The V-22 Osprey May Have Climbed out of Controversy
New developments may change fortunes of aircraft with plagued past
By Paul D. Shinkman
March 29, 2013RSS Feed Print

An MV-22 Osprey landing aboard the USNS Robert E. Peary.
"Osprey" has been considered a dirty word in some circles. News headlines demonstrate the aircraft's proven ability to move troops in and out of current combat zones, yet a string of crashes and fatal mishaps over the last two decades still dogs the multi-billion dollar program.
[READ: Marines Need F-35s To Do Their Jobs, Experts Say]
The V-22's unique abilities and combat tests have been touted as a game changer for covert and expeditionary forces, including the Marine Corps which has thrown its full weight behind the project, and Air Force Special Operations Command, which has committed to a few dozen of its own version.
The Osprey may soon carve out yet another unique job for itself and along the way help step-brother the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, derided by critics for cost overruns and inefficiencies.
Officials familiar with the V-22 program are quick to address what they say is a common misconception: The Osprey is not a helicopter that can fly as a plane. It is an airplane that can hover like a helicopter.
"It's not really the best option for many helicopter missions," says Richard Whittle, a reporter for AOL Defense and author of "The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey." The Osprey is not built to hover for long periods of time and doesn't perform that role as efficiently as a helicopter.
Unique nacelles allow the Osprey to turn its rotors upward to hover, and rotate them forward to cruise.
"What it's very good for is getting places that are far away, fast, where there is no runway," he says. "[It] is giving the Marine Corps and AFSOC a new way of doing missions that is revolutionary in offering the kind of speed and range that the Osprey gives them."
The Osprey gained a reputation as unsafe following a series of crashes during its test phase, beginning with a malfunction in 1991 in which one of the nacelles caught fire. It has become a favored point of contention for locals in Okinawa in recent years, who protest the overall Marine Corps presence there.
[DEBATE CLUB: Are Cuts to the Defense Budget Necessary?]
Whittle points out three Ospreys have crashed since Oct. 1, 2001 – one in Afghanistan, one on the USS Iwo Jima off the coast of Morroco and one at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida – killing six. The first two were attributed to pilot error. The last is still under investigation, though experts say this likely won't damage the Osprey's future.
By contrast, 417 U.S. military helicopters have crashed during that time, leading to the deaths of 630 Americans.
"There is a stigma to the Osprey from its 'ugly duckling' period, and because bad news travels faster than good, many people around the world don't realize what a swan it has become," Whittle says. "[The stigma] is undeserved at this point."
The Marine Corps has expressed the greatest interested in the Osprey so far. Its version, the MV-22, will eventually fully replace the aging CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter as the primary assault transport for troops, as well as equipment and supplies. The Osprey has a range of 860 nautical miles, or roughly six times that of the Sea Knight. It can also cruise more than twice as fast as the CH-46 at 322 miles per hour.
Since first becoming operational in 2007, the Corps have received 201 Ospreys. Of these, 175 are in active service, 10 are undergoing maintenance and 16 are used for training, according to Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Richard Ulsh, of an expected 360 by 2018. On average, three are built per month.
AFSOC has 30 Ospreys as of January 2013 leading up to an eventual 50 by 2017, according to the Naval Air Systems Command, home to Osprey flight testing.

