concept
for the re-introduction of the visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) mission. So we
coined a new phrase, the Maritime Raid Force. And we shaped a Maritime Raid Force
Capability.
The Navy does VBSS, level 1 and level 2 they call it, which is unopposed, basically,
they’re Coast Guard type actions. They pull up alongside a ship that they want to talk
to. Ask them hey, can we come aboard? They say yes, you can board, you snoop
around, and you collect information. But the Navy does this with all of their smaller
ships, they do it with all of their destroyers, they also do it with all of the small deck am-
phibs. The mission that we picked up is between that level and the true special opera-
tions mission. It’s an integrated Navy/Marine Corps package, the assault boats that we
use to go take the ships down are Naval Special Warfare boats. They are SEAL
RHIBs.And the Navy runs those. The shadowing ship, the ship that we launch from is a
Navy ship. We also put a Marine sniper team on the bridge wing of that ship. And he
provides fixed fire coverage. We also put aircraft on that ship; I put Hueys and Cobras
on that ship. They provided my heavy firepower with the Cobra. Command and control,
ISR and also some offset firepower with a sniper was provided by the Huey.
So, you take a target ship, which is what we did with the MV Magellan Star, the ship that
we recovered from the pirates. When we pulled in, the USS PRINCETON was on the
station, and was watching the ship. The USS DUBUQUE got into position, which was
our Maritime Raid Force launch platform that we had set up. We had four assault
RHIBs on the USS DUBUQUE. I had a team from the MEU command element embed-
ded with these guys. And we had ships personnel that were trained in all the follow on
actions. The question is always what will you do when you capture the ship and all
that? So that’s the ship control team.
15
A sailor aboard the amphibious dock landing ship USS Tortuga guides a Japan Ground Self-Defense
Force truck carrying humanitarian supplies into the well deck of the ship. Tortuga is transporting the
equipment to support Operation Tomodachi, a humanitarian assistance mission in the aftermath of a 9.0
magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami.
Credit: USN Visual Service, March 16, 2011
SLD: What impact would the new capabilities have had if they were deployed with the
MEU?
Colonel Osborn: Modern piracy is more about holding the ship hostage for ransom,
whereas in days of old, it was to ransack the ship, take whatever you could off that you
could do for booty, and cut the throats of the people onboard, throw them over the side
and keep going. That’s not the way they do it now. Nowadays, it is a pure
business. Piracy in Malaysia, back in the 90′s, was more capturing boats and then turn-
ing them into illegal trafficking platforms. They’d capture large yachts; they would cap-
ture small freighters and all that. The stuff that’s going on now off the coast of Somalia
— and to some extent off the coast of Nigeria with oil platforms as well, and there’s a
couple other places around the world where it happens. They’re capturing ships, be-
cause they know that the insurance money that the ship has on it is huge. When we
were over there, there were about 14 ships that were being held by Somalia pirates,
with about 150 people. So this is a growth industry; a very lucrative growth
industry. And the trick is that the pirates are getting more aggressive and they’re getting
more dangerous. So what the Navy and the Marine Corps really came up with was a
potential operational solution. We needed the ability to do an opposed boarding.
We look at this as two stages of opposition to the boarding. You have active opposition
and passive opposition. Passive is the guys are just not letting you get onboard but
they’re not really doing anything to stop you.The active opposition can take the form of
truly offensive, or it can just be denial. And the truly offensive is what we train to. The
guy’s standing there with a weapon, and he’s just got the weapon in his hand, that’s an
opposed boarding. If he raises the weapon to his shoulder, that’s offensive and he dies,
instantly. And that’s the way our ROE was written.
16
ROE became our guidance when you pull the trigger on a guy. Finding that target ties
directly to future capabilities. The F-35B and other platforms with a robust ISR/C2 ca-
pability could be used to cue the assault force well before reaching the target. We tried
this with our Harriers and the Navy MH-60s. It worked very well in training. But at the
time of the MV Magellan Star takedown, those assets were a thousand miles away con-
ducting other missions. We used the Hueys and Cobras to provide that lethal C2 and
ISR coverage, but not as integrated with the Assault Force as we would have liked it to
be. The counter piracy mission is very law enforcement oriented, and the rules of evi-
dence fully apply. We actually have a law enforcement guy that would go aboard the
ships as well. So you actually follow all the rules of evidence, you actually collect fin-
gerprints and other materials. This is the world we operate in.The Maritime Raid Force
that we trained up for this had that same tasking as if that was not a ship, but was a
shore facility. It could be a take down on an oil refinery that’s on the coastline. We could
do it. That’s what the Maritime Raid Force was built around.
SLD: And this is also a useful tool for embassy rescue and embassy support and that
sort of thing?
Colonel Osborn: Absolutely. The way you look embassy reinforcement is it’s a raid. It
has limited objectives and limited duration.
SLD: So, you took one of your three ships, which was the mother ship for offloading
the raiding force.
Colonel Osborn: It was also a fire support platform- the ship that they were taking out
was dead in the water – the USS DUBUQUE was parked about 300 meters away and
had a Marine sniper team on the bridge wing, looking at the target ship. And you also
had all the gun mounts on the USS DUBUQUE manned as well, with marines and
sailors. So you have 50 cal and 25 millimeter guns. Plus the fact that you’ve got a Co-
bra loaded to the teeth that’s sitting there right off the shoulder pointing at you. And
you’ve got a Huey overhead, and you can see a Marine hanging out overhead with the
sniper rifle.
SLD: Well, let’s look at just this mission for a moment, and fast-forward, you have Bs
and Ospreys. How would they contribute in this particular mission?
Colonel Osborn: I wanted to use the sensors on my Harriers, my Hueys, and my

