Power Pool, The

Sea Power, Aug 2005 by Burgess, Richard R

The Navy and Marine Corps are integrating tactical air resources to get air power to the right places faster and more efficiently

A Maior Change

The plan to assign tactical air units on an interchangeable basis alters the 2OO2 integration plan agreed to by senior Navy and Marine Corps officials.

* Major agents of change: Deployments generated by the war on terrorism and the Fleet Response Plan.

* Marines are released, at least temporarily, from the requirement to assign 10 squadrons to aircraft carriers.

* Assignment of Navy Hornet units to Marines no longer hard-wired.

* Deployments to be based on the best unit to fill each requirement.

The high tempo of operations created by deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and other missions related the global war on terrorism has driven the Navy and Marine Corps to pool their fighter squadrons, giving them greater flexibility to fulfill the deployment requirements of combatant commanders.

The initiative - called capabilities-based scheduling - is a major adjustment of the Navy-Marine Corps plan agreed to by the services in 2002 to integrate their tactical aviation forces. It relaxes, at least temporarily the original plan to assign 10 Marine squadrons to aircraft carriers and three Navy squadrons to expeditionary roles of the type typically performed by Marine air units.

Capabilities-based scheduling represents a more flexible approach to assigning Navy and Marine Corps Hornet fighter squadrons to deploying carrier air wings and Marine air-ground task forces. One purpose of the change is to align the tactical air (TACAIR) integration effort with the Navy's Fleet Response Plan, the operational construct to achieve higher readiness levels and be able to surge a greater share of naval forces to world trouble spots when needed by combatant commanders.

The move is a de facto acceleration of TACAIR integration, essentially making it fait accompli, a Marine Corps official said.

"I would argue under our new paradigm, we're there," said Lt. Col. David Hitchcock, TACAIR Plans Officer at Headquarters Marine Corps. "All of the Department of the Navy's TACAIR squadrons are unified right now under a common scheduling precept. We are fully integrated at this time. We still have a ways to go, but Navy TACAIR is working in lockstep with Marine TACAIR to meet the nation's needs."

The adjustment Io lhe TACAIR Integration Plan was approved June 7 by Adm. Vern Clark, then-chief of naval operations, and Gen. Michael Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps.

The original purpose of TACAIR integration was to merge Navy and Marine Corps Hornet squadrons into a seamless force. The squadrons essentially would be interchangeable and more efficiently scheduled to place the right capability in the right place as required. Integration is enabling the services to eliminate three active Navy squadrons and one Navy and one Marine reserve squadron, reducing TACAIR forces by at least 60 aircraft. Also, planned naval purchases of the future F-35 Joint Strike Fighter were cut from 1,089 to 680.

TACAIR integration was approved in August 2002 by secretary of the Navy Gordon R. England, Clark and Gen. James Jones, then-commandant of the Marine Corps. However, the scheduling concept of the original TACAIR integration plan had "significant negative effects on operations and readiness" and would make the transition to the Joint Strike Fighter "difficult to effect," according to an April 2005 plan drafted by Michael A. Hough, deputy Marine Corps commandant for aviation, titled Marine Aviation Plan, obtained by Seapower.

The plan also said capabilities-based integration, or pooling, of 56 Navy and Marine Corps TACAIR squadrons would "globally schedule [the] best unit to fill each requirement" and "create flexibility to source fighter capability as the strategic environment changes."

Hitchcock said, "We had some growing pains with the transition to the Fleet Response Plan."

The original plan called for assigning one Marine F/A-18 Hornet squadron to each of 10 Navy carrier air wings, and assigning three Navy Hornet squadrons to the Marine Corps Unit Deployment Program (UDP), by which squadrons rotate to Japan as forward-deployed forces.

Since 1997, "we've had as many as four [Marine squadrons] assigned to air wings, but Navy and Marine squadrons are no longer as permanently assigned to air wings" as they once were, said Hitchcock. "Right now, three [Marine] squadrons are currently participating in [Fleet Response Training Program] cycles in air wings."

Under the new pooling concept, the Navy and Marine squadrons form one pool and "will rotate in and out of air wings as required," he said.

The new scheduling plan essentially releases, temporarily, the Corps from the hard commitment of providing 10 squadrons to carriers. "We'll schedule Navy and Marine squadrons to fill requirements as they emerge," Hitchcock said, regardless of whether they are generated by global war on terrorism requirements, the Fleet Response Plan, future deployments or the need to send TACAIR units to the Western Pacific.