April 18, 2013

U.S. Arms Deal With Israel and 2 Arab Nations Is Near

By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department is expected to finalize a $10 billion arms deal with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates next week that will provide missiles, warplanes and troop transports to help them counter any future threat from Iran.
A weeklong visit to the region by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will culminate a year of secret negotiations on a deal that Congressional officials said will be second only to the $29.5 billion sale of F-15 aircraft to Saudi Arabia announced in 2010. But the delicate balancing act that was necessary in weighing the differing interests of each nation made it among the most complex ever negotiated.
While one goal was to ensure that Israel continues to field the most capable armed forces in the region to deter Iran and counter a range of threats, it was equally important to improve the capabilities of two important Arab military partners. Another challenge, senior administration officials said, was coming up with a package that could help Israel deal with various security challenges — but devised so it would not be viewed as an American endorsement of accelerated planning by Israel to strike alone at Tehran’s suspected nuclear facilities.
The objective, one senior administration official said, was “not just to boost Israel’s capabilities, but also to boost the capabilities of our Persian Gulf partners so they, too, would be able to address the Iranian threat — and also provide a greater network of coordinated assets around the region to handle a range of contingencies.”
Those other security risks, officials said, include the roiling civil war in Syria — a country with chemical weapons that could be used by the Assad government or seized by rebels — and militant violence in the Sinai Peninsula.
Under the agreement, each country would be allowed to purchase advanced armaments from American contractors. In the case of Israel, there is also substantial American financial assistance, topping $3 billion in military aid this fiscal year.
Israel would buy new missiles designed to take out an adversary’s air-defense radars, as well as advanced radars for its own warplanes, new refueling tanker planes and — in the first sale to any foreign military — the V-22 Osprey troop transport aircraft.
The United Arab Emirates would buy 26 F-16 warplanes, a package that could reach $5 billion alone, along with precision missiles that could be launched from those jets at distant ground targets. Saudi Arabia would buy the same class of advanced missile.
The expectation is that the arms sale, which was outlined to Congress on Thursday, will encounter little opposition from lawmakers, especially from members representing the many districts where defense contractors are concerned about the impact of cutbacks in the Pentagon’s own weapons budget. But Congressional officials said members were seeking assurances that the package was in keeping with American policy to guarantee Israel’s “qualitative military edge” while not recklessly emboldening Israeli hawks.
American policy acknowledges that a sovereign Israel has the right to defend itself, but “the president believes there is still time and space for diplomacy to work” in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, one senior administration official said.
Under the terms of the deal, Israel would be allowed to buy the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey, an aircraft that can take off and land like a helicopter but fly with the speeds and range of an airplane. Israel could use the Osprey for patrolling its borders, coastline and out to sea, and for moving troops to troubled areas.
A new generation of KC-135 refueling tanker planes would let Israel’s warplanes stay in the air longer, an ability essential for any long-range mission — like a strike by Iran. The tankers would also be useful for air patrols protecting Israeli borders.
Israel also would receive antiradiation missiles. Launched from a warplane, they can home in on an adversary’s air-defense radar signals and destroy those sites. New, advanced radars for Israel’s military jets also would be in the package.
Administration officials declined to identify the new missile to be sold to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, except to say that it is an advanced class of precision “standoff munitions” — those designed to be launched from warplanes safely distant from ground targets.
The missile would fit the 84 F-15s that Saudi Arabia is currently buying under the previous arms deal, and it would be carried by the 26 F-16s the United Arab Emirates would buy under the new one. The missile, one senior official said, is to “address the threat posed by Iran.”
Officials said Israel was assured that use of the advanced missiles would be monitored by United States Air Force personnel who train alongside both the Saudi and emirates militaries, and that any deployment would occur only after consultation with the Americans. One administration official said the missiles would fall under “enhanced end-use monitoring.”
Over the past year of negotiations, Leon E. Panetta, the former defense secretary, met more than a dozen times with Ehud Barak, his Israeli counterpart, and had 18 additional telephone discussions on the arms deal. President Obama visited Israel last month, where he promised the United States would provide more security assistance, including advanced military technology, to Israel.
After being sworn in as the new defense secretary, Mr. Hagel held his first face-to-face discussion with any foreign counterpart to discuss the deal with Mr. Barak.
During his coming trip to Israel, Mr. Hagel will move to finalize the arms deal with Mr. Barak’s successor, Moshe Yaalon. Mr. Hagel will finalize the deal with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in visits to the two countries later next week.

US MV-22 Ospreys to conduct drill in ROK

Updated: 2013-04-18 18:19
( Xinhua)
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SEOUL - US Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft will conduct its first-ever drill in the Republic of Korea, Yonhap News Agency reported Thursday.
The MV-22 Ospreys will be sent to the ROK's east coast to carry out a drill, as part of the annual joint military exercise codenamed Foal Eagle that started on March 1 and lasted until April 30 to test the combat readiness of the allied forces.
"Ospreys deployed in Japan will joint this year's Ssang Yong exercise in the first time," Yonhap News Agency reported a senior military official as saying. But he didn't say when and how many Ospreys would come.
Ssang Yong exercise, lasting one month, is part of the Foal Eagle exercise.The squadron of 12 Ospreys was fully deployed to Futenma air base in Okinawa last October. Many local Japanese residents and activist groups staged demonstrations against and voiced concern about the multi-mission aircraft.

