Marine Corps Essay Contest Winner
As the threat to and burden of manned platforms increases, precision-guided cruise missiles may provide the best means for delivering close air support. Truck- mounted launchers would keep the capability in the hands of the Marine Corps.
Close air support (CAS) has been vital to Marines on the battlefield ever since the first aircraft were flown. The ordnance it provides remains critical, but future threats call into question its means of delivery. The course of Marine Corps close air support should turn away from manned CAS toward a more capable system: the precision-guided cruise missile.
Through the end of World War I, the Marine Corps lagged behind other military organizations in using airborne weapon-delivery systems to maximize unit effectiveness in ground combat. By the time of our involvement in Nicaragua, however, Marine air support to the ground had matured into the best in the world, and by the assault on Bougainville in November 1943, it had developed into what we regard today as close air support. At Bougainville, the first formally trained forward air controllers (FACs) provided terminal guidance to Navy aircraft attacking Japanese strongholds. Using preflight briefings conducted by the FACs, along with artillery and mortar marks and radio guidance from the ground, aircraft were able to drop ordnance within 75 yards of friendly positions—smashing the resistance without causing friendly casualties.1
Through the wars in Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf, improved technology enabled us to deliver aerial weapons with increasing accuracy and lethality. Destroying a Japanese stronghold in Bougainville required an entire squadron of aircraft loaded to the hilt with unguided 250-pound bombs. On today’s battlefield, one precision-guided bomb from a single aircraft would produce the same result.
For the Marine Corps, aerial delivery of weapons is only one aspect of its combined arms package. The combination of fixed-wing and rotary-wing CAS, naval gunfire, artillery, mortars, and riflemen closing with the enemy creates a synergistic effect that overwhelms adversaries and provides success on the battlefield. Despite talk of future warfare being “informational,” the need to put large amounts of steel on target probably will not go away.
The challenge for the Marine Corps of the 21st century, therefore, will be in continuing to provide this vital delivery of aerial weapons in support of the rifleman on the ground. The current reliance on manned fixed-wing and rotary-wing platforms will not be enough. Unless there is a significant change, the threat to and burden of manned CAS platforms will leave the Corps impotent from the air. The solution lies with precision-guided cruise missiles.
The Modern Threat
Platform Survivability and Misdirection of Resources. In the last four major wars, our close air support has benefited from nearly total air supremacy. As a result, pilots have been able to conduct low-level CAS attacks with a relatively high degree of safety from air threats. But future air and ground commanders will not be able to count on that same freedom. The antiair threat has become increasingly sophisticated. The proliferation of surface-to-air missiles, especially man-portable systems that are deployed far forward at the tactical level, should give any pilot pause. Aviation commanders must question the utility of sending their expensive (and scarce) manned assets into such a maelstrom. During Desert Storm, for example, “conventional aircraft were not used in strikes against Baghdad and certain other Iraqi targets because of the heavy antiaircraft defenses.”2 The loss of Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady’s F-16 and two French jets over Bosnia accentuates the danger in today’s “benign” environment, in which we own the skies.
The loss of a manned aircraft has operational costs, as well. We always have made great efforts to rescue our pilots who are shot down. During World War II, many U.S. submarines spent hours on lifeguard duty off Japanese- held islands to pick up downed aviators.3 In Vietnam, the tactical recovery of aircraft and pilot (TRAP) mission became highly refined. As epitomized by the rescue of flight BAT-21, literally hundreds of U.S. aircraft and servicemen could be devoted to retrieving an airman from harm’s way. TRAP has remained one of the foremost mission arrows in the quiver of a Marine expeditionary unit (special-operations capable).
