Naval Aviation: Forward, Persistent, and Dominant

The post-Cold War, post 9/11 shift in strategic focus away from the central front in Europe to the trans-Eurasian littoral arc, which extends from the Levant in the Mediterranean to the East China Sea, places U.S. forces where they no Ionger enjoy assured access to bases ashore.

Instead, the current security environment involves coalitions formed to respond to emerging crises, and access to bases ashore may be unpredictable. The freedom to operate from such bases during armed conflicts may be limited according to the interests and vulnerabilities of the host nation. This increases the demand for a secure sea base capable of projecting dominant combat power ashore against the full spectrum of possible opponents. In this environment, U.S. naval aviation is the logical force.

From the heavy- and medium-lift rotary wing assets that carry Marines ashore from the sea base, to the logistics aircraft that sustain the combat readiness of our sea-based forces, to the strike aircraft that deliver precision weapons on target-the elements of naval aviation perform an indispensable role in the defense of our nation.

Since World War II, peacetime presence and wartime surge requirements have been the basic test of naval aviation's capacity. Since 1990, for example, naval aviation has maintained a near-continuous aircraft carrier battle group presence in the Persian Gulf, along with a forward-deployed carrier in the Pacific and a frequent presence in the Mediterranean Sea. From this peacetime posture, a deployed carrier has often responded on short notice to crises in the Middle East and the Balkans, trading presence in one theater when going on station in another. In some instances, pairs of carriers have been concentrated, as occurred off Taiwan for one month in 1996 and in the Indian Ocean for seven months in 1997-1998. During Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, six carriers deployed simultaneously to support combat operations; eight carriers were employed over the course of each operation.

Today, numbers based solely on peacetime presence or wartime surge needs fail to capture the complex requirements generated by a world in which presence, crisis response, and major surges are all necessary-sometimes simultaneously. This makes force planning more difficult, because planners cannot focus on a single measure, e.g., twelve carriers are required to sustain a capability to surge eight. It is more realistic to assume that naval aviation will be asked to provide all three functions, as well as others not yet imagined. The U.S. Navy needs a carrier force that is able to sustain that more complex burden.

Whether operating in peacetime or surging in wartime, the carrier strike group's (CSG) core capability is its ability to project combat power ashore with its strike-fighter aircraft while providing a shield for the sea base. Ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have proved the value of sea-based strike fighters as a responsive source of precise fires over the battlefield. The effects of precision air power today greatly exceed those of the pre-Desert Storm era. Prior to the introduction of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) during Desert Storm, ground forces could plan for moderate attrition of enemy ground forces through the employment of massed, non-precision air strikes. During Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, however, light ground forces operating in a dispersed fashion relied on the combat power of carrier-based aviation employing precision-guided munitions to mass their cumulative effects of timely attacks against fleeting targets.

The longer endurance and range of today's naval strike fighters with their greater internal fuel capacity and enhanced organic aerial refueling gives commanders several options:

* Expand the maneuver space of the sea base without compromising the reach or persistence of its main striking arm

* Increase the persistence and coverage of that striking arm from the same maneuver space or

* Achieve some combination of the two.

The imperative to extend the range and persistence of sea-based strike fighters is one of the key drivers of naval aviation's recapitalization plan. Range will roughly double as fleet squadrons transition from the F/A-18A/C to the F/A-18E/F and then to the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter, resulting in a force with an unrefueled combat radius of more than 730 nautical miles. Large-deck aircraft carriers will enable the battle-space persistence provided by the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (JUCAS). The F/A-18E/Fs and F-35s represent naval aviation's strategy of pursuing cost-effective stealth, which, when combined with advanced sensors, weapons, and unmanned systems, are the best solution to the access challenges presented by future air defenses.

When facing an adversary that has significant anti-access capabilities such as an advanced integrated air defense system, coastal defense cruise or ballistic missiles, or a credible submarine threat, the strike group's ability to project power depends upon four capabilities:

* Airborne early warning (AEW)

* Airborne electronic attack (AEA)

* Antisurface warfare (ASUW)

* Antisubmarine warfare (ASW)

The catapults and arresting gear on a large-deck carrier enable these sea-based airborne capabilities.