Reputation remake: Tilt-rotor Osprey wins fans in Afghanistan
Published on Saturday, 11 May 2013 18:03 Written by Jay Price / McClatchy Foreign Staff
CAMP BASTION, Afghanistan—Almost four years after the MV-22 Osprey arrived in Afghanistan, trailing a reputation as dangerous and hard to maintain, the US Marines Corps finally has had an opportunity to test the controversial hybrid aircraft in real war conditions. The reviews are startlingly positive.
“This is an ugly duckling that turned into a swan,” said Richard Whittle, the author of The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey and a senior scholar at the Wilson Center, a research center in Washington. “It is still probably more expensive than it should be, and more expensive to operate. But I think many people are still laboring under the impression that it is dangerous to fly, when it now has probably the best safety record of any rotorcraft that the military flies.”
The odd aircraft, which takes off and lands like a helicopter but rotates its engines forward to fly like an airplane, had a star-crossed development period that took more than two decades and included huge cost overruns and crashes that claimed 30 lives. Its deployment to Iraq’s Anbar province from 2007 to 2009, where as combat waned it was used mainly to transport people and cargo, won it criticism from the Government Accountability Office over maintenance and performance issues.
In Afghanistan, however, the Marines have been able to use it more widely, flying it for everything from freight to hundreds of assaults, where it’s carried loads of Marines into or out of landing zones, often under intense fire. It’s twice as fast as the helicopter it replaces, the CH-46, it has substantially greater range, and can carry more cargo and more than twice as many troops. The Marines are learning how to maintain it in a harsh environment.
Whittle, once an Osprey skeptic, has become a fan. “The Osprey has proven itself in Afghanistan in a way it didn’t in Iraq,” he said. “Partly that was because it didn’t get the chance in Iraq. Also, it was new, and the military is conservative with new equipment, but once they see it gives them a significant leap in capability like this, they are quick to take advantage of it.”
The MV-22 Ospreys here now are dusty, stained and smudged from hot exhaust, and at least five have returned to base with bullet holes, including—twice—the one flown by Lt. Col. Douglas C. Sanders, the commander of the Marine unit that’s flying the Osprey in Afghanistan, Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 264.
The various redundant systems work in the real world, said Maj. Matthew McSorley, a pilot and the operations officer for the squadron, who was hit by a different kind of fire while flying a mission on Valentine’s Day: a massive bolt of lightning.
“It was one of those days where the airplane itself just totally wins over your heart,” he said. “It bounced right back, and I flew it all the way back, and within a week I was flying the same plane again.”
Among the recent missions the squadron has flown was one in which the Osprey showed its strengths: A Marine with a head wound at a distant base needed to be moved to a second distant base for quick treatment.
The crew was alerted, dashed for the Osprey, spooled up the massive engines and zoomed north from Bastion some 40 miles. They picked up the wounded man and flew another 75 miles or so east to the massive coalition base in Kandahar, all in under an hour from the moment they got the call.
A conventional helicopter would have been hard-pressed to do the same, even without the 40-mile run from Bastion, Sanders said.
“With no prior notification, totally configured to do something else and boom, just like that,” said Sanders, snapping his fingers. “That’s what the Osprey brings to the battlefield.”
The Osprey’s not officially designated as a medevac aircraft, but speed is everything when someone’s dying. That sort of capability is among the many things the Marines have been learning about and getting used to, Whittle said.
A more typical use is taking advantage of the aircraft’s speed and range to hook around behind a target for an assault, coming in from an unexpected direction and circumventing the Taliban’s crude air-warning system, which often is a line of watchers with cell phones.
That capability has made it a favored platform for special operations strikes here, Marines said.
The current version of the Osprey also is far safer than earlier ones; it’s now among the safest rotary-wing aircraft in the military. “This isn’t your grandfather’s Osprey,” Whittle said.
The rate for Class A flight mishaps—those that involve death or permanent disability and/or more than $2 million in damage—is 1.48 per 100,000 hours of flying time since the aircraft was declared operational in 2007, according to Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Richard Ulsh.
That’s fractionally worse than the rate for the CH-46 medium-lift helicopter, but Whittle said it compared well, noting that in the last decade, the military has lost about 420 helicopters and more than 600 people in them, while the Osprey has had three fatal crashes since 2001, killing six.
Two of those were blamed on the pilots. The third, a crash last year in Afghanistan of the US Air Force’s version of the Osprey, resulted in a dispute between two generals involved in the investigation over whether the cause was an engine problem or pilot error.
Ulsh noted that last month the first of 12 Ospreys joined the fleet of aircraft used for presidential travel, a significant endorsement of the aircraft. They’ll be used to transport the president’s staff and journalists, though not the commander in chief.
Still, the Osprey is expensive—$122.5 million each, according to Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, a persistent critic—and it isn’t cheap to maintain, particularly in harsh operating environments such as the extravagantly dusty south of Afghanistan, where the Marines have been fighting.
In a speech in December 2011, McCain, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Osprey engines had been lasting just over 200 hours each, well below the 500 to 600 hours the Marines had expected. That, McCain said, more than doubled the cost per hour of flight, to more than $10,000, compared with about $4,600 for the CH-46. That “is eating up the Marine Corps’ budget,” McCain said.
Osprey defenders say the aircraft’s greater capabilities make up for that additional cost. They note that it can carry 24 passengers, versus 10 for the CH-46, and it flies twice as fast. Plus it can perform missions helicopters can’t.
“If you look at maps and the speeds and distances, now we can do three times as much in the same piece of airspace,” McSorley said.
The aircraft’s maintenance record has clearly improved. For a three-month stretch in 2007 and 2008 in Iraq—also a tough, dusty environment—the Ospreys had a “mission capable rate” of 68.1 percent, according to a GAO report. That’s the percentage of time that an aircraft is in good enough repair to perform at least one of its standard missions. At that time in Iraq, about 85 percent of the standard helicopters were mission capable.
For the first three months of this year, however, the Ospreys in Afghanistan had an 86-percent mission-capable rate, according to the Marine Corps.
In Afghanistan the aircraft hasn’t been particularly tricky to maintain, said Master Gunnery Sgt. Brian S. Stenberg, maintenance chief of Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 264.
The dust works its way into nooks and crannies and, in particular, causes abrasion of the miles of wiring, for example, but after so much time in Afghanistan, the maintenance crews know where it happens and how often.
Squadron commander Sanders, who also flew the Osprey in Iraq, said the improvements in reliability and maintainabilty since then had been so great he wouldn’t have thought them possible.
In Afghanistan, he said, the Osprey has finally claimed its proper place.
“A whole generation has been getting on and off Ospreys now,” Sanders said. “In Vietnam, the helicopters of that era—like the 46, the 53 and H1 – they took the Marines in and out of battlefields. Well, in Afghanistan, it’s the Osprey.”

