Fullbore Friday

The below was posted nine years ago when the Vietnamese government helped us bring a few Shipmates home.

I thought of this over Christmas when I was still stewing about Big Navy's final success in killing what little remained of the Navy's trained CSAR capability with the death of HSC-85. 

One of the big and enduring lessons of the Vietnam War was the absolute requirement to maintain a cadre of specially trained navy rotary wing aircrew and equipment for special operations and combat search and rescue. 

We learned that lesson because of what happened when we had non-trained personnel do the mission because we had no choice.

They are specialized requirements that really can't be shoehorned in to "multi-mission" - regardless of what the accountants tell you.

Especially in areas of sustained operations at sea and near shore, Navy Special Warfare will need RW assets they control and have worked closely with for extended periods.

With the likelihood of another conflict in the Pacific greater than it has been in decades, there are two constants that have not changed. First is geography. For the USA, operations in the Pacific will be dominated by maritime and near shore power projection.

The second is that aircraft will be shot down. Aircraft will break down or run out of fuel well away from "the Joint force." Pilots will need to be rescued. "This requirement will be sourced via the Joint Force" is a peace time answer by a bureaucrat, not someone preparing for war.

With the last rump of this capability gone, that does not mean the requirement will go away? 

No. 

Navy, Marine Corp., and yes, even USAF aircraft will go down at sea and near shore. The nearest and probably only asset available in real time will be the US Navy.

The mission will be done - regardless if we have a crew trained in that mission, or an aircraft designed for that mission.

Combat Search and Rescue will be done. When minutes matter, days or weeks to get on the schedule is not an answer.

The message will come in. Aircrew will get engines started. Attempts will be made. To not try is to break an unwritten bond we have to not leave anyone behind if possible.

There will be successes, but when you ask people and aircraft to do something they are not trained or designed to do, there will be more death, more failure, more losses. More remains that will take decades to come home.

In July 1967, a pilot was down over 20 miles inland - not a normal "get me out of the drink" search and rescue - and a straight-stick SH-3A (not the HH-3E "Jolly Green Giant") and her crew took off from the USS Hornet (CV-12) to go get him.

We keep promises to each other. 

We try.

We will have to keep these promises again. Are we training and equipping our people to be ready for the call when the call comes?

Say hello to Lieutenant Dennis Patterson, USN and his daughter before his last deployment. I have a picture almost exactly like this, but in Summer Whites, with one of my daughters when she was almost the exact age and I was a couple of years older than Dennis.

He was 29 years old when he led his crew west.

---

Sometimes Fullbore is just all in a days work ... and a few decades to make it back home.

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced April 30 that a Navy pilot, missing from the Vietnam War, has been accounted for and will be buried with full military honors along with his crew.

Navy Lt. Dennis W. Peterson of Huntington Park, Calif., was the pilot of a SH-3A helicopter that crashed in Ha Nam Province, North Vietnam. Peterson was accounted for on March 30, 2012. Also, aboard the aircraft was Ensign Donald P. Frye of Los Angeles, Calif.; Aviation Antisubmarine Warfare Technicians William B. Jackson of Stockdale, Texas; and Donald P. McGrane of Waverly, Iowa. The crew will be buried, as a group, on May 2 at Arlington National Cemetery.

On July 19, 1967, the four servicemen took off from the USS Hornet aboard an SH-3A Sea King helicopter, on a search and rescue mission looking for a downed pilot in Ha Nam Province, North Vietnam. During the mission, an enemy concealed 37mm gun position targeted the helicopter as it flew in. The helicopter was hit by the anti-aircraft gunfire, causing the aircraft to lose control, catch fire and crash, killing all four servicemen.

In October 1982, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) repatriated five boxes of remains to U.S. officials. In 2009, the remains within the boxes were identified as Frye, Jackson, and McGrane.

In 1993, a joint U.S./S.R.V. team, investigated a loss in Ha Nam Province. The team interviewed local villagers who identified possible burial sites linked to the loss. One local claimed to have buried two of the crewmen near the wreckage, but indicated that both graves had subsequently been exhumed.

Between 1994 and 2000, three joint U.S./S.R.V. teams excavated the previous site and recovered human remains and aircraft wreckage that correlated to the crew's SH-3A helicopter. In 2000, U.S. personnel excavated the crash site recovering additional remains. Analysis from the Joint POW/MIA Command Central Identification Laboratory subsequently designated these additional remains as the co-mingled remains of all four crewmen, including Peterson.

Giving your all to make sure that every effort is made to make sure we leave no one behind.

Welcome home Shipmates.

