Tactical Air Control Squadron 21’s detachment on
Kearsarge provided control of airspace in the region
until the Air Force’s E- 3 airborne warning and control
system aircraft could set up station.
“They [Tactical Air Control Squadron 21] were the
vital link between the [Joint Force Air Combat
Commander’s] air operation center in Europe and the
airborne mission packages,” Pagano said. “They were
performing tanker management for those strike pack-
ages. They were prepared to perform as a CSAR [com-
bat search and rescue] mission commander, should
that have been necessary.”
The Joint Intelligence Center in Kearsarge provided
area-wide intelligence support for U.S. and coalition
forces.
Kearsarge’s two armed MH-60S helicopters were used
by the sea combat commander to hunt down and engage
the Libyan Coast Guard patrol boats that were causing
mischief around Misratah, Pagano said.
“We didn’t get the opportunity to actually sink any, but
we launched about six sorties in an attempt to locate and
engage them,” he said.
The Harriers onboard Kearsarge provided commanders a highly responsive tactical air force.
“Geography is everything,” Pagano said. “Most of
the [tactical] aircraft are a thousand miles away, a two-and-a-half-hour commute to work, [with a] need to get
gas on the way. Our guys are right here, anywhere from
50 to 150 miles away. For a Harrier, that’s about 15
minutes to work.
“Almost every single sortie that took off from that
deck dropped ordnance on the target. [There was] very
high efficiency with sortie-to-target generation. That
means when you take off with your current intelli-
gence, by the time you get to the battlespace you’re
fighting in, it hasn’t changed,” he said. “So, while the
[land-based aircraft were] great at hitting all those
command-and-control systems and things that don’t
move, look at the targets we hit: tanks, armored per-
sonnel carriers, very mobile targets, the kinds of things
that were actually killing civilians.”
Desens had high praise for the MV-22B Osprey, and
not just for its rapid rescue of an Air Force F- 15 pilot from
Libya. The Osprey was able to provide logistic support to
the dispersed ARG/MEU at long ranges. When Odyssey
Dawn started, the six MV-22Bs sent earlier to Afghanistan
were flown 2,800 miles back to join Kearsarge.
“The V- 22 does fine in Iraq and Afghanistan, but
those are relatively short-leg missions so you don’t get
the true benefit of it,” Desens said. “A lot of times, in
order to stay on station for some of our very sensitive
missions, our logistical lines would literally be 500 miles
instead of 100 miles. There was nothing [else] that
could get logistics to me to keep our aircraft up.”
During the rescue of the F-15E pilot, the range and
speed of the Osprey allowed it to take a route over the
sea to avoid anti-aircraft fire from Benghazi and swoop
in to the rescue at 200 feet over the water at 270 knots.
Desens stressed the utility of short take-off/vertical
landing (STOVL) aircraft on an amphibious assault ship.
“Given the fact that we’ll never have enough aircraft
carriers and given the fact that you could take a few jets
and put them on a big-deck amphib and do all those
lesser contingencies, it would be crazy as a nation if we
didn’t retain a STOVL capability off of a big-deck
amphib, essentially 11 small carriers.”
Pagano recommended the Navy upgrade the com-
mand, control, communications, computers and intel-
ligence capabilities in the service’s dock landing ships
to enable them to more fully support disaggregated
operations, particularly with a data-link system and
upgraded satellite communications.
“It doesn’t have to be the latest Link 16, but a data
link compatible with the other ships,” he said. “It
would allow that ship to contribute to the recognized
maritime picture of both surface and air. The ship has
a great long-range, air-search radar — but without a
data link, you can’t fully exploit it.”
Pagano praised the Voice Over Secure Internet
Protocol phones that equipped the ARG as a “relatively
modest investment that paid huge dividends.”
He also recommended ARGs deploy with three
armed MH-60S helicopters, saying it is “the platform of
choice for the MEU if they were to do a helicopter-borne
ship takedown. For the reasons of all these competing
missions, two helicopters just aren’t enough.
“We performed this deployment largely from a disaggregated or dispersed posture and, so, this relatively
small force, [the ARG/MEU], had multiple effects
across a large geographic area,” Pagano said.
“Our recommendations are to invest in our
amphibious forces,” he said. “We don’t have enough of
them. They’re high-demand, low-density assets. This
deployment validated the utility of the sea base, again,
not just for the [MEU] but for other forces as well, giv-
ing the combatant commander those flexible, persist-
ent options in his theater.”
“In that nine months, 26th MEU exercised just
about every single mission set,” Gen. James F. Amos,
Marine Corps commandant, told Seapower July 6. “We
were fortunate enough that the 26th MEU was avail-
able and ended up getting called up to exercise almost
every one. I just sat there with water in my eyes with
all the pieces that they did.
“We’re talking about the three ships in the ARG as
well,” Amos said. “This is the Navy-Marine Corps
team. The thing that makes us so relevant in today’s
world is the naval force on naval vessels.” ■
