Airmobility of the Army

Steffen Haug

“Speed is the soul of the operational art; seize your chance before the enemy is ready. March on ways he doesn’t expect”. Sun Tzu “The Art of Warfare” 500 B.C.

Missions, whether within the scope of international conflict prevention and crisis management or disaster relief, are the determining factor of the German Army’s everyday life for almost 15 years. In 2006 alone there were more than 30,000 women and men employed in missions in the Balkans, in Afghanistan , and in Congo , including the necessary preparation and post-deployment activities. Included in that are also the forces, which the Army holds at its disposal for the NATO Response Force (NRF) and EU Battle Groups.
The evaluation of current conflicts – in the Balkans, in Afghanistan, Iraq and last also in Congo and Lebanon — clearly shows: military operations, no matter where and when they start, reach always the point at which it is about controlling and securing terrain — primarily agglomerations and urban centres. The White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr consistently states that the Army is the core of the land forces and the mainstay of land operations as well as operations conducted by airmobile and air mechanized forces. More then ever before are the Army’s capabilities tailored to missions for conflict prevention and crisis management, including the fight against international terrorism, within the scope of joint and combined and multinational operations.
The military means of international crisis prevention to be held at disposal for that have to be geared to speed, flexibility, high responsiveness, and capability for an employment in a wide geographic and climatic spectrum, ver­satility, and multinationality. This requires a complex capability profile from the Army. It ranges from the capability for command and control of multinational networked operations in the upper intensity spectrum over capabilities for early-entry operations, operations of specialized forces and special operations up to the command and control and participation in multinational stabilization operations within the scope of conflict prevention and crisis management of medium and low intensity. In this context it must also be considered that missions for conflict prevention and crisis management have to be conducted increasingly in urban areas and under the threat of asymmetrically acting forces.
Airmobile forces, highly mobile, quickly employable, and powerful, are particularly suited for this challenging task spectrum. This, for example, can mean that it is necessary in the course of land operations to hold ready in an airmobile state strategic and operational reserve forces outside and tactical reserves inside an often wide, expansive and infrastructure-wise undeveloped area of operations. The factor “air­mobility” in land operations plays thus an important role not only at locations where “boots on the ground” are not possible to be available in time. The airmobility of the Army is important and indispensable against the background of the mission parameters for operations in the entire task spectrum of the armed forces.

Airmobility of the Army

Airmobility of the Army encompasses the capability of the armed forces to exploit the near-ground airspace for combat and support purposes in close coaction with the armed forces and allied partners. The following sub­capabilities complement each other to the capability profile “Airmobility of the Army“:

• General support tasks
• Air transport
• Air landing
• Air mechanization
• Airborne employment.

General support tasks comprise for instance reconnaissance activities for the support of ground operations. This has been common practice in the Balkans for many years, using the light UH-1D transport helicopters and the BO-105 liaison helicopters for that purpose.
The generally best-known sub-capability is the air transport. Personnel, wounded/casual ties, materiel and items of supply are evacuated and/or deployed by airlift. An efficient operational and tactical air transport capacity is an indispensable component of the airmobility as a whole. Presently employed for air transport of the Army are the CH-53 medium transport helicopters — often rightly called “workhorses” of the Army — and the light UH-1D transport helicopters (LTH). Relief missions for the Kurds, Elbe river flooding or support and aid provided in the wake of earthquakes in Pakistan – we all see these pictures still in our mind’s eye — are impressive examples.
In respect to the transport of personnel, ma­teriel, and items of supply in especially the missions abroad the CH-53 is indispensable for the Army — and a worldwide welcome helper at the same time. On the other hand, all the praise and the intensive use should not obscure the fact that the CH-53 just like the UH-1D have been in use for quite some years already. As matters stand, the last models of the CH-53 could still fly until 2030; an operationally employable successor – working term “Future Transport Helicopter (FTH) — is not in sight before 2020. In the Army configuration, the NH90 LTH is going to replace the UH-1D as a light transport helicopter in the coming years.
Air landings are geared to the employment of airborne forces such as the paratroopers. These specialized forces are forces of the first moment of an operation. Such operations take place by the air landing of helicopters and/or transport aircraft of the Air Force or by parachute. When summing up these already long existing capabilities from the aspect of their significance for the missions of the armed forces, it is no wonder to realize that army aviation, special and specialized forces have been involved without exception and continuously in all major missions of the Bundeswehr abroad not only since the 1991 Kurdish relief operation.