Bell, Boeing To Get Order For 99 More V-22 Ospreys


By Reuters


June 11, 2013
Credit: Boeing
The U.S. Navy plans to sign this week a five-year contract valued just under $6.5 billion to buy 99 new V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft built by Boeing Co and Bell Helicopter, a unit of Textron Inc, the program’s manager said in an interview on Monday.
Marine Corps Colonel Gregory Masiello said the multiyear contract, the second one signed for the program, covers the period from fiscal year 2013 through 2017 and includes options for 22 additional aircraft. He said the government’s decision to sign the five-year agreement underscored its confidence in a program that had once been threatened with cancellation.
“Given the current fiscal situation, it speaks volumes as far as the confidence that the Department of Defense and the government have in the V-22,” Masiello told Reuters. “This is a big year for us.”
He said 92 of the aircraft in the new order would be built for the Marine Corps, the main buyer of the V-22s, with the Air Force set to receive seven aircraft. The Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command oversees the program and negotiates contracts with the manufacturers.
Boeing and Bell Helicopter jointly build the V-22 aircraft, or Osprey, which can fly as fast as a plane but lands like a helicopter. The program is getting good reviews for its performance in combat after a rocky start that saw 23 Marines killed during flight testing in 2000. Two more Marines were killed during a training exercise in Morocco last year.
Masiello said the five-year contract would save the Navy $1 billion compared with buying the aircraft one at a time.
The Navy is already exploring the possibility of a third multiyear contract for 100 or more aircraft, which could include the 48 V-22s that the Navy plans to buy for its own use, as well as possible international sales, he said.
“I don’t think it’s too soon for us to start working on those details,” he said, noting the aircraft’s performance since its first deployment in 2007 was fueling international demand and could generate other orders in the United States.
The contract signing is scheduled for Wednesday. Masiello said the contract would be a modification of an initial single-year deal valued at $1.4 billion that was announced in December.
He said the agreement was good news for the prime contractors on the program, but would also stabilize production for smaller suppliers that build parts for the aircraft.
He said the program was making good strides and the 214 aircraft in use now had flown nearly 190,000 hours in combat.
One V-22 would be used this week on the USS Truman for a series of exercises aimed at demonstrating its ability to deliver food and other cargo to Navy ships at sea, Masiello said. The Navy could save billions of dollars if it used the V-22 to replace its fleet of aging C-2 supply aircraft, he said.
Two V-22s had also been added to the military unit that flies the U.S. president, while others were being deployed to Britain and Spain, he said.
International interest in the new aircraft also remained high, Masiello said, noting that the U.S. government had provided briefings to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Brazil, Colombia, Singapore and Australia.
He said the Pentagon was exchanging letters with three countries on possible V-22 purchases but did not name them.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced in April that Israel would be the first foreign buyer of the V-22. Sources said Israel would receive five or six V-22s at an estimated price of $70 million each.

