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By Lieutenant Colonel Robert M. Flanagan, U.S. Marine Corps
4 4 A viation is a dynamic profession. The rate of ZA obsolescence of equipment is high and new 1. A aircraft have to be placed in the inventory periodically in order to stay abreast of the requirements of modem war . . . . ”
In 1971, when Major General Keith B. McCutcheon, U.S. Marine Corps, said that in a May 1971 Proceedings article, the CH-46 Sea Knight, which the Marine Corps wants to replace with the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, was only nine years old; the CH-46 is now 28.
The tiltrotor concept is revolutionary. Not since the introduction of the helicopter into the armed forces in the 1940s has the potential for change on the modern battlefield been so great. Just as the primitive helicopters of the post-World War II era reshaped the military thinking of the period, the Osprey portends significant changes for today’s armed forces.
Nevertheless, the odds that the V-22 actually will go into production are currently no better than 50-50. Critics have cited its cost as the primary drawback—even though conventional helicopters proposed as alternatives are almost as expensive and considerably less effective. To see how we reached this impasse, it is necessary to go back almost 45 years.
The Osprey’s real story began in the fall of 1946 when the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Alexander A. Vandegrift, sent Lieutenant General Roy S. Geiger, Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force Pacific, to observe the atomic bomb tests at Bikini. In his report, General Geiger told the Commandant that ”... since our probable future enemy will be in possession of this weapon, it is my opinion that a complete review and study of our concept of amphibious operations will have to be made. ... It is quite evident that a small number of atomic bombs could destroy an expeditionary force as now organized, embarked, and landed. ... I cannot visualize another landing such as was executed at Normandy or Okinawa.”1
The Commandant acted quickly and formed a special board composed of three combat-experienced general officers—Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr., Oliver P. Smith, and Field Harris—to determine if Marine Corps doctrine was viable in the atomic age. It was obvious to them that the destructive power of the atomic bomb made dispersion a necessity, but it was also obvious that forces would have to be concentrated at the point of contact with the enemy. Clearly, they concluded, some new mode of assault support was needed to supplement the current mix of landing craft. Among other options, the board recommended the helicopter as an alternative.
General Vandegrift concurred with the board, initiated actions within the Marine Corps, and advised the Chief of Naval Operations of his intentions. General Vandegrift’s letter to the CNO appears to be the first official Marine Corps service document to propose the use of helicopters as a tactical vehicle for the transport of combat troops from naval vessels to a landing area ashore.2 The Chief of Naval Operations concurred, and the Marine Corps moved into the era of vertical assault.
Just two years later, on 23 May 1948, five H03S-1 heli-
copters took off from the USS Palau (CVE-122) and flew in formation to their designated landing spots a few miles inland.3 In all, the helicopters carried 66 Marines and a considerable amount of equipment from the ship to the beach. While this was recognized at the time as an insignificant combat force, the success of the operation validated the concept of vertical assault. Ground and aviation Marines alike grasped the value of the helicopter; it was the birth of vertical assault.4
Of course, the Marine Corps was still a long way from the tiltrotor technology of the 1980s, but it was a beginning. The far-reaching decisions of the 18th Commandant and a handful of his senior officers reshaped amphibious assault doctrine and started down the long road toward the Osprey.
But as the Marine Corps’s capability increased, so did that of its potential enemies. Weapons became deadlier; missiles appeared on the modem battlefield. More speed, range, and payload were needed to counter the threat.
In 1956, each of the U.S. armed services began developing its own requirements for second-generation replacement aircraft. In 1958, recognizing the need for improvements in vertical-flight aircraft, the Department of Defense directed the Navy to conduct a study on the feasibility of a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft that would satisfy the requirements of all the armed services. The study’s results indicated that such an aircraft— a compound helicopter, in this case—was feasible for all four services’ medium-lift requirements.
The U.S. Army and Air Force soon bailed out of the program. The Army wanted to develop its own medium- lift helicopter, and the Air Force declined to participate in the development of an aircraft that could not meet its required 750-mile radius of action for combat rescue missions. The Marine Corps and the Navy continued with the project and refined the compound helicopter specifications for what had become a blue-green venture.
