The Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance community has provided critical forward presence and combat support since the beginning of naval aviation, and its taskings and capabilities are only expanding.
In ". . . From the Sea," "Forward... from the Sea," and now the "Maritime Concept," Navy leaders progressively have shaped a new vision calling us in from blue water to the littorals. In the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance (MPR) community, we must maintain our open-ocean antisubmarine capability, but littoral coordinated operations now are our focus. The conflicts in the Arabian Gulf and the Balkans exercised the venerable and reliable P-3 and EP-3 in traditional roles—delousing water space and providing reconnaissance and intelligence to the fleet to extend the afloat battle group commander's deadly reach—but these accounted for only a small portion of MPR's capabilities and taskings. EP-3E aircraft flew dedicated overland missions for the first time during the Gulf War and Balkan campaigns. Traditional naval targets became secondary as MPR flew in support of deep overland strikes. The Balkans conflict escalated employment of MPR assets to include using P-3C aircraft to destroy land-based targets with standoff land-attack missiles.
Today, knowledge superiority and information dominance are watchwords for the "Maritime Concept." Naval forces are moving into new mission areas such as theater ballistic missile defense and deep land attack that require real-time information flow to the commander. In this environment, MPR is ideally suited not only to supply this information but also to deliver precision munitions in a timely and lethal fashion. Technological advances and joint interoperability enhance MPR's capabilities. During Desert Shield, for example, a prototype P-3, the Outlaw Hunter, was outfitted with an Officer in Tactical Command Information Exchange System, global positioning system, and inverse synthetic aperture radar and used for maritime interdiction. Not only was Outlaw Hunter able to provide quality targeting data on critical contacts of interest, but its highly reliable satellite communications suite allowed for rapid aircraft retasking.
Another cornerstone of the "Maritime Concept" is forward presence to enable U.S. worldwide influence. Today, the MPR community consists of 12 patrol (VP), 2 fleet air reconnaissance (VQ), and 2 special project unit patrol (VPU) squadrons. VP squadrons operating on an 18-month cycle (12 months home, 6 months deployed) and the constantly forward-deployed VQ and VPU squadrons provide a 365-day-a-year, 24-hour-a-day worldwide presence (see Figure 1). Home bases, continuous deployment sites, and detachment locations enable MPR forces to deploy literally anywhere around the globe to support U.S. presence. They also can deploy to remote detachment sites within 24-48 hours, bringing their own ground support to facilitate operations.
The Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Master Plan provides a clear vision for the community's contribution to the "Maritime Concept": antisubmarine warfare; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and maritime strike targeting. Traditionally, antisubmarine warfare is the most recognized area of MPR expertise, but the P-3C Aircraft Improvement Program (All?) and EP-3E Sensor System Improvement Program (SSIP) upgrades enhance MPR forces' ability to meet the diverse requirements of littoral warfare. The introduction of new technology aboard AIP extends the range of acoustic and non-acoustic sensors, and SSIP and other follow-on technology make the EP-3E the premier tactical platform for delivering enemy intent to battle force commanders.
The antisubmarine warfare, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and maritime strike targeting capabilities triad strongly supports Navy long-range planning objectives. Over-the-horizon targeting, anti-surface warfare, command and control, land attack, strike support including targeting and battle damage assessment, and mine warfare are subsets within the triad and represent the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance community's contributions to nearly all aspects of naval warfare.
Today's Challenge
Clearly, the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance community makes critical warfighting contributions across the range of naval aviation mission areas, but it is doing it with old equipment and an ever-increasing support tail. As a result, MPR no longer can sustain its present form. Beginning in 2005-6, the P-3Cs will begin reaching the ends of their service lives. In terms of fatigue life expended (FLE; an aircraft rolls off the production line with 100% fatigue life, which is reduced as it operates), the P-3 fleet's average is 63%. In addition, the current P-3s and EP-3s are at their weight and technological limits. Further modification opportunities to increase performance, reliability, and mission capability are limited at best. Requirement analysts and community planners are working with the operators to try to mitigate the effects of these problems, but the message is clear: a new platform is required to sustain existing and future MPR capabilities.
Figure 2 (the "waterfall" chart) shows it all. Today, the MPR requirement is for 251 aircraft, with a Primary Aircraft Authorized (PAA) of 212. Current projections predict fatigue life expended will drive the force below the PAA by 2005-6. An even bleaker picture appears when aircraft undergoing modifications (middle dashed line) are taken into consideration. These "pipeline" aircraft exacerbate MPR's inability to outfit squadrons at required PAA and leave home-cycle squadrons struggling to meet minimum readiness requirements. It is a downward spiral: fewer aircraft means more flight hours per aircraft; more flight hours and increasing age means aircraft wear out faster; the faster aircraft wear out, the fewer are available.
One final consideration: the typical charts and figures assume the aircraft are being flown at a constant rate, but recent contingencies such as the Kosovo campaign have accelerated fatigue life expended. VQ and VPU squadrons are experiencing even more rapid aging because of the small number of specialized aircraft available to conduct their missions. With each surge, we must recalculate FLE, moving the rushing waterfall to the left.
Spare parts is another issue.3 In his 1999 testimony before the Readiness Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Admiral Archie Clemins noted, "Although the shortfall this year is not as severe as in previous years, we still carried a 'bow wave' of approximately $30 million in aviation depot-level repairables from fiscal year 1998 into fiscal year 1999."4 More money has been dedicated to the problem, but the aging P-3s continue to require more repairs more often, and the funding plus-up does not keep up. Lack of spare parts means maintainers must cannibalize parts from one aircraft for another, doubling their work and only marginally—and temporarily—increasing aircraft availability.
