The MACCS In Maneuver Warfare
AUTHORMajor Charles F. Triplett, USMC
CSC 1990
SUBJECT AREA Aviation
-TEXT-
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The MACCS in Maneuver Warfare
The affluent decade of the `80's has left the Marine
Corps in an unusual dilemma. The tastes that were whetted by
ample procurement funding have been promised the thirst of a
very austere decade in the `90's. The global situation that
fostered the creative application of technology to satisfy
our weapons systems requirements has become ingrained in the
acquisitioners and practictioners, alike. This automatic
reaction to task new technology in new weapons systems will
not long endure either the patience of the acquisiton
community or, and more significantly, the tolerance of a
money concious Congress. Consequently, traditional MACCS
employment practices lag the technological capabilites and
flexible employment initiatives required of modern MAGTF
contingencies.
One solution to this dilemma lies in a change in the
employment practice of a system that has been the unsung core
of the MACCS. Automating the Tactical Air Direction Center
will provide a greater anti-air warfare capability for an
amphibious task force, and can be facilitated with a change
in employment philosophy of our present MACCS systems.
The MACCS in Maneuver Warfare
OUTLINE
THESIS STATEMENT. The traditional MACCS employment practices
lag the technological capabilities and flexible employment
initiatives required of modern MAGTF contingencies.
I. Introduction
A. Lead-in scenario
B. Thesis statement
C. Broad example with transition
II. Present employment based upon current doctrine
A. Major agencies in MACCS
B. Non-MACCS agencies
C. General concept in MAGFT operations
D. Major differences
III. An alternate concept--automated TADC
A. Historical background
B. Necessary changes
C. Means to effect change
IV. Conclusion
The MACCS in Maneuver Warfare
Orientation--"Note the lone pine tree." Execution--"Two
up; one back; artillery battalions in DS of the maneuver
regiments; red star cluster signal to shift base of fire."
Put in air command and control terms this would read:
Orientation--"Note the 10 gray bottoms and 64 sorties of
C-141's." Execution--"DS the LAAD Platoons to the GCE; DASC
ashore with the assualt elements; TAOC establish one manual
EW/C; TACC stay afloat until the ATF is just about to dissolve
the AOA; LAAM Bn, you may come, too, if we get 4 more LST's."
Despite the technological advances of the past 20 years,
the Marine Air Command and Control System (MACCS) will lag
behind other tactical elements of the Marine Air Ground Task
Force (MAGTF) in the 1990's and into the 21st century.
Traditional MACCS employment practices lag the technological
capabilites and flexible employment initiatives required of
modern MAGTF contingencies. Although this situation exists
throughout the Marine Corps' Fleet Marine Forces(FMF) and
supporting establishments, the solutions need not be cost
prohibative nor nonpalatable to MACCS traditionalists.
In the FMF, the scenario reads the same, regardless of
which ocean is lapping at the nearest shoreline. Training
schedules marry the energies of the Marine Air Control
Squadron(MACS) to the nearest fighter squadron(USMC/USN/USAF).
The exercise tempo of the Marine Air Support Squadron (MASS)
is a mirror image of the cumulative op-tempo of each maneuver
element of the entire Marine division. The typical Light
Anti-Aircraft Missle Bn (LAAM Bn) waits for an infrequent
opportunity to exercise its formidable, yet massive, anti-air
warfare weapons system. The Tactical Air Direction Center
(TADC) waits quietly in garrison for the ACE commander to
pronounce himself Tactical Air Commander so that the TADC can
become the Tactical Air Command Center of the ACE. Not until
the ACE has deployed the MACCS, do the principals of that
valuable MAGTF resource concern themselves with the efforts
of determining the most effective, resourceful, responsive
employment of the MACCS.
Doctrine suggests that elements of only the Low Altitude
Air Defense Bn(LAAD Bn) and the Direct Air Support Center
(DASC) will come ashore with the assualt echelon. These
units provide valuable, even essential, services to the
maneuver elements of the GCE. Doctrine further postulates
that next element ashore will be the Early Warning/Control
(EW/C) site and a manual Tactical Air Operations Central
(TAOC), followed much later by the initial components of the
manual TADC and the balance of the automated TAOC. The LAAM
Bn, battery by battery, will be deployed to vital areas,
traditionally of the ACE, whenever the ACE actually moves his
assets ashore. The Marine Air Traffic Control Squadron
(MATCS) will, initially, "take over" existing facilites of an
air field and will bring its equipment ashore only when
expeditionary air fields will be used for an extended period.