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Boeing Lands $4.9 Billion V-22 Osprey Contract

June 12, 2013
Partially confirming media reports from Reuters that have been circulating over the past 48 hours, the Department of Defense announced Wednesday that it has awarded a $4.9 billion contract to the Bell-Boeing Joint Project Office. This is a joint venture between Boeing (NYSE: BA ) and the Textron (NYSE: TXT ) subsidiary, probably best known for manufacturing the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.
Under the instant contract, the Pentagon is hiring Bell-Boeing to produce 92 MV-22 Osprey aircraft for the U.S. Marine Corps, and seven CV-22s for the U.S. Air Force, between now and September 2019. The contract, previously thought to be worth $6.5 billion to Bell-Boeing, will actually be for $4.9 billion, according to the Pentagon.
The V-22 Osprey, in its several variants, can take off and land vertically like a helicopter, but it travels twice as fast as a helicopter in horizontal flight. It also has greater range. The aircraft can carry 24 passengers, up to 10 tons of internal cargo, or up to 7.5 tons of external cargo carried in a sling -- or a combination of the above.

As the Ospreys entered the LZ for the second time, they were met with an overwhelming volume of enemy fire.

I recall some hot discussion about new tactics....going where the bad guys aren't....and how the V-22 was immune from Hot LZ's....used darkness, speed, and altitude and all that to eliminate that threat.

U.S. Ospreys and air tankers put Iran in Israel's reach
Oren Dorell, USA TODAY 4:42 p.m. EDT June 27, 2013

U.S. arms deal gives Israeli special forces tools they'd need to hit Iran's nuclear sites.


A Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey carries Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Ya'alon and other Israeli military officials for an in-flight demonstration on the capabilities June 14 at the Pentagon.(Photo: Paul J. Richards, AFP/Getty Images)


The United States plans to give Israel weapons that would enable it to send ground forces against Iranian nuclear facilities that it can't penetrate from the air.
The deal includes air-refueling aircraft, advanced radars for F-15 fighter jets, and up to eight V-22 Ospreys, an aircraft that can land like a helicopter and carry two dozen special operations forces with their gear over long distances at aircraft speeds.
The Osprey "is the ideal platform for sending Israeli special forces into Iran," says Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
The aircraft could help solve Israel's inability to breach Iran's uranium enrichment facility buried under a granite mountain at Fordow. It might be impregnable to even the heaviest conventional bunker-busting munitions in the U.S. arsenal, Pollack said. Israeli military planners have been brainstorming how to conduct an effective operation, Pollack said, citing conversations with senior Israeli military officers.
"One of the possibilities is (Israel) would use special forces to assault the Fordow facility and blow it up," Pollack said.
The weapons deal would be part of a military aid package for Israel that includes $1 billion for up to eight V-22 tilt-rotors; $500 million to retrofit radars into F-15 fighters and another $1 billion for a variety of air-to-ground weapons. Additional details about the U.S.-financed deal were revealed during a visit to Washington by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon on June 15.
The State Department said discussions of the arms deal are ongoing.
Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday had a working dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and will visit with Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian officials through Saturday, discussing broad regional issues and the peace process.
Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said the arms package was part of an Israeli wish list including some items that were not discussed publicly to help it keep a military edge over other nations in the region and for possible operations against Iran.
Israel's air force would be hard-pressed to cause lasting damage to the Iranian nuclear program because it cannot sustain long-term bombardment and has limited bunker-busting capabilities and limited air-refueling capabilities, said Kenneth Katzman, who co-wrote the 2012 report "Israel: Possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities" for the Congressional Research Service.
When he first announced the deal during a visit to Israel in April, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Ospreys would provide Israel with high-speed maritime search-and rescue-capabilities.
Yaalon said the arms sale would send a message to Israel's chief adversary in the region.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, left, shares a few words with Israeli Minister of Defense Moshe Ya'alon after Ya'alon took an in-flight demonstration on the capabilities of the MV-22 Osprey, in background.(Photo: Paul J. Richards, AFP/Getty Images)