Figure 3 shows costs per flight hour for P-3s. Although fuel and other aircraft related costs remained fairly steady through 1999, depot-level repairable costs jumped significantly because of aging aircraft and escalating costs. Projections for 2000 and beyond are not yet available, but the picture is troubling. In 2001, AIP spare parts no longer receive Naval Inventory Central Point dollars, but rather fall to the type commander's budget. By most industry and military estimates, the aviation depot-level repairables line will skyrocket.
During the Cold War transferring aircraft between squadrons was almost unheard of. Today it is standard practice. A VP squadron's PAA is 9 aircraft (10 if home ported in Hawaii), but a squadron returning from deployment can expect to have only a fraction of that number because of transfers to other squadrons working through the interdeployment training cycle and closer to deployment. The experience of Patrol and Reconnaissance Wing 11 in Jacksonville, Florida, is indicative: Wing 11 squadrons averaged 29 transfers per year from 1997 through 2000, with a high of 9 in August 2000. There are many reasons for the transfers, but with 36 aircraft assigned to the VP squadrons in the wing, this works out to an average of 80% of the force changing hands each year.
The Future Is Now
Over the years, naval aviation has made several unsuccessful attempts to update or replace the P-3. The P3C Update IV started in 1983 but never produced an aircraft. Its avionics later were selected as a forward fit for the Long-Range Air ASW Capability Aircraft (P-7) but the program was terminated in 1992. The P-311 remanufacture concept, proposed in 1990, fell from the budget in 1992. The 1991 P-3G concept attempted to leverage Korean P-3C orders but never materialized. Faced with the degrading material condition of the force's aircraft, a Sustained Readiness Program commenced in 1994 with a completion target of 2001. This program was intended to address material condition issues by replacing major structural components. After program delays and cost overruns it was terminated in 1999.
A new platform is needed if MPR is to continue its vital contributions to naval warfare. Replacement platform options are being considered, and the new concept calls for replacing P-3 and EP-3 aircraft with a Multimission Maritime Aircraft (MMA) starting in 2010-12. Navy leaders have accepted the MMA, but it will not be available until after most of the current fleet of aircraft have reached 100% FLE. The Navy's platform acquisition process must accelerate to ensure the survival of MPR aviation and its unique capabilities.
The acquisition strategy for MPR has options. Boeing proposes a 737 derivative it can outfit with mission variants; Lockheed-Martin is working on a P-3 replacement aircraft; and Northrop-Grumman proposes to produce a number of Global Hawk UAVs to fill in where manned MPR missions would not or could not go. British Aerospace and Airbus also have expressed interest.
The 737 flies faster and higher, an EP-3 mission requirement, and has enormous expandability. In addition, the airframe support structure is vast and worldwide. The major recognized challenges are the lack of mission equipment experience from a commercial source and questions concerning low-altitude maritime and undersea warfare mission capability. Firing weapons is a key MPR capability, but there is no precedent for a bomb bay or weapons hard points on a 737 wing, so this "unknown" will require further research. Lockheed-Martin and Raytheon both have enormous experience supporting the P-3 line. A newly developed P-3 follow-on would support the traditional VP missions as well as additional missions. Global Hawk development is ongoing, and the Northrop-Grumman UAV proposal provides MPR squadrons relief from missions better suited to unmanned reconnaissance. Photo reconnaissance of enemy treaty compliance, for example, takes up a lot of time for deployed MPR squadrons. Advanced UAVs could be on line in two-to-four years after approval.
The Path Ahead
The Office of Naval Intelligence judges that our future challenges will be mostly land based and in littoral regions. Unfortunately, our potential adversaries have gained military strength and capability and will be more adept at denying access to adjacent sea and air space. MPR continues to refine its capabilities to see and hear beyond those denied areas.
Submarines still are at the top of the battle group commander's major threat list. One reason for concern is that cancellation of the ES-3 and the aging of the S-3 have left the carrier battle group with limited organic antisubmarine resources. MPR provides these services and through its enhanced communications and reconnaissance suites also provides information to ensure the carrier group's battlespace dominance.
Improved quieting, better onboard submarine sensors, more capable torpedoes, and higher conventional submarine endurance mean greater challenges in detecting, tracking, and destroying enemy submarines. The challenges to U.S. naval operations are significant and require concomitant advances in detection and prosecution.
Geographic coverage by the carrier battle group and air wing always has been impressive, and this presence has been used many times as a political tool. But the ability to move a carrier into a problem area to ease tensions or deter a potential adversary may not always be an option. The Mediterranean, for example, is frequently without a carrier. Peacetime presence is a basic tenant of the "Maritime Concept." Gapping carrier presence requires alternatives such as those provided by MPR.
MPR has a proven track record of forward presence and combat support. The community has made significant contributions to every conflict since the beginning of naval aviation. In the preface to the Navy Strategic Planning Guidance, Admiral Jay Johnson wrote, "It is imperative that we remain focused on both our enduring role of forward presence and our transformation to a network-centric and knowledge superior force." The Black Cats' raid at Tonelei Harbor is a classic example of forward presence. The Cats also spent many hours patrolling the critical sea lanes and shorelines, providing critical combat information. The missions have changed somewhat, but the requirement to be a force multiplier, first on scene and last to leave, providing critical combat information to our nation's leaders, has been constant. MPR always has been, and is now, a major contributor to our national defense strategy. If one of the Multimission Maritime Aircraft options now being considered is not accelerated, the risk to our national security is clear. MMA is the vehicle that will carry on the Black Cat legacy.
Commander May is executive officer of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron Two in Rota, Spain.