Page 11 - F-35 and Transformation

The F-35 and The Transformation of the Power Projection Forces

The flexibility of the MEB CE also allows the unit to deploy and employ scalable force packages of as little as a
few thousand personnel for crisis response and up to 15,000 for its most deadly mission – small-scale
conventional warfare.

This is important for warfighting and operating throughout the ROMO the MC engages in.

http://www.sldinfo.com/2d-marine-expeditionary-brigade-shaping-the-scalable-modular-forces-for-21st-
century-operations/

The leadership of the Australian Navy has highlighted as well the importance of flexible task forces in
reshaping combat power.

The foci of both Vice Admiral Barrett, Chief of Navy, and Rear Admiral Mayer, Commander Australian Fleet,
at the recent Air-Sea integration conference held by the Williams Foundation is upon re-energizing the task
force concept, but in terms of modular force packages which include, Army, Navy and Air Force capabilities
configured to achieve the mission with appropriate tool sets.

It is a Swiss army knife concept of operations.

http://www.sldinfo.com/vice-admiral-barrett-on-the-way-ahead-of-the-australian-navy-design-the-force-for-
decisive-and-distributed-lethality/

http://www.sldinfo.com/the-network-as-a-weapon-system-the-perspective-of-rear-admiral-mayer-
commander-australian-fleet/

Fifth, sustainability has to be built into the force.

Military leaders are looking for the new systems to significantly more maintainable in order to provide for
higher reliability and dispatch rates.

This is about designing into systems ways to ensure that the platforms are more sustainable; and because the
key foundational platforms are often multi-national systems – such as F-35, P-8, Triton, A330MRTT – the
expectation is that they can be globally sustainable.

And this means cross-maintainable with core allies when operating in a common area of interest.

Sixth, the force is expected to be able to contribute and to operate in a secure manner within a distributed
battlespace and commanded by a distributed C2 package.

C2 is become an essential element for force structure transformation, rather than focusing excessively on the
ISR, or collection of information to inform decisions.

The shift from the kinds of land wars fought in the past decade and a half to operating across the range of
military operations to insert force and to prevail in a more rapid tempo conflict than that which characterized
counter-insurgency operations carries with it a need to have a very different C2 structure and technologies to
support those structures.

The shift to higher tempo operations is being accompanied by platforms which are capable of operating in an
extended battlespace and at the edge of the battlespace where hierarchical, detailed control simply does
not correlate with the realities of either combat requirements or of technology which is part of a shift to
distributed operations.

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