I was having a discussion with Guthy and Grim about the future of the USMC cross decking with the Royal Navy the F-35B.
Quite honestly it doesn't make sense in my opinion. Several reasons.
Accountability.
If the Marine Corps is able to suddenly provide deck space for even 6 F-35B's from the Royal Navy then it will have to explain why the US Marine Corps is able to set aircraft on the tarmac while it forward deploys British aircraft.
Differing foreign policy agendas.
The Marines can find themselves at any time (especially on deployment) involved in everything from a humanitarian relief mission, to embassy reinforcement to an intervention, to full scale combat. It just wouldn't do to have British aircraft taking up precious space on an LHA, especially if the British government disagreed or decided not to participate in an operation.
Ruined career paths.
This is probably the least important consideration but the most important for some quarters of the Marine Corps. Every pilot, maintainer, Commander that is part of the USMC that sees a boat space taken up by a British counterpart will be at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to promotion and competitiveness in the post Afghanistan Marine Corps. Without a shooting war going on the focus becomes schools, commands, deployments and B-billets. You can make the point that for every ship that sails with British planes would have an equal number of USMC planes on their deck but because the Marines have more decks, deploy more often and deploy with more pilots the exchanges could quickly become imbalanced.
Workups for deployment.
Cross decking for effect would require British pilots participate in USMC MEU workups. You would in essence take a pilot and plane out of British service for months at a time to get them ready to participate as part of the MEU Air Component. I assume the same would apply to USMC aircraft operating off British carriers.
Real deal cross decking vs. make believe.
If the notion is to do a real deal cross deck then the negatives far outweigh the pluses. If you're talking about a couple of ships sailing together and then the aircraft simply land a few times, take off, the crews spend a night or two and then they return to their own vessels then you're talking about a publicity stunt and not a real life application of the concept.
Where cross decking or adding "allied" aircraft to the MEU does makes sense.
There is an area where it would make nothing but sense to have a real deal 100 percent cross decking routine built. That is with certain allies that do operate F-35B's but have little or no capability to put them to sea. Singapore would be an example. If they do actually buy the F-35B and either don't have an LHA or are delayed in building one then it would be an ideal situation to invite Singaporean F-35B to participate in the MEU. It would probably require a few helicopters be displaced to LPD-17 for certain air ops but it would be a win win for both forces. Suddenly you could surge a LHA to the Pacific with available F-35's, make up the difference with Singapore's (or Australia if they got F-35B's...or Japan..you get the idea) and suddenly you have a full fledged MEU deployed plus a surged LHA acting as a sea control ship with an unscheduled Marine fighter squadron supplemented by allied aircraft.
I look forward to hearing opinions.
Okay so this is a half arsed response :) but I'm screwed for time today. By enlarge I don't disagree much with anything you've said Sol. I think where I was coming from before is probably more cross training than cross decking, but I do think both have their place now and to greater extent in the future.
ReplyDeleteRegarding cross training the RAF/RN and USMC have a long history of exchange pilots and crew mainly with the Harrier although has spilled out on the F18's as well. This has stalled for the moment whilst the F35 gets worked up into something usable, but I imagine it will continue in even greater strength than before. Its nearly always done at a 1 for 1 at whatever level, so from a career point of view nobody loses out. In fact I believe that its generally taken to be a career enhancer.
From a true cross decking POV I can still see there being some exchanges of men and equipment in the future albeit probably at a low level qty wise, were not talking entire squadrons here. It is of course a bit of a wet dream for various cash strapped Navies at the moment and I do include the USMC in that regard as unfortunately I can foresee a future where hull numbers will drop even further. Short of a massive change in global stability the lack of massive conflicts has and will continue to hit all naval forces and to lesser extent land based Army & Air. Truly allied forces will need to plug gaps however they can. Can I see it happening in a full on conflict no, can I see it happening let's say of the coast of Africa keeping an eye on a low intensity brush fire yes.