MILITARY US MARINE CORPS RECAPITALISATION
T
he US Marine Corps
is partway through a
complete recapitalisation
of its aviation assets, in
some cases replacing
Vietnam-era equipment
with modern platforms, as
it positions itself to ght in
future con icts.
The Marine Corps is
unique among the US armed services in that it
is expected to ght both from ship and shore.
In a high-end ght, for example, it expects that
25% of its missions will be own from the deck
of a US Navy aircraft carrier or amphibious
assault ship, and although the remaining 75%
are likely to be own from bases ashore, they
also must have the option of reverting to a
sea base. Accordingly, these requirements are
shaping the replacement of the aviation eets.
Just weeks before his retirement after a 37-
year career, Deputy Commandant of Aviation
Lieutenant General Jon Davis provided details
of how the transition is progressing: “The
United States Marines Corps is a combined
air-ground team that is ready for anything;
we’ve experienced 15 years of the low-end
ght, but we’re also ready for any kind of ght
that comes our way. When the United States is
least ready, the nation wants the Marine Corps
to be most ready.”
Explaining the operational advantage of
establishing a sea base to allow the Corps to
achieve high sortie rates General Davis said:
“The sortie rates we have for our carriers and
amphibious ships are based on a two-hour
mission, 400 miles out and 400 miles back.
We’ve gured out how to air refuel, but the
engineering challenge is re-arming. We
establish facilities where we can land ashore
and practise that. For the last ten years we’ve
been hot-refuelling and re-arming our AV-8Bs
and now do the same thing with F/A-18s and
F-35Bs. We land the aircraft, give it a full load
of gas and a full load of ordnance and it takes
off again. It generally gets airborne within 15
minutes: the pilot never shuts the engine down.We’ve perfected that technique, we used it
operationally in Iraq and Afghanistan and it
works very well for us to get our sortie rate up.
“When we go ‘Winchester’ for ordnance,
with the STOVL aircraft we can land on a small
ship if need be, or on a piece of tin we’ve laid
down, refuel and rearm them, and get them
airborne again to keep the high performance
ghters deep into the adversaries’ terrain.”
The term ‘Winchester’ refers to the aircraft or
helicopter being out of ammunition.Work in progress
The Marine Corps is now well into its
recapitalisation journey, with the replacement
of CH-46 Sea Knight by the MV-22B Osprey
tiltrotor and AH-1W Sea Cobra and UH-1N
Huey helicopters with the AH-1Z Viper and
UH-1Y Venom platforms respectively, and
the venerable xed wing KC-130R Hercules,
which has largely given way to the next-
generation KC-130J Super Hercules.
Gen Davis explained that every type in
Marine Corps aviation is in transition right now
and doing well: “The KC-130J is a tried and
true; it’s a great airplane for us. We’re in the
nal year of production for UH-1Ys, and we’re
receiving AH-1Zs – tremendous airplanes
[and a] great capability for us. The MV-22B
is probably the most in-demand platform in
the world; it’s forward-deployed in our Marine
Expeditionary Units, it’s forward-deployed in the
Asia-Paci c region and it’s also deployed with
Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Forces
both in the Middle East and African areas of
responsibility. It’s unlike anything else we’ve had
in the past. We have just own four MV-22s from
Hawaii to Australia and we y them routinely
across the Atlantic Ocean, as well. It’s a platform
that can actually self-deploy and that’s a
tremendous capability, when you think about it.”F-35B Lightning II
Marine Corps F/A-18 Hornet and AV-8B
Harrier eets are slowly being replaced by the
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike
Fighter. The Corps is acquiring 420 F-35s; 353Nigel Pittaway attended a
presentation with the US
Marine Corps’ outgoing
Deputy Commandant of
Aviation to hear about the
service’s recapitalisation
Recapitalising the Corps
F-35B Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing
and 67 F-35C Carrier Variant jets.
The rst squadron to forward deploy,
Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121 (VMFA-
121) ‘Green Knights’, is now based at Marine
Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan. Ten aircraft
are currently on strength; a further six will
be delivered by the end of the summer.
The most recent squadron too complete
F-35B transition is VMFA-211 ‘Wake
Island Avengers’, which has reached initial
operational capability. Both units will deploy
aboard ships in 2018.
The next three squadrons to transition to
the F-35 are currently ying the F/A-18 Hornet:
VMFA-122 ‘Werewolves’ at MCAS Beaufort,
South Carolina will move to Yuma, Arizona;
VMFA-314 ‘Black Knights’ at Miramar, willWith a max take-off weight over
84,000lb, Sikorsky’s CH-53K
King Stallion is one of the
largest helicopters in the world.
Despite its high unit cost, US
Marine Corps’ leaders believe
the aircraft is unmatched in its
capabilities and applicability to
the roles required by the service.
Lockheed MartinRecapitalisation in the US Marine Corps comes
with no higher profi le than the F-35B Lightning II.
The service has already transitioned two AV-8B
Harrier squadrons to the type and transition of the
fi rst F/A-18 Hornet unit is imminent. Lockheed Martin