Proceed with Caution: Helicopter-Borne Air Assaults
By Earl J. Catagnus Jr.
Helicopters provide increased maneuverability to the battlefield as well as an outstanding close air support platform for the infantry.1 But they are extremely vulnerable vehicles for troop transport in
"hot" (hostile) air environments. We have learned much during the long history of helicopter air assault, and it is important that we build on these lessons.
The planning phase of any operation involves a considerable amount of time collecting information about the enemy's air defense capability. Surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems are located, antiaircraft artillery is tracked, and the existence of hostile man-portable air defense systems (ManPADS) is determined. An air defense threat condition is briefed, and countermeasures are put in place to reduce exposure to friendly aircraft. Generally, the attempted reduction of such threats is accomplished by radar-jamming aircraft, anti-radiation missiles, and a few well placed "smart" bombs. In successful helo-borne assaults, the enemy air defense threat must be destroyed, neutralized, or suppressed.
History demonstrates that preparatory fires may not destroy enemy air defenses. But do enemy air defenses include only SAMS and antiaircraft artillery? Or do they also consist of volley-fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and light infantry firing wildly into a helicopter disembarking troops? One well-placed anti-radiation missile will destroy the former, but many thousands of pounds of bombs still find the latter elusive. The enemy has developed techniques to neutralize technology—our most effective weapon.
Vietnam
Light infantry forces pose the most significant threat to an air-mobile infantry force. Vietnam is an outstanding historical case study to examine the extent to which a technologically inferior foe was capable of defeating the helicopter. According to some estimates, more than 2,600 helicopters were lost to hostile fire.2 The Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army light infantry forces received training that consisted of pointing massed small-arms fire at U.S. aircraft. The enemy was taught to create a "wall of bullets" for the "helicopter or airplane [to] fly into."3
Memoirs and monographs about air assaults and the use of close air support in Vietnam demonstrate the uncanny efficacy of such techniques. One example is given in Keith William Nolan's The Magnificent Bastards: The Joint Army-Marine Defense of Dong Ha, 1968. In the course of the defense, Nolan says, "a Marine Crusader making its third pass took hits and never pulled up [due to] heavy ground fire." The aircraft was shot down by "us[ing] AK-47s in mass, producing a screen of fire that the jets had to fly through."4
Notice the absence of a uniform, cohesive air defense. The North Vietnamese Army did not bring antiaircraft weapons to the fight and relied on individual infantry small arms to counter American air power.
Iraq and Afghanistan
Current operations show that the enemy is still using this method. In the months after the April 2004 pull-out of Marines from Fallujah, a Cobra gunship had to land 500 meters from the trestle outpost manned by Marines from 2nd Battalion/1st Marine Regiment. Unsophisticated insurgents from the city firing small arms forced this landing.5 During the November 2004 assault on Fallujah, a fixed-wing attack aircraft received damage to the jet intake from rifle fire.6
Massive quantities of RPGs and ManPADS add an entirely new dimension to the complexities of evaluating an air defense. A lone infantryman armed with a ManPADS can destroy a helicopter in the landing zone (LZ). This creates wreckage that decreases the number of helicopters able to land simultaneously. The Soviet Union's debacle in Afghanistan after the introduction of U.S. Stinger missiles provides a clear example of the helicopters' vulnerability to ManPADS.
The LZ Factor
Landing zone selection continues to be another area of contention about the efficacy of an air assault. In deserts and plains, LZ selection is relatively easy: the assaulting force lands wherever the enemy is not. In forests, jungles, mountains, and cities, LZ selection is also easy: the attack unit lands wherever it can. These are facts of which the enemy is well aware, and Vietnam serves as a classic example of what a few scouts placed at every available LZ, including newly created ones, can accomplish against landing and disembarking helicopters.
Using vertical envelopment in over-the-horizon forcible entry from the sea is, by nature, designed to bypass prepared shoreline defenses. The idea that a living, breathing, intelligent enemy will not prepare potential LZs for defense from air assault is absurd. One may argue that all potential LZs cannot be defended simultaneously, and this is true for terrain containing an unlimited number of potential LZs.
It is hardly true, however, for restricted terrain having only a few helicopter-supportable LZs. The dilemma appeared in Vietnam and was countered by using dummy troop drops and dummy preparatory fires, and by creating new LZs by fuel-air-explosive bombs.
Some of those techniques may be viable in modern air assaults, but many are not. During a dummy drop, the helicopter performs the same aerial maneuvers as during an actual landing, but does not disembark troops. It is hoped that the dummy LZ is undefended and the sound of the helicopter landing will deceive the enemy by hiding the location of the actual LZ. This still exposes the helicopter to hostile fire, and many pilots cut the maneuver short to avoid being engaged. Both dummy preparatory fires and fuel-air-explosives are unlikely to be used in the future, because the potential for civilian casualties is too great.
