Navy Eyes New Kinds of ‘Connectors’ Between Sea Bases, Forces Ashore

By GEORGE CAHLINK
Special Correspondent

The lack of “connectors” — aircraft and ships — to ferry troops and supplies from the sea base to tactical units ashore is one of the biggest gaps in the Navy’s sea basing concept. There are not enough connectors, and some that exist lack the capability to lift a standard cargo container from the deck of a sea base ship and move it inland to Marine Corps units with awesome appetites for ordnance, food and equipment.

The lack of sea- and airlift is all the more crucial because a central element of sea basing is that tactical units ashore would rely on relatively modest supply inventories. To foster more mobile and faster forces, much of what tactical units now carry with them would be left on the sea base, making them even more dependent on reliable lines of supply.

Jonathan Kaskin, the Navy’s director of strategic mobility and combat logistics, said the goal now is to deploy a standard force package [two battalions totaling about 2,400 Marines] under the cover of “one period of darkness.” Kaskin said the sea base would probably be located 75 to 100 miles offshore to avoid threats from mines and missiles. Preliminary analyses indicate that far more lift would be necessary to get forces ashore quickly than would be needed to sustain them once they are on land.

Vice Adm. Charles W. Moore Jr., deputy chief of naval operations for fleet readiness and logistics, said finding the right connectors is one of the three top challenges he faces in helping bring the sea base concept alive. “The whole issue of integrating the connectors with the major platforms of the sea base” will be a vital factor in its success, he said. “And this [sea base] has to work logistically. It has to be able to sustain a significant and credible force and this is all about making the connectors work.”

The Defense Science Board’s 2003 report, “Sea Basing,” said that the lack of connectors is one of “the dirty dozen” issues that the Department of Defense must address because of the “fundamental need for rapid, flexible cargo and personnel movement among the ships and from sea to land under most sea conditions.”

The Navy and Marine Corps’s current connectors are their CH-46 and CH-53 cargo helicopters and the Landing Craft, Air Cushion (LCAC) logistics hovercraft. The Marine Corps’ V-22 tiltrotor aircraft will be a major connector, but has yet to be deployed in significant numbers. Though valuable craft, all have significant shortfalls.

The “Sea Basing” report notes, for example, that the LCAC carries about 80 tons yet is difficult to load in sea states 2 or 3, with waves from 11 inches to 39 inches high and gentle to moderate breezes. The Navy goal is to operate a sea base in sea state 4, with waves 4 to 8 feet high and brisk winds.

The V-22 and other helicopters are not limited by range but by lift capability. Kaskin notes that even the CH-53 Sea Stallion, a longtime workhorse of the fleet, cannot lift a 20-ton loaded cargo container, the standard mode of storage and transport for much of the services’ materiel.

For the future, the Navy is assessing a wide range of aircraft ships and boats that could serve as connectors for a sea base. Near-term options range from high-speed catamarans being tested by the military services to Navy fleet oilers, fast combat support ships and the venerable C-130 transport plane.

Marine Col. John Pross, special assistant for sea base integration and sea concepts to the Navy’s director of expeditionary warfare, said high-speed aluminum catamarans, known as High Speed Vessels (HSVs), being tested by the Marine Corps and Navy may prove useful in sea base operations. The III Marine Expeditionary Force based in Japan is leasing a 331-foot long HSV called the Westpac Express that can carry as many as 970 passengers and enough equipment (nearly 500 tons) for a reinforced battalion. The ship ferries troops and gear around the Far East to as many as 18 training exercises annually. Using the commercial catamaran allows more troops to be transported as a single unit and saves money because more expensive cargo aircraft are not needed.

The Navy is leasing Joint Venture, a 321-foot catamaran from Bollinger/Incat of Lockport, La. Fitted with a flight deck and vehicle ramp, the Joint Venture can travel at speeds of nearly 50 knots and has transported troops and supplies for exercises in West Africa. More recently, the ship has served as test bed for a host of future technologies that could be used on the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship.

