Page 51 - Maritime Services and the Kill Web

The Maritime Services, the Allies and Shaping the Kill Web

The Osprey has obviously been a game changer, where today, the basic three ship formation used by the
Amphibious Ready Group-Marine Expeditionary Unit can “disaggregate” and operate over a three-ship
distributed 1,000-mile operational area. Having the communications and ISR to operate over a greater area,
and to have sustainment for a disaggregated fleet is a major challenge facing the future of the USN-USMC
team.

FIGURE 8 F-35BS ONBOARD USS AMERICA. CREDIT PHOTO: TODD MILLER

With the coming of the F-35B to the USS America, the tiltrotar-enabled force adds significant capability. This
can work a couple of different ways.

The ship can hold more than 20 F-35Bs, but more likely when F-35Bs are being featured would have a 16 F-
35B flying with 4 Osprey combinations. The Ospreys would be used to carry fuel and or weapons, so that the
F-35B can move to the mission and operate in a distributed base. This is what the Marines refer to as shaping
distributed STOVL ops for the F-35B within which a sea base is a key lily pad from which the plane could
operate or could move from.

Alternatively, the F-35B could operate as the ISR, C2 and strike asset to work with the rest of the assault
force. The beauty of the F-35B for the Marines is that it allows them to operate off of an amphibious ship with
a plane which can do C2 or provide forward leaning ISR.

In other words, the F-35 working with an Osprey-enabled insertion force operating off of the USS America
could well re-define the meaning of Close Air Support (CAS).

In short, the U.S. has insertion forces able to engage and withdraw, rather than setting up long-term facilities
and providing advisers as targets.

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The 15 MEU Readies for Deployment with the USS America ARG
2017-03-17 By Todd Miller

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