Boeing's handy helicopter and the intrinsic mobility of the US Armed Forces

(To Leonardo Chiti)
21/09/17

The historical process of elaboration of the military doctrine of the major powers, has arrived at the definition of three main levels in the structures of organization and command of the Armed Forces: strategic, operative (or "theater"), tactical.

The first is characterized by the planning and management activity resulting from the interaction of the highest levels of civil power - on which falls the responsibility of last resort as a decision-making center of the use of the military instrument - and of the military, which is responsible for the translation in terms of the use of force, the general lines of action developed, and the objectives set by the political authority.

The tactical level calls into question the real action in combat intended as an attack on the formations in enemy weapons, and manifests itself in a wide spectrum of events ranging from the single clash of minimal entity up to the battles that can get to commit for months the large maneuvering units.

Finally, the operational level represents the link between the strategic management bodies and the forces in action on the battlefield, which is not limited to the reformulation in the language of the tactical command of the directives coming from government institutions and the General Staff. The theater commander and his staff have to deal better with the latter in order to take full advantage of the sharing of constantly updated information in relation to changes in the situation on the ground.

If the orders properly defined by means of a one-way street from the upper levels to the lower ones of the hierarchy, the data and indications emerging from the concrete development of the events on the field must be able to trace the chain of command to confirm the goodness of the adopted strategy, or favor the correction of corrective measures and, if necessary, a real reorientation.

On the basis of an effective exercise of the world's first power role, the United States strategic elaboration bodies have identified six main theaters of intervention in the international arena, or Geographic Combatant Command: US Africa Command, US European Command, US Pacific Command, US Northern Command, US Southern Command and finally Central Command, or Centcom, whose area of ​​responsibility concerns South-West Asia, from Afghanistan to the Horn of Africa.

Since they are potential war theaters with continental or sub-continental dimensions, they come to include a plurality of operational theaters that can spread over the territory of one or more states, and in turn articulate themselves in more battle areas. In the language of logistics, understood as a branch of the art of war related to the ability to move combat forces and their support, the strategic level concerns the interteatro dimension of mobility, while the operational and tactical levels refer to intratheat mobility.

The process of motorization of the war up to the tactical level, which had undergone a considerable generalizing impulse during the Second World War, was brought to completion with the appearance of the helicopter that took its first steps (promptly placed to the attention of the general public in the 1955 film: "Battle Taxi" (original title Battle Taxi, frame on the right), in the Korean War.

Not for nothing the heavy infantry (mechanized and armored) formations, and the rotary wing-based departments contend the cavalier's doctrinal and operational legacy, having over time recognized all the tasks that characterized it: exploration, coverage of change of front, connection between large units, breakthrough or bypassing with enveloping actions of enemy lines, exploitation of success through pursuit.

The first diffusion of the motorization and the potentiality shown by the aviation during the Great War, had clearly shown how the future of the pursuit was represented by increasingly powerful and fast vehicles, and how the aeronautics could carry out reconnaissance missions and raids with a speed of risk and a penetration capacity in the area of ​​stationing and maneuvering of enemy forces, unthinkable for horse patrols.

The appearance of the tank will lead to the transfer to the armored infantry of the tasks of breakthrough and maneuvering in depth, without forgetting that, still during the Second World War, modern rotated and tracked vehicles shared numerous battlefields with cavalry, especially on the eastern front of the European theater, and not only in the ranks of armies commonly thought to be arrears like the Italian, the Soviet and the Polish.

The 22 June 1941 the German High Command opened hostilities towards the Soviet Union, starting the operation Barbarossa that saw the mobilization of 3.000.000 of men organized in 145 divisions, of which 30 armored or mechanized. Despite the fact that the motorization of ground troops and the air support to their advancement were the pillars on which it was based Blitzkrieg, most of the Wermacht's artillery pieces and general support equipment were hippotrained and an essential component of this massive invasion force was 600.000 horses.

In the Korean War the rotary wing aircraft debuted in the very important role of eliambulanza with the assignment of the Bell-47 (equipped with two external stretchers), to the US Army units known as MASH (Mobile Army Surgical Hospital). The first operational employment in the rapid transport of troops and supplies occurred the 11 October 1951 with the use of a dozen H-19 Sikorsky (photo) in the course of the operation Bumblebee, during which a battalion of Marines, strong of about 1.000 men, was sent to detect another front line department in a mountainous area.

