program production plans have the USMC buying 425, the Air Force 50 for special operations, and the Navy 48 for CSAR, for a planned total of 523 units. Current cost estimates place the average flyaway cost (including non- recurring R&D costs) of around $32 million a copy, though Bell-Boeing thinks that they can get that down to under $29 million.
As currently planned, the MY-22 will be about 57 ft, 4 in./25.8 m long with a wingspan of 50 ft, 11 in./15.5 m, and a height of 22 ft, 7 in./6.9 m. It will weigh in empty at 31,886 1b/14,463 kg, and will have a maximum takeoff weight of 60,500 lb/27,947 kg in a STOVL mode. Maximum payload will be twenty-four fully loaded troops or 20,000 1b/9,072 kg of cargo. Performance will include a top-level flight speed of 314 kt/582 kph and a maximum ferry range of around 2,100 nm/3,829 km, and a tactical range of around 1,800 nm/3,336 km. These are impressive numbers for an aircraft with roughly the same folded dimensions as the CH-46. Inside the MV-22B will be a cockpit that is arguably the most advanced of any aircraft in the world. Based on the cockpit of the Air Force's MH-53J Pave Low III SPECOPS helicopter and the MC-130H Combat Talon II aircraft, it has undergone many improvements in the years that the program has taken to mature. This is a good thing, because a few years back, I nearly killed myself and a few other folks in a full-motion V-22 flight simulator, trying to fly the thing like a normal helicopter. Today, the MV-22's two man cockpit looks a lot like a normal military cockpit, with a control stick, left-side thrust control lever, and a whole panel of flat multi-function displays (MFDs) to show them all of the vital flight data. This includes a moving-map display tied to a GPS aided inertia navigation system, so that pinpoint, split-second landing operations can become the rule rather than the exception. There is also a FLIR pilotage system to allow enhanced night operations. The entire aircraft is sealed against chemical, nuclear, and biological threats by an overpressure /filter system.
Flying this new bird is, to say the least, a bit strange. I got to try it on the new mission simulator at Bell's Plant in Fort Worth, Texas, and it was an eye-opener. To lift off, you advance the thrust control lever on your left forward, and the MV-22 lifts off smoothly. To transition to high-speed level flight, you push a small thumbwheel on the thrust control forward, and the engines rotate down in 3deg increments. Once they are in the full 'down' position, you are essentially flying a high-performance turboprop transport, which is actually quite agile and comfortable. To land, you begin to pull back on the thumbwheel, causing the engines to rotate back to the vertical. The fly-by-wire system makes this very comfortable, and your eyes begin to transition to the MFD, which tells you the sink rate towards the ground. This is the critical condition to watch, because you need to keep this fairly low. Tilt-rotor aircraft cannot apply power quite as fast as normal helicopters, and you have to think a little 'ahead' to make this go smoothly. If you've done it right, you should feel a gentle 'thump,' and you are down.
Right now, the biggest problem facing the Osprey program is the planned rate of procurement. Originally, the Clinton Administration had planned to buy less than two dozen a year. This meant that the buy would run out to the year 2025. General Krulak is planning to speed this up to around thirty-six a year, so that the procurement of MV-22B will be completed before 2010. In this way, he hopes to avoid a funding conflict between Osprey and the planned JSF buy.
Getting There: The Gator Navy
Amphibious warfare is one of the most expensive and risky forms of combat ever devised. You have to move difficult and unruly cargo (combat troops), feed and care for them, and safely bring them through hostile waters to an enemy shore. You have to then deliver them, with all of their equipment and supplies, onto a beach to fight their way inland. And then they have to wait for follow-on forces or evacuation at the end of the mission. Today, most nations with coastlines have radar-equipped planes and patrol boats to locate an incoming force over the horizon. They are armed with guided missiles, coastal artillery, and mines.
When they were planning the Normandy invasion, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his staff in 1944 faced this problem. But things have changed a lot since then. The weapons of our time are far more lethal than those of World War II; and General Eisenhower had the unlimited resources of American, British, and Allied industry to build over five thousand ships and landing craft to 'kick-in-the-door' of Nazi-occupied France. Today, a theater commander in chief (CinC) might be lucky to have a dozen such craft within a single amphibious ready group (ARG). Eisenhower could land five divisions with over 100,000 men on D-Day (June 6th, 1944). Today's CinC might have only 2,500 fighting men and women to throw onto a hostile coast. Clearly, in the fifty years since we invaded our way to victory in Europe and the Pacific, the problem has become more difficult.
The drawdown of amphibious shipping and landing craft by the U.S. over the last few decades has been so precipitous that it has occasionally destabilized the global balance of power. When the Royal Navy announced plans in 1982 to decommission its tiny amphibious force — two Assault Ships (LPDs), and six Landing Ship, Tanks (LSTs) — Argentina promptly invaded the Falkland/Malvinas Islands. Similarly, the perceived inability of the United States to project power into the Persian Gulf in 1979 encouraged the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian militants. By early 1996, our amphibious shipping force had fallen to its lowest level since before Pearl Harbor. This leaves the United States and her allies with just two options. One is to simply abandon the ability to influence events in global crisis areas beyond our shoreline. The other choice is to make the best use of the limited assets we retain. Luckily, we have adopted that one. This is the core of
We don't yet have all the tools to accomplish the missions spelled out in
The good news is that it will all probably work, at least under the current world order, or rather, disorder. The key is a new view of amphibious warfare that has quietly taken hold within the military over the last twenty years or so. This is the OTH concept. Instead of closing within a few thousand yards/meters of a beach to unload troops and equipment, the big ships will stay between 25 and 250 nm/46 and 457 km offshore, out of range of enemy sensors and weapons. High-speed vehicles like the Landing Craft, Air Cushioned (LCAC), the new Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle (AAAV), the MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, and the CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopter will deliver the assault forces to their assigned targets. With these vehicles and aircraft, there will be less need to be so picky about beach topography (sand, shale, beach incline, etc.) or oceanographic conditions (tides, seastates, etc.). This will mean that the area of operations (AOR), or 'battlespace,' can be vastly expanded, making the problems of defending a coastline more difficult. The result of all this will be to increase the value of our limited amphibious forces, while decreasing the risks they face. Meanwhile, those thirty-six amphibious ships will be the most capable and powerful ever built.
This chapter will introduce you to the Navy's amphibious vessels. It will give you some feel for how the men and women of the 'Gator Navy live, as they do their hard, dangerous jobs in the 'littoral regions' of the world.
Amphibious Shipping/Landing Craft Development
The fragile, lightweight oared warships of antiquity could be hauled up on a beach, but they were awkward platforms for amphibious assault. Alexander the Great's siege of the island fortress of Tyre on the Lebanese coast in 332 B.C. saw early examples of ingenious improvisation on both sides, with ships lashed together to provide platforms for siege towers and battering rams. The Viking longships of the Dark Ages demonstrated amazing
