F-35B, peace made between the Air Force and the Navy?
All the latest news on the F-35B between the Air Force and the Navy. The in-depth analysis by Silvio Lora Lamia for Defense Analysis
So the Air Force put a foot, or rather a trolley, on a Navy ship. A historic day that of November 21 last in the narration of the Defense General Staff, a little less for the Naval Aviation. The event and the occasion were certainly of great importance.
The first landing of an AM fighter plane on an aircraft carrier crowned the efforts for a first, at least formal conciliation between generals and admirals on the thorny issue of managing the fleet of short take-off and vertical landing F-35Bs. The occasion was provided by air and naval exercises conducted with the British Navy and Air Force and with the STOVL of the US Marines.
The Italian F-35Bs – in addition to that of the Air Force, recognizable by the large insignia painted on the hatch of the sustenance fan, also one of the Navy – have docked on the aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy Queen Elizabeth, while those of the Marines on the Cavour. All of them collaborated in aerial duels, electronic intelligence, data exchanges.
"CROSSED" INTEROPERABILITY
Ultimately, it was a first step towards Italy's participation in the integration and interoperability between the air-naval assets equipped with the American STOVL already established and tested by Great Britain and the United States, with the latter committed to expanding the "critical mass "Of the combination of medium-light aircraft carriers / F-35B to two of its future users, Japan and South Korea.
At the European level, integration and interoperability, which will benefit the whole of NATO, will be, so to speak, "crossed": on the one hand the two land components Royal Air Force and Aeronautica Militare, on the other the three naval components, Royal Navy, US Navy / Marines and Navy.
The challenge is certainly exciting from a strictly operational point of view, more fraught with obstacles under that of the political and technical-military management of these assets, which by their nature must interact with an extreme articulation in the field of command-communication-intelligence. Furthermore, as the US Army is already doing with the Marines F-35B Squadrons, the British and Italian armies will also end up having to interface in the exchange of data on the theater of operations with their respective air-naval devices based on the American attack STOVL. .
BETWEEN THE SAID AND THE UNSOLD
We leave out here the internal and foreign political issues that could arise in the use of this tripartite force, to dwell on the new Italian “Lightning Force”.
The hypothesis is that of a joint force group with 15 aircraft on each side which, inspired by the British model (a reinterpretation in turn of that Joint Harrier Force managed by an RAF resolutely opposed to the aeronaval instrument, eventually suppressed for several years with the withdrawal from service of planes), the Air Force would like to command, starting with deploying all 30 F-35Bs on its (already crowded) Amendola base.
The Navy, which would thus see its own Naval Aviation empty of meaning, and then disappear completely, has never made any secret of wanting to do exactly the opposite of the Air Force: to integrate, relying on its own base in Grottaglie, with STOVL assets of the AM appropriately “navalized”, thus giving the embarked combat aviation a critical mass finally suited to its needs: especially taking into account that with the entry into service of the LHD Trieste, two Navy ships will be able to embark the F-35Bs.
The official communiqué issued by the Defense Staff on 21 November deserves to be studied well. First, great importance is given to the seafront on which to project this joint force: “This exercise”, we read, “represents a strong impetus to the process of developing the national capacity for aerial projection from the sea”. Then, but only then, it is added that "the synergies between the Navy and the Air Force in the use of the F-35Bs on board the aircraft carrier, will also be achieved in the use from the ground, operating jointly in operational situations where no runways are available. suitable for conventional aircraft ".
For his part, the new Chief of Defense Staff Admiral Giuseppe "Pino" Cavo Dragone (pictured above with an F-35B pilot), former Navy Harrier pilot, stated in a video that interoperability of the F-35s of the Navy and the Air Force will take place "according to the normal criteria of employment of the two armed forces". Generic formula but useful to relax the spirits on both sides of the barricade.
FEW PLANES, VERY LONG TIMES
Until now, the Navy had never said it was inclined to have its aircraft embarked from temporary land bases operate according to the progress of operations. In the absence of the necessary safety frames for the short and / or semi-prepared runways, the fulcrum of the "expeditionary" doctrine of the Air Force (ground-to-air and ground-to-ground defenses, sensors, men, support structures at risk of spending, all with additional costs), Naval Aviation would expose its airplanes, which on board are guaranteed against threats, to the danger of damage or capture if not destruction by the enemy – as happened years ago to the Harriers based in southern Afghanistan.
But the Air Force insists on use from land bases, which is what belongs to it. This was seen in Pantelleria, on the doorstep, with an operation announced as indicative of the future expeditionary missions of his STOVLs, refueling his plane and one of the RAF with kerosene from the tanks of a KC-130 tanker parked at the side of the runway. .
Perhaps an experimental modality but in any case not always replicable in war on a "short runway" on the edge of the theater of operations; a procedure, however – to be implemented in a simpler and less expensive way -, to be taken into account also considering the limited range of action of the STOVL variant of the F-35, especially in the presence of external armament as well.
However, the November event is still light years away from the war missions already carried out by the British Lightning Force, which after a dress rehearsal in 2019 in June of this year was able to beat ISIS targets on Syria and Iraq by operating from Queen Elizabeth, but relying on a rear such as the Cypriot RAF base in Akrotiri, a stable outpost in an overseas British territory for 60 years, a stone's throw from the Middle Eastern theater. Will Italy ever have such a resource?
The Air Force, both as the head of that joint flight department and, instead, as an air force "participating" in the naval, aero-naval and amphibious missions of the Navy, is aware that it must undertake a long familiarization with the sea, with the cramped spaces of an aircraft carrier, but then, as we have pointed out in other articles, with all that operational mentality typical of a naval force, centered to the pinch on the most rigorous safety (see the loss of an F-35B due to a trivial misunderstanding between the men assigned to the flight deck of the Queen Elizabeth).
The "ground" pilot is certainly not enough to qualify for landing, it takes a long and patient school, is the mantra of the admirals, while the risk is that the delivery in slow motion, especially to the Air Force, of the next F- 35 STOVL refers everything to the Greek Kalends.
The Navy will acquire the indispensable Full Operational Capability for its JSFs no earlier than the end of the decade. The blue weapon even further. And let's not talk about the costs chapter, with worrying voices coming from Norway and Switzerland, with the latter that due to inflation (but perhaps not only that) in the contractual phase has seen the necessary financial commitment increase by 20% for the 36 F-35As ordered.
A lot of water has yet to pass under the bridges, and the triumphal tones with which a more symbolic event was greeted hide uncertain prospects in the short-medium term.
Article published on analisidifesa.it
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/f-35b-pace-fatta-tra-aeronautica-e-marina/ on Sun, 19 Dec 2021 06:35:20 +0000.