SOF all set to lose more RW support - HSC-84/85 to shutdown in 2016

[Homer11]

Oh dear God no. The last time I was on a regular Navy bird it took the pilot (who was an O-2 who we later found was fresh out of flight school)
literally 3-4 minutes to get down to the proper height so we could cast out of the bird. On the second pass I'm in the water watching as he's slowly ascending as guys are leaving the AC until finally the HRST master stops the 4th guy bc they were probably 20+ft at that point. Another platoon at the team worked with the same squadron less than a month later and had the aircraft slide while hovering off the edge of the flight deck of a destroyer while guys were fast roping. One of the guys had to lock in his hands and feet to prevent from possibly going into the drink.

No thanks, we'll walk.

There is a significant difference between regular Navy (or fleet) aviators and the pilots and aircrew of HSC-84/85. The average fleet squadron is comprised of approximately 70% 1st tour aviators who average between 700-1000 total flight hours of experience while conducting numerous missions in support of the fleet. The majority of flight time for these units is spent conducting Search and Rescue (SAR) or logistics support (roughly ~70-80% of their flight time). Just by pure numbers, most first tour pilots do not have the opportunity to obtain the required flight time needed to gain anything more than exposure to basic skills (like FASTROPE, Cast and recoveries, K-Duck, etc). Bottom line: proficiency in the higher speed tactical missions will not occur in a pilot's first tour. Additionally, fleet squadrons have little ammo allocation for their crewmen to become proficient with crew served or other on-board weapons.

The MINIMUM experience for aviators arriving at HSC-84/85 are first tour complete with the majority of aviators arriving post-2nd (usually post-instructor) tours. Also, SELRES pilots and aircrew in the units provide continuity as they typically stay in the squadrons for 10 years or more and do nothing but fly SOF missions. Average flight time for pilots in 84/85 is 2200-2600 hours and nearly all their hours are devoted to operational support, training support, or unit level training for SOF missions and personnel. The gunners are the most proficient and fire more rounds than most all other Navy aircrewmen combined. Each squadron has a 7.62mm allocation of more than 500k rounds and they often accept additional rounds from SEALs or SF that they work with. One squadron's ammo allocation is greater than that of all the co-located fleet RW units combined (per respective coast - 8 operational HSC squadrons - 16 total ).

 

[AWP]

Not being an aviator, someone help me out. New guy needs stick time. Got it, I'm onboard. Has to learn how to conduct those operations? I'm onboard. So...isn't that something to practice before handling troops? Descent rates, hovering over water at night, or whatever else you can do without troops? Second, if he's the new guy shouldn't someone with more time be in the other seat? Why wouldn't he take over? He had to know the a/c was climbing and that's bad or drifting off the target and that's also bad. What would prevent the other pilot from taking over and avoiding potential injuries to the customer (and maybe the airframe if things go really wrong)? Cultural, procedural, human error...I'm spitballing, but hopefully you get my drift. Is that something which can't be done in a simulator (weight leaving the a/c)? If they resulted in a loss of life, it sounds like an AIB would have a field day with the scenarios described in JK07's post.

 

[busdriver]

practice before handling troops? more time be in the other seat? wouldn't he take over? Cultural, procedural, human error...

Absolutely, should be, should have, probably a little bit of all of that, I don't know about a simulator (ours are terrible) but certainly non-live first.

 

[JB(A)]

For the record I have only had good experiences working with 84 (east coast guy so never worked with 85.) The other fleet squadrons, not so much. And like I said I'm not trying to knock the other squadrons, they just don't devote the time or money needed to be proficient SOF RW support (and righfully so.) The occasional training evolution working with us when we can't get 84 or 160th is not really going to change that either.

Unfortunately, the Navy's solution for NSW support is now going to consist of those fleet units trying to provide support. I have to agree with your earlier comment about walking instead of riding. Truth be told, I wouldn't fly a DA with a fleet HSC squadron as part of the crew, and this is not a knock against them. This is just the result of time in training with the SOF mission. 84/85 know the risks and how to mitigate them and they understand the consequence of the failure to properly train.

Time and time again I have seen fleet pilots come to 84 thinking they knew how to do the mission. The proof is in the pudding and their heads are spinning as fast at the rotor-head the first time they co-pilot a live exercise, SA in the drink. Ask them 2 years later about the learning curve and almost all respond with "you just don't know what you don't know" or something similar. Even those that drank from the Navy RW tactical cup of Kool-aid renounce their previous devotion to the traditional thought processes of the Helicopter Weapons School/NSAWC, which is the Navy RW tactical knowledge institution. These institutions are sub-standard for RW, and that is putting it as nicely as I can. They simply don't have the real-world knowledge....or even the practical training knowledge to produce helicopter crews capable of #1 the basic tactical skillets and #2 the ability to perform real-time tactical risk assessments in the high-tempo mission cycle, from planning to execution. They are, to paraphrase Gen. Boykins, 'confusing enthusiasm with capability.'

 

[DA SWO]

Bottom line is the 160th will get tasked harder.