Cobras. I could not do it, because we haven’t bought the capability. The Harrier and
the Huey have a tremendous sensor on them. But I can’t get that imagery live that the
pilot is seeing on his display to the shooter in the assault boat.And I want the guy in the
boat to be able to tell the shooter up high, the Harrier, hey, I got it. I can see the guy
behind the bridge wing right there. And I’m telling you, we’re looking at the target
through the same binoculars, and that’s not an RPG. That’s an SA14. Okay change in
mission and change in risk. Now our threat factor’s gone up. And so, what you do is
you tie the shooter on the ground — sensor on the ground — to the sensor shooter in
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the air. And your ROE switches over from “is this a viable target to take out with a sur-
face force? Or do I need to do some prep fires or do I need some precision fire?”
We haven’t bought the amphibious and aviation communications needed to do this.

That’s the biggest limitation we’ve got right now. Overall amphibious comms is one of
the biggest limiting factors. Compared with what I have aboard the big deck, if I go
ashore with my command element, I have more connectivity and capability with my
command element ashore. I actually have more with my organic ground based assets,
than all three ships added together. And we’re not taking this aircraft and back channel-
ing it back into the amphibs. This aircraft (F-35B) is going to bring a huge capability for
C4ISR delivered to the raiding party. It’s going to sit inside the cockpit, rather than work
it from the (Amphib) ship.
SLD: This is potentially a breakthrough platform for the Navy/Marine Corps for the 21st
century. I want to go back to your Harrier point. And one of the things I’m struck with is
that you take this 360-degree operational aircraft with flying situational awareness. The
tip of spear guy is using a 360-degree telescope. And the jamming capability of the F-
35B is important as well.
Colonel Osborn: You want to shut them down, but you don’t want to shut them down
the whole Middle East, you want to shut down that one ship. I need a platform out there
that not only can see, and not only can talk, but that whenever the guy on the assault
boat says okay, we’re about to unmask behind the mother ship that could take these
guys down, turn off their stuff via electronic jamming.
SLD: Can you talk about the ability to inject force and the options this gives the Na-
tional Command Authority.
Colonel Osborn: The seabased raiding party concept can allow significant flexibility.
You can go where the enemy is not. You’ve got the raid; escalate the mission into some-
thing where it’s some kind of power projection or something like that. As you elevate the
presence of a Marine into a combat zone, as you say, the scope of operation just goes
wide and deep.
SLD: Right. And parked where the enemy can’t get at you for the first round. In other
words, everybody’s arguing the Marine Corps is irrelevant, because they haven’t had
opposed landings. My argument is they have been too smart to have opposed landings
and go where they’re not opposed so they can prevail.
Colonel Osborn: And I lived the greatest example of that all around. Desert Storm. I
was part of the amphibious taskforce that was sitting off the coast of Kuwait that was
causing Saddam to put a layered defense all up and down the Kuwaiti coast. The LZ
that we were going to land in on D-Day in Kuwait was high risk. For the LZ, our pro-
jected losses were going to be a quarter of the helicopters across the beach would not
come back out.
18
That was the projected loss rate. I mean, we had all the mine countermeasure stuff, we
looked at everything we could do to get in, and try to insert forces in the backside, the
breakout and all that. Thankfully, it was a ruse, and it was a very successfully played
on, because what we really did was we loaded up the Marines on the beach down in
Saudi Arabia, and then we punched him in the nose and ran over him from a completely
different direction.That is a great example of what we will probably do in any future
conflict. It is stupid to go against the bad guy’s strength. That’s why in a huge debate
that goes on between the Navy and the rest of the world about going against the Chi-
nese, it’s always about strength versus strength. You never go against strength. You
find the weakness. Every situation has a weak point. And you insert the flexible force,
which is the ARG.
SLD: In effect the ARG can become the hub of operations across the spectrum of war-
fare and capabilities in support of both hard and soft power. In fact, the modern MEU
can perhaps even redefine the vortex between soft and hard power.
Colonel Osborn: The MEU is based on a mobile sea-base. As such, the seabase can
provide the hospitals, the command control, the R&R place, etc. It’s a city with an air-
port on top of it and more.But the real key for me is that we can go from high-end time
sensitive targeting type stuff, which is one of our core missions to missions like flood re-
lief – all on the same day. It is the flexibility of the ARG to support the national com-
mand authority, which is central to understanding why modernizing the ARG is so impor-
tant to the nation.
F35B in Flight
Credit: Lockheed Martin
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SLD: Let us speak the modernization piece.
Colonel Osborn: When we were parked off of Pakistan, I was launching the Harriers
450 nautical miles inland into Afghanistan, providing CAS (close air support) over Af-
ghanistan and then bring them back out. They were plugged in fully and they’d execute
operations and then come out.This is from an amphib. We did 525 flight hours in just
under 60 days on 6 jets. The first use of the GBU-54 by Naval air was the Harriers from
the big deck amphib. Could I have done more with an F-35B? Oh absolutely. Not only
could I have carried more ordinance, I could’ve got there faster and with less risk. F-35B
would’ve kicked in the door. We would be able to plug in completely to the other serv-
ices and provide the warfighter with the best support available. Asset allocation is also a
big discussion, but for the rifleman on point – who cares whether it’s owned by the Air
Force, the Army or the Navy. We don’t care. Higher headquarters has to facilitate op-
erations in that battle space. And they cannot be an impediment to operations.
And that’s one of the reasons why in our mind, the F-35, the V-22 and some of these
others, expand our battle space dramatically. But what it also does is, is it now forces
the other services, both in the Air Force and in the Navy and in the Army, and also
forces international partners to realize that the battle space is no longer what you can
see from the ship. It is no longer that 100 miles out, it’s no longer that 200 miles out.
It’s truly as far as you want to fly. Six hundred and fifty miles inland and it’s supportable.
Logistics and sustainment – doing it old school – which was we’d fly stuff via helo from
ship to shore. Put it on a KC-130J and fly up to Northern Pakistan to conduct opera-
tions. That’s how we did sustainment and its very hard to do. If I had V-22s, I would
have been flying straight to the operations area from the ship.I f I would’ve had the F-
35B, instead of having to take the ship off station and push it 90 miles offshore so they
could get into the box where they’d launch at the boulevard for the Harriers, I could’ve
launched them right off the coast of Pakistan, where we were off of Karachi. Because of
the range, speed and performance of the F-35B. The emerging capabilities of the MV-
22 and the future capabilities of the F-35B reduce the commander’s risk and you make
his mission simpler by expanding his capabilities from the platform’s he’s got. And that’s
the win-win moneymaker.
THE ARG AT THE VORTEX OF CHANGE