Fullbore Friday

We don't do enough of our most recent conflicts on FbF ... so today a story from last decade of a Little Bird bringing giants with big medicine.

Hearing Cianfrini’s warning, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Mark Burrows, 35, banked right to evade bullets from a heavy machine gun that had opened up across a field. Then, a second machine gun began firing at them. Burrows turned again, only to face a heavier barrage.

“The whole world just opened up on us, it seemed like,” Cianfrini said in a telephone interview from Iraq on Tuesday. “We zigzagged; we did whatever we could do to get out of the guns’ target line. Then, we started taking fire from behind. That is what took the aircraft down.

The Kiowa started to shake violently, its main rotor damaged.

Burrows said he decided to head into the field, but the aircraft began to spin uncontrollably, and at about 20 feet above the ground he had to shut down its power. The helicopter hit the ground tail first, bounced over a canal, crashed nose down and slid into a ditch beside an adjacent dirt road.

Cianfrini climbed out one door, and Burrows got out the other. They met at the nose and discovered that, miraculously, they had suffered only scratches, they said. The Kiowa by then was on fire, its engine blowing up inside. Insurgents were shooting at them from across the field, and the pilots could hear the rounds hitting the burning helicopter.

“Where’s your weapon?” Burrows yelled to Cianfrini.

“I have no idea,” came the reply.

Head on over to the DenverPost for the rest of the story.

H/t JD.

Afghanistan in its 18th Year: at the Personal Level

Almost to the day, our direct military involvement in Afghanistan has reached its 18th year. Those Afghans, American, British, and others who were had yet to reach their first birthday when the attacks of September 2001 led us to move in to direct military action in Afghanistan, those children of 2001 are now on their way to that Central Asian country to pick up the conflict other generations have yet to put an end to is.

Nation building, counter-terrorism, training, capability building, infrastructure development and even agricultural assistance, we’ve had the better part of two decades to find a path, or combination of paths, to help the Afghan people stand in the modern age. The programs and names change, but in the distance was that common goal.

Our guest this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be Lieutenant Jack McCain, USNR who returns to Midrats after recently completing a tour helping train the Afghan armed forces to fly and use the ubiquitous Blackhawk helicopter. We’ll cover his experience there to talk about that stage of our involvement in Afghanistan, the experience of working with Afghans on a daily basis, and other related topics.

Lieutenant McCain is a currently serving Naval Aviator and graduate of the United States Naval Academy and Georgetown's School of Foreign Service. He has deployed four times in the Pacific, Persian Gulf, and recently returned from Afghanistan where, as an Afghan Hand, he flew alongside Afghan pilots in the Blackhawk. Prior to that was a leadership instructor at the Naval Academy and a Search and Rescue Pilot in Guam. He is presently assigned the Navy Reserves as a helicopter pilot.

Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at Spreaker. 

If you use iTunes, you can add Midrats to your podcast list simply by clicking the iTunes button at the main showpage - or you can just click here.

Bureaucratic Self-Harm and the Seawolves

One of the great tragedies of the obsession with Joint, Goldwater-Nichols - and to no small measure petty budgetary parochialism - was the loss of the Navy's ability to quickly create inside its own lifelines capabilities to meet the requirements to support combat operations as we encountered them.

We saw it in Iraq, we saw it in Afghanistan, we continue to see it today. Heck, not just USN, but USAF has the same problem. Just look at the bureaucratic slow roll of a capability I heard people screaming for in C5F as we clawed our way up the Kandahar Valley in late 2001 - the Light Attack Aircraft.

Examples are legion of when Navy has needed a capability, but had to wait or get none simply because the other services' "high-demand/low-density" assets simply had more important things to do. That is an arrangement that fits an "efficiency" mindset, but fails the "effectiveness" requirement in war.

Of course, I'm talking today about the capability our Navy grew pre-Goldwater-Nichols out of whole cloth in the body of Helicopter Attack Squadron (Light)-3 and her sisters. A great article over at USNI Proceedings re-introducing their story to a new generation.

One of the principal avenues for resupplying communist Viet Cong fighters was the populous Mekong Delta. The most productive agricultural area in South Vietnam, it featured a web of waterways that were used to infiltrate the region. To stem the flow of supplies, the U.S. Navy initiated Operation Game Warden in late 1965, establishing Task Force 116—a fleet of amphibious vessels and armed river-patrol boats collectively known as the “Brown Water Navy”—that patrolled the delta’s inland rivers and search suspicious vessels. The delta soon became a hotly contested and wide-ranging arena of warfare, where Navy small craft, SEALS, and Army ground forces faced danger at nearly every turn along the jungle-lined waterways.