 

[DA SWO]

Interesting article from War is Boring:

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/navy-ospreys-could-do-more-than-haul-cargo-3d054985642d

BLUF: HV-22's replace the C-2 and HH-60H's aircraft.
Doable, but I doubt they will train the flightcrews accordingly

 

[Freggel]

Would hate to see them go. Had their support not too long ago in NL for the SOCEUR led excercise Jackal Stone. Great team with matching skills and proffesionalism
Their naval knowledge should be preserved and taken into SOCOM imo

 

[JB(A)]

To your point:
84/85 fight a constant battle against Weapons Schools and Wing Commanders on both coasts, who consistently try to inject their "operational knowledge" into the training. 3 times in about 4 years the units had to revamp their training syllabus to appease these entities. Imagine having people who have never flown in support of a SOF op tell you how to train to fly (or actually fly) a DA....thanks but no thanks. I'll just do what I know how to do instead. The one positive would be that the V-22 program would be so high profile that their needs might actually get met by commanders....which would be a new concept altogether. That bird has limitations though as I am sure you well know. The area better be permissive and you better have some high-confidence intel of that fact.
Case in point:
http://www.military.com/daily-news/...-osprey-crews-a-tale-of-bullet-riddled-p.html

@Freggel, nice to see the guys are still performing well. Unfortunately, the cancelation of the units will eliminate that institutional knowledge altogether. That knowledge will not be 'absorbed' by the fleet units that the pilots and crews will be reassigned to, unfortunately. Once it is gone...you won't be able to get it back. We are in agreement on the SOCOM point. Stay safe.

 

[CrewGuy]

God knows I've done enough elevators to train ground dudes on fast rope. Don't even get me started on the waste of time airborne sniper is for me.

What does it matter if it's a waste of time for you? As I'm sure you're aware It's not about you, it's about getting the customers to the target and supporting them any way we have to. Are sniper platforms used very often anymore? Not really, but neither is a lot of the stuff we train for.

Back on topic.

It's a shame the Ground Forces primarily NSW and MARSOC will lose this asset for training support over someone not wanting to take them in and pay for them. If only we had a dedicated joint special operations aviation unit to support all the forces equally with the same TTP's and put the pissing contests in SpecOpsAV to bed.

 

[busdriver]

What does it matter if it's a waste of time for you? .........it's about getting the customers to the target and supporting them any way we have to.

OK, getting the customers to the target: what if the target is 200 miles into an IADS? The training burden to get the team there is significant. My only point is that you can't ignore the training needs of the aircrews just because it's cool to say it's all about the customer. We don't expect fires platforms to be good without training with JTACs and vice versa.

Back to aerial sniper, when I was stationed at Kadena we happily paid the cost of helping the Marine SOTG with their aerial sniper needs because they helped us with OPFOR for contested objective training. Same thing for all the elevators I've done for fast rope training, that same team would then help me with the training I needed for my guys. It was always, let's help each other kind of relationship. Keep in mind I'm primarily a CSAR guy with ancillary SOF support.

To bring it back to the thread topic: my point is that if the SEAL community wants aviation support from the larger Navy helo world, and expects any kind of competency they need to dedicate some level of training support to help the helo guys learn how to do it and build some level of proficiency. The larger Navy helo community doesn't have the luxury of screening aircrew from a massive pool of applicants like the 160th does. I'm sure you remember the first time you put an actual team down a fast rope onto a roof top it was a bit different than when you were just simulating.

 

[JB(A)]

The Navy won't allocate the flight hours to proficiency. As it sits, they have about 6 mission areas they want crews to train for. Helicopter units know they will never be tapped for real-world, so they simulate a lot of crap and sign off their crews as 'mission qualified.'
The Weapons Schools, who are supposed to be the masters of all that is tactical, don't have real-world knowledge to be effective. That is right, the very institution that is supposed to promote combat readiness for naval helicopters is inadequate. Quite often, a SWTI, or Seahawks Weapons and Tactics Instructor (the supposed 'masters') lacked fundamental knowledge concerning combat operations in general, much less how to conduct a SOF operation. So, if the 'masters' can't get it right...how will the operational pilots ever be able to get proficient? The entire system is fundamentally flawed.
Trust me....even the guys who used to wear the SWTI patch that came over to our world would tell you, after experiencing our training pipeline and what we were able to expose them to, that they just had no clue the extent of training they lacked. They just aren't used to flying with multiple assets and reacting to an evolving mission in real-time. Being able to make critical time-senstive decisions is a major part of the training we instituted to prepare new guys, and the only way you get people able to function in that chaos is by exposing them to major exercises on a regular basis.....something the Navy just won't do.
I realize what I just wrote is pretty damning to the Naval Aviation institution...but you won't find a qualified 84 or 85 pilot or crewman who will disagree with me.

 

[busdriver]

Being able to make critical time-senstive decisions is a major part of the training we instituted to prepare new guys

Part of the problem is do you train guys to do mission XX? Or do you train them to be critical thinkers? You can train to do mission XX based on a template, and guys will memorize that template. If anything comes up outside of that template and they'll freeze. Or do you spend training time making them critical thinkers with a baseline core skill set so they can apply that core skill set to any situation? As a DoD we have fucked away our training structure.