An advanced, integrated air defense system requires a fleet of early-warning aircraft with powerful radars providing a persistent, high altitude view of the battle space. The E-2D Advanced Hawkeye will give the Navy just such a platform with distinctive capabilities to digitally scan, analyze, and process information. It will be able to look down in a cluttered overland or littoral environment and detect and track small moving targets. Its radar, much more resistant to jamming than earlier versions, will retain its considerable capabilities against low radar-cross section targets. In addition, the Advanced Hawkeye with cooperative engagement capability will support the SM6 extended-range active missile, which will give surface ships an over-the-horizon capability, greatly expanding the sea base's missile engagement space.

Airborne electronic attack is a key enabler of strike operations by tactical aircraft against even modest air defenses, and such support is critical to any concept of air operations against modern integrated air defense systems. The ALQ-218B electronic warfare suite, first deployed on the EA-6B as the improved capability III and later as the core for the follow-on EA-18G, is a major step forward. Specifically, introduction of the ALQ-218B enables the first truly reactive electronic attack platform, which-instead of relying on preplanned, brute force noise jamming-employs reactive, narrow-band jamming. The new airborne electronic attack platform uses its own electronic warfare suite to identify specific signals that need to be jammed after which it concentrates the full power of a jammer on only the narrow band of those signals. This maximizes jamming capability and allows the platform to listen and jam at the same time, making it much more responsive to complex electronic orders of battle.

The MH-60R/S multimission helicopter provides the sea base with credible, distributed ASW, antisurface warfare, and mine warfare capabilities. The carriers will operate two squadrons of MH-60R/S helicopters; detachments from the parent squadrons will be assigned to surface combatants within the strike group. The same basic aircraft, distributed widely throughout the sea base, can both generate and respond to time-critical surveillance cues, using sensors and weapons to acquire, identify, and attack small boats, submarines, and mines. The MH-60s will also provide logistics, combat search-and-rescue, and support to special operations forces.

Persistent, wide-area surveillance must be the hallmark of ASW and antisurface warfare because of the inherent mobility of submarines and surface ships. Larger, landbased maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft able to deploy quickly to and operate from austere, expeditionary bases will augment the carrier strike group's organic surveillance helicopters. Long range, high-endurance patrol aircraft allow a dominant naval power to maintain a presence throughout the vast ocean and littoral spaces over which it must exercise control. They often provide the timeliest means of response, whether to a fleeting undersea acoustic contact, a report of a suspicious merchant ship, or an important signals intelligence collection opportunity. The maritime patrol fleet is evolving from the P-3 and EP-3E into a triad of more capable aircraft that will be important elements in naval aviation's recapitalization:

* P-8A Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA)

* Aerial Common Sensor (ACS)

* Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) and

* Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Deployed in expeditionary contingents at the strategic approaches and operating locations along the Mediterranean-lndo-Pacific arc, the new assets will provide improved, netted surface surveillance, armed ASW, antisurface warfare, and multisource intelligence collection.

The platform that can provide the strike and shield capacity for a sea base is the large-deck aircraft carrier. Although the USS Nimitz (CVN-68)-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier design is 40 years old, virtually no research-and-development money has been spent to further improve the 10-ship class that will be completed when the George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) deploys in 2007. Instead, funds have been devoted to developing CVN-21.

Compared to a new Nimitz-class carrier, CVN-21 will allow the same air wing to produce 25% more sorties by moving the island aft and creating a "pit stop" area forward of the island where all refueling, maintenance, and rearming can be conducted while flight operations continue. These improvements, and others such as the electrification of CVN-21, will reduce handling and maintenance requirements, which in turn, will lower crew size by 15% to 20% as compared to Nimitz-class ships, a significant reduction in an era when personnel costs will almost certainly continue rising at a rate well above inflation. In addition to the advantages gained by using electric power instead of steam, CVN-21 will use a new reactor with a lifetime core that will also reduce the cost of the carrier operating cycle.

