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USMC explores F-35B operating concepts

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The USMC's aircraft procurement plan for fiscal year 2010 revealed that the Corps plans to station 16 F-35B aircraft at Iwakuni beginning in the fall of 2015 to replace the AV-8 and F/A-18 aircraft currently stationed at the base.

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Spec Ops may need to be exempt from integrating women, SOCOM official says
By Andrew Tilghman
Staff writer Army times
Special Operations Command may require special exemptions from the Pentagon’s plan to open all military jobs to women by 2016, a top SOCOM general said Tuesday.

“We have some genuine concerns that must be addressed,” said Army Maj. Gen. Bennet Sacolick at a press briefing Tuesday.

“Our mission is different so our standards are different,” said Sacolick, the director of force management and development for U.S. SOCOM.

Sackolic said the “social, cultural, behavioral” aspects of integration pose bigger concerns than the gender-neutral physical standards that women will have to meet.

“We don’t deploy in large formations. I mean, we send a 12-man or 18-man or even smaller [unit] into very austere or remote environments by themselves. In many respects they may be the only Americans serving in a particular country. And so I think that complicates, you know, integration.”

“I’m actually more concerned with the men and their reaction to women in their formations, quite frankly,” he said.

Sacolick spoke at the Pentagon alongside top personnel officials from the four military services as they presented detailed timelines for how to implement former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s January order to integrate women into all military jobs by 2016.

By January 2016, keeping any military jobs off limits to women will require specific exemptions to be personally approved by the Defense secretary and chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

Sacolick said SOCOM will continue to study the matter for the next two years before deciding whether to seek an exemption. “We haven’t made any decisions whatsoever” he said. “We are going to spend the next year collecting data.”

SOCOM will have input into the integration of about 16,000 of the military’s most demanding jobs, including Army special forces, Navy SEALs, special operations Marines and Air Force jobs including combat controllers and special operations weather personnel.

“I hear the rank and file. Their concerns are, you know, once again, you’ve got a 12-man [detachment]” in an isolated setting, “what are the implications there? ... There are privacy issues. There are other issues, there [is the] health and welfare of female operators in austere environment. These are all those things we’re concerns about, probably more than the actual [physical] standards,” he said.

SOCOM is conducting an internal study that will be “primarily focused on the social implications of integrating women at the team level” Sacolick said.

Also, SOCOM commissioned the RAND Corporation to conduct a study of the “behavioral and cultural aspects of integrating women into our formations that operate in that remote special-operations environment.”

Sacolick did not rule out a future when a Special Forces detachment includes a lone female.

He noted that some SOCOM units in civil affairs and “cultural support teams” have opened to women in recent years and that he was impressed by those women.

“Quite frankly I was encouraged by the physical performance of some of the young girls who aspire to go into the cultural support teams. They very well may provide the foundation. for ultimate integration” Sacolick said.

He also said he expected the vast majority of special operators to accept the policy adopted by the military leadership.

“Ultimately they volunteered, they serve and I would imagine they would do what they're told, but I need to give them an opportunity to vice their opinion,” he said.

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Marines won't let women in the infantry until at least 2015
By Dan Lamothe
Staff writer Marine corps Times
The Marine Corps won’t allow women to serve in the infantry until at least 2015, according to a new plan outlining how the service will conform to a landmark Pentagon decision allowing female troops into ground combat units.

Each of the services and U.S. Special Operations Command released their versions of the plan on Tuesday, following the military’s historic decision in January to repeal the 1994 Direct Combat Exclusion Rule. The move opened about 237,000 jobs across the services to women, including about 53,721 in the Corps, Marine officials said.

The plans outline how each branch of service will conduct research needed to open more jobs. The services will be allowed to ask for exceptions, thus keeping some jobs closed, but it remains to be seen if and where they will do so.

Military officials told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday that it is not clear how women would be integrated into the infantry, or whether they would be in all units or those designated “co-ed.” The Army and Marine Corps are examining how the militaries in Australia, Canada, Israel and the United Kingdom have done so, said Col. Jon Aytes, head of the military policy branch at Marine Corps Manpower and Reserve Affairs.

“We do want to make sure we do this thing the right way, and we’re going to look at everything, but it’s too premature to say where they would go exactly right now until we get the full breadth and depth of our analysis complete,” Aytes said.

The Corps’ plan includes a schedule for opening various specialties to women in coming years, although the dates are subject to change based on recommendations from the Marine Corps commandant, currently Gen. Jim Amos, and the results of ongoing research. For example, plans call for allowing female Marines to become ground intelligence officers this year, and officials will decide next year whether to allow them to become low altitude air defense officers, amphibious assault vehicle officers and low altitude air defense gunners.

The big moves come in 2015, when the Corps is scheduled to recommend whether or not women should join the infantry. Marine officials are scheduled to notify Congress between April and June of that year, according to the plan outlined Tuesday.

The possibility of women joining the infantry has been greeted by some service members as a move toward equal rights, but derided by others as a politically correct effort that will weaken the military, especially in small units that live in austere conditions with little privacy. Any requests for exceptions that would keep the infantry, reconnaissance and special operations communities closed to women will hinge in part on how implementation proceeds in other units, the plan says.