It became clear that the program was too expensive for a single department to fund and that more participants were needed. Navy planners further stated that it was unnecessary to develop a compound helicopter, since a more sophisticated VTOL aircraft was achievable. Consequently, funds were reprogrammed and efforts shifted toward a joint program. The final specifications called for an aircraft that could cruise at 250 knots and meet the services’ medium-lift requirements. The compound helicopter design—a conventional helicopter with short wings—was quickly discounted as too slow, and three VTOL designs were ultimately developed and tested:
^ Vought-Hiller-Ryan XC-142A. This design used four turbo-prop engines mounted on a tilting wing. Once airborne, the wing moved to a conventional position for forward flight.
► Curtiss X-19A. On this aircraft, only the engines rotated; the wing remained fixed.
^ Bell X-22A. This design incorporated four propellers installed inside shrouds or ducts. The ducted fans rotated from the vertical to the horizontal depending on the phase
of flight.
The winner of the competition was the tilt-wing XC- 142A, but it was found unsuitable for naval use and the Navy withdrew from the program in August 1961.5 This •eft the Marine Corps holding a very expensive bag and ultimately forced the Corps to return to the more modest goal of finding a suitable replacement for the aging fleet of HR2S heavy-lift helicopters. Unfortunately, the VTOL “diversion” caused the Marine Corps to slip further behind in its program to upgrade its fleet. General Wallace M. Greene, the 23rd Commandant of the Marine Corps, expressed his frustration with the process in a letter to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations on 14 August 1962 when he concluded that ”, . .the tri-service [aircraft] could not possibly provide a timely follow-on for the HR2S.”'’ This frustrating experience eventually led to the development of the CH-53A, but the lesson learned—that joint projects do not always stay joint—came back to haunt the Marine Corps, in spades.
The CH-46A emerged from the demise of the VTOL concept as the first significant improvement in the helicopter since its inception. It was the first turbine-powered helicopter in the Marine Corps inventory, and it provided heretofore unachievable capability: a 4,000-pound payload, seating for 17 combat Marines, a 137-knot maximum speed, and a combat radius of more than 100 nautical miles. The CH-46 became the workhorse of the Marine Corps and remains so to this day. It served throughout the Vietnam War and in the skirmishes and conflicts of the ensuing decades. Today, almost 30 years later, it maintains its post on board every deployed amphibious assault ship and accompanies Marines around the globe as their primary means of assault support lift. It has been modified, upgraded, and improved to be sure, but it still has been designed and built with the technology of the 1960s.
In the early 1980s, an analysis of the threat—and the tactics to counter it—drove the performance specifications for the new generation of helicopters required by the armed forces. The Soviets and their client states still presented an integrated and sophisticated threat, and there was an emerging danger from numerous Third World countries. The proliferation of modern weapons had given many countries the capability to defeat conventional helicopters using outmoded tactics. Speed, surprise, and stealth became the elements of battlefield success. These new aircraft would have to strike deep into enemy territory from distant bases or from over-the-horizon ships to gain surprise. Considerable range and speed were needed to avoid enemy concentrations and build up combat power rapidly before the enemy could react. Fighting at night would become the norm. Every scenario brought a different set of requirements, and cost dictated that any replacement aircraft would have to be effective in each arena.
Concerned with replacing specific aircraft in their inventories, the services established their own mission requirements for the new aircraft: the Marine Corps wanted a CH-46 replacement for medium assault support; the Army wanted a medium-lift aircraft that could also be used for aeromedical evacuation; the Navy was interested primarily in a combat search and rescue aircraft; and the Air Force wanted a long-range special operations aircraft that would also be capable of combat search and rescue.
Any replacement aircraft would have to accomplish all of these missions in conventional, unconventional, and contingency combat situations across the entire spectrum of conflict intensities. Additional requirements included the ability to operate autonomously in remote, austere bases, as well as afloat.7
Interestingly, the initial design proposals were similar to those considered in 1960:
^ Lift fan. Capable of high speeds, but burned more fuel than other configurations
- Compound helicopter (advancing blade concept). Two counter-rotating main rotor blades were mounted on a single mast to overcome the adverse effect of retreating blade stall; could not meet the stated speed requirement
- Improved conventional helicopter. While helicopters were improving, they still could not meet the speed, range, and maneuverability requirements.
- Tiltrotor. The only technology that could perform all the missions using a common airframe with varying mission equipment.
