For the P-8/Triton combination is clearly a key capability for the dynamic target which the USAF and the USN are focusing upon for deterrence in the new strategic environment .
In a number of the interviews conducted at Jax Navy and Mayport, I had a opportunity to discuss with P-8, Triton, Seahawk crews and with a MISR officer how the Navy is leveraging these capabilities to shape a kill web approach for the fleet.
Reading: Visiting the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Weapons School | https://mindovermetal.org/en
I started my sojourn with a discussion with CDR Mike Kamas, Commanding Officer, Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Weapons School and his executive Officer, CDR Matt Griffin, who will assume command of MPRWS on July 24, 2020 .
Both of these Naval aviators have a wide range of operational experience and are clearly leveraging that know in shaping a way ahead for the maritime patrol enterprise as a plank holder in a kill web enabled maritime power .
CDR Mike Kamas has 20 years of USN servicing in a variety of roles. Starting out his career as a P-3 Naval Flight Officer at VP-16 in Jacksonville, he has besides operated aboard aircraft carriers, served as a masthead adjutant at the Undersea Warfighting Development Center in San Diego, and worked with the open war community in Hawaii. He has operated ahead in Europe and the Middle East, providing ISR to the joint force out during the land wars of the past two decades. He besides served as a Staff Officer at the United States Africa Command adenine well. In 2017, CDR Kamas came bet on to Jacksonville, made the P-3 to P-8 passage and assumed command of the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Weapons School .
The P-8 is separate of a wide detector network which is interconnected through assorted C2 links and the chopine shapes innovative new ways to do third base party target, or basically operated as separate of synergistic kill webs rather than like the P-3, which flew “ alone and unafraid. ”
His XO is CDR Matt Griffin who came from an ROTC background at Ohio State. He first deployed from Brunswick Maine as a naval Flight Officer with VP-26, a P-3C squadron chiefly supporting ASW. Midway through this enlistment, the stress of the squadron ’ mho attempt transitioned to support the land wars of OPERATIONS IRAQI AND ENDURING FREEDOM in digest of the roast impel. During his time in the Gulf, he became familiar with the challenge of function in an area which is chock wax of ships of varying sizes, purposes and capabilities, which of course, is a major challenge facing the US and allied nautical forces in the Pacific .
CDR Griffin noted that even while involved in the Middle East, the Navy made certain that his team ’ s ASW skill set did not atrophy besides a lot .
For exemplar, during one of his deployments, his team was sent to Japan for a period of time to work ASW even while their basal mission had shifted to overland ISR for the articulation force .
He later went to the Undersea Warfighting Development Center in San Diego where raw staff members received insight from identical have commanders who did ASW in the Cold War period a well. “ We were learning from retired Naval officers with hours and hours and hours of real-world operations against adversary submarines. ”
After his prison term at the Undersea Warfighting Development Center, he went to serve on the staff of a Destroyer Squadron ( DESRON ). here he worked on the challenge of translating the language and earth of the MPA residential district into the language and global of the black shoe navy community. obviously, this transformation challenge becomes crucial to work given that with the third-party target capabilities being shaped by the networks and wave forms enabling synergistic kill webs, empowering effective distributed strike and sensing collaboration is crucial .
CDR Griffin then went to NAWDC where he served for two years as the P-3 WTI plan coordinator. This added the consolidation with the carrier air wing view to his train and education, in which the fast jet pilots besides need to relearn their roles within a kill network concepts of operations whereby synergistic networks both inform their target but besides guide their roles in the kill web going forward. And with the detector fat F-35 coming to the fleet, the function interactions among F-35, Triton, and P-8 is reshaping significantly how the evanesce can operate a distributed integrateable push .
Next he transitioned to the P-8 and on his inaugural deployment was intercepted by the Chinese Air Force in the South China Sea .
Both Commanders underscored that for the MPA community their home cycle facility focus is geared toward dealing with peer competitors .
“ We drill killing submarines and surface ships with a larger contend in mind. ”
They both emphasized adenine well that the detector networks are evolving and within that context the MPA community is learning newly ways to shape synergistic approaches within the fleet and in the joint residential district to manage ISR and rap capabilities .
A key aspect which often gets lost when addressing the competition with China is the importance of the combat experience of the joint force being taken forward to provide a combat advantage.
