Tactics and Equipment: Phantom on the Water – A new surface vehicle developed by the U.S. military

Surface vehicles are aircraft capable of taxiing, taking off, landing and berthing on water, including amphibious aircraft and ground effect aircraft. At present, the US military is not equipped with surface aircraft, but has not given up the technical research on surface vehicles, especially this year, the US military has put forward the research needs for amphibious aircraft and ground efficiency aircraft, and its background is to focus on major power confrontation.

The new amphibious aircraft technology is clearly conceptual

In recent years, as the US military strategy shifts from counter-terrorism to major power confrontation, the US military has been exploring the concept of operations in a long-distance and high-confrontation environment. In a combat environment of confrontation with a major country with close strength, in the first wave of attacks, the large infrastructure of the US military front will be destroyed by the opponent and cannot be used, and the US military will only be able to use a very limited infrastructure in the front. In the High-intensity Confrontation with opponents in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, how to carry out logistical support, supplies, troop projection, personnel infiltration and evacuation is a problem that the US military has been thinking about, and all these operations need to be carried out on the water, with an area of more than 71% of the earth's surface waters, which is an important military operation area. Amphibious vehicles do not require runways and fixed bases, and are one of the equipment that can be effectively used on and on land. In a 2016 U.S. Marine Corps wargame exercise, there was a vision of the use of amphibious vehicles in the western Pacific Ocean, and the following figure shows the range of Cessna 208, CL-415mp and US-2 seaplanes from Manila, Philippines. As can be seen from the figure, the range of the above-mentioned typical amphibious aircraft in active service can cover the waters of the South China Sea and the East China Sea, providing support for the operations of the US military in the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Amphibious aircraft are a relatively expensive device that can connect the US military's long-distance dispersed expeditionary forward bases (EAB). Among them, the Cessna 208 uses a pontoon landing gear, the CL-415mp and US-2 use a ship-type fuselage, the US-2 is the active equipment of the Japan Self-Defense Force, and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is equipped with 6 aircraft, mainly responsible for search and rescue, disaster relief and humanitarian relief tasks.

Operational view of multi-type active seaplanes in the Western Pacific (U.S. Marine Corps photo)

In the face of such a harsh operational environment, the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) is studying the feasibility of making the C-130 amphibious and amphibious, which can be used to support the combat operations of special operations forces in coastal areas, carrying special operations forces from scattered coastal waters to the mission area, and then carrying special operations forces to evacuate safely after completing any. The project is currently in its early stages and is one of AFSOC's priority procurement projects. The project envisages the installation of two massive removable amphibious float modifications in the lower part of the fuselage of the MC-130j Commando II transport aircraft, which has wheels that give the MC-130j amphibious capability (mac): not only to float and take off and land on water, but also to glide and take off and land on land. The mc-130j's increased amphibious capability will increase the flexibility of the U.S. military, support the U.S. military in interspersed, evacuation, or other special operations missions in denial-of-resistance environments, and can also improve aerial refueling for helicopters and tiltrotors. In May 2021, the executive director of the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) fixed-wing aircraft program (PEO-FW), Air Force Colonel Ken × Kuebler revealed the MC-130j's amphibious combat capabilities. Ken × Kubler said the U.S. military is conducting feasibility and operational use studies with related companies, using digital tools (digital design, virtual reality modeling and computer-aided design) to design and verify various conceptual design schemes to accelerate the development schedule and development costs. On September 20, 2021, AFSOC Commander Jim × Lieutenant General Jim Slife said that the prototype of the amphibious MC-130J will fly for the first time in 2022. In the future, related technologies will also be applied to other C-130 models, such as the AC-130 "Air Gunboat" aircraft.

Artistic imagination of the MC-130j with amphibious ability parked on the ground

Artistic imagination of the MC-130j with amphibious ability parked on the surface of the water

Artistic visualization of the MC-130j flying in the air with amphibious capabilities

The MC-130J is the latest modification of the C-130 transport aircraft, a four-engine tactical transport aircraft developed by Lockheed in the 1950s and the world's most used land-based transport aircraft. The transport aircraft has a long range, large internal space, and a ramp-type cargo window door at the rear, which can also improve the task of search and rescue, weather monitoring, maritime patrol, aerial refueling, armed attack and so on in addition to undertaking tactical transport tasks. Now the U.S. military and Loma envision adding modular buoyancy to the C-130's fuselage to make it amphibious. But the price was an increase in the c-130's aerodynamic resistance and empty weight, greatly reducing range and useful payload. The modular buoyancy device enables the c-130 to have a common spare parts and support training system for amphibious and land-based types, reducing the cost of use and training and improving the usability rate. In addition to its use in the U.S. military, the amphibious C-130 has a wide range of uses in the U.S. Coast Guard, and when performing search and rescue missions, the amphibious C-130 can not only deliver supplies to the accident area, but also water rescue, extending its search and rescue capabilities to thousands of miles from the coastline.

An MC-130 is refueling a CV-22 in the air

The U.S. military has been envisioning the development of the amphibious C-130 for decades, and in the 1960s Lockheed developed an amphibious aircraft with a hull-shaped fuselage based on the C-130, which was equipped with pontoons on both sides of the aircraft, and the U.S. Navy funded and developed a miniature model of the wireless remote control, but the project was not ultimately successful.

Lockheed's model of a hull fuselage amphibious vehicle envisioned in the 1960s (with pontoons on both wings)

In the late 1990s, Loma envisioned installing pontoons on both sides of the c-130j transport aircraft's fuselage, making it a seaplane capable of taking off and landing on water. The U.S. Navy is interested in the idea of supporting THE SEALs' combat operations in the coastal area. The installation of huge pontoons on both sides of the fuselage increases the aerodynamic resistance and empty weight of the aircraft, reducing the useful load of the range.