While the ideal technical solution may appear obvious, it can rarely be the sole criterion—cost must be factored into the equation. In fact, the choice remained an open question until then-Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman, Jr., flew the Bell XV-15 concept demonstrator. Lehman liked it, and he argued convincingly for the tiltrotor concept. An August 1981 memorandum from the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Dr. Richard DeLauer, to the Secretaries of the Air
Force and Navy reinforced Lehman’s case: “It would appear that . . . requirements could best be met with a single, advanced, but mature technology, rotary wing aircraft such as an operational derivative of the XV-15 tiltrotor.”8 The Air Force and the Navy responded to the Undersecretary’s memorandum enthusiastically. Even the Army, which had not been included in the original memorandum, joined in the consensus. Both the Navy and the Army sought to gain control of the program.
In December 1981, Deputy Secretary of Defense Frank
Carlucci formally established a joint rotorcraft project
the JVX program. The Army became the executive service for the program in early 1982 and assumed the lead in formulating the joint services operational requirement. A Marine, Colonel Jimmie Creech, became the program manager.
The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force signed a memorandum of understanding in June 1982 that established the JVX project as a priority program and defined the individual service funding requirements. Not long afterward, the Army began to have second thoughts. First, planners sought a two-year delay in the program, but this proved unacceptable to the other services. Further distancing itself from the program, the Army relinquished its executive service status to the Navy. Nevertheless, the Army continued to express official support for the JVX
program. A December 1982 memorandum from Deputy Secretary Carlucci stated in part “I am pleased to note that . . . the services have agreed to a joint development strategy for the Joint Services Advanced Vertical Lift Aircraft. ...”
In January 1983, the Navy released the original request for proposals to industry, and the team of Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing Vertol responded with its concept. In order to meet the specifications of the Army’s original joint service operational requirement and the subsequent Navy revision, the Bell-Boeing candidate had to provide a wide range of capabilities, far beyond those of any system in existence at the time. The corporate team proposed an advanced concept based on a tiltrotor propulsion system and received the go-ahead in April 1983.9
Ostensibly still in the program, the Army nonetheless failed to include the JVX in its fiscal year 1985 program objective memorandum, which it was then developing. The Army s failure to fund the program in subsequent years was a de facto cancellation of its portion of the project, subsequently, Army-driven design requirements were removed.
In 1986, the Air Force dropped its requirement from 80 aircraft to 55 in response to a Deputy Secretary of Defense agreement reducing the number of aircraft needed in the Special Operations Forces. This brought the total buy down to 657 aircraft: 552 for the Marine Corps; 55 for the Air Force; and 50 for the Navy. The 552 aircraft for the Marines included 11 VV-22s intended for presidential support as a replacement for the aging VH-3D helicopters. As the numbers came down, the cost per aircraft crept up.
The cost of an individual aircraft might seem easy to compute, but those involved in the procurement process realize that there are many variables. For the layman, the cost of the MV-22 is often stated as approximately $32 million. But this is misleading, since the figure actually represents the procurement unit cost, which includes the aircraft, initial spares, and advanced procurement over the life of the entire program.
When Secretary of Defense Richard B. Cheney canceled the V-22 program in April 1989, he was acting largely on the advice of his Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation, Dr. David S. Chu, who recommended that the Marines substitute a 950-aircraft mix of CH-53Es and UH-60s for the 552 MV-22s. When the Marine Corps pointed out that such a strategy would be more expensive, Chu revised his estimate downward to a mix of approximately 650 CH-53Es and UH-60s. Not surprisingly, this brought the cost below that of the V-22 package, but it did not meet the goal of replacing the CH-46 with a more capable aircraft.
Based on his assessment of the program, Chu finally recommended a one-year slip in the program during deliberations on the fiscal year 1990 budget. Secretary Cheney made the final decision to cancel the program.
The research-and-development effort to date has validated the tiltrotor concept. Four full-scale development aircraft are flying, and two more MV-22s are nearing completion at Bell’s Fort Worth, Texas, plant. The Department of the Navy and the U.S. government have al-
ready invested $2.5 billion in the V-22 concept and are on the verge of reaping the benefits. But with just $255 million in research-and-development funds remaining in the coffers for fiscal year 1990 and no money programmed in fiscal year 1991, the program will slowly wind down. The government will own six aircraft, but little else.
Like General Greene 27 years ago, Lieutenant Colonel Gary Simpson, assistant program manager for the MV-22, laments the ambivalence and costly delays that surrounded the program. “There is nothing else available to replace the CH-46 in terms of dollars and time,” he said. “The day we get the first dollar in procurement money it will take two years before we see the first production airplane.”