The MACCS agencies operate, thusly, constantly. Our
exercises reflect this practice. Our garrison operations
reinforce it. Our formal MOS schools and MAWTS-1 ingrain
this philosophy in their captive audiences. The Marine
Corps' acquisition objectives embrace this 1960's doctrine by
designing single purpose, heavy, slow, and expensive weapons
systems to prosecute such a doctrine. More far-reaching in
impact, our professional military education has not yet chal-
lenged practitioners of this dogma to candidly review the
credability of this approach to the MACCS in the MAGTF.
There are two realities of the 1990's that should serve
as the impetus for a fresh examination of MACCS doctrine,
garrison training habits, and exercise scenarios: (1) the
momentum of the "new" maneuver warfare, and (2) the unaviod-
able years of austerity, ahead. The MACCS community, the
commanders and staff that employ the MACCS, the supporting
establishments (MAGCC/MAWTS-1), and the sponsors and acquisi-
tioners (Warfighting Center/MCRDAC) should welcome this era
as an opportunity to, perhaps, revolutionize the profile of
the MACCS. What would restructuring cost; would it be
viable; would it be commensurate with the concept of the
maneuver MAGTF? Specific areas of concern are:
(1) Does the current, popular MACCS TPFDD for a MEB
MAGTF reflect probable missions for the MACCS in the 1990's?
(2) Could autonomous F/A-18 Combat Air Patrol (CAP)
aircraft provide more timely, effective AAW forward in the
area of influence/intest without the heavy, immobile Marine
Air Contol Squadron?
(3) Could an automated TADC, capable of digital inter-
face with autonomous CAP aircraft, provide AAW to the total
amphibious task force when the assault echelon comes ashore?
(4) Could this capability of the TADC be realized in a
Tactical Air Operations Module based system for less cost.
than an Advanced Tactical Air Command Central?
(5) Does the LAAM Bn have a realistic, reasonable,
affordable mission in any level MAGTF, below extended opera-
tions ashore?
Most of these issues, and many others, warrant closer
evaluation. The following is a cursory look at the Tactical
Air Direction Center(TADC), its evolution into a fully
capable Tactical Air Command Center(TACC), and a postulate
that describes a TADC more capable and more useful to the
MAGTF and the Anti-Air Warfare Coordinator (AAWC) of the
Amphibious Task Force (ATF).
Typically, the TADC will be employed in an area which is
more secure than the site of the TAOC. The TAOC will be
situated to provide maximum radar coverage of the most
probable threat axis. The TADC, on the other hand, will be
located at the eventual site of the Aviation Combat Element
(ACE) Headquarters. The ACE Headquarters will generally be
in close proximity to the perponderance of the aircraft. The
TADC will not have automated capability, initially. Not
until the additional computer-based operating systems and
full complement of communications assets arrive on-site will
the TADC be capable of automated interfaces with other
command and control systems.
The initial TADC configuration will require 3-5 five-ton
truck loads to provide a minimum manual capability.1 This
capability will be, simply, voice communications between
ashore and afloat units, primarily as manual radio relay.
The crew will consist of 4-6 officers and 10-14 enlisted
operators. During the TADC phase, no ACE Headquarters G-3
Plans or Opoerations staff will be ashore.
When additional equipment and operators arrive ashore,
the TADC will have expanded capabilities. Gradually, addi-
tional communications resources will be established.
Automation of the TADC will proceed toward a digital
interface with other theater command and control systems.
The facilities to accommodate the G-3 staff will mature.
Still, however, the staff will remain elsewhere until the
process of phasing control ashore is more nearly completed.
In concert with this build-up of the TADC, the Marine Air
Control Squadron will phase ashore the TAOC, and the Light
1 3-5 five-ton truck loads will be comprised of
communications equipment (OE-334 and HF, VHF, and UHF
radios), two general purpose tents, and the equipment used to
fabricate status boards and personnel accommodations.
Anti-Aircraft Missle Battalion will begin to establish the
Improved HAWK missle batteries in the vicinity of designated
vital areas. The thrust of the TAOC will be more toward
prosecuting the landward anti-air warfare than interfacing
with other command and control agencies. In preparation for
the phasing of control ashore, the G-3 staff will transition
into the fully automated TADC. When control has passed
ashore, the TADC will be designated the TACC and the
amphibious phase of the operation will be complete.