Air Mechanization and Airborne Employment –
A New Dimension

With the introduction of the TIGER and NH90 helicopters the Army has turned to a new chapter of airmobility. These aerial vehicles enable the armed forces in air mechanized and airborne employment to conduct effect-oriented operations. In the sub-capability air mechanization only Army-organic aviation forces will be employed. TIGER and NH90 are capable of conducting operations independently or in joint and combined action in and from the air. For that pur-pose, the NH90 will be equipped with so-called mission equipment packages for command and control, reconnaissance, and suppression of air defence artillery.
The TIGER helicopter with its main PARS 3 LR armament, a guided missile system for the precise engagement of tanks and other single high value targets, is here the key system for the protection of friendly forces and for high effec­tiveness against manifold threats. It stands for protection and effect in the entire mission and task spectrum of the Army, and especially also in stabilization operations. This is also underlined with particular emphasis by the mission successes of the APACHE AH-64 attack helicopters of the British, Dutch, and Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq. There, the attack helicopters contributed considerably to the protection of the soldiers employed, especially in convoy and surveillance operations. Thus, for instance, no US convoy, which was protected by combat helicopters, was attacked — neither in the first nor in the second Iraq conflict.
Airborne employment is the latest, innovative element of the airmobility of the Army. In air­borne operations both army aviation forces and robust infantry troops including the necessary combat support will be employed under unitary command and common tactical objectives. Here, the equivalent, synergetic employment of infantry and army aviation forces will take place in a close combined action pool achieved by constant joint training.The airborne employment combines speed, the precise, standoff and superior effect of the TIGER and the high tactical mobility of the transport helicopters with the capability of highly specialized and robust infantry. Not to be forgotten are finally the substantial capability gains for conducting evacuation, rescue as well as liberation operations of the special and specialized forces which were achieved thanks to especially the TIGER helicopters.

Principles of Air Mechanized and Airborne/Air Assault Operations

Air mechanized and airborne operations can be executed in the entire intensity and task spectrum of the armed forces. Using the capabilities of airmobile forces makes it possible to rapidly project combat power, to surprisingly shift points of main effort, to win the initiative with a limited offensive capacity also on the ground, and to contribute in this way to interservice operations, even in the depth and in overstretched areas of operation as it is required for a future­oriented conduct of operations. In airborne/air assault operations almost all subcapabilities of airmobility — support tasks, air transport, air landing, air-mechanized operations — are em­ployed, either sequentially or simultaneously.
As a rule, airborne/air assault operations are conducted as joint and combined operations in multinational environment. Here, coacting of land and air forces is attached particular importance. The experiences of friendly nations show that the capability potential of airborne/air assault operations has proven well in particularly stabilization operations.
From the large number of potential mission options there are some examples stated below which are imaginable in current missions and which would represent a substantial capability gain:

• Reconnaissance and liaison flights
• Escort protection for transport helicopters with AH TIGER
• Seizing and holding key terrain for a limited time
• Convoy protection
• Establishing of check points
• Holding highly mobile, quickly deployable reserve forces (Quick Reaction Force) at disposal
• Separating of conflicting parties
• Restoring freedom of movement
• Selective engagement of targets by avoiding collateral damage
• Object/facility security.

Due to their high mobility airmobile forces can be employed in all mission options, even in particularly difficult terrain and in urban environment.

