Luftkrieg im 21. Jahrhundert

[Quintus Fabius]

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Reach & Punch: RADM Manazir On The Future Of Naval Airpower

The sea and the sky above it are becoming more dangerous for US forces. Even terrorist groups like Hezbollah and the Islamic State have access to anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles, let alone great powers like Russia and China. But the US Navy and Marines recognize this “anti-access/area denial” challenge and are reshaping their forces to meet it. We had a chance recently to discuss the way ahead with the Navy’s Director of Air Warfare, Rear Admiral Michael Manazir.

Manazir’s perspective is much wider than the evolving carrier air wing and the new Ford-class carrier. It is about how the sea services overall were being transformed by the ability to work more effectively with the other US services and other nations. Too often in defense discussions, focus is on a particular platform — a ship, a plane, a vehicle — and not on how new platforms work with what we already have to enhance the force as a whole.

Carriers & Amphibs: Network Hubs At Sea

For Rear Adm. Manazir, the new ships coming online plug into a global network, allowing forward forces to reach back to the wider fleet, other services, allies, or supporting agencies in the United States itself.

The amphibious fleet in particular is evolving beyond the traditional role of the Amphibious Ready Group. With new ships like the LHA-6 America and new aircraft like the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter, it provides a powerful persistent presence which can deal with a much wider range of tasks..

“The Marine Corps has grown in capability from being naval infantry to now having the capability to come from the sea with high-end meshed, networked, honeycombed, resilient capability, with an array of options depending on how you integrate the force,” Manazir told us. “The sea base itself has a powerful ability strategically to wage war because you don’t need a permission slip from a foreign power to use their bases. The United Stated Navy and the United States Marine Corps singly in the world have retained and modernized the sized capability that allows one to fight a nation with our force rather than just fight another naval force.”

There’s also the new large-deck carriers, the Ford class. Rear Admiral Manazir talked about the USS Ford as a contributor to the expanded battlespace, not simply the center of a classic carrier strike group.

“The USS Ford is a 21st century naval infrastructure asset, which lives off and further enables the transformation of the air wing. It’s a facilitator for all the things you’re going to do off the flight deck,” Manazir said, describing a shift in thinking about the carrier. It’s not just a deck which can fly X number of aircraft: It’s a moving hub of an extended strike enterprise, which can work with the Air Force and coalition partners.

“The focus is upon the carrier as a moving epicenter for a netted capability with the joint and coalition force. It is not about counting the number of airplanes on the deck or projecting the future existence of paper airplanes,” Manazir said. “It is about the air wing we are building and how it will operate with the transformed joint and coalition forces we are collectively modernizing.”

“The approach is to have force structure flexibility with an interconnected extended battlespace,” he said. “You can operate as a separate force package, or as a federated force when you are connected but can plug and unplug. You can be interoperable, integrated or interdependent, depending on time, circumstances and mission.”

The Future Air Wing: Network In the Sky

“What the Ford-class, the Joint Strike Fighter, and future unmanned platforms bring is the ability to pull the information in and be an epicenter of an enlarged and extended reach for the joint and coalition force,” Manazir said. With its ability to push data back to the ships and across the international coalition of F-35 operating nations, the F-35 is more than just a new strike fighter: It is part of fundamental change in the way the sea services operate across an extended, integrated battlespace.

“We are doing what Bayesian theory talks about, namely we are providing more and more information to get closer to the truth in targeting or combat situation. One can reduce that fog of war by increased understanding of what actual truth is; [then] you’re going to have better effects,” said Manazir. “This is why the technology that the F-35 brings to the fight is so crucial.”

“With the fifth generation aircraft and their sensors and fused data, you can cover a much greater swath of combat space than with legacy aircraft, and as we sort through how to integrate unmanned systems with F-35s, we will be able in a single operational unit to cover significant combat space,” Manazir said. “You are looking at exponential growth in coverage capabilities to inform the process of generating the combat effects, which you want in that extended battlespace, and the growth in the ability to generate better target information will allow us to execute strikes within our rules of engagement.”

“With Block 3F software in the airplane, we will have data fusion where you transform data information to knowledge enabling greater wisdom about the combat situation,” he continued. “The processing machines in the F-35 provide enough of the fusion so that the pilot can now add his piece to the effort. This enables the ships to enhance their ability to operate in the networks and to engage with the air fleet in dynamic targeting at much greater distance.”