If the TADC was fully automated and capable of digital
data interface with fighter aircraft (F/A-18, F-14), the TADC
could provide a deep landward picture of the AAW situation.
Prior to the TAOC being established in a less secure area,
the automated TADC could interface with the Combat Air Patrol
(CAP) fighter aircraft and, through a similar digital
interface, could provide this early warning AAW information
to the AAWC of the Amphibious Task Force.
Fighter employment in this manner is not totally novel.
The integrated AAW of the entire Task Force incorporates a
similar philosophy. The Task Force AAWC tasks and positions
AAW capable platforms such as ATDS aircraft(E-2C) and NTDS
ships at the outer reaches of the AAWC host ship. These
platforms then provide the air situation to the integrated
system at AAWC via digital interfaces. Direction of fighter
aircraft is effected as far as possible away from the Task
Force by these dispatched ATDS and NTDS platforms. The TADC,
with an automated capability could facilitate enhancement of
the landward AAW situation in a similar fashion. The search
radars on CAP aircraft would be used to locate and indentify
aircraft as far forward as possible in the landward sector of
AAW in the Amphibious Operations Area (AOA). This informa-
tion would simply be forwarded through the automated TADC to
AAWC afloat. Actual control of the CAP aircraft would be
effected by AAW controllers afloat. The TADC forward posi-
tion and enhanced capability to communicate on the digital
interface with the fighters would be similar to the forward
positioning of the ATDS and NTDS platforms.
Why wasn't this done in the past? Two principal explan-
ations for this are apparent, but excuses need no longer be
the reasons for not employing an automated TADC. First, the
maturation of the digital interface with CAP aircraft was
only brought to fulfillment with the F/A-18 which has a two-
way interface with a ground-based control system. When the
F-14 was introduced into the Navy, the Marine Corps still
used that faithful, old F-4 Phantom which had only a one-way
interface. The F/A-18 revitalized the software development
of this interface. Presently, there are standards being
refined for the operation of this interface. Consequently,
the accuracy and utility of the data exchanged between CAP
aircraft and control agencies (ashore and afloat) is improving
significantly. Secondly, this capability within the MACCS
has been reserved in the TAOC of the Marine Air Control
Squadrons. Little quarter has ever been given to any
proposal of separating even the slightest fraction of air
defense responsibility from the TAOC.
An automated TADC would require two fundamental changes
to our present MACCS employment philosophy. First, the GCI
controllers in the TAOC and the fighter aircraft pilots would
have to develop an attitude endorsing autonomous operation of
fighters. Secondly, the TADC must wrest from the GCI tradi-
tionalists of the TAOC, the endorsement of the TADC prosecuting
an active AAW role in advance of the TAOC being established
ashore. Both of these changes run counter to the territorial
protectionists of the TAOC and fighter community. Both,
also, represent the exploitation of a system or ageny
capability that will allow the MACCS to have a greater impact
on operations ashore as early as possible in the amphibious
phase. The expanded capability of the TADC will, however,
require that equipment changes must be made in that suite of
equipment. Two alternatives to this equipment change are
discussed below.
Presently, an Advanced Tactical Air Command Center (ATACC)
is under development by the Marine Corps to replace our aged
and dated system. This system is early enough in its develop-
ment to have this capability added to its repertoire. This
would be difficult to do. The equipment specification would
require changing, and the subsequent contract ramifications
would surely be expensive. To delay such action until the
ATACC is more mature in design would encumber any such changes,
probably to the point of oblivion. However, because of
programmatic issues with ATACC, this is perhaps not the
preferred means to incorporate the CAP interface into the
TADC. Rather, establishing an allowance for the TADC owning
unit (H&HS-XX) of two Tactical Air Operations Modules(TAOM)
could be accomplished. Using a TAOM-based TADC, the
capability could be developed and its employmnent refined
while the permanent solution to an automated TADC/ATACC could
be designed. This approach would require no additional
training of Marine operators and would not add the logistics
burden of the introduction of a new piece of equipment.
In this era of investigating radical concepts, such as
the ACE as a maneuver element or the CSSE as the focus of
main effort, knowledgable Marines should rethink whether the
MACCS is compatible with maneuver warfare and should grasp
the opportunity to, perhaps, "lighten the load."
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