Although they make good press, such dramatic actions call into question whether the benefit of manned CAS is outweighed by its potential cost. Many submarine skippers in the Pacific received orders to lifeguard duty with dismay. Instead of sinking ships, they sat relatively idle, waiting for manned aircraft to be shot down.4 During the Easter Offensive of 1972, Cam Lo Bridge—the only bridge available to invading North Vietnamese armored units after Captain John Ripley’s dramatic destruction of the bridge at Dong Ha—was off limits to U.S. firepower. The U.S. Air Force Direct Air Support Center had placed a 27-kilometer-radius no-fire zone around the flier downed in flight BAT-21, as part of a TRAP. This no-fire zone encompassed the Cam Lo Bridge. As a result, NVA armor streamed across and into the south unhindered.5
Air Base Survivability and Operational Costs. With theater ballistic missiles (TBMs), a nation can inflict damage on an enemy with long-range, air-delivered weapons at a fraction of the cost of a modern air force. The sheer size of bases needed to support manned CAS makes them especially vulnerable to an accurate TBM capability; an aviation facility is difficult to hide. Close air operating from a quickly established Marine expeditionary airfield may have some advantage over Air Force tactical fighter wings operating from host country fields, but both are very large, static targets. An aircraft carrier has mobility; nevertheless, a single hit from a TBM could limit its ability to continue its mission.
The vulnerability of these fixed bases is not found in their runways and physical structures. The Marines at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal experienced repeated air and naval bombardment for weeks in the fall of 1942. The problem was less one of providing a runway than of having any aircraft left that could take off. As a result of damage inflicted by the Japanese, there also often was not enough fuel, ordnance, or spare parts for the “Cactus Air Force” to continue its mission.6
The possibility of enemy TBMs inflicting an equal level of destruction on our manned aircraft certainly still exists. Operating today’s manned aircraft requires the same—if not a greater—concentration of planes, parts, and fuel. Our inability to ensure the destruction of all incoming TBMs increases the likelihood that an enemy will choose fixed air bases and aircraft carriers as targets for missiles. How long could the United States afford a war of attrition in which several $50-million aircraft or the operational capability of an entire carrier air wing were traded for a single, relatively inexpensive missile?
Two possible counters to the missile threat are dispersing manned CAS assets and basing them beyond the range of enemy TBMs. Marine Corps doctrine of forward arming and refueling points (FARPs), in conjunction with vertical or short take-off and landing (VSTOL) aircraft, seems to support the former. Unfortunately, the number of FARPs required to support an entire wing (325-350 aircraft) probably would drive the logistical and command-and-control problems to unreasonable levels, which in turn would inhibit flexible and timely CAS. Also, with the ever-increasing ranges of TBMs, the distance that manned aircraft would have to fly if based out of missile range would make this option unreasonable.
The Future Is Missiles
Firepower. In terms of offensive power, most missions currently carried out by fixed- and rotary-wing CAS could be conducted by a cruise missile in the near future. As evidenced by its destructive power against Baghdad, a missile certainly can carry a big enough warhead to destroy any hardened target that a FAC on the ground may encounter. For more sophisticated threats, the adaptation of ordnance currently delivered from fixed- or rotary-wing aircraft—e.g., cluster bombs, fuel-air explosive, rocket or gun pods—is simply a matter of time. The Tomahawk C and D already have some of these capabilities. Some of the designs being discussed include a 3,000-pound warhead, which is large enough for any weapon we might employ in a CAS situation. These same missiles would provide the flexibility to hit a variety of targets because of our ability to change the payload in forward areas.7
Range. At present, the U.S. inventory includes cruise missiles with sufficient range to support Marines on the ground anywhere within the littoral areas.8 Upcoming designs include increased ranges up to 2,000 nautical miles.9 This is certainly within every theater envisioned by “. . . From the Sea” and operational maneuver from the sea concepts. Even remaining with systems similar in size to the current family of cruise missiles would provide Marine Corps CAS with a greater mission radius than any fixed- or rotary-wing platform in the current inventory.
