Back in the October 2021 there was an article entitled "Use Emerging Technology for ASW" in the Proceedings Magazine that discussed some ideas about using F-35's in a limited ASW role.
The Soviets and Chinese are including long range missile and even perhaps hyper-sonic missiles into their array of offensive weapons.
All can be fired from beyond the operating radius of ASW Helicopters flying from surface vessels.
The article notedt deficiencies of current assets and strategy asserting that rethinking the threat, surveying current assets and strategy....then developing much more effective systems and procedures must be done in light of the growing capabilities of Peer Level Navies.
It describes the short comings of current assets....an example was a Russian Sub fires a missile from two hundred nautical miles from the Task Force....and the question is how does the Task Force protect itself...and then prosecute the destruction of the Sub that fired the missile.
The Helicopter would take about an hour to reach the Datum Point....where the Sub was thought to be but surely is not any longer....and air dropped sonobuoys are stationary and cannot move with the Target should one be detected by the buoy.
The writer envisioned equipping F-35's and even some F/A 18's for quick reaction ASW to include air defense of the Task Force and some limited ASW capability mentioning the L3 Harris Sonobuoy Dispenser System (SDS) and Drone Wingman weapons.
What I got from the article was we face a changing threat that is growing....not decreasing and legacy assets and strategy are failing to meet the challenges.
Under Commandant Berger, the US Marine Corps has undertaken a major shift in its defining its core Mission....and there is much concern that it may not have defined the correct strategy or has not thought it through carefully enough.
Part of that is the details naturally are classified and thus not available to satisfy those raising relevant questions.
Precision Weapons, information warfare, and going to a defense oriented posture versus the traditional offensive posture and the assets that will be part of that strategy remains a topic of debate.
Amongst that shift was inclusion of some but limited role in ASW involving land based assets (The Navy no doubt cares not to. shift any such responsibility to the USMC for any shipboard ASW operations).
We got a some relief from the Russian threat due to their Ukraine Invasion....but the Chinese are still growing their capabilities apace.
The old adage of militaries always preparing to fight the last War must not be how we do approach the near peer Nation threats.
Last edited by SASless; 18th Sep 2022 at 18:49.