How Amphibious Forces Create Strategic Options
By Vince Martinez
03/06/2011 – The world is changing. For many who have studied the subject over the
last decade, the Arc of Instability is coming to fruition. Old powers are beginning to fal-
ter under the pressures of collapsing economies, the lack of resources, civil unrest and
natural disaster. As we collectively watch the latest Libyan conflict as it moves from
weeks into months, the international community–and the United States in particular —
will most certainly begin to buckle under international pressure with calls to assist in the
containment and resolution of the latest Middle-Eastern strife. Questions will arise on
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how to best influence and contain the scenario given the international role of outside
players, and the military will once again find itself intertwined with a series of solutions
to do exactly that.
The amphibs are among the busiest of USN ships in support of US global operations
The flexibility of the ships are an important reason why they are so important to day-to-
day operations. The military often plays a significant role in implementation of political
will in circumstances just like these. The choices the decision makers have to make
relative to the forces used, however, can also have significant impacts in other interna-
tional and political arenas.
Credit : The USS Peleliu, www.public.navy.mil
Reeling from the protracted land war in the Middle East that has ushered in a reluctance
for using occupational forces, what has often been glossed over by decision makers re-
cently is the power and influence that an Amphibious Readiness Group (ARG) brings to
bear in response to these delicate operational conditions. Whether the ARG is conduct-
ing Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO), dropping supplies to those in need,
protecting land and sea-based lines of communication, establishing presence, providing
security, or facilitating containment through martial action, it is clear that the ability of the
ARG to take action in both land or sea is what makes the ARG a resource that is impos-
sible to replace with other doctrinal solutions.
Lessons Learned From Operation El Dorado Canyon

During Operation El Dorado Canyon in Libya in the late 1980s, the United States con-
ducted a strike against the Libyan government in response to the state-sponsored
bombing of a disco in Berlin that resulted in the injury of over 200 people, and cost the
lives of two individuals. Much of the accolades that followed the successful raids on
Libya revolved around the long-range, EF-111 and FB-111 bombers, along with the KC-
135 and KC-10 aircraft that conducted long-range refueling operations while originating
operations out of the United Kingdom.
Less talked about was the role of the Naval Forces off the coast of Libya that also par-
ticipated in the raids. Well over 30 Naval strike aircraft participated in the raids as well,
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and the Naval Force was also on stand-by to conduct search and rescue operations as
needed with helo-borne forces. The Naval Fleet provided command and Control as
well, and the security of the airspace was guaranteed through the use of carrier-based
F-14 Tomcats that were in position to react should something arise.
What is more important is what did not take place. Had there been an unforeseen
emergent air threat that resulted in significant delays, the bomber force that had tran-
sited the Atlantic would have been unable adjust to the extended operations, and would
likely have had to turn back toward England without dropping their ordnance. In an
equivalent scenario in today’s day and age, that would most certainly be viewed as a
strategic failure and then subsequently be plastered all over the mass media as exactly
that.
What the Naval Services provided operational commanders during Operation El Dorado
Canyon is exactly the same thing the ARG provides today– the ability to react to change
and absorb operational friction across a spectrum of operational conditions. That is
something that typically doesn’t make the history books. Instead of a single-focus, long-
range strike capability, the USN-USMC team provides operational commanders with a
series of strategic, operational and tactical options that a one-dimensional bomber force
cannot provide.
“From Friend To Foe In A Matter Of Minutes”

Fast forward to today. With the introduction of transformational platforms like the MV-
22, the UH-1Y, the AH-1Z, and the KC-130J–along with emerging platforms like the JSF
and the CH-53K–the ability for the ARG to influence a spectrum of operations has
grown exponentially. With forces now operating comfortably under the “3-Block War”
construct that the U.S. Marine Corps had forecasted well over a decade ago, the ability
to go from friend to foe in a matter of seconds is an accepted lifestyle [1]. Forces today
have evolved to do exactly that under the challenging operational conditions across the
Middle East over the last 10 years.
The ARG brings the ability to provide sustained operational presence across the spec-
trum of operations while also maintaining safe haven off shore — with no loss of opera-
tional impact. The technological innovation of the Marine Air Ground Task Force
(MAGTF) enables the ability to control and influence an environment through peace-
time, civil unrest and combat. It is the operational flexibility of the MAGTF and the ARG
that brings a wide range of military options to the table.
In the dynamic operational conditions of today, a “force in readiness” means more than
just being capable of slinging lead down-range — and the ARG is the best-postured
strategic capability to be able to adjust quickly to dynamic environments. Aside from the
challenging humanitarian aspects of the civil strife in Libya, this conflict also gives us yet
another reason to pause and reflect our overall operational posture.
The Arc of Instability demands the use of innovative and tailored methods for engage-
ment and influence, and must be implemented successfully without the impacts of pre-
22
conceived notions that come with a bomber-force or a land army.The ARG is built for
this exact environment, and has established operational relevancy over many years be-
hind the scenes. It is time for the decision makers to acknowledge that fact, and a de-
finitive push should be made to ensure that the operational capabilities of the ARG and
the Naval Force as a whole to ensure our strategic relevance for many years to come.
———-
Footnote:
[1] The Three Block War concept has been described that way by Former Commandant
of the Marines Corps (1995-1999), General Charles C. Krulak, to illustrate the post Cold
War battelfield: he argued that in the distance of three city blocks one could be faced
with full military combat, peacekeeping or humanitarian missions, hence testing the abil-
ity of a good leader to adapt to a dynamic situation (see for instance:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/strategic_corporal.htm).
THE LIBYAN CRISIS: BEYOND “BOSNIA ’96ʺ″

