Interesting Read on the use of a FOB in the Falklands

[TheOttoman]

"A little known aspect of the air war over the Falkland Islands in 1982 was the use of an austere Forward Operating Base (FOB) at San Carlos for Harriers and helicopters.

The design of the Harrier was predicated on operating away from large airbases and in austere operating bases that made use of rapidly laid runways, supermarket car parks and roads."

The article has a lot of information on the layout of the FOBs for the Brits and can provide a lot of insights for any Cold War era use of the UK Harrier, and should also be looked at for ideas of F-35 deployments.

http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/san-carlos-fob/

[JCM3000]

Very interesting read. I remembered reading an article a while back about USMC planning for and practicing dispersed/austere basing for F35s. Managed to find it:

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-marin ... dgr-2017-4

https://news.usni.org/2017/03/28/docume ... ation-plan

I'm sure there are much better sources out there tho.

[thewood1]

US Marines used the FOB concept as almost their primary deployment plan for Harriers. A good friend was a Marine aviator with several deployments in Harriers. One thing he mentioned was in "near real-world" deployments, aircraft availability was less than 50% after only a few days of operations. It was mostly due to resupply of spares from the AG. I suspect the F-35 will be worse in the near-term.

[SeaQueen]

Dispersed airfields is one of those things that sounds great until you actually think about what "austere" really means. In the case of aircraft, it's really hard to say what you can do without. The Marines like to talk about themselves as "an austere force." There's a lot of truth to it, particularly in the infantry. They don't have the same logistical footprint as the Army. People can handle all kinds of deprivation, especially in the right conditions. The problem is always the machines. Machines are typically designed to need exactly x, y and z. If you decide you don't really need z, things break fairly quickly.

It's interesting to me when the Marines talk about "lily pads" how these austere forward operating bases often might start off with a few fuel bladders and some helicopters but very quickly become substantial logistical hubs. Establishing them is a pretty involved operation in its own right.

ORIGINAL: thewood1
US Marines used the FOB concept as almost their primary deployment plan for Harriers. A good friend was a Marine aviator with several deployments in Harriers. One thing he mentioned was in "near real-world" deployments, aircraft availability was less than 50% after only a few days of operations. It was mostly due to resupply of spares from the AG. I suspect the F-35 will be worse in the near-term.

[Luckschaden]

Isn't part of the idea that it creates more planning issues for the enemy? So while it might be a logistical headache, it also means that the enemy has to consider many more ways in which the US can use her planes, and thus has to divert resources towards guarding against contingencies.

[Gunner98]

The article has a lot of information on the layout of the FOBs

Had the opportunity to go to the Falklands in '06. Hitched a ride on a Sea King to West Falkland and we came back up A-4 ally and down San Carlos water. We hovered over the site but there isn't much left to see, the remains of ammo revetments and a road into the field, that's about it.

NF 21 'Sweep up' has the marines establishing a FOB on an island airstrip, which is used in a couple of the other scenarios, in particular NF 24 'Battlewagons to war' and a couple more that aren't finished yet.

B

[thewood1]

ORIGINAL: Luckschaden

Isn't part of the idea that it creates more planning issues for the enemy? So while it might be a logistical headache, it also means that the enemy has to consider many more ways in which the US can use her planes, and thus has to divert resources towards guarding against contingencies.

In the short-term I agree. But with the limited number of VTOLs available to a MAG, isolating them because of limited logistical support, and that includes bombs and missiles, can hamstring a commander that doesn't have full carrier support.

If there is time to establish a full logistical train and fully supply an FOB, it does give a commander a lot of options. I look at FOBs like that as a short-term tactical option.

[DrRansom]

There is another use case for FOBs which is more sustainable, that is in defensive operations. In the book Air Power Central Europe, a Harrier pilot discusses how plans were to use civilian sites, shopping malls were especially mentioned, to serve as FOBs. For a shopping mall, the parking lot is the airfield and the mall is the hanger. In that case, those sites can be pre-surveyed and supplies can be pre-positioned.

If FOBs are operating in friendly territory and there is plentiful local transport, than I can see them used often. As an offensive tool, where logistical support is necessarily more limited, FOBs might become more trouble than they're worth.

[Gunner98]

We cannot forget the element of Force Protection in the nuclear age - disburse and hide. Perhaps not so much of an issue now but it certainly was when the Harrier was borne.