Much about the argument surrounding the V-22 Osprey is centered on its increased landing and takeoff speed. This may reduce the aircraft's time in vulnerable landing maneuvers. But the Osprey has not conquered the most time-consuming aspect of LZ operations: offloading troops. In the Marine Corps, this is a problem that everyone understands. It takes a dreadfully long time for troops to disembark from the rear ramp of a CH-46, CH-53, or V-22—especially if the helicopter has a full complement.
The time a helicopter spends on the ground is its most vulnerable period. This is when fire pours onto the LZ and is most effective at destroying helicopters. One accurate artillery barrage may disperse the attacking infantry on the ground and cause some casualties, but it will destroy helicopters.
The Loading and Offloading Factor
Helicopters with side doors, such as the Huey and Blackhawk, can dismount troops and equipment with enormous rapidity that cannot be replicated by rear-ramp helos. There are two reasons for this. First, the Huey and Blackhawk cannot carry as much equipment or as many troops. If there is less to dismount, then the time to offload is decreased. Second, the side doors of the Huey and Blackhawk allow four or more people on both sides to dismount simultaneously.
Rear-ramp helicopters allow only two people to dismount at a time. Couple this with the increased load of troops and equipment, and the dismount time for the CH-46, CH-53, and V-22 increases exponentially. No standard operating procedures or amount of training can overcome this physical reality.
The Big Picture
An attack using air assault is an option that a commander may employ in both low-intensity conflicts and conventional wars. But a full discussion of its viability in certain combat scenarios must be conducted. The traditional notion that maneuver from the air can elude air and ground defenses has not held true in the past, nor will it in the future. The definition of enemy air defenses must be expanded to include all possible types of resistance.
For air assaults, tactics, techniques, and procedures need to be developed that keep casualties down, increase the survivability of aircraft in the age of ManPADS, and acknowledge that technology does not win battles. If helicopter-borne air assault is to be a viable choice in future attacks, then a considerable amount of brainstorming, scholarship, and head-butting must occur to address these many concerns.
1. In this article, "helo" or "helicopter" always means conventional helicopters and hybrids, such as the V-22 Osprey, because they fulfill the same mission requirements.
2. Allan R. Millet and Peter Maslowski, For the Common Defense: A Military History of the United States of America (New York: Free Press, 1984, revised and expanded 1994), 582.
3. Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young (New York: Harper Collins, 1993), 51.
4. Keith William Nolan, The Magnificent Bastards: The Joint Army-Marine Defense of Dong Ha, 1968 (New York: Dell, 1994), 321.
5. This information was taken from the author's combat journal; I acquired it during an area in-brief conducted by Sgt. (then Cpl.) Place from 2nd Battalion/1st Marine Regiment's sniper platoon.
6. Author's combat journal.
Adapting to the Global Naval Expeditionary Care System
By Captain David R. Davis, MSC, U.S. Navy (retired); Commander Debra Duncan, MSC, U.S. Navy; Bill Hancock; and Captain Brian McDonald, MC, U.S. Navy
In October 2007, the chiefs of the three U.S. maritime services unveiled their new cooperative strategy at the Naval War College.1 The central theme of the new maritime strategy is an integrated approach to seapower throughout the global maritime domain, using other elements of national power in conjunction with friends and allies. A key element to success is providing support to units that are deployed in austere environments or widely separated during operations.
We can accomplish this through our joint capability areas of force health protection, healthcare delivery, and health service support for operational forces.2 But to ensure that our forces have ready access to the complete scope of care throughout the global maritime domain, we need to overcome some daunting and complicated difficulties.
Units normally deploy with adequate medical personnel to provide first-responder capabilities, but this may not be sufficient to meet the demands of rapidly evolving circumstances or situations in which those at risk include joint, interagency, allied, coalition, or partner nation forces. U.S. Fleet Forces Command (USFFC) has launched an attempt to address these challenges through the Global Naval Expeditionary Care System (GNECS).
The GNECS Concept
The idea was articulated in the USFFC Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for Fleet Operational Health in 2006.3 At its center is the intent to create a global virtual managed-care network, linking naval expeditionary assets afloat and ashore. The concept uses the model devised in Operation Iraqi Freedom to provide a networked emergency care system similar to a civilian emergency medical system.
By modeling the GNECS on a civilian network, the goal is to achieve optimal efficiency with available resources supporting operations in which units might be widely separated. The GNECS formalizes what is already being done for deployed operational naval forces and facilitates wider dissemination of vital information and standardization of operating procedures across geographic boundaries. It also allows for more rapid activation of service and joint assets.