With the commencement of Game Warden, the Navy concurrently adopted a new designation for its rotary-wing community: the helicopter combat support squadron (HC). These units largely operated as part of the blue-water Navy, performing the utility and plane guard duties that were established missions for helicopters operating from carriers and surface ships. With the exception of search-and-rescue missions, day-to-day operations tilted more heavily toward the support part of the squadron designation and less on combat.

This changed in 1966, when Rear Admiral Norvell G. Ward, Commander Naval Forces Vietnam, offered General William C. Westmoreland, Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, much-needed air support for his riverine forces. Army helicopters had been performing those missions on a temporary basis, but Admiral Ward proposed to provide Navy crews if the Army contributed helicopter gunships, which did not exist in the Navy’s aircraft inventory.

The resulting agreement brought members of HC-1 in country to fly UH-1B Iroquois helicopters, with the first contingent arriving on Independence Day 1966. Training under Army pilots and crews included familiarization with the aircraft, armament, and the vast area of operations. On 19 September, the first HC-1 detachment arrived on board the USS Tortuga (LSD-26), one of the collection of amphibious vessels, including tank landing ships (LSTs), that served as bases of operation for HC-1 and later HA(L)-3. The Navy men also received a new nickname—the Seawolves.

Yep, this is the Navy I know.

Aviation Structural Mechanic Third Class Joe Crutcher recalls himself and a fellow maintainer borrowing black paint from an Australian unit that they mixed with green paint provided by the Army to give the HA(L)-3 UH-1Bs a different look. Commander Robert Spencer, the squadron skipper, directed them to paint “NAVY” in white letters on the tail booms, saying, “I want the Army to know the Navy is here.”

One thing not lacking was personnel willing to serve in the squadron, even knowing what they faced. “If you go to HA(L)-3,” retired Captain Brian Buzzell recalled of the squadron’s reputation among those coming out of flight school as helicopter pilots, “you are going to get shot at and maybe killed.” Those pilots joining stateside trained under the tutelage of the Army (initially at Fort Benning, Georgia, and later at Fort Rucker, Alabama), learned how to fire and clean an array of weapons, and completed the Army’s demanding SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) school.

Read it all.

Of course, in spite of the example they gave, we did not have the same spirit or ability to adjust due to the bureaucratic adhesions from DC and "other priorities" of senior leadership than supporting Sailors under fire. Navy gunships did survive on life support in the USNR, but neglected and never expanded, they finally were allowed to starve to death in 2016. What a disgrace.

There is some good news for history though, there is a documentary;

Jeff and Shannon met with the president of the HA(L)-3 Seawolf Association, Mike Dobson, in 2012 and proposed making a documentary. With Jeff traveling the world filming the World Surfing League, not until 2014 during a squadron reunion in Dallas, Texas, did the couple dedicate themselves to beginning work on the film.

You can get more details here.

Another Round of the AFG RW Argument

Some days it seems like 2007 all over again when a regular discussion topic at CENTCOM was the variety of rotary wing problems in Afghanistan.

There was the short term crisis of the Aviation Bridging Force that summer; would NATO ever do what it promised it would do – or will Uncle Sam have to once again patch together a last minute fix? (of course, NATO failed to fill what they promised in the CJSOR, so we covered it).

Then there was the long term question; what kind of helicopter force would be best for the re-constituted Afghan Air Force?

In a great short outline of the 2018 challenge over at Small Wars Journal, Abdul Rahman Rahmani, Major Afghanistan Airforce and his co-author Jack McCain, LT USN – the authors put the choice in clear terms; keep trying to make Mi-17 happen, or go Blackhawk.
First, the facts on the ground.

By April 2017, despite money and training from the United States, “The AAF had 46 Mi-17s in total, of which 18 were not flyable either due to scheduled overhauls or major repairs,” noted the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan in its recent report. The report stressed that the Mi-17s are "in a state of steady decline due to higher-than-anticipated utilization rates and accelerating attrition."

Why are there so many problems with the Mi-17?

…Mi-17 parts (are) exceedingly expensive (and) also required more time and negotiations to be made with the Russian government, an unreliable broker, at best. The result placed Mi-17s in the “…state of steady decline,” situation. For example, according to SIGAR, “Out of unavailable Mi-17s, six of them are in overhaul, four are in heavy repair, and six have expired.” If this situation remains, by the middle of 2018, AAF would be out of Mi-17 helicopters. Unlike Mi-17s which steadily ‘decline’ this plan will provide overhaul inspections to the American aircraft quicker than the past because the Afghan government had to send the Russian aircraft to countries like Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia for overhaul inspections, while Blackhawks can be inspected inside Afghanistan, by American and Afghan trained maintenance personnel. Also, a less apparent disadvantage, translating Russian publications to English and then to Dari or Pashtu was time and energy intensive, which negatively affected maintenance efforts, and leads to misunderstanding.