Born in the 1948 as an S-55 project, the H-19 could carry up to ten soldiers or six wounded on stretcher and distinguished itself in numerous health rescue and evacuation missions (MEDEVAC), being appreciated also by the Armed Forces of other countries, as for example the French ones who used it in the infiltration of the wounded from the perimeter of Dien Bien Phu, in Vietnam, in March of 1954.

At the end of the 40 years in the United States alone there were about seventy companies that were working on the development of new aircraft and while there were also capable engineers and brilliant designers, few brands were able to emerge from this neat patrol to impose themselves as protagonists in the rotary wing sector made in the USA. Among these, in addition to Bell and Sikorsky, the Vertol company, founded by Frank Piasecki (1919-2008), which in the same decade had purchased the premises built and previously occupied by the Baldwin Steam Locomotive Company, in Ridley, will gain a prominent place. Park, on the outskirts of the urban area of ​​Philadelphia.

In Piasecki we owe the success of the invention of the tandem twin rotor helicopter installed on the models of the PV-3 series: HRP-1 (photo) and H-21 (whose characteristic arched shape earned him the nickname of "flying bananas" "), Used to transport troops in the Korean War. Between the Korean conflict (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1965-1973 / '75), in the flight with rotary wing there was recorded the important change from the piston engine to the turbine engine which had the double advantage of providing greater power coming to weigh up to half. The first to adopt it were the French of the South-East who mounted it on their SE-3130 Lark, the 12 1955 march took off. A few months later, the American Bell followed suit with the Model 204 from which the military series UH-1 will be derived Iroquis.

At the end of the 50 years, the US Army expressed its interest in replacing the twin-engine piston Sikorsky CH (Cargo Helicopter) -37 Mojave, with a turbine transport helicopter. Vertol then stepped forward with its Model 107, a tandem twin-rotor biturbine designed for commercial transport that won the contract in June of the 1958.

Capable of carrying up to 20 soldiers - 15 fully equipped men and 5 of crew of which 2 machine-guns - and with a maximum takeoff weight of 9.700 kg, this machine was deemed particularly adequate to its operational needs by the Marines, who adopted it with the CH-46 designation Sea Knight, entered online in the 1961 to officially terminate the service in the 2007, as a result of the tilt-shift Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey.

For the Army, Vertol created the Model 114, which is a larger version of the 107, which boasted a double capacity for personnel transport and a maximum take-off weight of 17.450 kg. The inaugural flight was the 21 September 1961 in the Ridley Park factory area, passed the previous year under the control of Boeing following the acquisition of Vertol by the Seattle group.

Renamed CH-47 Chinook (in the wake of the tradition of the Army that favors the names of the Indian tribes), the deliveries of the A version began in the second half of the 1962, inaugurating an industrial and operational history that still lasts and which is second to service is second only to that of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, uninterruptedly in production by the 1954.

In 1976 Boeing gets the go-ahead from the Army for the launch of the CH-47D version, a standard which will also be updated by the models of the three previous variants. The transport capacity will arrive at 44 soldiers or 24 stretchers, for a maximum takeoff weight of about 22.700 kg with a speed of 240 km / h, and already on the 108 units of version B (launched in October of 1966), they had been installed three machine guns, two positioned at the side doors and one on the rear ramp that can be opened in flight.

A further evolutionary stage was reached with the CH-47F, the result of a program officially started in 1998 and that led to the delivery of the first aircraft in November of the 2006. The examples of this variant, made partly from scratch and partly from the "regeneration" of CH-47D, present multiple improvements in avionics, whose design focus is the CAAS (Common Avionic Architecture System) / DAFCS digital flight control system (Digital Advanced Flight Control System), shared with other "colleagues" among which include the Sikorsky MH-60K / L and CH-53E / K.

The Chinook models dedicated to Special Forces are marked with the initials MH-47 (photo) declined in the D / E / G variants, developed on the basis of the CH-47D / F which represent an enhanced version in terms of range, speed, load capacity and on-board instrumentation. The machines of this series are used in the infiltration and exfiltration missions of special forces, which involve high-speed and low-altitude flights, which can be carried out both day and night, even with adverse weather conditions and on all types of terrain.

The first MH-47D were delivered to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, home to the famous "screaming eagles" of the 101st Airborne Division, whose specialties are precisely the raid and the assault by fast descent with the rope (fast-roping).