In the GNECS, the standard of care for the Golden Hour in civilian emergency medical systems is modified. In the civilian world this means that if trauma can be stabilized and emergency medical management begun within one hour, the patient's chances of survival are maximized. In the military, because of the time and distance factors for deployed maritime forces, the Golden Hour translates into maximizing stabilization using available capabilities, and moving the casualty to higher echelons of care. Ideally all this can be accomplished within one hour, but actual movement often takes longer.
The GNECS will use both sea-based and land-based health service support capabilities that can be deployed in modular, scalable, and agile packages of personnel, equipment, and supplies. A good example is the Expeditionary Resuscitative Surgical System (ERSS), which USFFC is now developing.
How the ERSS Works
Most ships are not outfitted with surgical suites. The ERSS provides a way to stage flexible and mobile surgical capabilities on board virtually any vessel. The demand signal for such capabilities in the Fleet resulted in a 2002 prototype unit, the Shipboard Surgical Suite, being developed.
Medical staffs of U.S. Pacific Fleet, 7th Fleet, Amphibious Group One, and U.S. Naval Hospital Okinawa developed the concept. After the prototype was deployed and experience gained with it, the ERSS developed as a more advanced set of capabilities. With four modular expeditionary resuscitative capabilities—a shipboard surgical team, expeditionary surgical team, expeditionary trauma team, and en-route care team—the ERSS can be used for short durations at or near a maritime operational platform or forward base of operations. The four components can support Fleet operations while not losing any of the ERSS's inherent capability.
Characteristics of each module are:
- Shipboard surgical team: Uses the Fleet surgical team concept along with personnel from the Navy's Health Services Augmentation Program to provide resuscitative surgery from the Expeditionary Strike Group.
- Expeditionary surgical team: Provides forward initial emergency resuscitative/damage control surgery and can function from a small platform or shore-based position.
- Expeditionary trauma team: Provides initial emergency life- and limb-saving actions and can function from a small platform or shore-based position.
- En-route care team: Treats patients during movement between levels of care.
The ERSS concept was further developed into a CONOPS for the USFFC medical staff, with the assistance of other key stakeholders such as the surgeons from the U.S. Navy Surface Forces and the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command.
Thorough Vetting Precedes Fleet Experimentation
The ERSS CONOPS was placed into Sea Trial as an initiative for Fleet experimentation, with 2nd Fleet as the sponsor. This process included collaboration between 2nd Fleet, the Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC), USFFC, Fleet Surgical Team Six, and the medical staff of the USS Bataan (LHD-5). A feasibility test of the ERSS was designed during deployment with an expeditionary strike group. NWDC ensured that the objective was limited, which guaranteed a rigorous process of data gathering. The data collection and analysis of lessons learned included interviews and surveys from the participants.
With the data incorporated into a final report, a military utility assessment convened August 2007, chaired by the 2nd Fleet surgeon. Voting membership of the assessment board included clinical senior leaders from the general surgery, anesthesia, emergency care, critical care nursing, senior operational medicine, and senior medical enlisted communities. The board concluded that the experiment had proved the ERSS concept's viability.
That September, the Sea Trial Executive Steering Group approved the ERSS for further development. The Navy Expeditionary Combat Command became the platform agent responsible for refining the capability, with the goal of making it fully mission-capable and formalizing it as a program of record.
How to Meet the Challenges
The ERSS remains a work in progress before full implementation within the Fleet. While it is not yet an approved solution to identified gaps, it has already provided an invaluable template for the development of other vitally needed medical capabilities.
Aside from the material challenges, an official policy is currently not in place. The ERSS must be fully implemented before it can be codified into official Navy doctrine. Nevertheless, with the endorsement and support of the Fleet health board of directors, along with ongoing Navy medicine capability development, we believe and hope that the ERSS will be matriculated into Navy Medicine doctrine in the near future.
More details, planning, and concept elaboration are needed for the GNECS concept to become viable entity. It is imperative that such efforts keep pace with the current demands of Fleet operations. The GNECS and ERSS initiatives are among Navy medicine's efforts to follow former CNO Admiral Mike Mullen's guidance: "The Navy, with its ability to deliver two unique attributes day to day—global reach and persistent presence—is our nation's Strategic Reserve. There is no alternative to a well-balanced Fleet."
1. A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, www.navy.mil/maritime/.
2. Joint Publication 4-02, Health Service Support, 31 October 2006, https://jdeis.js.mil/.
3. U.S. Fleet Forces Command, Fleet Operational Health Concept of Operations, 6 December 2006, https://wwwa.nko.navy.mil/portal/splash/index.jsp.
Commander Duncan was the medical combat development officer at Naval Warfare Development Command Detachment, Norfolk (June 2006—June 2008). She is currently assigned to the staff of U.S. Pacific Command.
Mr. Hancock is the future medical technologies coordinator for U.S. Fleet Forces Command, Norfolk.
Captain McDonald is the Health Service Support division head at Naval Warfare Development Command, Newport, RI.