“The Navy spends a lot of time deployed around the globe preserving peace, not conducting high-end warfare, so it is critical we maintain flexibility in future air wings.” —Vice Admiral DeWolfe “Bullet” Miller, Commander, Naval Air Forces
As China and Russia dramatically expand their military capabilities, the United States finds itself with a capable force, but one not optimized for competition with these two powers. The asymmetric wars in the Middle East and southwest Asia mainly have been fought with existing ground forces, aircraft, and weapons. Sustained combat operations in the Pacific or North Atlantic, however, would require completely different capabilities—some of which are absent from the Navy’s arsenal. In addition, a new concept—distributed maritime operations—de-emphasizes the concentrated power of the carrier strike group in great power conflicts.
These realities have pitted the surface navy against naval aviation in a fight for ever-more-scarce fiscal resources. Perhaps sensing an opportunity, the surface navy is working aggressively to increase its share of the overall budget to fund shipbuilding for manned and unmanned combatants. In what must feel to the naval aviation enterprise like piling on, critics of aircraft carriers from both Congress and academia increasingly call for wholesale changes to the force, including air wings. These collective challenges have forced uncomfortable introspection on naval aviation’s leaders and most ardent advocates.
As a result, naval aviation is reexamining its approach to the carrier air wing, making strategic investments to maximize both its lethality and flexibility. This will not be easy. Over the years, the air wing’s size has grown, and aircraft have gotten larger. The embarked helicopter complement alone grew by almost half with the addition of the MH-60R Seahawk; an extra E-2D Hawkeye, some CMV-22 Ospreys, and unmanned MQ-25 Stingrays will be joining in the near future. All this has combined to push carrier operational density beyond its theoretical limits. And none of it accounts for the reduced manning (and, hence, berthing and workspaces) built into the design of the Gerald R. Ford–class carriers. The Navy’s air warfare division (OpNav N98) is conducting an “Air Wing of the Future” study to reexamine the mix of fixed-wing aircraft on the carrier and to determine what adjustments are warranted. According to Rear Admiral Greg “Hyfi” Harris, the Navy’s Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Air Warfare, “All the cards are on the table in the [‘Air Wing of the Future’] study.”
Everything Old is New Again
Vast distances in the Pacific limit the reach of current aircraft. To ensure the aircraft carrier retains its utility, naval aviation is reexamining its approach to the air wing. While a fight with China in the Pacific may not be the most likely scenario, it is the most stressing, so naval aviation has embarked on a total-force effort to examine everything—from squadron organization, to flight-deck density, to surge capacity—to modernize. As an enabling effort, naval aviation has directed the helicopter community to reexamine its concept of operations (ConOps) in light of other required changes. The size of the Pacific may lessen the utility of some helicopter missions, and other embarked aircraft might prove more useful against projected threats.
The helicopter community has been here before. In 2001, the Navy completed “Helicopter ConOps 1.0.” That effort had a broad set of objectives: Reduce the number of unique helicopter type/model/series from six to two; reorganize squadrons into maritime strike (HSM) and sea combat (HSC) units to better support both carriers and other surface ships; and ensure all Navy helicopters were sufficiently armed. ConOps 1.0 was forward-thinking, and it has been successful by any measure. But it also was a product of its time. While much of ConOps 1.0 remains relevant, the growth of China and the reemergence of Russia point to a need for change.
Future Vertical Lift
Development of ConOps 2.0 began in 2019. Vice Admiral DeWolfe Miller, Chief of Naval Air Forces, and then–Vice Admiral Bill Lescher, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Integration of Capabilities and Resources (and himself a helicopter pilot with ConOps 1.0 experience), directed the HSM and HSC wings to examine helicopter mix and numbers on the carrier and assess the risk-to-mission that could be expected from either reducing or eliminating embarked helicopters altogether. Though ConOps 2.0 had been intended as a broad effort, analysis of complement size was accelerated, as looming budgetary decisions were to be informed by the conclusions.
The Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), having been part of ConOps 1.0, was chosen to conduct the study, and an executive steering committee comprising the HSM and HSC commodores, OpNav N98 requirements officers, the H-60 program office (PMA-299), and the program assessment office (OpNav N81) was established. CNA’s work is ongoing, with a final report due in spring 2021. To reduce the risk of emotions taking center stage, the study is measuring risk-to-mission against validated campaign plans. In this way, the HSM, HSC, and mine countermeasures (HM) communities are being objectively evaluated for their ability to complete missions critical to the high-end fight.