How the New Amphibious Ready Group Expands the President’s Op-
tions
By Robbin Laird
03/05/2011 - The Libyan crisis is occurring in a period of challenges to the USAF and
USN’s ability to deliver capabilities useful to the President. Part of the problem is the
significant commitment of dwindling assets for use in the region. Even though there are
elements of this crisis which look like 1996, President Obama has not nearly the assets
President Clinton had. Part of the problem is the relatively inflexible quality of those as-
sets. The USAF can line up its AWACS and air fleet to do “Bosnia 1996″, but given the
constrained geography of the Middle East, this is a major operation. The USN can move
a carrier battle group to engage Libya and support a no fly zone. And then there is the
desire to move US and allied airlift into the area to support humanitarian missions, al-
though that requires securing an airfield to execute the mission, something only Special
Forces or the USMC can do, either by seabasing or air drop. But this requires air de-
fense assets as well.
23
Credit: F-35B in Flight, LMC
None of these are great options and each will be executed with a deliberate Presidential
decision, which will indicate to the Libyan leadership a virtual act of war.
Fast forward to the newly configured USMC Amphibious Ready Group (ARG).
• The new ARG built around the LPD 17 has a larger deck to operate from,
with modern C2 capabilities.
• The F-35B can be launched as the picket fence operating on the border of
Libya able to do electronic warfare, C4ISR and preparation for kinetic or
non-kinetic strike.
• The CH-53K can take off from the amphibious ships and carry three times
the cargo of a CH-53E, to include 463L pallets (normally used in KC-130s).
• The USMC Ospreys can support insertion operations with speed and range.
The force can of course secure an airfield for humanitarian airlift; the picket fence of the
F-35s replace the AWACs and can guide coalition airpower into Libyan airspace to sup-
port agreed upon missions. The USAF does not need to move a large air operation into
place to send combat air; the USN does not need to move a large aircraft carrier battle
group into place to prepare to strike Libya.
What the newly equipped ARG does is provide a significant shaping function for the
President. And this shaping function allows significant flexibility and, is in fact, a redefi-
nition of the dichotomy between hard and soft power.
The USN-USMC amphibious team can provide for a wide-range of options for the
President simply by being offshore, with 5th generation aircraft capability on board which
provides 360 situational awareness, deep visibility over the air and ground space, and
carrying significant capability on board to empower a full spectrum force as needed.
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And if you add the LCS to the USN-USMC amphibious team you have even more capa-
bility and more options. As a senior USMC MEU commander has put it:
You’re sitting off the coast, pick your country, doesn’t matter, you’re told okay, we’ve got
to do some shaping operations, we want to take and put some assets into shore, their
going to do some shaping work over here. LCS comes in, very low profile platform.
Operating off the shore, inserts these guys in small boats that night. They infill, they go
in, their doing their mission.The LCS now sets up — it’s a gun platform. It’s a resupply,
refuel point for my Hueys and Cobras.
Now, these guys get in here, okay. High value targets been picked out, there is an F-35
that’s doing some other operations. These guys only came with him and said hey, we
have got a high value target, but if we take him out, we will compromise our
position. The F-35 goes roger, got it painted, got it seen. This is what you’re seeing, this
is what I’m seeing. Okay. Kill the target. The guys on the ground never even know
what hit them.
In short, simply by completing the procurement of what the USN and USMC are in the
course of doing in a very short period, the nation gains significant flexibility to deal with
ambiguous strategic situations. US Army Special Forces or USAF special operations
Ospreys can be deployed on the decks of the amphib force ready to do insertion
operations. UAVs can be launched off of the decks of the amphib force as well.
ECHOES FROM HISTORY