More likely on your own ground again.

B

[DrRansom]

The nuclear age is coming back with a vengeance, I wouldn't be surprised to see some form of disperse and hide for F-35Bs operating in Korea.

Which reminds me, I always thought that the USAF should get F-35Bs for two missions: DCA and nuclear strike.

[Luckschaden]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

We cannot forget the element of Force Protection in the nuclear age - disburse and hide. Perhaps not so much of an issue now but it certainly was when the Harrier was borne.

More likely on your own ground again.

B

How dispersed are the actual supplies like munitions, AVgas, spare parts etc.? Not much point of being able to operate from a parking lot if all (or most of) the supplies are stored on the air bases or a few depots.

[Gunner98]

How dispersed are the actual supplies like munitions

If it would operated similar to aviation, most would be based on trucks or airlifted 'stuff' such as fuel bladders etc.

I think a Cold War type FOB would operate for 24-36 hrs in one spot then change, there would be a couple or three alternates and some mobile stores, ammo on trucks and fuel trucks waiting in a 'hide' somewhere.

Not entirely certain but lots of other stuff operated that way.

For big jobs like engine changes etc, I'm not really sure but tank engines can be changed in less than an hour under a canvas tarp so I suspect there were ways to do it.

B

[TheOttoman]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

How dispersed are the actual supplies like munitions

If it would operated similar to aviation, most would be based on trucks or airlifted 'stuff' such as fuel bladders etc.

I think a Cold War type FOB would operate for 24-36 hrs in one spot then change, there would be a couple or three alternates and some mobile stores, ammo on trucks and fuel trucks waiting in a 'hide' somewhere.

Not entirely certain but lots of other stuff operated that way.

For big jobs like engine changes etc, I'm not really sure but tank engines can be changed in less than an hour under a canvas tarp so I suspect there were ways to do it.

B

It should also be noted that the concept of (Supply Chain Management) SCM changed *drastically* from Cold War era, where it was long supply trains and operational perimeters were limited by the LOGCAP. It wasn't until the Gulf War that we learned that our supply chains couldn't keep up with our Offensive Force if they were able to breakout past their initial assignments (which wasn't considered to be practical for NATO in the Fulda Gap) and US Armor often outran the supply train in southern Iraq.

After Desert Storm lessons, and hindered by the peace dividend, it became impractical to continue to use the existing concepts of logistics and repair, so things became *really* mobile and JIT (just in time) became commonplace, so you would see FOBs have the ability to pop up in extreme locations, but only have enough equipment to supply an extension of the current mission in a near emergency level response. You'll see, especially at the onset of OIF and OEF that FOBs had barely anything and were *very* austere

[Dimitris]

Just wanted to say that I loved reading this discussion so far.

[thewood1]

There has also been a significant flip-flop in Marine acquisition strategy that impacts FOB concepts. That is the complexity of the airframes. In several of the exercises, significant numbers of airframes would be abandoned as the front lines moved forward. For a while, there was a big push to simplify the aircraft designs to simplify maintenance and logistics. But the over-engineering bug bit them and they ended up with the F-35. Not that its a maintenance nightmare when full up, but it is even more complicated to maintain than the Harrier, especially for the skill sets needed by maintenance personnel.

In the end, with the F-35s, FOBs will become mini-airfields, with all the logistical support those entail.

[Gunner98]

I think you're probably right on that.

I wonder though - I thought that the F-35 had a self-diagnostics system, and as the higher tech parts are probably a lot more modular, it could be a quick plug & play setup. Don't know and it probably won't work right for the first 1/3rd of the planes life cycle anyway.

Curious on that for anyone who knows more about the f-35

[ExNusquam]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

I think you're probably right on that.

I wonder though - I thought that the F-35 had a self-diagnostics system, and as the higher tech parts are probably a lot more modular, it could be a quick plug & play setup. Don't know and it probably won't work right for the first 1/3rd of the planes life cycle anyway.

Curious on that for anyone who knows more about the f-35

You are correct, the F-35 is designed to be less maintenance-man-hour intensive than previous designs. I'd be interested in reading (although I never will on the internet) the effects of austere ops on RCS maintenance. How long can you operate from a semi-improved field before the RAM degrades to the point where it impacts mission effectiveness?