Amazingly, the argument for keeping the Mi_17 is exactly the same one made over a decade ago.

AAF pilots and maintainers are already familiar with and used to the Mi-17, and re-training would require significant time and effort, two limited components in this war. This is a case that can be made, albeit a flimsy and shortsighted one

Time has shown that we should have taken another path to US equipment, training, and maintenance.
Here’s the argument;

From the combat and operational perspectives, when comparing the capabilities of Blackhawks and Mi-17s, among several different factors, three key elements should be considered: speed, maneuver, and lethality. First, Blackhawks are faster than Mi-17s … Second, Blackhawks are lighter and smaller than Mi-17s, and therefore, more maneuverable … Taliban were, in fact, scared of American Blackhawks because they were more maneuverable and acted more aggressively when operating against insurgents. While very few Mi-17 helicopters have been designated gunships, out of 159 Blackhawks 60 would be designated gunships which will bring maneuver, firepower, and enable more and aggressive tactics allowing the AAF to destroy the Taliban elements on the battlefield, limiting their operational and tactical space.
…
From the maintenance perspective, the US would provide the majority of aircraft parts to the AAF faster from Bagram and Kadahar, as opposed to Mi-17 parts which were not only exceedingly expensive but also required more time and negotiations to be made with the Russian government, an unreliable broker, at best. The result placed Mi-17s in the “…state of steady decline,” situation. For example, according to SIGAR, “Out of unavailable Mi-17s, six of them are in overhaul, four are in heavy repair, and six have expired.” … this plan will provide overhaul inspections to the American aircraft quicker than the past because the Afghan government had to send the Russian aircraft to countries like Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia for overhaul inspections, while Blackhawks can be inspected inside Afghanistan, by American and Afghan trained maintenance personnel.

This is the best selling point from Team-Blackhawk;

the AAF needs a plan that will guarantee sustainability of its rotary-wing fleet and; therefore, it cannot rely on an aging Russian aircraft forever. Moreover, Afghanistan needs a new, elite corps of military officers, divorced from legacy Russian equipment and doctrine, to lead its military in the future, because victory in this war depends on the young generation of Afghans. The US and Afghan government can train this new generation inside Afghanistan, at bases like Shindand, Kandahar, and Kabul International Airport, without having to send them to the US and Europe, where many of them flee or seek asylum, which further delays the training cycle and disrupts the military education system. Training pilots and maintainers on Mi-17s did not previously have the flexibility of using Afghan military bases. Also, future training of Blackhawk crews can be conducted easier than Mi-17s, because most American rotary wing pilots, from the U.S. Navy, Army, and Air Force, are familiar with Blackhawks and do not need to be sent to Ukraine or Czech Republic for specific aircraft familiarization training. Unlike the Mi-17 helicopters translated publications, this plan will facilitate availability of original English publications to the pilots and maintainers without having to rely on third-hand translated versions.

It’s almost 2019, BTW. Let’s do this right this time.

PS: fun side-note to this article;

So, the President reads mine & @McCainJack article: https://t.co/BN0x4Yv27G & asks MoD minister about me & he decides to promote me without knowing me personally. Afghanistan has a scholar in office, after nearly a century, who reads & acts based on his readings!@smallwars

— Abdul Rahman Rahmani (@rahmanrahmanee) October 30, 2018

Fullbore Friday

Sometimes Fullbore is a battle, a campaign, a concept. Sometimes it is a moment in time - sometimes it accrues over decades.

Fullbore can be found everywhere - could be just down the table from you at the DFAC.

In 1969, Eugene Krueger left his young wife, Sharon, and headed off to Vietnam, where the 20-year-old's heroism as an Army pilot would be recognized with two Distinguished Flying Crosses and a Bronze Star.

Krueger returned home, raised four daughters and embarked on a civilian career with Northwest Airlines while serving with the Washington National Guard.

But Krueger was not through with war.

As part of a marathon military career that ended this week with his retirement, he returned to the front lines as a pilot in Afghanistan. There he spent four months in 2006 flying missions out of Bagram Air Field.

I served with a few in AFG who retired in the late 80s and were called back from the Army. Mostly Special Forces guys who had a very good Civil Affairs background. A very untold story - I'm glad I've had a chance to share one here.