No Accident: The Newly Configured USMC Amphibious Ready Group
2016
By Ed Timperlake
03/05/2011 - “In short, simply by completing the procurement of what the USN and
USMC are in the course of doing in a very short period, (F-35B, MV-22, CH-53K, LCS
and LPD-17) the nation gains significant flexibility to deal with ambiguous strategic
situations.”
“Gone to fight the Indians, be back when the war is over.” (Commandant of the
Marines (1820-1859) Archibald Henderson)
In 1829 President Andrew “Andy” Jackson tried to incorporate the Marines into the
Army. That Presidential action triggered Congress, the voice of the people to say no. In
1834 Congress passed “Act for the Better Organization of the Marine Corps.” This act of
Congress kept the Marines as part of the Navy and focused on ensuring the Marine’s
unique role on being ready warriors across global oceans. Commandant Henderson’s
quote also captures the focus on the ethos of the Corps, which is to go to the fight. Now
yet again the mission of the Marines has been challenged. However, there is no need to
25
give credibility to the current shallow and ignorant debate because the Marines have
already won that battle.
Credit: USS Kearsarge LHD Involved in Preparation for Current Libyan Operations
www.kearsarge.navy.mil
Combat tested Marine Officers mostly at the LtCol (05) and Colonel rank (0-6) are taken
from their combat commands of Infantry Battalions, Aviation Squadrons and Marine Ex-
peditionary Units to sit in cubicles and both help those in combat and also plan for the
future of the Corps. Quietly away from the action these officers some of whom will return
to combat often as General Officers will all give their professionally best shot in looking
into future war requirements and make the very hard resource decisions. That system
has worked. New amphibious ships– the LPD-17 USS San Antonio is soon to join the
fleet –the MV-22 is a war tipping aviation asset already serving in combat and is ready
now. The F-35B will make the Amphib air component more modern than any large angle
deck carrier with the F/A-18 and the CH-53K will enhance lift over the beach.
The Battle for the operational future of the Marine Corps has been won. Technologies
have been identified that will continue to make the Marine Corps amphibious mission
and combat reach the best in the world. The battle for enough resources is about to be-
gin. Just when civilian “cubical commandos” started full cry in their pontifications about
26
their not being a need for Marine amphibious capability— a distant verse in today’s
headline echoes from history “to the shores of Tripoli.”
Currently, American’s are watching a series of unique events around the Globe espe-
cially in the Mediterranean (a Latin translation can mean middle of the earth), all of the
Middle East including Iran and also Asia especially the Peoples Republic of China is
erupting. The human struggle evident and being paid in blood is the never-ending quest
by individuals simply wanting the basic right of not being oppressed and exploited. How
the events cascading from Tunisia, to Egypt to Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Iran and
China will eventually play out is totally unknown. However, what is known is a Navy/
Marine amphibious force is ready with a force combat tested.
Not since the early nineteenth century wars on the frontier taught a generation of West
Point Officers maneuver warfare going into the Civil War has a battle hardened US mili-
tary force forged in Iraq and Afghanistan been more ready for all contingencies. Those
officers in cubicles at HQMC have done their job well. The current MEU off Libya has
the most essential element aboard– the Marine Military Occupation Specialty 0311 “Ri-
fleman” some of whom have lived through a decade of combat. With the basic 0311
ready to engage for the next decade, the technology coming will revolutionize that force.
It is often said in times of trouble leading up to a major conflict the question is asked,
“where are the Aircraft Carriers.” However, an additional question should always now be
asked, “where are the B-2s, F-22s and tankers”—the fact that the USAF has those as-
sets in limited supply is a national defense preparedness scandal.But my history lesson
is only focusing on “The Libyan Crisis: How the New Amphibious Ready Group Ex-
pands the President’s Options.” The current Navy/Marine team – leaving Crete to go up
close to the Libyan coast ready to execute what ever is directed by the National Com-
mand authority — will only get better in the future. The entire effort by those Marine war-
riors in cubicles at HQ MC to identify and develop the best war fighting technologies is
beginning to pay off and will “re-norm” the entire amphibious warfare capability of the
U.S.
The current options for U.S. action as the events in Libya are highlighting are complex
and resource heavy and have all kind of consequences. However, the future force al-
ready identified and briefed and in testing by Marine officers will “re-norm” the entire
employment of ready amphibious force assets. Soon, if supported by Congress to en-
sure an ability to have an appropriately sized contingency, forces can be afloat in any
crisis situation. This emerging range of options by the US National Command authority
will be invaluable. It is up to Congress just like they have since the founding of America
to give the Marines what they need-and always know however events develop around
the globe the Marine/Navy team will not let America down.
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THE LPD 17 ENHANCES THE USN-USMC CAPA-
BILITIES
THE LPD 24 AND THE FUTURE
An Interview with Commander Darren W. Nelson
Commander Nelson at the Christening of the USS Arlington (Credit: SLD)
04/19 /2011 – At the christening of the LPD-24, the USS Arlington, the SLD team had a
chance to talk about the new ship and its impact on the ARG. prospective commander
of LPD-24, Commander Darren W. Nelson.
SLD: Let’s just talk to this whole evolution of the ARG and the ship. What excites you
about it?
Commander Nelson: Well, some of the things that excite me on this ship is just the
way she looks. It’s a very sweet design. It reduces a radar cross-section. We took the
concept off of the DDG, and applied it here. So that provides more protection for us; it’s
harder for us to be seen by the bad guys, which makes it very nice.
We have enhanced cargo space. On previous amphibious ships USMC space was
limited. On this ship they have more space for men and equipment. The Marines do
not want to be told “you can’t bring that howitzer or the HUMVEE. There is not room
enough.”
SLD: When we interviewed the 15th MEU Commander, “Ozzie” Osborn, he made the
point “I had to leave a lot of stuff home, because I can’t take it on the ship”.
28
Commander Nelson: With the LPD 17, we have a dramatic increase in our capabilities
to carry more cargo, more vehicle space, and our flight deck is huge. We’re able to
launch and recover two MV-22 Ospreys at the same time. Of course, the Osprey’s a
whole different animal, with significant capabilities to expand what we can do.
The size of the footprint for the flight deck is significant. And, of course, we can handle
the CH-53Es or Ks. We can land four CH-46s at one time.
Also, the LPD 17 represents a significant increase in the C2 capability available to the
ARG. I have the communications capabilities of an LHD with this ship.
SLD: In many ways, this ship is not in any way a linear replacement for earlier amphibi-
ous ships.
Commander Nelson: You are right. It is truly the next generation. Even if you look at
the amount of Marines we can carry aboard this ship it is a qualitative shift. I was an
Executive Officer on an LSD, we carried 350 Marines; we had 300 sailors.
And we were packed. This ship is set up for 700 Marines, and it has a surge berthing of
up to 800 That’s on top of the 365-person crew.
In effect, you are giving the new commander much more mission flexibility. You are giv-
ing him the capability to “say yeah, we need to take a few extra mission guys, or some-
thing like that, and we will be able to put them aboard our ship.
SLD: How will you work with the new Littoral Combat Ship?
Commander Nelson: We can easily work with the LCS, especially with her different
mission capabilities. And if she needs to change out mission capabilities, we have the
cargo space to fulfill her mission.
BUILDING THE LPD-17