"Without a credible military option, there's no chance the Iranian regime will realize it has to stop the military nuclear project," Yaalon said.
Other parts of the arms package include Boeing's KC-135 "Stratotanker," which can refuel Ospreys and other aircraft while airborne and extend the tilt-rotor aircraft's 426-mile range almost indefinitely. The deal also includes anti-radiation missiles that are used to target air defense systems, and advanced radars for Israel's fleet of F-15 fighter jets, according to a Defense Department press release.
That equipment would increase Israel's capabilities against Iran, said Ely Karmon, a senior research scholar at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at The Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel.
The refueling equipment would extend the reach of Israeli special forces, which could be used against Iran as they were in Israel's attack on a Syrian nuclear facility under construction in 2007, Karmon said.
In the 2007 attack, at least one Israeli team was on the ground to provide laser targeting of sophisticated air munitions, Karmon said. "The same would be done for Iranian sites."
The Osprey also could be used for search-and-rescue operations if Israeli aircraft involved in a complex air operation are shot down and pilots endangered, Karmon said.
Michael Rubin, an analyst for the American Enterprise Institute, said senior U.S. and Israeli bombers would do significant damage to Iran's hardened sites by targeting the entrances, and Israel could use the Ospreys for missions other than Iran's nuclear sites. Israel may want the ability to send troops to secure chemical facilities in remote regions of Syria or to block Iranian shipments bound for terrorists in the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula or Lebanon, Rubin said.
"Sudan and Eritrea are floating the idea of building an Iranian naval base or shipping Iranian missiles to the Gaza Strip," Rubin said, referring to the Palestinian territory controlled by the terrorist group Hamas. "If you wanted to disrupt such missiles in a convoy, you'd do it with an Osprey."
The arms deal also sends a message to Iran and reassurance to Israel that the United States is serious about standing by the Jewish state, Karmon said.

Tensions Rise Between China, Japan

China alarmed over U.S.-Japan tiltrotor aircraft exercise





An MV-22 Osprey of the U.S. Marine Corps lands on the Japanese helicopter destroyer Hyuga during a joint exercise involving the U.S. military and Japan's Self-Defense Forces / AP