One little note: notice how the Army can still tap into its pool of talent decades back in the Reserves and National Guard - as a result it can do something the Navy can't - tap in to institutional memory.

He also chafed at inefficiencies he found in an Army that had become much more bureaucratic.

During the Vietnam era, for example, cargo could be quickly loaded into slings and then hauled by Chinooks to and from combat outposts. But during his Afghanistan tour, cargo was loaded inside the helicopter, a more time-consuming task that forced the helicopter to idle on the ground for hours with engines running so that pilots could escape quickly if the aircraft came under attack.

Krueger suggested that the unit consider slings, but to no avail.

"My argument is we could do the mission in half the time, thus saving half the fuel, half the crew time, half the maintenance, half the $$$," Krueger wrote in a journal entry. "This should be a no-brainer."

Chief Krueger; Fullbore.

Hat tip KP. First posted JUL2011.

Fullbore Friday

Sometimes Fullbore is a battle, a campaign, a concept. Sometimes it is a moment in time - sometimes it accrues over decades.

Fullbore can be found everywhere - could be just down the table from you at the DFAC.

In 1969, Eugene Krueger left his young wife, Sharon, and headed off to Vietnam, where the 20-year-old's heroism as an Army pilot would be recognized with two Distinguished Flying Crosses and a Bronze Star.

Krueger returned home, raised four daughters and embarked on a civilian career with Northwest Airlines while serving with the Washington National Guard.

But Krueger was not through with war.

As part of a marathon military career that ended this week with his retirement, he returned to the front lines as a pilot in Afghanistan. There he spent four months in 2006 flying missions out of Bagram Air Field.

I served with a few in AFG who retired in the late 80s and were called back from the Army. Mostly Special Forces guys who had a very good Civil Affairs background. A very untold story - I'm glad I've had a chance to share one here.

One little note: notice how the Army can still tap into its pool of talent decades back in the Reserves and National Guard - as a result it can do something the Navy can't - tap in to institutional memory.

He also chafed at inefficiencies he found in an Army that had become much more bureaucratic.

During the Vietnam era, for example, cargo could be quickly loaded into slings and then hauled by Chinooks to and from combat outposts. But during his Afghanistan tour, cargo was loaded inside the helicopter, a more time-consuming task that forced the helicopter to idle on the ground for hours with engines running so that pilots could escape quickly if the aircraft came under attack.

Krueger suggested that the unit consider slings, but to no avail.

"My argument is we could do the mission in half the time, thus saving half the fuel, half the crew time, half the maintenance, half the $$$," Krueger wrote in a journal entry. "This should be a no-brainer."

Chief Krueger; Fullbore.

Hat tip KP. First posted July 2011

Fullbore Friday

I find myself going in to this Memorial Day weekend a bit weary, but I have no reason to be.

I had another one of those conversations that I just try to avoid and walk away from. Almost four years since I left active duty and now working far away from all things military - in a fashion I enjoy just being Mr., and no one really needs to know the once-was CDR - and that is fine. You can't hide it though, it comes up now and then as a natural part of the conversation.

Even in a very military friendly town, you run in to those who just, well, just don't know - or what they do know is wrong. It started innocent enough earlier this week at a networking event - doing what one does and talking to someone who, unknown to me at the time, was a person who seems to live in one of those world-view bubbles; expected results followed.

When I stated, "When I returned back home ... " it was another back an forth until she gathered I was retired military. She asked when the last deployment for me was, and I mentioned the shortened one in late '08 and early '09 to AFG - which I told her just finished things up for me as AFG was "my" part of the Long War, nosomuch IRQ. 

Oops. My fault. Well, that set her off. I don't recall everything, but in the course of a few minutes all I heard was stuff about lies, WMD, Bush, and Abu Ghraib - and that is when I stopped her. I just asked her, "Is that all you think of?" 

Well, she rewound her elevator speech on IRQ again, so I interrupted with mine. Mostly I talked over her and said, "We turned the corner in '07 and achieved most of our goals and end states by late '08 where we could declare victory and let Iraq choose their fate with an even chance. It was worth it - and good people gave their all for that victory."

I walked away with her still talking at me. No one raised their voice on either end ... I just couldn't stand it any more. Soured me on the whole networking event.

I guess good people can argue both sides - but I was there from beginning to end in the AOR. From Bahrain in SEP01 to Kabul through '09. I know the facts as we knew them. I am at peace that history will eventually tell the story correctly. I will not let the uninformed and unbalanced like that woman define IRQ for me.