04/27/2011 – In late March 2011, prior to the christening of the LPD-24 at the Ingalls
Shipyards in Pascagoula, Mississippi, Second Line of Defense interviewed the LPD 17
program manager, Doug Lounsberry. Lounsberry provided an overview to the chal-
lenges of building this class of ship and the advantages, which the ship brings to the
USN-USMC team.
SLD: Could you give us some background on the LPD 17 and the Ingalls Shipbuilding?
Lounsberry: It’s the first LPD that we built; we built other big deck Amphibs, the LHAs,
the LHDs, but we never built an LPD class before. We actually didn’t win the contract;
Avondale with Bath Iron Works won the contract. And then, in the Northrop Grumman
consolidation, the intent at the time was Avondale was going to continue on with the
LPDs, we were going to continue on over here with our platforms.
29
At the time Avondale was also finishing the Sea Lift contract and Polar tanker contracts
so the decision was made based on facilities and resource availability to build some of
the LPDs at Avondale and some in Pascagoula. Another driving decision was the com-
plexity of the ship. Because of the highly automated systems on the ship, we felt we
could utilize some of the Electronics expertise we had developed over the years on our
surface combatant programs to help sort out some of the issues in this new class of
ship we were seeing. As a result, LPD’s are being constructed at two sites. As you
know, now we’re going through another big roll down in the shipbuilding industry. It ap-
pears that we will wind down our ship construction activities at Avondale by 2013, so we
will then be building all the LPDs in Pascagoula. We have two in construction in Avon-
dale right now, LPD 23 and 25. We just launched 23. 25 was just moved to position
two; we’ll finish construction there and launch her in about 12 months or so, then about
a year after that she will deliver in Avondale.
Lounsberry During the SLD Interview, March 2011
Photo Credit: SLD
SLD: What is the current planning for the number of ships for the LPDs?
Lounsberry: The original class was planned to be at least 12 ships. Right now we
have been awarded 10 LPD’s, with LPD-26 just recently awarded to us to build.
SLD: How long does it take to go from keel to launch on a ship like this?
Lounsberry: It’s about four years right now.
SLD: And the supply chain for the ship is national? It’s international?
Lounsberry: Actually, there are some international aspects to it. As the Navy has sized
down to significantly fewer ships from the 600-ship fleet pursued during the Reagan
era, the industrial base has shrunk along with it. Also, a lot of our suppliers, like Caterpil-
30
lar have gone overseas to find more business, Caterpillar particularly is doing a lot of
business over in China. So now, where the American shipbuilder used to be one of the
prime customers for some of these big manufacturers, now, with fewer orders, we have
to get in the manufacturing line like everyone else, and wait our turn.
We’re seeing things now that we never saw before. For instance, on the diesel engines,
we have always had a pretty long lead-time on the diesel engines, but you could get a
typical long lead contract and get your engines in ahead of construction of the
ship. Now, we’ve had to restructure some of that a little bit, and the Navy’s had to be-
come a little bit more flexible. When we went to buy the engines on LPD-25, and again
on 26, we had to have advanced long lead-time material to give our engine suppliers,
because they had to buy their bearings and rods from suppliers that are also serving
some markets overseas, which meant longer lead time for parts for our engine suppliers
and consequently longer time for the engines. So, it stretched out the length of some of
these big procurements a little bit longer. And I perhaps that’s the way business is go-
ing to be, as long as the procurement volumes are significantly reduced.
SLD: As DOD significantly reduces the platforms it buys; it is going to be a less signifi-
cant buyer shaping supply chain realities.
Lounsberry: It’s very interesting if you go back and look, even 15 years ago. When we
were building a lot more ships, the availability for suppliers for components, the base
was a lot bigger, that meant a lot more competition and a lot more innovation in my
opinion. In some areas, we’re down to one or two vendors now. This limits our ability to
go do some things with our suppliers to get the prices down, and again, I think stifles
innovation.
When we were building a lot of ships, the suppliers had to build a lot of their compo-
nents to military standards. As that customer’s orders decreased, they were servicing
more commercial contracts; their production lines were set up for more commercial
grade products. Doing a one off mill spec item becomes a lot more expensive; and
they’re not as interested.
SLD: Have you had any single points of failure where somebody goes away right in the
middle of a construction effort?
Lounsberry: Yes. When a vendor will or cannot continue to supply a product or service
we have to work with another vendor to supply or take over another vendor’s business,
which puts additional stresses on some of the schedules for major ship components.
SLD: And that slowed everything down?
Lounsberry: Yes, and that drove quite a bit of “work arounds” to do things out of se-
quence which is more expensive for us and more time consuming in delivering com-
pleted ships.
31
SLD: So your folks, your workers, your engineers were going into the supply chain, in
this case, and trying to shape the products that you wanted to accept.
Lounsberry: More importantly we were helping them get some of these production
lines stabilized again by reviewing component schedules and working with them to in-
crementally accept pieces of equipment a little at a time to minimize overall impacts.
SLD: Let us focus on the ship itself.
Lounsberry: As I said earlier, this was the first LPD class that I had been involved with
at this shipyard. We built LHDs, LHAs, and at the other end of the spectrum, Destroyers
and Cruisers. It’s a well deck ship, kind of like the LHDs were, but it has different capa-
bilities, the ship’s a lot faster and stealthier. When you look at some of the previous LSD
class ships that the Navy has procured, it has a lot more warfare capability as far as
command and control is concerned. I was very impressed with the first ship when I went
on sea trials. I spent most of my time on Destroyers and Cruisers. So I was expecting a
very slow dull ride on sea trials. When we got LPD-17 up to speed, and did the turns, I
was on the bridge, and I tell you what, you could’ve been on a cruise ship. That’s how
smooth that ship ran. And speed was not an issue for this ship. I was very pleasantly
surprised.
SLD: Why? Does it have new features or a new hull design?
Lounsberry: You can look at the ship and see that it has the RCS design on the outer
hull.
The USS San Antonio Transiting the Suez Canal
Credit: US Naval Forces, 5th Fleet Public Affairs, 9/23/08
SLD: What’s an RCS?
32
Lounsberry: The reduced radar cross-section, which is a design, that helps keep it less
detectable by radars.
SLD: Trying to make it less of a target.
Lounsberry: It’s harder to pick up on radar. And I’m not a naval architect, but I can tell
you that the time they spent on the hull form to make it a stable platform was well worth
the time. And the ballast capability of it really impressed me too, how quickly we could
ballast down and ballast back up.
SLD: What’s the tonnage of this ship?
Lounsberry: Roughly twenty-eight thousand tons.
SLD: The yard has built destroyers and there seems to be synergy between some of
your destroyer work and the LPD-17.
Lounsberry: It has a lot of the same capabilities that our Destroyer does, as far as
command and control goes. Its capabilities could be useful as a Navy command and
control ship. As far as the rest of the command and control systems, the ship has very
