By: MG John M. Curran

      With regard to the future of Army aviation, the recent Army Transformation War Game held at Carlisle Barracks, Pa., offered some emerging insights I would like to share with you. In this article, I will confine my observations to the reconnaissance and mobile strike mission areas.

Operational Enhancement

      First and foremost, it is crucial that we continue our efforts to enhance combined arms, air-ground operations. In the Objective Force, Army divisions are air-ground task forces. Their purpose will be to present the enemy with multiple operational dilemmas from which he cannot escape.

      Army ground forces rely on their aviation partners to provide superior mobility, enhanced situational awareness, and accurately directed precision joint and combined arms fires and effects. Aviation relies on the ground forces for battle command, security, situational awareness, and mutually supporting maneuver, fires and effects. Applied seamlessly, the results are devastating, leaving the enemy no sanctuary and no viable options. Applied separately, we present the enemy vulnerabilities, which he will be quick to exploit.

 Threats

      The Objective Force will face a challenging array of threat capabilities. Unable to meet us head-on, we can expect our adversaries around the world to develop "niche" capabilities oriented on our perceived vulnerabilities, including our aversion to casualties and collateral damage.

 The Army Transformation War Game presented a full range of these niche capabilities to Blue Force aviation. Enemy "forces" employed both conventional and unconventional anti-access strategies to deny or impede friendly force deployment into the various theaters of operation. Once in theater, Blue Force aviation was confronted with combined arms air defense ambushes, anti-helicopter mines and "swarms" of enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). More traditional threats to aviation, such as small arms, artillery, and man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), proved no less dangerous than today.

      As we develop our tactical courses of action, we must anticipate that the enemy's grasp of our doctrine and tactics will enable him to template our tactical assembly areas, routes, and refueling/rearming sites with incredible accuracy unless we concentrate on being innovative and less predictable. One effective means of overcoming the enemy's focused capabilities is enhanced shared Blue Force situational awareness — a key role for Army aviation, and particularly for the RAH-66 Comanche reconnaissance and attack helicopter.

 The Need for Comanche

      The Army needs the Comanche. For the Interim and Legacy Forces, Comanche provides the survivable, armed reconnaissance capability that the Army air-ground team sorely lacks.

      The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior has performed magnificently, but it is reaching the end of its operational and material life. The AH-64D Apache Longbow is the best attack helicopter in the world, but it was not designed for the full array of armed reconnaissance missions. UAV capability is increasing rapidly, but it is a long way from meeting the entire range of requirements for effective tactical reconnaissance and the rapid transition to decisive combat operations.

      The Transformation War Game made it clear that the Comanche fully enables Objective Force air-ground operations with its unique capability to conduct armed reconnaissance, aerial attack, and to direct the full array of joint and Army weapons against critical targets with precision.

      The Comanche, operating within a joint and combined-arms system of systems, enabled commanders at the Unit of Employment (UE) level to rapidly establish a common operating picture (COP) early in the force-deployment sequence. It is a key capability during early entry operations to screen, attack, direct/joint attacks, and to contribute to the information-centric nature of this phase of a campaign.

      While the U.S. Air Force remains unmatched in its ability to establish air superiority and to conduct precision strike containment, their employment in support of the close fight still entails considerable risk. Consequently, Army aviation, and specifically Comanche, are the aerial weapons of choice when engaged in close combat with ground forces. In short, Comanche, with its state-of-the-art sensors, communications and computing power, is an essential element of the "system-of-systems" approach that underlies Objective Force operational concepts.

 UAVs

      One key system that the Comanche will operate with routinely is the unmanned aerial vehicle. The UAV is a key enabler for Objective Force operations, but it is not an end in itself.

      "Manned and unmanned teaming" takes full advantage of the strengths of each system to complement the vulnerabilities of the other. Unmanned systems extend the reach of the manned aircraft's sensors and weapons. The unmanned platforms can perform the "dull, dangerous, and dirty" missions on the battlefield, reducing risk to the manned aircraft crew, but more importantly, freeing the crew to concentrate on those tasks that well-trained combined arms officers do best.

      Manned aircraft crews add the critical human dimension "on site"-well forward, not at a distance. They develop an "all-around" situational awareness and understanding, analyze and combine sensor data with their "feel" for the battle, and direct and take action based on their grasp of the situation and their knowledge of the commander's intent.

      The manned element of the manned and unmanned team also applies critical "eyes-on" judgment with regard to fratricide avoidance, collateral damage and the application of the rules of engagement. Most importantly, manned systems make the difference between combat reconnaissance and combat surveillance — combat reconnaissance is an operation that results in combat action, while combat surveillance results in intelligence — a valuable, but very different commodity in space and time than combat action.

      Until technology can truly replicate the complex, intangible functions performed by the crew of manned systems in the fight, teaming will remain the optimal interim solution. As technology matures, we can expect to see more autonomous operations by unmanned systems.

    Oddly enough, in the Transformation War game, the most effective use of manned and unmanned teaming was demonstrated by the threat, which employed waves of UAVs and sensors to suppress air defenses, jam communications in a specific location and time, act as decoys to unmask air defense systems, and identify targets for precision attack by manned helicopters and long range fires. "Swarms" of mini-UAVs then provided suppression and battle damage assessment during egress. It is clear that manned and unmanned aviation teaming, when employed as an element of the air-ground system of systems approach, greatly enhances the operational capabilities and survivability of the Objective Force.

 Conclusions

      This concludes our Army Transformation War Game insights regarding reconnaissance and mobile strike operations in support of the Objective Force.

      The way ahead for Army aviation is clear. We will remain synchronized with the Army's efforts to field an Objective Force capability by 2010. We will continue to be a key player in TRADOC combined arms approach to designing and building the Objective Force. I ask for your continued support as we face the daunting, but exciting challenges ahead.

      The Army Transformation War Game is an extremely valuable tool in shaping our future armed forces. I hope this article has given you some insights into the process and into the direction we, as a transforming Army, are headed.

      Above the Best!

 MG John M. Curran is the commander of the U.S. Army Aviation Center and chief of the aviation branch.