On the drive home and on and off this week, I kept thinking about '07. I was remembering that conversation Bill Ardolino and I had either on or right before Midrats last Sunday about the discussion I had with Papa Salamander in '07 about IRQ and AFG - Papa Salamander and I may have been very different men who did not agree on much, but I do miss him.

Anyway, enough of me. '07 was the year with the greatest casualties in Iraq, 904. 2007; I kept thinking of it, and then it hit me. Captain Harris and her MEDIVAC flight. Seven of that 904.

Capt. Jennifer J. Harris, USMC, 28 years old and on her third combat tour, was killed in action 07 FEB 2007 flying the PHROG with Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 364 (HMM-364), Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force, from Camp Pendleton, Calif. She was shot down while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq.

Her crew was: 1st Lt. Jared M. Landaker, Sgt. Travis D. Pfister, Cpl. Thomas E. Saba, Sgt. James R. Tijerina, Navy Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Gilbert Minjares Jr. and Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Manuel A. Ruiz.

Below is a tribute video I surprisingly found. I almost did not post it - as it includes video from the enemy of the shoot down - but the more I thought of it, the more I saw it as a tribute. After taking two SAM hits, she managed to keep her aircraft under control for an exceptionally long time - and was close to getting it on the ground when it all came undone.

We often see names and places on Memorial Day weekends - but we rarely show what sacrifice is - what we ask our men and women to do in our name. If you don't want to see an American aircraft shot down, then don't watch the video. But if you, like me, think you honor Capt. Harris and her crew by seeing their last full measure - then watch the tribute video.

While you do that, this Memorial Day Weekend - think of Jennifer, Jared, Travis, Thomas, James, Gilbert, and Manuel. Look at those on the beach to the left and right. Look at the parents with small children running about the aisles while shopping. Look at the young man or woman pumping gas as they get ready to hit the road. Then look at the empty spot at the beach, the quite open aisle at the store, the empty gas pump; that is where they are supposed to be, but aren't. That is what we are supposed to remember on Memorial Day. 

Because they took off that day for us, Jennifer isn't at the beach, Jared isn't having dinner with family, Travis isn't shopping, Thomas isn't mowing the yard, James isn't pumping gas, Gilbert isn't on the phone with relatives, and Manuel isn't on duty this weekend so his Shipmates could have the long weekend off.

It as been six years since the shootdown. Think also of the possibility that in that time, we also don't have the pleasure of what children those Marines and Sailors may have fathered or given birth to.

Such it is; such as it always been; such shall it always be.

Fullbore Friday

Sometimes Fullbore is just all in a days work ... and a few decades to make it back home.

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO) announced April 30 that a Navy pilot, missing from the Vietnam War, has been accounted for and will be buried with full military honors along with his crew.

Navy Lt. Dennis W. Peterson of Huntington Park, Calif., was the pilot of a SH-3A helicopter that crashed in Ha Nam Province, North Vietnam. Peterson was accounted for on March 30, 2012. Also, aboard the aircraft was Ensign Donald P. Frye of Los Angeles, Calif.; Aviation Antisubmarine Warfare Technicians William B. Jackson of Stockdale, Texas; and Donald P. McGrane of Waverly, Iowa. The crew will be buried, as a group, on May 2 at Arlington National Cemetery.

On July 19, 1967, the four servicemen took off from the USS Hornet aboard an SH-3A Sea King helicopter, on a search and rescue mission looking for a downed pilot in Ha Nam Province, North Vietnam. During the mission, an enemy concealed 37mm gun position targeted the helicopter as it flew in. The helicopter was hit by the anti-aircraft gunfire, causing the aircraft to lose control, catch fire and crash, killing all four servicemen.

In October 1982, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (S.R.V.) repatriated five boxes of remains to U.S. officials. In 2009, the remains within the boxes were identified as Frye, Jackson, and McGrane.

In 1993, a joint U.S./S.R.V. team, investigated a loss in Ha Nam Province. The team interviewed local villagers who identified possible burial sites linked to the loss. One local claimed to have buried two of the crewmen near the wreckage, but indicated that both graves had subsequently been exhumed.

Between 1994 and 2000, three joint U.S./S.R.V. teams excavated the previous site and recovered human remains and aircraft wreckage that correlated to the crew's SH-3A helicopter. In 2000, U.S. personnel excavated the crash site recovering additional remains. Analysis from the Joint POW/MIA Command Central Identification Laboratory subsequently designated these additional remains as the co-mingled remains of all four crewmen, including Peterson.

Giving your all to make sure that every effort is made to make sure we leave no one behind.