I asked them how they looked at how their fight experience from the land wars is leverageable going forward to the newly strategic environment .
The answer: experience in adaptability and agility.
CDR Kamas noted that during his time in the Middle East, they would operate a significant come of modern roll on and roll off gear on their P-3s .
“ The gear would be new to use, and we never trained for it during our home cycle. We learned on the vanish. The level 500 instructors would shape a rapid determine course and we were able to fly a new engineering in a very short-circuit menstruation of fourth dimension .
‘ We flew missions in strange places the P-3 was never designed to operate in, and that kind of teach and the incorporation of new engineering quickly is a skill set we are taking forward toward current and future variants of the P-8 Poseidon and MQ-4 Triton. ”
The P-3 ended up being a ball-shaped aircraft .
The P-8 flit is being built out as a global fleet, and there is a concert attempt to provide for greater information sharing and interoperability with P-8 partners, like the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Norway .
There is a clear effort to do well in this domain than was done with respect to P-3.
And that interoperability can yield a major advantage with attentiveness to expanding the reach of interactional kill web arsenic well. The two leaders underscored that the P-8 is a key piece in the development of coordinate dynamic target .
“ We are agnostic to who the shooter is. We think the P-8 has significant prize in a kill web approach. ”
They emphasized a well the importance of ongoing modernization of the detector networks within which the P-8 is embedded, including key capabilities such as the sonobuoy sensors .
In contrast to 2016, now the Triton is separate of the manoeuver violence, and the approach for P-8 is being modified to leverage this capability deoxyadenosine monophosphate well .
hera the opportunity being generated is for the Triton to provide for wide-eyed end run ISR data, with the P-8 then being able to prioritize targets during its meter on station .
And to get full value out of the P-8/Triton interactivity, the ability to correlate spiral software development on the two platforms is a key opportunity to evolve the overall ISR/strike enterprise .
At the time of this consultation, the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Weapons School was executing its 7-week Maritime Weapons and Tactics Instructor ( WTI ) class, focused not alone on stream capabilities but besides on what the future has in memory for the Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Force .
“ A bunch of our focus during the WTI course is on challenges like third party target and execution of integrated strike tactics .
‘ We deep dive the current way P-8s contribute to the kill web and give the course some ideas of how the platform ’ south software and detector packages will evolve in the next 3 to 5 years .
‘ This gives the students the opportunity to use their resource on the role of the P-8A and MQ-4C Triton in a future battle. ”
Third party targeting for the Navy means that the tac breeze community now is beginning to appreciate amply what a P-8/Triton couple can bring to the party .
“ They are intelligibly starting to see all of the good that the P-8 and Triton can provide .
“ As a result, our staffs are talking at a significantly greater level than when you were here four years ago. ”
The coming of MISR is distinctly a major change angstrom well in bridging the large wing aircraft and tac vent communities as well, but I will focus on that in greater detail later .
But the software upgradeability piece which we discussed four years ago is intelligibly becoming a more significant partially of the room ahead for the MPA community .
When we visited Jax Navy four years ago, all of the P-8s were service line aircraft .
now the residential district is seeing more rapid advances with software upgrades to changing baseline aircraft .
CDR Kamas noted that they are nowadays able to feed operator input “ bet on to the engineers and resource sponsors to inform the requirements process and software upgrades, in a way that integrates into the spiral software that comes out every two years and the D.C. budget cycle .
‘ We keep a run list of software discrepancies that have been observed by the fleet and need to be corrected and we besides prioritize newfangled ideas for software features that can fill tactical capability gaps. ”
CDR Kamas added that they host an annual league where the fleet operators meet to formally deliberate on the list of craved changes .
“ We have a contractor that helps us with the torment and stack prioritization process, transfers those suggestions to the course of study agency, and engages with the resource presenter to fund the top candidates on the list. ”
This approach is laying down the foundations for far fundamental change within the procurement organization and the manner coiling software upgrades are managed vitamin a well. The focal ratio brake is largely the information assurance firearm.
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“ The hale work takes meter, but it ensures we comply with DoD Information Assurance requirements. ”
In short, 2013 was the beginning; 2016 laid a solid baseline aircraft to the fleet operational reset; and now we see the foundation being set for a build out of the integrated distributed fleet empowered by interactive kill webs.