In total, these improvements will reduce the life-cycle costs of CVN-21-class ship compared to a Nimitz-class carrier by $5.5 to $6 billion. The new CVN-21 reestablishes a margin for growth for future energy weapons, measured both in terms of additional weight and volume, as well as in excess electrical power.

In broad terms, CVN-21 ensures the long-term viability and adaptability of the Navy's large-deck carrier force. This sea base allows the deployment of the most effective aircraft, the ability to operate future manned and unmanned air systems, the most efficient means of operating and supporting them, and the only way of providing a powerful sea-strike and sea-shield capability from the same hull at the same time.

Our nation has long understood the value of a single carrier strike group deployed in peacetime. This peacetime capability was again demonstrated during Operation Unified Assistance, the humanitarian relief operation that ensued in the wake of the tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia in December 2005. The initial relief effort was spearheaded by the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) strike group, which arrived on scene just 5 days after the disaster. Its value, both in logistics volume and the vertical lift capacity of her helicopter force, was critical in lifting the thousands of tons of relief supplies to alleviate the suffering of the victims and proved invaluable as an important tool in the prosecution of the global war on terror. Our nation has also witnessed the value of concentration of carrier strike groups in wartime when necessary, as demonstrated by the multicarrier operations practiced off the coast of North Vietnam and those of the Cold War's maritime strategy.

It has been many years, however, since concentrations of carrier aviation were in a position to be so unambiguously dominant in the power-projection role, both in terms of its freedom to maneuver in the face of opposing defenses, and in terms of its ability to produce decisive effects ashore. If one combines the effects of the precision-weapons revolution (multiple kills per sortie) with the high sortie rates possible on a large-deck carrier, and then concentrates up to five or six of those carriers in one theater of operations, the fleet is deploying a combat force analogous in reactive capability to the World War II fast carrier task force employed to devastating effect in the last two years of the war in the Pacific. Such a force, operating in dispersed or concentrated fashion, will be the key to meeting the greater demands on naval aviation in the modern security environment.

A force of six carriers-deploying some 300 strike fighters, 30 airborne early warning aircraft, and 100 multimission helicopters, all operating in mutual support of each other and expeditionary forces ashore-will provide capabilities in the future that are orders of magnitude greater than those of the past. For example, as President George W. Bush noted during his 2005 commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy, the number of targets ashore that a single carrier is capable of destroying in a single day has tripled since Desert Storm. When concentrated, multiple carriers can produce effects ashore that would formerly have required multiple wings of tactical aircraft operating from local bases in the region, while at the same time protecting the sea base and extending that shield ashore.

Naval aviation is delivering a force structure and operating tempo that maximizes its contribution across the spectrum of conflict, whether measured in terms of time or threat level. In terms of time, this involves presence and shaping operations in peacetime, and crisis response operations designed either to deter conflict or to maximize early arriving combat power should deterrence fail. Combat power applied in the first days of a crisis response or major combat scenario is like the golden hour in combat medicine, because it produces relatively more deterrent or warfighting effect than a larger amount of combat power that arrives later. In terms of threat level, this involves developing and inserting rapidly evolving technologies into sensors, weapons, and networks. The platforms that deploy these technologies will be capable of concentrating to dominate and defeat the high-end threats, while also remaining prepared to operate in multiple, smaller force packages in dispersed fashion that retain robust shield and strike capabilities for use against more common mid- and low-level and non-traditional transnational terrorists.

Proven repeatedly in peacetime and war, the value of naval aviation as a guarantor of national security and an instrument of national will has never been greater than in today's post-9/11 strategic landscape. From the Pacific campaigns of World War II through the complete battlespace dominance demonstrated during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom and continuing operations in the global war on terror, naval aviation continues to evolve as a decisive force through ongoing incorporation of advanced technology. Naval aviation will continue to be a force required to ensure our nation's ability to shape world events through unmatched access to the farthest reaches of the earth.