Welcome home Shipmates.

Army Quality Circle Award Winner

Everyone made it back ok ... but what a testimony to the Chinook and its crew.

Good, robust aircraft and training ... along with a bit of luck.

Wait for it ... and see if you can guess what I wanted at the end.



Hat tip DMartyr@jawa.

The Irregular History of Warfare, on Midrats

There is an echo that regular listeners to Midrats are very familiar with; the critical importance of an understanding of history in the profession of arms.

More than almost any other field, there is nothing new under the sun. The tools may change, but the play of power, economics, intellect, and drive which makes the difference in war and therefor human history remain the same.

A professional must reach back to Sun Tsu and Alexander the Great ... but he must also look closer.

Join EagleOne and me this Sunday, 25 MAR, from 5-6pm EST with returning guest LCDR Benjamin "BJ" Armstrong. He recently returned from deployment as the Officer-In-Charge of an MH-60S Armed Helo Detachment which conducted operations with the BATAAN ARG and 22D MEU in support of Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR in the 6th Fleet AOR and maritime security/counter-piracy operations in the 5th Fleet AOR.

When BJ isn't off playing helicopter pilot, he is an occasional naval historian. His research extends over the subjects of naval history and irregular warfare. He is the author of numerous articles including "The Most Daring Act of the Age: Principles for Naval Irregular Warfare" in The Naval War College Review, and "Nothing Like a Good Maritime Raid" in USNI's Proceedings.

His article "Immediate Redress: The USS Potomac and the Pirates of Quallah Batoo" is forthcoming in the May issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies.

Join us live if you can, but if you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio - the best way to get the show and download the archive to your audio player is to get a free account and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Listen to Midrats

RAID!

Our friend BJ has a must read on a something that I have wanted to see us return to early and often. Sure it is a little Victorian/Edwardian in construct - but it has a fair history of Americana about it as well.

Some things are not worth years of American blood and treasure, but they do need killing and their stuff needs to be broken and there is a time proven way to do that and go home early - the Punitive Expedition.

That is one thing to call it - another is Maritime Raid. Read it all.

The Navy/Marine Corps team has a long and storied past, operating together in everything from ship versus ship combat in the Age of Sail to the mastery of small wars and the amphibious warfare that has become its staple over the past half century. Operationally, many of the successful missions conducted by the Navy/Marine Corps team have involved maritime raiding.

As the Navy welcomes the Marine Corps’ return to the sea in the 21st century following a decade of war ashore, the modern redevelopment of the historic maritime raiding capability is just as vital to the future of the Sea Services as sharpening the dulled skills needed for a full amphibious assault.

He gives the historical context and then a good entering argument for the 21st Century version.

Today’s Nimitz-class aircraft carriers are not being used for maximum efficiency. While the “fighter gap” is not projected to hit the Navy for another couple of years, the reality is that today’s carrier air wing is smaller than the Nimitz class was designed to deploy. The Gerald R. Ford class will have even more room. The power of today’s super carriers comes from the precision fires that can be delivered more than the sheer number of airframes on the flight deck. This leaves room available for a few more airframes and a few more people, and the potential to increase the capability of the modern carrier strike group.

The greatest strengths of the Osprey are its speed and range. The ability to get to targets over 1,000 miles away, while maintaining the element of surprise through speed far above that of an assault helicopter, can prove decisive when used for the right mission. One of the weaknesses identified of using the MV-22 in an ARG/MEU is the inability of current escort helicopters such as the AH-1 Cobra to keep up with the assault force. That isn’t a problem with the dozens of fixed-wing jet aircraft available from the deck of a carrier.

Recent interoperability training between Marines and Navy MH-60S helicopter detachments on board amphibious ships has demonstrated the ability of Navy helicopters to deliver Marine assault elements. For short distances, and missions that are better suited to assault helicopters than tilt-rotors, the helicopter sea combat and maritime strike squadrons that are part of today’s carrier air wings provide an established capability. Operating as a Navy/Marine Corps team, smaller assaults for missions to include non-compliant or opposed visit, board, search, and seize missions (such as the Magellan Star takedown) would be possible from the deck of the carrier.

The Marine Corps is already hard at work on developing smaller and more mobile combat units, as demonstrated by the exercises for Enhanced Company Operations, and the Company Landing Team. A great deal of experimentation has already been done, and exercises completed to develop the concept. A notional CSG Maritime Raid Force would be roughly the size of an embarked squadron, taking up the same number of racks and the same amount of space for equipment and aircraft.