“If needed, a request for an exception to policy will be made if warranted to keep the remaining units (Infantry, Reconnaissance and elements of Special Forces) closed for the assignment of female Marines,” the document says.

The commandant was traveling and could not be reached for comment, said his spokesman, Lt. Col. Wesley Hayes. In January, Amos said he wants to make sure standards are not lowered as a result of the policy change, adding that he understands many infantrymen are concerned.

“I think from the infantry side of the house, you know they’re more skeptical,” Amos said during a defense conference in San Diego on Jan. 31. “It’s been an all-male organization throughout the history of the U.S. Marine Corps so I don’t think that should be any surprise. I think the rest of it is all what you’d expect.”

In a letter distributed to his general officers the same day the Pentagon announced the policy change, Amos said the plan that he and the other Joint Chiefs developed calls for a three-year research period before the top officers in the Marine Corps and Army must make recommendations to civilian leaders. He stressed that no decisions have been made, including in the infantry, reconnaissance and special operations communities.

“I believe we have created the conditions for [the next commandant] to provide his best analytically informed military advice on this critical matter to the civilian leadership, who have the constitutionally enshrined power of final decision,” Amos wrote. “I don’t know what my successor’s recommendation will be, but the end state is not a foregone conclusion, as some have suggested.”

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PARIS: Raytheon takes aim at Lockheed’s LRASM
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By: DAVE MAJUMDAR PARIS 4 hours ago Source: Flight Global

Raytheon is taking exception to the US Department of Defense's apparent push to adopt the Lockheed Martin Long Range Anti-ship Missile (LRASM) as its next-generation air-launched anti-ship weapon. The LRASM programme is a joint Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)/US Navy Office of Naval Research effort to develop a new air-, surface- and sub-surface-launched anti-ship weapon that can penetrate the powerful air and missile defences found on modern enemy warships.

Speaking at the Paris air show, Harry Schulte, Raytheon's vice-president of air warfare systems at the company's missile systems business, says the firm's internally funded Joint Stand-off Weapons-Extended Range (JSOW-ER) will offer comparable capability for one-third to one-fourth of the price of the LRASM. The latter is based on Lockheed's stealthy AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile-Extended Range (JASSM-ER).

Based on the original JSOW glide-bomb, the JSOW-ER adds a jet engine and fuel tank from Raytheon's Miniature Air Launched Decoy onto the weapon. An initial test version reached a range of 264nm (489km), but Raytheon is going to perform a captive carry test with a more operationally representative version of the weapon this year, Schulte says. If those tests are successful, the company will test the new weapon in free flight during 2014. The new version will have a range of just under 300nm, Schulte says. By comparison, the LRASM is expected to have a range of over 500nm.

While the argument can be made that the JSOW-ER is an alternative to the LRASM for the air-launched part of that weapon's requirements, it does not have the surface or submarine-launch capability that DARPA and USN are looking for in the LRASM. However, Schulte says that the JSOW-ER does not need to be launched from a surface warship or submarine, because Raytheon's Tomahawk can be modified to attack moving surface ships.

While there have been past anti-ship versions of Tomahawk, the weapon does not have a stealth airframe, which many within the Pentagon believe is necessary to successfully engage a modern threat warship. The Department of Defense has been researching long-range anti-ship missiles because current US anti-ship weapons are greatly out-ranged by their Russian, Chinese and Indian counterparts.

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Marines Will Sacrifice Everything But ACV & Readiness To Sequester; Marine Personnel Carrier Dropped: Gen. Amos
By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR. on June 26, 2013 at 5:38 PM
WASHINGTON: Fewer F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, MV-22 Ospreys, AH-1 Cobras, and UH-1 Hueys. No Marine Personnel Carrier. Maybe no Joint Light Tactical Vehicle to replace the Humvee. 8,000 fewer Marines on active duty. The Marine Commandant has put all that on the table as part of his proposal to the Defense Secretary’s Strategic Choices and Management Review. If sequester goes into effect in its full 10-year, $500 billion glory – and all signs so far are it will – then Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos stands ready to sacrifice almost everything except the Amphibious Combat Vehicle and combat readiness.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel hasn’t made his final decisions, Gen. Amos emphasized at a Defense Writers’ Group breakfast this morning. But Amos made clear his preferences. A select and secretive team on Amos’s staff has come up with its own plan to cut the Marine Corps budget by 10 percent – reflecting full sequester – and submitted it to Hagel to be considered as part of the SCMR.

“I don’t want this to happen,” Amos said, but if it has to, “tell me what my budget’s going to be; I’ll build the best Marine Corps that America can afford.”

“I don’t want to get out ahead of my secretary because there’ve been no final decisions made,” Amos said when asked for details, but the butcher’s bill for full sequestration will definitely cost the Marines Corps “infantry battalions… logistics battalions…. fixed-wing squadrons … [some] F-35s… some [AH-1] Cobras and [UH-1] Hueys… some MV-22s.”