Integration. Future Marine Corps ground tactics hinge on the introduction of the MV-22. Here again, cruise missiles can be an effective replacement for manned CAS. The combat radius of the MV-22 is approximately 300 miles, meaning that any landing zone for the Ospreys can be supported by cruise missiles in our current inventory. Providing an escort mission—as AV-8s and Cobras do today—would require missiles with a range of speeds. If that seems too difficult, cruise missiles with loiter capability (an ongoing discussion) would provide many of the capabilities currently supplied by escorts. A loitering cruise missile could arrive early at the prospective landing zone, reconnoiter the area, return to a loiter mode if the zone is clear, or “pacify” the zone where the Ospreys are scheduled to land.
Accuracy and Safety. One of the keys to Marine CAS is the bond between the Marine on the ground and the Marine pilot in the air. Eyes in the air allow flexibility and adjustment. Eyes on the ground ensure coordination and accuracy of target identification. How would the replacement of manned CAS by an unmanned cruise missile be accomplished in this realm?
The answer lies in total terminal guidance from the ground. In the future, the Direct Air Support Center—which may be no more than a component of the Fire Support Coordination Center—would pass control of the loitering cruise missile to a FAC on the ground. A data link between the missile and the FAC would provide the terminal guidance needed for the missile to hit the target with the same precision as current cruise missiles or precision- guided munitions launched from manned platforms. A multitude of terminal guidance systems would be available to the FAC: laser designation, infrared homing, global positioning system coordinates supplied to the missile, and perhaps even a video link by which the FAC actually sees his target through the missile’s eyes and flies the missile into it. All of these means would ensure that the flexibility and accuracy provided by manned CAS is not lost in the transition to unmanned delivery systems.
Ground-based terminal guidance for a cruise missile may not be available today, but such a system could be fielded as a prototype within 30 days.10 Modification and some advancement would be needed to provide warheads with all the features envisioned above, but the possibility of providing precision-guided CAS with a cruise missile while taking advantage of the accuracy and coordination offered by terminal guidance from the ground is well within our field of vision.
Logistics. Perhaps the most revolutionary change that would occur with the use of cruise missiles would be logistical. Doing away with manned CAS platforms also would mean removing a huge infrastructure to support their operations. The airfields and runways that provide such lucrative targets for enemy TBMs would disappear. Supporters of VSTOL may say that their alternative already accomplishes the same reduction in signature, but vertical take off and landing is the least beneficial course of action for these platforms, because it increases fuel consumption significantly. The use of hard-surface roads already existing within the host nation would provide some camouflage for a VSTOL air group, but the massive fuel bladders and boxes of spare parts and rotor blades would not be nearly as easy to hide.
The sheer volume of petroleum, oil, and lubricants required to prosecute war from the air will become an increasing problem the deeper into the 21st century we progress. In the Gulf War, for example, for every ton of ordnance dropped, two tons of JP-4 were burned." The 3d Marine Aircraft Wing dropped 14,850 tons of ordnance during the 45 operational days of the air war.12 This works out to a requirement for 29,700 tons of fuel for the Marine Corps alone—or nearly 1,000 standard 18-wheel tanker truck loads.13 Given finite fuel reserves, rising costs, and the expectation that we will not be allied with every major oil-producing nation in the world, any means by which military requirements for fossil fuels could be reduced would be beneficial.
Cost. In an article written for Proceedings, Charles E. Myers detailed some of the costs associated with manned aviation units. He estimated the 30-year peacetime costs for developing, procuring, and operating a strike package of 303 fixed-wing aircraft—172 strike; 131 escort, electronic warfare, and tanker—at $60 billion.1'1 When other basic costs—such as pilot training; the operation of the facilities from which these aircraft operate; and costs associated with wartime employment, such as replacement of combat losses and the purchase of ordnance—are added, a conservative estimate might reach $120 billion.
Myers estimated the cost for a single cruise missile—including research and development costs and the operational and maintenance costs for each missile over the course of its operational life—as approximately $3.7 million. This calculation provides more than 16,000 cruise missiles for the same peacetime cost as a strike package.15 It would provide more than 32,000 missiles for the cost of a strike package committed to combat.
