Page 48 - F-35B and USMC

The Integration of the F-35B into USMC Operations

THE SEA SERVICES TRANSFORM THEIR REACH, PUNCH AND IMPACT IN THE
EXTENDED BATTLESPACE

By Robbin Laird and Ed Timperlake
12/23/15

There is a growing literature on the challenges to U.S. forces facing more difficult combat conditions as
competitors and adversaries enhance their capabilities.

The anti-access, area denial challenge, in particular, has been a key theme as the sea services face the future;
but the Marines and the U.S. Navy as well as coalition partners are transforming their capabilities to fight
and definitively win combat engagements throughout this A2AD expanded battlespace.

It is clear that the sea services recognize the challenge but are reshaping their forces to meet that challenge.

And they are doing so through training, technology, innovation, new platforms and new concepts of
operations.

With visits to the advanced combat training units of the U.S. power projection services; Marine Air Weapons
and Tactics Squadron (MAWTS-1) MCAS Yuma, USAF Weapons School at Nellis AFB, and Naval Strike and
Air Warfare Center at NAS Fallon, all have all underscored that the services are working together to deliver
combat effects over greater distance and with much greater precision lethality.

Additionally, there is a significant enhanced effort to work with coalition partners, which is a clear part of
extending the reach of U.S. combat forces and for the coalition partners as well.

We had a chance recently to discuss the way ahead with regard to enhancing the capability of the sea
services and their joint and coalition role in fighting in the expanded battlespace with the head of Air
Warfare in the Navy, Rear Admiral Manazir.
The discussion with Manazir was much wider than simply a discussion of how the carrier air wing, and
the new carrier was evolving; it was about how the sea services overall were being transformed by the
ability to work more effectively with joint and coalition forces.

The focus was on the impact of new platform and technologies but in an interactive relationship with the fleet
operating today; transformation is about innovation allowing shaping a new way forward without throwing
away combat proven core capabilities, which are capable of modernization.

In 21st Century training terms, this is being shaped and practiced as the U.S. and its allies are building
Live Virtual Constructive Training (LVCT) facilities, which can allow for training against adversaries over
much greater distances than is possible by simply flying on single service training facilities.

For example, when visiting Richmond Air Base this summer in Australia, we witnessed the Royal Australian Air
Force preparing for and then completing its LVCT with the USAF and the Canadian Air Force by means of
audio and visual links directly from Richmond to Nellis.

This was one of the first in a growing capability to extend the reach of common training and fighting
capabilities via LVCT.

You train as you fight; and you fight as you train.

Second Line of Defense

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