Another option is to use current versions of the C-130. Various models of the airplane have been deployed by the military for four decades, though it is not considered a naval plane capable of landing on aircraft carriers or future sea base ships. Nonetheless, Moore is “a tremendous fan” of the airplane and its potential application to sea basing. “Why am I a fan of the C-130? Because we have them and we are still buying them,” he said at the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition (SAS) in Washington, D.C., in April.

Moore said the Navy experimented with C-130 carrier operations about 40 years ago, conducting 27 landings and launches from the aircraft carrier USS Forrestal. The tests included, “zero winds and head winds to the maximum weight. It was a tremendous demonstration of significant capability to operate a big aircraft like that off a sea base,” he said. “To the extent that we need a connector in the here-and-now, the C-130 in my view would be significant.”

For the longer term, the Navy and Marine Corps are looking at a variety of aircraft and vessels, some rather exotic. Among the items on the Navy’s list of options is the Walrus, a hybrid airship to be powered by both an engine and lighter-than-air technologies and capable of operating in adverse weather conditions. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) planned a mid-May solicitation to industry on the Walrus, which is to be capable of carrying 500 tons of materiel at high speeds and can be used for long-distance lift and the shorter flights envisioned for sea base operations.

Marine Lt. Gen. Michael A. Hough, deputy commandant for aviation, is a long-time proponent of sea basing and enthusiastic about the potential of a quad tiltrotor aircraft that could lift 48,000 pounds of weapons or equipment. That requirement would lead to a short-takeoff and landing plane, along the lines of the Pentagon’s futuristic V-44 Future Transport Rotorcraft being developed by Bell Helicopter Textron, though it is not yet in the lift class that interests Hough. An aircraft able to lift that weight could transport the Army’s Stryker combat vehicle, perhaps the heaviest piece of equipment that will be deployed by future light, mobile attack forces. The quad tiltrotor also could lift a loaded cargo container.

Precise dollar figures for Navy spending on developing potential connectors are hard to come by because the service has yet to define any requirement. The Navy’s proposed 2005 budget has a “ship concept advanced design” funding line that proposes investing about $195 million in research, development, test and evaluation over the next six years in future ships. A Navy spokesman said some, but not all, of that money will go toward ships that could be used for sealift.

Among new vessels being developed is a new utility landing craft able to move three Abrams tanks from a sea base to shore.

The Defense Science Board cited several critical technical problems for intra-theater lift in its “Sea Basing” report: finding high-speed shallow draft vessels that could load and unload in rough seas; developing technologies (known as interfaces) that would allow the quick transfer of loads from ship to ship; and developing cargo packing that would make optimal use of current cargo aircraft until heavy lifters can be developed. “The tempo of operations will be fast (or very fast), so the movement of personnel and equipment must be fast, easy and very flexible,” the report said.

Pross said the greatest challenge, particularly for ships, would be finding ways to load and unload their troops and equipment. Kaskin said one Navy office is assessing the feasibility of “beachable” craft that could land with troops and equipment ashore. Such a vessel or aircraft would alleviate many of the “interface” problems associated with bringing troops and equipment ashore by traditional ships or dropping them in by aircraft.

A Navy working paper titled “Some Connector Alternatives” contains 47 vessels and aircraft that might be used for logistics tasks ranging from strategic, or long-distance, lift to tactical resupply of tactical units ashore from the sea base.

Moore told several hundred defense industrialists at SAS that, “We’re in a desperate search for innovation and ideas. … We’re looking for ways to make this all happen. There are some things that you haven’t heard or seen anything about and some are really exciting. We’ve seen some neat things.”

Moore, one of the architects of sea basing, said he and other Navy and Marine Corps officials often are asked, “What is it precisely that you are looking for?” Moore said the services are not yet sure, “But we’ll know it when we see it.”

Sea Power Editor in Chief Richard C. Barnard contributed to this report.