The new ground effect vehicle is clearly targeted

Ground effect aircraft is to use the lifting effect between the wings and the ground/water surface when flying close to the ground/water surface to obtain a larger load. The cruising flight altitude of ground effect aircraft is usually 0.05 to 0.2 times the wingspan, but some models can also fly outside the ground effect for a short time (no more than 150 meters above the water surface/ground) in the case of small load capacity. The lift-to-drag ratio of ground effect aircraft when flying close to the ground (or water surface) is much higher than at high altitude, and its required propulsion power is smaller. Compared with ordinary fixed-wing aircraft, a ground effect aircraft with the same take-off weight can save fuel consumption by half, the payload factor ratio is 25% to 50%, and the range can be increased by about 50%. Ground effect vehicles have huge potential advantages in both military and civilian use: they have the high speed of aircraft, the high load capacity and efficient cost ratio of ships, good wave resistance and amphibious capabilities. In the research of foreign ground effect aircraft, the former Soviet Union/Russia has carried out a lot of research and successfully developed several models, including the "Caspian Sea Monster", "Young Eagle" series (Type 904), "Harrier" series (Type 903), etc., and its use is mainly concentrated in maritime transportation, sea rescue and sea attack. In addition to Russia, the United States is also actively engaged in research on ground effect aircraft. In the early 1990s, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded Aerocon to study the concept of a 2,000-passenger Rush 1.6 ground effect vehicle modeled after the 300-foot (91.4-meter) caspian monster. At the beginning of this century, Boeing also worked with DARPA on the Pelican super-large ground effect transport aircraft, which flew at an altitude of 6 meters above the sea surface, had a load capacity of 1270 tons, and could carry 17 M1 tanks or 3000 heavily armed soldiers at a time. The ground effect aircraft is mainly used for sea transport and sea rescue, and even sea attack. The research project was cancelled in 2005.

Research on ground effect vehicles in the United States has not stopped, and in August 2021, DARPA issued a ground effect (wig) aircraft information consultation letter (RFI) to industry, requiring that the newly designed ground effect aircraft can carry a payload of more than 100 tons to take off, catch water and fly in waves up to 4 feet (1.2 meters), can carry multi-amphibious tools, and also requires low manufacturing costs. In addition, it is also required that the ground effect vehicle should also be able to extend the time of flight outside the ground effect zone to avoid obstacles and avoid the effects of bad weather, but the main cruising flight segment is in the ground effect area to increase range, sailing time and survivability. Darpa's RFI does not propose metrics that specifically quantify range, time of flight, and speed of flight, but requires higher speeds than ships and higher payloads than vertical aircraft and offshore aircraft. Virginia-based startup Flying Ship Company has been discussing the concept of a future ground effect vehicle with DARPA. In July 2021, the company signed a $100 million purchase agreement with a European customer to sell an unmanned hybrid electric ground effect vehicle with a design load of 6,000 pounds (2,722 kilograms) and a range of more than 1,000 nautical miles (1,852 kilometers).

Darpa proposed a ground effect aircraft concept map

A few comments

1. The use area of the new surface vehicle and the opponent targeted are obvious

With the transformation of the US military strategy, the US military actively prepares for high-end confrontation: disperse the deployment of forward combat forces to reduce losses in the first wave of attacks; improve long-range, rapid, mobile, and covert delivery capabilities; and put forward the concept of distributed operations, emphasizing the concentration of firepower and the dispersion of platforms. U.S. operations in the vast western Pacific require a rapid means of power projection that links operational nodes. In terms of the use of amphibious aircraft, the U.S. military clearly stated that aircraft with amphibious combat capabilities will be used in island combat environments in the South and East China Seas, pointing out that the MC-130j with amphibious capabilities will provide new and unique combat capabilities for the U.S. military's special operations forces, especially long-range operations and distributed operations; the U.S. military requires ground effect aircraft to be able to support expeditionary advanced base operations. Distributed maritime operations and logistical support in threat environments. At present, the US Air Force MC-130j pilots have carried out training to take off and land the MC-130J in harsh environments to expand the capabilities of the MC-130j. The MC-130h also conducted flight training in a similar environment.

2. The new surface vehicle will perform a variety of tasks

Surface vehicles can take off and land on the surface of the water, do not need a fixed runway, flexible use, better safety, and can perform multi-faceted tasks. First, cross-regional, long-distance troop projection, surface vehicles, especially ground effect aircraft, have a large load, mainly used for transport tasks, can transport large equipment such as M1 main battle tanks across regions and long distances, the "Pelican" ground effect aircraft that the US military once studied can carry a load of 1,000 tons to fly up to 10,000 kilometers, and the load of the newly proposed ground effect aircraft is also up to 100 tons; the second is search and rescue, when a maritime disaster accident occurs, the surface aircraft can fly in the air to search for a wide sea surface. The third is special operations, mc-130j has excellent low-altitude flight and night flight capabilities, reduces the possibility of being discovered by the enemy, and is mainly used to support the infiltration, evacuation and supply tasks of special forces; the fourth is covert attack, the ground effect aircraft has a large load capacity, can carry a large number of precision-guided munitions, fly close to the ground at high speed, covertly engage the enemy, and launch a large number of precision-guided munitions to carry out precision strikes against targets; fourth, air-launched unmanned aerial vehicles. Surface vehicles can carry a large number of small drones, and release the drones after reaching the mission area to form a swarm combat capability.

Disclaimer: This article is based on the original author Chen Xuanyou, transferred from Aerospace Defense Observation. The content of the article is the personal views of the original author, this public account reprint is only to share and convey different views, if you have any objections, welcome to contact us!