good modern state-of-the-art surveillance, navigation, and communication.
SLD: Well, let’s just focus on that for a moment, because the older ships, it was always
kind of an add-on. But here, you’ve built into the structure of the ship, the modern
command and control capability. Is that true in terms of the architecture itself?
Lounsberry: Yes. It’s part of the base ship itself. It’s not your grandfather’s Amphibious
Ship. It could be considered, in my view, as a candidate for the lead ship of an ARG,
because it has significant command and control capability.
Lounsberry: The flexibility for carrying, retaining, launching, recovering aircraft, just like
you said, Ospreys, the big Hueys, the smaller helos. As far as the Marine Corps
equipment goes, the ability to carry two LCACs (Landing Craft Air Cushion class) and all
their landing equipment.
SLD: Could you service LCSs off this thing or other ships?
Lounsberry: Absolutely. It has significant fuel capability onboard. One of the concepts
is the clustering of ships that can usually support each other on the logistical side also.
SLD: Let us go back to the question of the challenge of manufacturing this ship.
Lounsberry: Initially, the design was not mature, and we started construction without a
final design, and as design changes were made, it would slow down construction to ac-
commodate the changes. As I said this is a very complex warship with a lot of inter-
faces. We had to finish the design on the ship while we were trying to build the first two,
with a third already starting construction. Because of the complexity of the ship, particu-
larly on the electronics side, the decision was made to pull the first ship over to Pasca-
33
goula once it was seaworthy, because we had the DDG class electronic experts here
from our DDG class ship. We believe we know how to do that part of the combat system
electronic integration as well or better than anyone in the country.
SLD: When you inherited the ship, you had the opportunity basically to link to your de-
stroyer experience on combat systems integration.
Lounsberry: Right.
SLD: You also had an opportunity to say okay, the program really needs to be recast,
you need to simplify the ship, and you need to mature the design. But maturing the de-
sign, it obviously must mean in part making some decisions that some things are just
too complex for this ship, from a necessity perspective, to deliver the capability the USN
wanted.
Lounsberry: Sure, a good example was eliminating signals that notified the command
center that someone had activated an eyewash, not really a necessary feature and it
complicates control systems by adding unnecessary signals. And also, a product like
this takes a relatively long time to go through the manufacturing process. It’s critical to
hit that sweet spot where the overlay from one ship to the next, so you can roll those
crews from ship to ship at the appropriate phases of construction and maximize
learning. The added dimensions of increased technology meant more integration and a
different approach to the construction process and how we moved those crews.
SLD: I have a sense that the drive to reduce manpower by technology also has created
problems.
Lounsberry: We were talking earlier about how complex it was. I believe early in the
design with a tremendous focus on overall life cycle costs, there were decisions made
to automate everything possible in order to reduce crew size. I think they may have
gone a little overboard in that area as was demonstrated by the eye wash alarms. Just
because technologically you can engineer something and build, doesn’t necessarily
mean you should. But that’s the level of complexity driven into this design. And we
started weeding some of that out as we descoped, while not eliminating essential im-
provements in mission capability.
SLD: The LPD-17 seems a kind of mini-Destroyer.
Lounsberry: I like to think of it as a Destroyer with larger muscles.
SLD: Could you describe the advantages accrued from the learning curve in building
this ship. We seem to have an approach that highlights getting the building process to
the sweet spot and then stop buying the platform.
Lounsberry: One measure of the learning curve can be seen in this way. We have de-
livered five of these ships; we have four in construction right now. Between the first ship
LPD 17 end cost and the LPD-25 right now, we’ve taken 2.5 million man-hours out of
34
the construction; we only have potentially one, maybe two more of the class to build
unless something changes.
SLD: Folks also seem to forget the challenge of dealing with hurricanes and the impact
on your work force and the construction challenges that has posed.
Lounsberry: Because of the hurricanes, our workforce that remained with us was
stressed and we also lost a lot of our workforce both here and at Avondale. We ended
up having to outsource units to subcontractors to do the steelwork on 22 and 23. And
that was not a very efficient way to do it, until we could build our workforce back up.
We’re back up to speed now; our workforce has the experience with these ships now to
really crank them out. If we could build more of these, there’s no telling where the price
on this could go. We are now on a very good learning curve, which has allowed us to
get the cost of these ships down. Material costs are the material costs, the overhead
costs, you can control somewhat, but vessel labor is where we can really make the big-
gest difference.
SLD: And the size and flexibility of these ships argues for building more. It is also a
platform, which can evolve with transformation of robotic technology. You could carry
tons of robotic vehicles on these ships and deploy them. The autonomous mine vehi-
cle, which we discussed earlier.
Lounsberry: There are tremendous possibilities with this platform based on its
designed-in flexibility and capability.
SLD: And what about the logs and sustainment approach of the ship?
Lounsberry: There’s a lot going on in those particular areas on this class of ship right
now, the first of these ships is out in the fleet now. They have some new components
that had never been deployed before and as they use some of those certain reliability
problems have arisen. Typically on the first of a class of ship, you’ll build the ship com-
pletely, you’ll test it, you’ll send it out there, run it through its motions, get feedback and
then use lesson learned to flow, back into the design. Because of the nature of this par-
ticular contract, there were limited opportunities to get detailed feedback early to apply
to the follow ships. So, it was four or five ships down the line, before they shook out the
maintenance issues. We are working closely with our Navy customers to get these is-
sues ironed out and drive those improvements into the ships now under construction.
We have a tremendous focus on first time quality at the shipyard and we are seeing the
benefits of that also.
Right now, there’s a lot of work going on, our lead engineer right now used to be the
Program Manager on this program, and is working directly with the Navy. They’ve de-
veloped a very robust reliability model. They’re putting in all of the components down
through the piece part level for the propulsion system where they’ve had some
issues.The Navy and the shipbuilder are spending a lot of time on reliability,
sustainability. The Navy is finally getting up to speed on looking at failure data and
stocking up their supply system. So that’s starting to really get momentum now.
35
SLD: What about the future opportunities for this ship?
Lounsberry: As I said earlier, we seem to only have one more of these potentially in
the queue, LPD-27. Unfortunately, we’re getting into that sweet spot now with these
ships where we’ve ironed out a lot of the issues. We’re on a good learning curve. If we
could keep going on these things, there’s no telling where we could take these ships
relative to reductions in vessel labor, and overall improvements in operational excel-
lence.
36