During the 1991 Gulf War, during the operation CobraThe 101ma took more than 300 helicopters (Chinook, AH-64 Apache, AH-1 Cobra, UH-60 Black Hawk and UH-1 Huey-Iroquois) for a depth penetration of over 100 km in Iraqi territory, aimed at the establishment of the forward operational base (FOB: Forward Operational Base), Viper, from which to organize the interception of the retreating Iraqi troops, cutting off the only escape route from their positions beyond the Euphrates valley.

For the versatility shown in action, in Vietnam the Chinook he earned the affectionate appellation of "domestic handyman", a nickname that captures a characteristic that underlies the international success of the CH-47, acquired by about twenty countries on all continents.

This heavy transport helicopter has gained a place among the indispensable resources for intrathannel mobility, especially when one finds oneself intervening in particularly hostile geographic and environmental contexts, where, among other characteristics, a significant part of the "spirit of adaptation" CH-47 is due to the high resistance demonstrated against the operational decay caused by the increase in altitude and temperature in the various mission areas.

According to Erwin Rommel: the desert is the paradise of the tactical commander and the hell of the logistic manager. Based on this assumption, vessel captain Christophe Lucas points out how military operations conducted in the marine environment and in desert areas are united by the maximum tension to which they subject the logistic organizational machine.

The immensity and desolation of the maritime and desert spaces make war in these environments a war of logistics. Whichever strategy is followed, it needs bases and support structures to supply and maintain the "fleet", whether naval or aeroterrestre [...] The desert imposes a powerful logistics organization because the consumption rates of almost all the equipment are increased tenfold (ammunition, spare parts, water)

( "Du rezzou au swarming, pour une nouvelle Jeune École ", in" La guerre par ceux qui la font ", by General Benoît Durieux, Éditions Rocher, 2016).

In the early stages of Iraqi Freedom, during the three weeks between the 19 March and the 10 2003 of April, the daily fuel consumption (air and ground), has fluctuated from a minimum of 7,6 million liters to a maximum of 80, for a total equal to that used from the Allies on the western front from the 1941 to the 1945.

Considering that the 70-75% of the planet is covered with water and that one third of the lands emerged are represented by desert areas, it is well understood the importance for a great power to be able to count on the Armed Forces able to move better in contexts such operations, optimally combining the capabilities of land, sea and air units for this purpose.

The unfavorable ratio between the numerical consistency of the crew and the size of the ship that distinguished the galleys, forced coastal navigation to make frequent supplies of food and fresh water. With the introduction of a complex veiling that, by combining square and triangular sails, made it possible to navigate upwind without using the arms of rowers, the space available on board for the transport of goods or the housing of cannons could be increased, also increasing autonomy following the improvement of the relationship between livable food and mouths to feed.

With the passage from the sails to the steam navigation, routes and mission autonomy remained bound to the disposition of the carbonation stations, the same speech with the introduction of the naphtha. To benefit from greater operational flexibility the fleets were then equipped with auxiliary formations comprising coal mines, oil tankers, tankers for drinking water and refrigeration units. During the Second World War, the herds of submarine wolves formed by the German U-Boot (Untersee Boot), for their ocean raids needed the assistance of units of the same family in "dairy cows" configuration.

The use of atomic energy has solved the problem of fuel supply, given that the "life expectancy" of nuclear propulsion systems such as those of aircraft carriers Ford and class submarines Virginia, is 35-40 years. For these units, autonomy has returned to be measured by the quantity of livable food.

Before the advent of satellites, the contribution made by space to navigation in the expanses of water as in those of sand and rock, was linked to the star charts drawn up largely by Arab merchants, profound connoisseurs of both environments. Together with satellite surveys and communications, the rotary wing aircraft best embody the technological leap carried out, after the Second World War, in the means supplied to make war both in the driest areas of the Planet, both above and below the surface of the sea. .

In the same way as the maritime routes, the desert has its obligatory points of passage such as the ancient caravan tracks (corresponding to the straits and canals), and the oases (or in any case the water supply points), represent the islands for who moves between dunes and sandy or rocky expanses. In both environments, air domination has been an inaggirable factor for decades, compared to which helicopters are an integral part.

Absolute tasks range from the supply of ships from the battle groups, through the handling of loads from the units for logistic support (as in the case of covile takes place for oil platforms), to combat action, where helicopters are an important component of the antisom capability (Anti-Submarine Warfare), and can carry out incursion missions in the hinterland, as in the case of attacks carried out in the 2011, in Libyan territory, by the French GAM (Groupe Aéromobile) aircraft, operating by the BPC units (Batîment de Projection et Commandement).