BY: Bill Gertz
July 12, 2013 5:15 pm
China’s military voiced alarm over a recent joint exercise with Japan that showed off a new Marine Corps tiltrotor aircraft in war games Beijing said were preparation for an assault against China, according to military and intelligence officials.
The new MV-22 Osprey was used for the first time to land on a Japanese helicopter destroyer during joint military drills off the California coast on June 14.
The exercises, known as Dawn Blitz, were closely watched by the Chinese military and prompted Beijing to counter the maneuvers by announcing plans for joint war games with Russia later this month.
A defense official said the high-profile U.S.-Japan war games, including the Osprey ship landing, are part of the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia that includes building up military forces and strengthening alliances in the region.
The Osprey is a unique aircraft that can land and take off like a helicopter and then shift its rotors to fly like a conventional airplane. It can carry up to 32 troops and is considered a state-of-the-art transport for ferrying troops from ships to beaches.
On the use of the Osprey for the first time on a Japanese warship, a prominent Chinese military spokesman, retired Rear Adm. Yin Zhou, said Dawn Blitz was practice for Japan’s use of force against China over the disputed Senkaku islands, which China calls the Diaoyu.
China has stepped up military activities around the uninhabited islets and claimed them as its territory. The islands are located between Okinawa and Taiwan and are believed to contain large undersea deposits of oil and gas. Japan has owned them for decades.
“The Japanese government has made a commitment that it will not hesitate to fight on the Diaoyu Islands issue,” Yin told the official government controlled newspaper Global Times, adding that the exercise was military “preparation.”
Yin also said the exercise was held close to the United States rather than in Asian waters to prevent Chinese electronic eavesdropping on the tactics for retaking the Senkakus.
Other Chinese military spokesmen characterized the Osprey landing as a sign of Japan’s improved offensive military capabilities.
Chinese Col. Du Wenlong, with the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Military Sciences, told state media the Osprey exercise represented a “leap forward” for Japan’s military and a sign that Japan is seeking its own amphibious assault power to reduce reliance on its U.S. military alliance.
Du said in an interview broadcast on state television June 14 that he believes Japan will deploy Ospreys on its ships for offensive military operations against islands further from Japanese coasts.
Japanese officials said Dawn Blitz would boost joint operations capabilities under conditions similar to war.
The chief of Japan’s Joint Staff, Gen. Shigeru Iwasaki, said in June that Dawn Blitz was a “very important drill for rebuilding a U.S.-Japan mutual cooperation system.” And Koichi Isobe, another Joint Staff senior official said the exercises were “very significant” and part of the military’s development of marine amphibious warfare capabilities.
Japan’s army, known as the Ground Self Defense Forces, created the Western Army Infantry Regiment in 2002 with the main mission to defend remote islands. The unit has trained extensively with the U.S. Marine Corps, which has a major base on Okinawa.
Japan also is planning to purchase four amphibious assault vehicles amid discussion among Japanese officials about creating a new Japanese Marine Corps with the specific mission of defending Japan’s island territories.
Other official Chinese commentators said the exercises showed Japan’s growing offensive military capabilities.
Teng Jianqun, of the official China Institute of International Studies, said Japan is using advanced military platforms like the Osprey for island military campaigns. PLA Sr. Col. Chen Hu, editor of Xinhua’s military analysis also said the exercise was designed to boost Japanese offensive air and sea capabilities for amphibious operations.
Japan’s constitution prohibits Tokyo’s limited military forces from conducting offensive military actions.
China, for its part, announced it would conduct a large-scale joint military exercise with Russia’s military from July 27 to Aug. 15. Chinese military spokesmen said the exercises were meant to signal Chinese displeasure with what they called “provocations” by the United States and Japan in conducting Dawn Blitz.
Wang Xiangsui, head of the Center for Strategic Studies at the Beijing University, told the Chinese-owned Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao that recent joint U.S.-Japan military exercises, the disputes over the East China Sea islands, and the U.S. pivot to Asia had placed “military pressure” on China and that the exercises with Russia are a response.
China currently is engaged with maritime and territorial disputes with most of its neighbors and has been seeking close strategic ties with Russia. Moscow, so far, has been lukewarm to the Chinese overtures.
Meanwhile, China’s government criticized Japan for its new defense strategy report that warned about the growing threat posed by China’s military buildup.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing Wednesday that the Japanese defense white paper “disregards basic facts and maliciously plays up the China threat.”
“The Chinese side expresses grave concern about and strong dissatisfaction with this,” she said. “Japan has no right to make irresponsible remarks about China’s internal affairs.”
Hua said China will settle maritime disputes through international and domestic law but “we will never allow any country to violate China’s territorial sovereignty.”
“The Japanese side has provoked incidents over the Diaoyu Islands [Senkaku Islands] issue, seriously harmed China’s territorial sovereignty, and disrupted regional peace and stability,” she said, adding that Japan is “deliberately creating tensions and provoking conflict and confrontation.”
The defense white paper states that China is “rapidly expanding and intensifying its activities in its surrounding waters and airspace.”
“These moves, together with the lack of transparency in its military affairs and security issues, are a matter of concern for the region and the international community, including Japan,” it stated. “It is necessary for Japan to pay utmost attention to them.”
Dawn Blitz was held June 11 through 28 off the California coast and in addition to the first Osprey landing on a Japanese warship, the exercise also involved an amphibious assault drill. About 5,000 troops took part, including forces from Canada and New Zealand and observers from seven nations.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos called the Osprey landing on the deck of the Japanese ship “monumental” and part of the Marines’ new “orientation to the Pacific, including exercises in Japan.”
And Brig. Gen. John Broadmeadow, commanding general of the First Marine Expeditionary Brigade said: “The very first landing of an MV-22 Osprey on a Japanese ship is a historic moment for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade and Marine Corps at large.”
The joint U.S.-Japan exercise and the Osprey maneuvers “allows the Marine Corps to quickly respond to a crisis when launched from sea or land,” Broadmeadow said, according to a Marine press statement.