Structural Projection of Airmobility

All army aviation forces are comprised in the Airmobile Division. It exercises command and control over 1 ^stAir Manoeuvre Brigade as well as over three additional transport helicopter regiments. Two of these regiments are equipped with the CH-53 medium transport helicopter while the so-called Light Transport Helicopter Regiment will, in future, be equipped with NH90 light transport helicopters.
1st Air Manoeuvre Brigade will be employed as a major formation of the Airmobile Division in close cooperation with the transport helicopters of the division as the mainstay of the airmobility in the Army. The brigade is a highly mobile, quickly available and particularly robust major unit in all scenarios, types of combat and special combat actions. The air manoeuvre brigade essentially is composed of two AH TIGER attack helicopter regiments, a light NH90 transport helicopter regiment, and an air­mobile infantry regiment (1^st Light Infantry Regiment).
The 1st Light infantry regiment which is organically assigned to the air manoeuvre brigade provides the brigade with the possibility to considerably increase the continuous availability and operational readiness in the area of operations as well as to hold and control terrain for a limited period of time. For improving the sustainability and mobility the light infantry regiment is basically equipped with protected, cross-country mobile and air transportable vehicles (e.g. protected vehicles such as the specialized forces combat vehicle MUNGO and the WIESEL 1 and 2 armoured vehicles). With its capability to surprisingly employ forces from a largely secured environment at places where one can expect the biggest gain of the overall operation, the air manoeuvre brigade contributes substantially to the tactical flexibility. To this end, the air manoeuvre brigade will employ the “tailored-to-mission” capabilities, i.e. a mission-oriented and situation-adjusted provision of forces from the army aviation and infantry units. Here, it will not act in its full basic tactical organization, but with elements in so-called combat or air combat units (“Task Force Principle”).
The Specialized Operations Division has the capability to conduct concurrently and geo­graphically independent of each other up to two so-called specialized operations. These include military evacuation operations of German citizens and armed recovery as part of the national risk prevention as well as operations against irregular forces and quick initial entry operations. For executing these operations the Specialized Operations Division will be supported by the army aviation forces of the Airmobile Division.
The Specialized Operations Division is mainly composed of two airborne brigades and the Special Forces Command. The airborne brigades exercise command and control over two paratrooper battalions each and one air­borne support battalion, the mainstay of air­borne/air assault operations.

Air Manoeuvre Brigade in the Transformation Process

In the transformation process of the Army, 1st Air Manoeuvre Brigade as the core of air mechanized and airborne missions is being attached particular importance as a “lighthouse” or “flagship” project. Comprehensive conceptual basics for the employment of the air ma­noeuvre brigade are being worked out. The structural and materiel configuration is largely completed and/or fine-planned and the op­erational and training principles are being developed. The configuration and shaping of the air manoeuvre brigade is being assisted by the CD&E (Concept, Development and Experimentation) method.
A first highlight of the CD&E project is the comprehensive “air manoeuvre brigade experiment” which is to take place at the Army Combat Simulation Centre in Wildflecken/Germany in October 2007. The scenario of that experiment specifies that a combat unit of the brigade conducts an operation in the depth within the scope of a stabilization operation to separate conflicting parties. This unit is ordered to seize and hold key terrain. In doing so, it has to prove itself in highly intensive combat phases. The following is, among other things, in the focus of the experimental review:

• Robustness and sustainability of the brigade
• Coaction of the ground forces with the combat helicopters
  
• More support possibilities for the brigade – for example by additional reconnaissance means or by joint tactical fire support
• Medical support.
• Furthermore, aspects and dimensions of Network Centric Warfare are also studied in this test.
  

This experiment is being attached prominent significance in respect to the further development of the conceptual basics and doctrinal principles of the air manoeuvre brigade.

Airmobility Army:
Future Today

A great number of complex, concurrently progressing, unpredictable factors of influence determine the operations of the land forces for the foreseeable future. The entirety of these factors creates a highly dynamic operational environment for the Army as the mainstay of ground operations and operations in near­ground airspace. The current missions of the Bundeswehr show that the helicopters of the Army Aviation are — and have to be — present in operations almost everywhere as indispensable “force multipliers”.
The airmobility of the Army for the joint benefit of all Services remains thus an indispensable pillar for the armed forces in operations. The Army responds to these challenges, among other things, with an innovative expanded capability, the airmobility of the Army. Airmobility enables the Army to effectively engage targets in and from the air, to quickly achieve local superiority, to flexibly hold reserves at disposal, and to carry out time-critical transport tasks over long distances.
With its 1st Air Manoeuvre Brigade the Army provides the armed forces a flexible and powerful unit. In the near future it will be essential for the air manoeuvre brigade to integrate the weapon systems to be fielded, to adopt the planned organizational structures, to test operational principles in exercises and experiments, and to strengthen the cooperation between the elements in the airmobility system. A decisive step which must be taken concomitantly and without delay is the equipping with operationally employable TIGER and NH90 helicopters to survive in operations — to be precise — in the entire task spectrum and world­wide in difficult climatic conditions.
According to Goethe, success requires two things: Clear goals and the burning desire to achieve them. The fine-planning, build-up, and testing of 1st Air Manoeuvre Brigade as one of the key projects of the transformation of the Army is on the right track and well on its way.

By Lt Col (GE A) Steffen Haug, Assistant Branch Chief, Army Staff.