Organized as a Marine Air-Ground Task Force in miniature, it would be made up of a CoLT, an MV-22 detachment, and a small logistical element. When not conducting raiding operations, the CSG MAGTF could provide expanded capabilities for theater security cooperation missions by the strike group. The size and shape of each element would require development by the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab and Navy Warfare Development Command and could be tailored for the maritime raiding capability desired and the space available.

... and we can do it now with what we have ... now.

Post-modern International Order

An American made helo of the German Army being loaded on to an Antonov An-124 in AFG.

If you just came out of a Cold War coma - you would think you were in a parallel universe.



Hat tip Theo.

How do you say "Sea Apache" in Russian?

Learn and adapt ... learn and adapt.

Using attack helicopters from the sea appears to be in vogue, again.

The concept appeared dormant, but gained new attention in Europe when the French and U.K. moved to deploy on ships the Tiger and Apache helicopters in support of military operations in Libya.

Australia also has plans to deploy its Tiger ARHs from ships.

Now Russia is joining the mix. The country's military is conducting trials to clear the Ka-52 for ship-borne operations, with the Northern Fleet using the Vice Adm. Kulakov for at-sea trials.

When I saw that pick, my puzzl'r started tingl'n and I said, "Ah, ha! I've seen that concept before!"

Indeed I had ... but we took a pass on it. Meet the Sea Apache.



I bet the Riverine guys - not to mention the SEALs - would have loved to have such a capability with a NAVY stamp on it over the last decade. I know the "career path management issues" that are so important on active duty would make it problematic - because as we know that is the most important thing - but imagine two-to-four squadrons of these aircraft in a det-rotation cycle at home in the Reserves. You would be beating pilots away with bullwhips to get a billet there.

The original proposal still had the 30mm gun, but even with that deleted - not too shabby.

Weapons planned for use with the Sea Apache include Harpoon, Stinger, Sidewinder, Sidearm, AMRAAM, Penguin, and Hellfire missiles, as well as 127mm Zuni and 70mm FFAR rockets. The Harpoon, Penguin and He!Ifire missiles wouId be used against large naval targets, the Sidewinder and Stinger in the air-to-air mode, and the 127mm Zuni and 70mm FFAR rockets against smaller water borne targets and ground targets. A variety of missiles/rockets could be carried at the same time giving the Sea Apache the capability of engaging different types of targets on the same mission, making it a very versatile and useful naval aircraft.

Performance goals specified for the Sea Apache by the Navy include a 370km mission radius, and a four hour endurance on station.

Check out what LMT can do with the 'ole 70mm rocket now days. You want precision strike with minimal collateral damage? Here you go!

Oh well - different world with different leaders with different vision.

Hat tip Lee.

Anglo-American Anti-Piracy in action

We've got friends of this blog all over the anti-piracy news ... if you look hard enough.

I'm talking about it over at USNIBlog.

Fullbore Friday

Sometimes Fullbore is a battle, a campaign, a concept. Sometimes it is a moment in time - sometimes it accrues over decades.

Fullbore can be found everywhere - could be just down the table from you at the DFAC.

In 1969, Eugene Krueger left his young wife, Sharon, and headed off to Vietnam, where the 20-year-old's heroism as an Army pilot would be recognized with two Distinguished Flying Crosses and a Bronze Star.

Krueger returned home, raised four daughters and embarked on a civilian career with Northwest Airlines while serving with the Washington National Guard.

But Krueger was not through with war.

As part of a marathon military career that ended this week with his retirement, he returned to the front lines as a pilot in Afghanistan. There he spent four months in 2006 flying missions out of Bagram Air Field.

I served with a few in AFG who retired in the late 80s and were called back from the Army. Mostly Special Forces guys who had a very good Civil Affairs background. A very untold story - I'm glad I've had a chance to share one here.

One little note: notice how the Army can still tap into its pool of talent decades back in the Reserves and National Guard - as a result it can do something the Navy can't - tap in to institutional memory.

He also chafed at inefficiencies he found in an Army that had become much more bureaucratic.

During the Vietnam era, for example, cargo could be quickly loaded into slings and then hauled by Chinooks to and from combat outposts. But during his Afghanistan tour, cargo was loaded inside the helicopter, a more time-consuming task that forced the helicopter to idle on the ground for hours with engines running so that pilots could escape quickly if the aircraft came under attack.

Krueger suggested that the unit consider slings, but to no avail.

"My argument is we could do the mission in half the time, thus saving half the fuel, half the crew time, half the maintenance, half the $$$," Krueger wrote in a journal entry. "This should be a no-brainer."

Chief Krueger; Fullbore.

Hat tip KP.