The current Marine aircraft wing fields approximately 175-200 fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft to fill the attack roles needed to support the Marines on the ground. For the same lifetime cost, the Marine Corps could have a CAS organization based on precision-guided cruise missiles capable of approximately 21,000 sorties. By comparison, the destruction inflicted by cruise missiles against Iraq was carried out by only 288 weapons.16
How to Adapt
How will a shift from manned platforms to cruise missiles affect the battlefield and the Marine Corps of the 21st century? In previous conflicts, the Marine Corps has helped establish air superiority. Much of the control of the air in the Solomon Islands in 1942-43 was accomplished by Marine air. The presence of Marine aircraft over Korea, Vietnam, and Kuwait/Iraq during those conflicts demonstrate that the Marine Corps has continued to carry its weight. As joint operations become the norm, however, the Marine Corps must look to its sister services—the Air Force and the Navy—to fulfill that mission. The Marine Corps should concentrate on CAS.
The only cruise missile launch platforms available to fulfill this role today belong to the Navy. To keep a CAS capability in the hands of Marines, the fixed- and rotary-wing squadrons that provide CAS could be supplanted by truck-mounted cruise missile launchers. These “Marine Close Air Support Squadrons,” carrying sophisticated cruise missiles, would provide flexible, mobile firepower to support Marines on the ground wherever required.
This solution to CAS of the future is not a panacea. Spare parts and fuel still would create a logistics tail, albeit much smaller than that of a Marine aircraft wing. In exchange, a single squadron of eight trucks with four launch tubes each could provide a number of initial sorties equivalent to three 12-plane fixed- or rotary-wing squadrons. With a reload capability, the turnaround time for CAS would be reduced. With an adequate supply of missiles, any need to surge platforms for a major push could be carried out. Above all, cruise- missile CAS will be able to operate, no matter how threatening the battlefield of tomorrow becomes.
1 Commanding General, 3d Marine Division, Combat Report of the 3d Marine Division in the Bougainville Operations, 1 November-28 December 1943 (CG, 3d Marine Division, 21 March 1943). Original Document from National Archives, record group 127, accession number 65A-4556, box 3, p. 60.
2 Norman Polmar, “Going Downtown the Safe Way,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, August 1992, p. 105.
3 Clay Blair, Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War against Japan (Philadelphia: Lipincott, 1975). Blair provides in-depth discussions regarding many of the important and successful lifeguard missions conducted during the war, often to include the numbers of aviators rescued.
4 Blair.
5 G. H. Turley, The Easter Offensive, Vietnam, 1972 (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1985), p. 200-231.
6 Richard B. Frank, Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle (New York: Penguin Books, 1990). Frank offers a detailed account of the trials of keeping Henderson Field open, including descriptions of the bombardments and the air attacks and their effect on the field itself and the aircraft stationed there.
7 Robert A. Lynch, “Beyond Tomahawk,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1993, p. 55. The Tomahawk D model has the ability to hit multiple targets using submunitions from a low-level fly over.
8 Polmar, p. 106. The range of the TLAM C is 700 nautical miles.
9 Ibid.
10 Result of discussions at Strategic Concept Wargame, Naval War College, Newport, RI, 23-27 October 1995.
11 Results of discussions at Strategic Concept Wargame.
12 Major John Quinn, USMC, Official Marine Corps Historian at Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C.
13 A standard tanker in the United States can carry a maximum of approximately 9,000 gallons of gasoline. At 6.8 pounds/gallon, this equals 30.6 tons of fuel in a truckload. 29,700/30.6 equals 971 tanker truckloads to move the fuel for the Marine Corps air wing.
14 Charles E. Myers, “Time to Fold ’em,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 1991, p. 37-41.
15 Ibid.
16 Polmar, p. 105.
Major Fuquea, a 1981 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, is executive officer of Battalion Landing Team 1/2 and will deploy as part of the 22d Marine Expeditionary Unit in 1997.