A recent study conducted by the Institute for Defense Analysis came to the same conclusion: a go-ahead for the Osprey would have the Marines flying the first airplane within the next few years, while the earliest any alternative could be fielded would be near the turn of the century. A cost and operational effectiveness analysis conducted by the institute indicates that the Osprey compares favorably with DoD alternatives. The comparison is relevant in light of today’s changing threat. With the Soviets retreating from Europe, there is more likelihood of military action outside of NATO—in areas particularly suited for employment of the MV-22. The Osprey offers significant capability and survivability enhancements over conventional helicopters in a low-intensity conflict. Its characteristics make it an ideal aircraft in the declared war on drugs and in many contingency missions.
There are additional reasons for the tiltrotor that transcend DoD requirements. Potential commercial users are interested, although they are unlikely to pick up the tab if the military drops out. Nevertheless, they will almost certainly move into the market once the aircraft is in production and operational. Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) called the Osprey technology the wave of the future and pointed out that Japanese, West German, and French companies are all interested in the concept. The Japanese have gone as far as to hire several former Bell Helicopter designers to develop a tiltwing aircraft with military as well as commercial utility. “We could lose thousands of jobs and sales to foreign companies in the 1990s,” says Gramm.10
Conventional responses in our rapidly changing world will leave us farther and farther behind in the technology race. The Osprey is not a strategic weapon system, but it does represent a prescient view of likely United States needs in this changing world.
Unfortunately, part of the cost of the Osprey is the time
1 ................................. .........................................
Dr. David S. Chu, Defense Department Director of Program Analysis and Evaluation, told incoming Defense Secretary Richard B. Cheney early in 1989 that a mix of CH-53Es (left) and UH-60s (right) would satisfy Marine Corps requirements. Cheney listened to him and cancelled the V-22. The Navy, with aircraft problems of its own, has declined to fight for the V-22 and the aircraft’s future rests with Congress.
needed for its development. Recent U.S. military intervention clearly demonstrates the efficacy of light, highly mobile, expeditionary forces capable of immediate employment anywhere in the world. Such power projection requires forces in being, and history is replete with examples of nations that were not prepared for the task. Soviet Admiral of the Fleet Sergei G. Gorshkov was conscious of this when he said, ”... limited economic potential, erroneous military doctrines of the short-sighted policy by states, leads either to defeat ... or to the extreme overtaxing of such countries’ economies, faced, during war, with setting right earlier blunders . . .
It seems we are about to repeat the errors of our past. For all of our technological prowess, it has come down to a failure of will and foresight. Difficult choices must be made, but choice is difficult only when judgment is clouded by ignorance, prejudice, and timidity. Informed decisions in the defense budget-cutting process can spare us the formidable task of setting right earlier blunders in times of crises.
'LlCol E. W. Rawlins, USMC, Murines and Helicopters 1946-1962 (Washington: U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division, 1976), p. 11.
2Ibid. p. 14.
’The H03S-I was a single-piloted, single-rotor helicopter built by Sikorsky Helicopters. It had a cruising speed of 65 knots and could carry a load of 1,197 pounds or 3 passengers.
4Rawlins, op. cit. p. 25.
'LtCol W. R. Fails, USMC, Marines and Helicopters 1962-1973 (Washington: U.S. Marine Corps History and Museums Division 1978) n 58 6lbid. p. 57.
’Chief of Naval Operations letter Scr 506J/5U403629 dated 13 Feb 1985, ''Joint Services Advanced Vertical Lift Aircraft (JVX) Operational Requirement."
1 his quote and the following discussion regarding the decision to develop the V-22 are the result of my conversation with Mr. Dar Lundberg, of the Bell Helicopter Tcxtron-Bocing Helicopters V-22 office, Washington, D.C.
“Decision Coordinating Paper,” Revision I, May 1, 1986, p. 1.
1 E. Donovan and D. Strigman, “Gray: V-22 substitute scheme 'ridiculous,'" Navy Times 5 March 1990, p. 4.
1'Sergei G. Gorshkov, "Excerpts from The Sea Power and the Stale" in The Art and Practice of Military Strategy, cd. G. E. Thibault (Washington: National University Press, 1984), p. 263.
Lieutenant Colonel Flanagan is assigned to the U.S. Central Command. He is a naval aviator with an extensive background in UH-1N and AH-1T operations.
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