Maintaining Freedom of the Seas Requires Future Vertical Lift!

By Carl Forsling – Senior Manager, Military Sales and Strategy at Bell and Tyler Harrell – Manager, Military Sales & Strategy at Bell

For nearly half a century, the H-60 family of helicopters has been the warhorse of the United States military’s rotary wing fleet, a platform able to perform a wide range of missions ashore and afloat. But with an ever-decreasing U.S. Navy fleet size compared to the constantly increasing number of potential global hotspots, Navy leadership needs to make a “course correction” and do it quickly. An early investment in Future Vertical Lift, both manned and unmanned, would be the “course correction” that could make an immediate and significant impact.

Building more ships isn’t enough.

Between a limited topline budget and competing priorities such as strategic deterrence, Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD), and a shortage of combatant ships, the United States Navy will need to quickly make the hard choices that will affect the fleet for decades. The Navy’s 2024 Shipbuilding Plan identifies three alternative long-range projections for the future fleet. All these alternatives result in a 2053 fleet that, best case, returns the fleet to the same size it was in the mid-1990s. Even the most aggressive of those plans leave the naval surface fleet below the present force structure before the next 10 years. This limited fleet size will be stressed to handle even the most basic functions of presence and deterrence in INDOPACOM, much less the Navy’s mission worldwide. Each combatant will be required to exert sea control over a vast expanse of ocean. While the MH-60R and S capably fill that role today, will they continue to meet the challenge in the longer term?

The Navy protects American interests at sea in both peace and war.

For over 200 years, the U.S. Navy has fulfilled its’ most basic mission by assuring freedom of navigation for US and allied shipping. The Navy’s mission statement reflects this: “The United States is a maritime nation, and the U.S. Navy protects America at sea. Alongside our allies and partners, we defend freedom, preserve economic prosperity, and keep the seas open and free.” While being prepared to fight and win a peer or near peer conflict is crucial, the U.S. Navy must still maintain presence around the world to maintain peace and deter aggression. The recent Houthi gunboat attack and swift response by U.S. Navy helicopters in the Red Sea shines a light on the lethality and operational capabilities of naval rotorcraft, especially in prosecuting small, fast-moving surface threats. But the range, speed, and endurance of existing rotary-wing aircraft will be insufficient as the Navy’s fleet is stretched further and further and threats become more advanced. Embarked helicopters and Group 3 and below UAS cannot provide the necessary protective bubble needed to defend against those threats. This is true not just for Anti-Surface Warfare (ASuW), but for the majority of naval helicopter missions, from AntiSubmarine Warfare (ASW) to Search-and-Rescue (SAR) to long range combat logistics.

The Navy needs Future Vertical Lift platforms.

To conduct these missions in the 2030s and beyond, rotorcraft speed and range need to increase greatly without compromising runway independence. Whatever technology is chosen to fill this emerging capability gap, those requirements will remain. While competing technologies exist, tiltrotor platforms such as the Navy’s CMV-22 and the Army’s future long range assault aircraft, or FLRAA, are benchmarks for the type of performance that will be necessary in any future platform, manned or unmanned.

Small (Group 1-3) UAS and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware have a role in mitigating that gap in the near term. Those platforms are excellent at intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting (ISR-T), especially at relatively short ranges. However, these platforms’ limited payload size and weight prevent them from carrying many of the payloads employed by H-60s, particularly weapons and larger sensors.

Fixed-wing aircraft from CVNs, LHAs, and LHDs have the capability to perform some of the H-60 mission set, such as ASuW. However, their fuel demands, limited on-station time, and flight characteristics make them a poor match for many of the threats routinely encountered by rotorcraft. That also assumes availability of a big-deck and excess sorties, both of which are unlikely given competing operational priorities. Similarly, shore-based maritime patrol may or may not be present when contacts are racing toward U.S. Navy ships or the vessels they are protecting.

It’s likely that a multi-layered approach will be necessary to fill this gap in the short term. Capability enhancements to legacy aircraft, UASs, USVs, and other emerging technology will all play a part.

But while the Navy fixes the problems that face it right now, it cannot lose sight of the problems it will face in the future. The proper investments made today in relevant technologies will pay enormous dividends in the 2030s and 2040s.

Future Vertical Lift, both manned and unmanned, will enable each ship to cover more ocean on a persistent basis. High-speed, long-range rotorcraft are essential in maintaining the U.S. Navy’s ability to fulfill its mission statement into the second half of the century.