The convoys of vehicles in transit along the supply routes of the fighting units have always been a particularly attractive target for enemy formations and the dominion of the skies is a vital requirement to be able to benefit from an adequate level of security of supply lines.

Moreover, despite the fact that the obtaining of overflight rights is not exactly a joke, since air transport is perceived as less "invasive" compared to the terrestrial one, the aeronautical component of a projection force also offers the advantage of allowing the circumventing not only natural obstacles but also political ones that may originate from frictions in diplomatic relations between powers.

The opposition of Turkey to transit on its territory of 4th Infantry Division in the course of Iraqi Freedom, left the area north of Baghdad under the responsibility of the special forces personnel alone (backed by Kurdish militiamen peshmerga), which had been infiltrated by the beginning of the invasion from the south. To send reinforcements, they were then mobilized by their respective bases in Northern Italy and Germany: the 173rd Airborne Brigade, whose men were parachuted 26 March 2003 near Bashur (North-Iraq), and 1 63 Task Force 1-XNUMX armored trainingst Infantry Division, which was deployed on April 7 near Kirkuk, 250 km north of Baghdad.

Once the access roads to the Bashur airport were occupied and secured, a specialized team of genius undertook the infrastructural adjustment for the landing of the C-17, which within 96 hours carried almost 2.200 soldiers and 400 vehicles, including some tanks Abrams Books M1 and armored combat vehicles Bradley (used in the roles of command carriage, troop transport and counter-tank activities), as well as several pieces of artillery.

Having to maneuver hundreds of kilometers from its bases, the forces deployed needed refueling points along the lines of advancement, called FARP (Forward Arming and Refueling Point), and near the first line, called RRP (Rapid Refueling Point) ). A significant share of the fuel reserves and equipment for its distribution, on which the logistical support provided by these stations was based, was ensured by the "fat-cow" CH-47s, equipped with additional tanks and filling devices. signed ERFS (Extended Range Fuel System), and HTARS (Hot Tactical Aircraft Refueling System). Ai Chinook the transport of the teams of mechanics and their equipment was also entrusted.

Given that the FARP and the RRP were installed in areas inevitably exposed to hostile actions, it was necessary to prevent the safety of the area chosen for their preparation, carried out by personnel in the 3 X battalion of the 187th Infantry Regiment, transported on the spot with helicopters. 

These true "logistical oases" provided a decisive support in the offensives that led to the conquest of Baghdad and the takeover of Mosul by the men of 101ma under the orders of General David Petraeus, the future commander of Centcom.

The coordinated action of the modern aircraft cavalry departments - consisting of helicopters and armored troops of the ground troops - represented the key factor for the conquest of the major Iraqi cities, but the overall operational picture highlights the importance, to the purposes of the projection of power, of the balance of capacity between the interteatro segments and the intrathrum of mobility.

In the study updated in the 2010 entitled "Mobility Capabilities and Requirements Study 2016", the Department of Defense estimated the daily US strategic transportation capacity in approximately 36 million tonne-miles (MTM / D: Millions Tons-Miles / Day), plus that is sufficient for the engagement scenarios hypothesized in the same document, whose needs were quantified between the 29 and the 33 MTM / D.

For the corresponding intrathenal movement capacity, it is mainly based on C-130 for the fixed wing sector, and for the rotating one on CH-47 and Sikorsky CH-53 (photo), the Marines "beast of burden" that can operate from all the helicopter assemblies and amphibious assaults of the US Navy. In case of necessity, being equipped with a watertight fuselage, both helicopter models can operate (landing and taking off), directly on the marine surface.

Despite having its field of predilection in strategic transport, a not inconsiderable tactical contribution is provided by the C-17 Globemaster, thanks to its ability to land and take off on slopes that are not too "cured" and slightly longer than one km (around 1.100 meters). Important repercussions are then expected from the prospect of final maturation of the Bell-Boeing V-22 convertiplane Ospreythat, by combining the versatility of a helicopter with the speed of an airplane, can be particularly useful for example in respecting the objective of guaranteeing, from any point of an operating theater, the transportation of the injured to the hospital in less than an hour (golden hour).

