Mastering the Machine:

“Gradually, then Suddenly"

By CAPT Sandy Clark, USN (Ret.)

Among other meanings, “Mastering the Machine,” can be a catch phrase for maximizing and expanding an aircraft’s operational capability, typically through adoption of technological improvements. Sometimes these changes are evolutionary – where the mission essentially stays the same but newer technology, arriving incrementally (and slowly), improves performance. Engineers and budgeteers prefer this orderly manner of upgrading capabilities. But more often new requirements and new missions develop overnight, and change comes suddenly. Welcome to the real world.

Case in point. Other than its outward appearance, today’s MH-60R Seahawk, arguably the finest Maritime Strike helicopter in the world, bears slight resemblance to its predecessor aircraft, the SH-60B. “Bravo” Seahawks (LAMPS Mk III) were manufactured and delivered more than a decade after proof of mission concept. They supplanted the SH-2F (LAMPS Mk I), itself the result of kluged upgrades to distribute airborne ASW and over-the-horizon targeting among small surface combatants – thus countering USSR’s growing blue-water Navy.

Often the Navy’s plodding acquisition system can’t keep up with the real world. For example, the Navy bought and fielded nine new functional ASW squadrons in the last half of the 1980’s only to discover the Fleet requirement for their primary mission capability (ASW) was hardly needed anymore. In 1989 the Soviet Union collapsed, the ASW threat diminished, and these purpose-built open-ocean ASW machines instead began deploying to the littorals and shallows of places like the Arabian Gulf, where minimal ASW threat existed but rather surveillance and targeting were increasingly vital.

To quote Ernest Hemmingway, the SH-60B mission change occurred, “Gradually, then suddenly.”

The first hint of repurposing these newly minted ASW helicopters for littoral missions came in late May 1987. During a scheduled program review at Sikorsky Offices, Fleet representatives from COMNAVAIRPAC received an urgent call from the SH-60B Program Office at the Naval Air Systems Command. NAVAIR informed Fleet attendees that AEGIS Cruisers and FFG 7 Class Frigates were about to be deployed in significant numbers inside the Arabian Gulf (a first) and that, “We need to put an M-60 machine gun on all helos... By the way, the timeline is immediate, and the commitment is open ended...”

But these weren’t to be one-off flights. These deployments meant a whole new mission – a not-so-subtle repurposing of a whole class of uniquely capable and valuable fFleet air assets.

An HSL-45 aircraft doing the first test of the ALE-39 DECM System, offshore near San Diego in June of 1987.

Recall that Iran and Iraq were at war. Other than the MidEast Flagship, USS LaSalle (AGF 3), U.S. combatants spent little time in the Gulf. But now, Iraq was threatening the movement of oil tankers and the emergent U.S. Navy mission was to forestall any disruption in the flow of oil. Operational necessity put Cruisers and Frigates in a war zone and NAVAIR reasoned M-60 machine guns would provide “protection.”

Fleet Reps knew M-60 machine guns were of limited utility against armed aircraft and useless against anti-air missiles. So, they countered by requesting a forward-firing .50 caliber machine gun and the more useful Defensive Infra-Red (DIR) and Defensive Electronic Countermeasures (DECM) equipment, readily available and installed on some U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawks.

Uh huh.

This emergent mission required an immediate addition of new equipment to protect helicopter aircrews who were about to be deployed in harm's way and not under the protective umbrella of Carrier Air Wing assets, by providing the best possible defense against air or surface launched anti-air missiles.

Within one hour of the original phone call, NAVAIR agreed to provide and install the DIR and DECM on the next deployers out of San Diego on the condition that they accept the M-60 too. Deal. The clock was ticking.

In a classic case of the Navy doing everything possible to satisfy urgent Fleet needs, all the new equipment was installed in two factory-delivered SH-60Bs at North Island within 14 days. Within three weeks of NAVAIR’s “GO” order, a two-plane detachment was heading over the horizon towards the Arabian Gulf. New equipment? Check. New Training? Check. New mission? Check.

That one-off experimental aircraft modification kit became known as the “MEF MOD,” and all operational SH-60Bs on both coasts, as well as SH-2Fs ordered into the Gulf received this critical addition.

And that was how the SH-60B began its mission change from open-ocean sub hunter to the combat-ready, littoral, independent air asset that it became. The mission changed suddenly, and the acquisition system ultimately responded gradually, producing further modifications like Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) and improved electronic countermeasures (ECM)/electronic counter countermeasures (ECCM).

And the temporary MEF MODs? They morphed into a “hard” requirement to accompany offensive missile capabilities and an advanced ASW suite that became the MH-60R.

An MH-60R Seahawk helicopter attached to the Raptors of HSM-71 fires flares during a training exercise over the Pacific Ocean. U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class James Vazquez.