The analysis is examining three distinct timeframes: present–2025 (“fight tonight”), 2026–33 (“force in transition”), and 2034–45 (“future force”). In each timeframe, CNA is examining the missions for which the communities have operational requirements; assessing the effects of both fielded and projected technologies on those mission areas; and determining if the communities are optimally equipped and organized to fight in the changing battlespace. Key events during those periods include sundown of the MH-53E Sea Dragon, fielding of littoral combat ship mission modules, full employment of the MQ-8C Fire Scout, and fielding of both the MQ-25A and the MQ-4C Triton—each of which could affect the role of the MH-60R in the carrier air wing. The study also aims to optimize helicopter service-life extension efforts and find better ways to employ Navy Reserve helicopter squadrons at sea. Once complete, the helicopter community and the larger naval aviation enterprise will review the conclusions before moving forward on ConOps 2.0.
In addition to informing future investments in helicopter capabilities, the study is looking at how to transition the legacy helicopter communities to Future Vertical Lift Maritime Strike (FVL-MS) aircraft in the 2030s. Envisioned as a family of manned and unmanned systems—potentially including low-cost attritables that can be carried and launched from both legacy and next generation platforms—FVL-MS is intended to provide significant capability growth at a better value than traditional manned systems. Combining the MH-60R and MH-60S into a single manned type/model/series aircraft that employs mission-specific payloads would simplify the supply chain, reduce per-unit procurement cost, and better position the Navy to compete payload development among a myriad of industry competitors.
The relationship between FVL-MS and Helicopter ConOps 2.0 is significant for another reason: It will provide the RAND Corporation—the organization chosen to lead the Navy’s FVL analysis of alternatives (AoA)—with a body of analysis from which to commence its Fiscal Year 2021 work. Provided the Navy properly resources FVL-MS development—which will be critical in next year’s budget—the program executive office at Naval Air Systems Command will be able to begin early acquisition work when the AoA completes. Funding delays frequently drive cost overruns, and FVL is unlikely to be an exception. Achieving the aggressive affordability objectives for FVL will depend on the Navy prioritizing post-AoA investment and staying on timeline.
Planning Is Essential
For its part, the helicopter community must avoid viewing ConOps 2.0 (and “Air Wing of the Future”) as the means by which winners and losers will be chosen. ConOps 1.0 was successful largely because it used data and reasoned analysis to remove the emotional arguments (based on loyalties to mission, aircraft, and community) against change. Inevitably, there will be changes to the force. There may also be reductions in personnel and airframes. The unit of action—whether a squadron, type wing, or carrier air wing—must be right-sized and organized based on operational requirements. As requirements scale, so must the organizations. An inconvenient truth is that while people are the Navy’s most valuable asset, they are also its most expensive. For decades, as military budgets ebbed and flowed, the services have cut and increased manpower accordingly. Planning for these changes in advance—rather than reacting to them at the 11th hour—will minimize the negative effects on sailors.
There is a critical need for flexibility in the future air wing model—what works in Seventh Fleet might not work elsewhere. Reducing the number of Seventh Fleet’s embarked helicopters should not necessarily cause an overall reduction in force structure; those aircraft and people may be needed to support other missions. People and aircraft, once cut from the budget, are notoriously difficult to get back. The Navy must avoid ill-advised cuts for fast cash, because short-term savings could generate a pilot gap that will take a long time to fix. Besides, over the next 20 years, the Navy plans to build significantly more ships with small flight decks, and those can be serviced only by vertical lift. And while draconian cuts often resonate in the Pentagon’s E-Ring, they should be tempered by input from the carrier strike group and air wing commanders who will ultimately deploy these forces; some are already skeptical of large cuts in helicopters.
The asymmetric threats that drove the helicopter community to ConOps 1.0 in the early 2000s simply will not compete in a great power competition budget environment. If a mission for which HSM and HSC are expending flight hours will not influence the behavior of a peer adversary (or at least enable such influence), then it may no longer be a valuable mission. The helicopter community must continue to innovate and modernize its concepts of employment to provide maximum value in a high-end fight. This may mean reimagining traditional roles and embracing missions that, while less kinetic, are more critical to the broader force. The community must also guard against the notion that there is something inherently valuable about operating from the carrier.
If the helicopter community’s future is on smaller ships, then it will “run toward the gunfire” as it always has. Rotary-wing people have long valued the independence and autonomy that come from expeditionary operations. A surface combatant, operating far from home and with little support, is a crucible from which pilots, aircrewmen, and maintainers emerge strong, independent, and industrious. Ironically, the problem-solving skills developed by that challenging independence are what have consistently allowed the helo community’s leaders and sailors to be so successful in the collaborative environment that is the air wing.
The “Air Wing of the Future” and ConOps 2.0 efforts must be forward-looking, and they must drive toward change that is meaningful and thoughtful. Cuts to force structure must make sense in an ever-changing battlespace—not just in a single scenario. Proposed cuts should be closely scrutinized, as the implications of getting it wrong are severe. But the Navy helicopter community once again has been given the opportunity to help chart its own course. At the end of the day, communities that fail to modernize their capabilities and operations eventually go the way of the ghost fleet.