Special Report On The Amphibious Ready Group

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S E C O N D L I N E O F D E F E N S E

Delivering Capabilities to the War Fighter

THE KEY ROLE OF THE AMPHIBIOUS READY GROUP IN POWER PROJECTION

THE FUTURE OF POWER PROJECTION

GAMECHANGER : THE EVOLVING AMPHIBIOUS READY GROUP! 2

THE FLEXIBILITY OF THE ARG! 8

THE ARG: A CORE NATIONAL CAPABILITY! 10

THE ARG AT THE VORTEX OF CHANGE! 20

THE LIBYAN CRISIS: BEYOND “BOSNIA ’96ʺ″! 23

ECHOES FROM HISTORY! 25

THE LPD 24 AND THE FUTURE! 28

BUILDING THE LPD-17! 29

GAMECHANGER : THE EVOLVING AMPHIBIOUS

Credit: 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit Public Affairs, 9/26/10

Colonel Osborn explained these concurrent activities as follows:

SLD: Off of?

THE ARG: A CORE NATIONAL CAPABILITY

Credit: USN Visual News Service, March 20, 2011

SLD: That’s a lot of time.

SLD: That’s very Marine, Colonel.

SLD: It’s basically a flying telescope.

Credit: USN Visual Service, March 16, 2011

SLD: Where should the D on that be, Colonel?

SLD: How then would you use the AWACS?

SLD: So you took a typical MEU with old equipment.

Credit: USN Visual Service, March 16, 2011

Colonel Osborn: I wanted to use the sensors on my Harriers, my Hueys, and my

We haven’t bought the amphibious and aviation communications needed to do this.

Credit: Lockheed Martin

THE ARG AT THE VORTEX OF CHANGE

Credit : The USS Peleliu, www.public.navy.mil

Lessons Learned From Operation El Dorado Canyon

“From Friend To Foe In A Matter Of Minutes”

THE LIBYAN CRISIS: BEYOND “BOSNIA ’96ʺ″

ECHOES FROM HISTORY

Commander Nelson at the Christening of the USS Arlington (Credit: SLD)

BUILDING THE LPD-17

Lounsberry During the SLD Interview, March 2011

Photo Credit: SLD

Lounsberry: It’s about four years right now.

SLD: And that slowed everything down?

SLD: Let us focus on the ship itself.

SLD: Why? Does it have new features or a new hull design?

The USS San Antonio Transiting the Suez Canal

Credit: US Naval Forces, 5th Fleet Public Affairs, 9/23/08

SLD: What’s an RCS?

SLD: Trying to make it less of a target.

SLD: What’s the tonnage of this ship?

Lounsberry: Roughly twenty-eight thousand tons.

SLD: The LPD-17 seems a kind of mini-Destroyer.

Lounsberry: I like to think of it as a Destroyer with larger muscles.

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