Then there is the gear the Marines may never get at all. That includes the Marine Personnel Carrier, a wheeled, armored transport meant to complement more costly tracked vehicles. Just weeks ago contractors were boasting about successful trials of MPC contenders. But “MPC is off the table now,” Amos sighed. “It’s not a function of it wasn’t a good idea and there wasn’t a need” – it was and there is – “but you can’t have everything…. We’ll keep the concept, probably, alive but we’re not heading towards MPC right now.”

Then Amos raised a big question mark over a big program, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle, an armored truck meant to combine the protection of the MRAPs built for Afghanistan and Iraq with the offroad mobility of the original Humvee. The Army is buying more than 90 percent of the new vehicles, but the Marines were slated to buy the first 5,500 JLTVs off the production line. Even that figure required the Corps to keep (and modernize) half its existing Humvees. Now it may buy no JLTVs at all.

“JLTV is moving along,” said Amos, “[but] under sequestration I’d say it’s certainly on the block for consideration.” As with the Marine Personnel Carrier, “I need them, I like ‘em, but [if] I pay my full sequester bill of 10 percent, it’s going to be questionable whether I can afford JLTV,” he said. “I like what I see but I’m not going to die in a ditch over it.”

What Amos will die in a ditch over, however, is a new amphibious armored transport to carry Marines from their assault ships to shore and then, switching to tank-like tracks, inland. That capability is so critical to the Marines’ core competency as a seaborne force that Amos said he will cancel JLTV and live with refurbished Humvees “before I mortgage the Amphibious Combat Vehicle.”

“That program is alive,” Amos said of the ACV. “I have kept the money – it’s a modest amount of money” in the near-term, all for R&D.

“I’m only going to get one bite at this apple; I don’t want to mess this up,” Amos said. That’s because in 2011 Defense Secretary Robert Gates canceled the previous attempt at an amphibious transport, the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. The EFV’s cost and complexity had gotten out of control, because the Marines’ requirements for rapid movement ship-to-shore required the 40-ton armored vehicle to “plane” across the surface of the water like a speedboat. By contrast, the current LVTP-7 Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAV) is a “displacement” vehicle that keeps its hull in the water like a conventional watercraft. But, said Amos, “you can only push the steel brick through the water so fast unless you get it up on plane.”

Nor has Amos given up on high speed, not yet. (He didn’t detail why, but Marines are deeply worried that, as anti-ship cruise missiles proliferate in so-called “anti-acess/area denial” defenses, future enemies will be able to keep the Navy so far off shore that existing amphibians couldn’t make it to the beach in time).

The Marines have already completed one formal analysis of alternatives (AOA), but Amos has told the two prime contractors, “one more time, give me your concept on a high-water-speed vehicle,” he said. “They’re going to tell me in the fall, and then shortly after the New Year begins in 2014, we’ll put out an RFP, request for proposal” – either for a slower “displacement” vehicle or a faster “planing” one, depending on what the budget can bear.

“I’m not naïve, cost is important to me,” Amos emphasized. “I need a good solid Ford F-150, I don’t need a Cadillac Escalade.”

Amos was reluctant to give precise figures for any of these economies – and in many cases they’re still being thrashed out, such as the price difference between the two types of ACV.

The one hard number the commandant would give was 8,000: That’s the number of active-duty Marines he’ll have to give up under sequestration. The Marine Corps was already coming down from a wartime high of 202,000 to 182,000 under pre-sequestraiton budget plans; the sequester would take it down to 174,000. (That’s all active-duty troops: The Marine Reserve didn’t grow for the war and it’s not being cut now, Amos said).

But the Marines who remain, Amos pledged, will be fully equipped, trained, and ready to go. Historically, Marine units averaged “about 80 percent [of authorized] equipment, 80 percent manning, probably abouty 60 percent readiness,” he said. “The truth of the matter is we weren’t already ready to go.”

That’s no longer acceptable, Amos said. Sequestration has taken a deep bite out of readiness in 2013 simply because “operations and maintenance” funds were the easiest to cut in a hurry, but going forward, Amos said, units will have 97 percent of their authorized personnel, 100 percent of their authorized equipment, and 100 percent of their O&M training money. Said Amos, “I may have fewer units, but by golly they’re going to be ready.”

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kwaigonegin said:

First you have 10,000 MRAPs sent to the scrap yeard, now the US taxpayer is buying dozens of MI-17s for Afghan group that doesn't really have pilots or crew for..

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Jeff Head said:

Just more and more evidencence that this administration and its appointees basically do whatever the hell they want when it comes to the budget and sequestor.

They cut Marine personnel, the cut hot food to front line soldiers, they destroy vehicles...and yet they spend money like this (700+ million) on helicopters that there are no crews for...and then do not even buy helos from US Manufactures.

The President spends another $300 million on a vacation trip with his family to Africa (with a few press conferences thrown in), but ocntinues to cut critical military systems.

It's shameful and embarassing, and just more politics being played with the armed forces of the nation. Sad.

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