A final important criticality, hitherto barely mentioned, to be considered in virtue of the handling capacity, and the effectiveness of the intervention of a projection force, is represented by the infrastructural adequacy of the installations that constitute the entrance points of a theater. operational, a factor to which, for example, the "special attention" directed by Rommel to the city of Tobruk during the North African campaign can be attributed.

Taking Tobruk and being able to use the port would have been a considerable advantage for the Italian-German army [...] Rommel's advanced forces needed daily supplies to the extent of 1.500 tons of various kinds (the total bill of imports at the place of operations had reached 70 thousand tons per month, which is more than Tripoli could bear) (David Fraser, "Rommel, The Ambiguity of a Soldier", Mondadori, 1994)

Both young officers during the Vietnam War, the tetrastellated generals Colin Powell (class 1937), and Norman Schwarzkopf (1934-2012), on the occasion of the 1991 Gulf War occupied the summit of the strategic and operational levels, respectively as Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff and Commander in Chief of Centcom.

Concerning the question of the coordination of interteatro and intrathrethe logistical capacities, the part of direct competence of the strategic level concerns the transport up to the points of entry to the theater of operations, while the operational level is directly responsible for their taking charge and further transfer to first-line departments.

When Schwarzkopf was asked which specialty it was necessary to mobilize first among the ranks of the reservists, he replied: truck drivers, dockers, armament maintenance workers, telephone line installers, mechanics, in short, all those professional figures who can perform the ungrateful tasks necessary for troop deployment in an area of ​​operations.

Moreover, since the deployment of the defensive force of Desert Shield, the order of magnitude of the US intervention required the execution of a delicate political-diplomatic mediation (in addition to that conducted with the commands of the allies participating in the international contingent), by the commander of Centcom in negotiations with the Saudi king Fahd and his entourage.

Schwarzkopf's main concern was: make it clear to the king that what we were talking about would have led to flooding his ports, airports and military bases with tens of thousands of Americans ("Mémoires", Librairie Plon, 1992).

In practice, to avert a possible invasion of Iraq, the Saudi elite had to accept to be "invaded" by US troops, with all the related cultural, economic, political and religious complications that in fact did not fail to pose problems to both sides, man hand that the American military leviathan it took shape in the ports and airports of the Arabian peninsula. Among these, the "hubs" were represented by the Dharan air base and the nearby port of Ad Dammam, the largest of the Persian Gulf.

The possibility of access to local bases is fundamental both in conducting a military campaign and in post-war management. In some cases US forces have come to set up real small American cities in mission theaters, as in the case of the largest US base in Iraq, the Victory Base Complex, handed over to the authorities in Baghdad in December of 2011. Headquarters of the US headquarters and the prison where Saddam Hussein and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid (known as "Ali the chemist" for using gas in the repression of regime opponents) were held, this base during the rough period activities housed 42.000 military and more than 65.000 civilians, and within its perimeter there were also supermarkets and fast-food restaurants.

Notoriously, for a long time it was discovered that the sand box of Libya, of Salveminian memory, actually contains a non-negligible amount of oil, an element that falls within any power equation that includes the Libyan variable. However, the importance of control of its coastline, and the bargaining power that derives from those who exercise it, are not only linked to the presence of the "oil croissant", but also to the location in this strip of land of entry points (and about migratory flows, exit), to the Libyan theater.

Although more than seventy years have passed since the days ofAfrikakorps, this is an aspect that has to be reckoned (including crossovers), in a country where even governments must arrive by sea, as in the case of the UN-sponsored group led by Fayez al-Sarraj, disembarked at the port of Tripoli as the militias in activity in the area of ​​the airport did not look favorably on the landing of a "presidential flight".

It may also be that the detractors of theamerican way of war, according to which the US military has always tended to exaggerate with logistical support, but the history of the US international leadership (in whose balance sheet are both successes and failures), is emblematic of the complexity of the problems that are accompanied by the projection of power.

This makes it a useful benchmark for the group of countries of the Old Continent that is trying to acquire the collective tools necessary to weigh the point of view and European interests in the dynamics of global relations, starting from the "natural" sphere of Mediterranean influence. In today's international scenario, any attempt to strengthen it in this sense is aimed at unrealism without a political will and a capacity for military action centralized in the decision-making bodies of a continental federal state. To be able to better manage the potential "backyard", one must first build and consolidate the supporting structures of the main house.

(photo: Boeing / US Army / US Navy / US Air Force / US Marine Corps / web)