Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Cross Your Fingers: V-22 Ospreys Off to Iraq

by Travis Sharp [contact information]

September 28, 2007

On September 17, a Marine Corps aviation squadron of 10 MV-22 Ospreys sailed for Iraq onboard the USS Wasp, a small Navy amphibious assault ship. This squadron, known as Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 263 or the "Thunder Chickens," is the first-ever Marine Corps Osprey unit to be deployed for combat. The Corps' two other Osprey units have not yet seen combat action.

V-22 Osprey in flight, 2006.
Copyright © U.S. Government, public domain.

The Thunder Chickens squadron embarked from New River Air Station near Jacksonville, NC on their way to Al Asad Air Base in western Iraq's Al Anbar province, 100 miles west of Baghdad. They will be used to transport Marines as well as cargo in Al Anbar province during a seven month deployment.

Approximately 100 members of the Thunder Chickens squadron, having trained for the mission for more than a year, were deployed along with the aircraft. The 28 pilots, including two women, all volunteered and were chosen by a Marine Corps selection board. The squadron commander is Lt. Colonel Paul J. Rock, who has been flying Ospreys since the 1990s. At least a third of the squadron has previous combat experience in Iraq.

BACKGROUND ON THE V-22 OSPREY

The V-22 Osprey combines the flight mechanics of a helicopter with that of a high-speed turboprop fixed wing aircraft. It reaches distances and altitudes well beyond those of traditional helicopters and is considered far more agile - not to mention twice as fast - as the aging CH-46 "Sea Knight" helicopters it is slated to replace. The Osprey is equipped to carry 24 soldiers at a time along with its two-person crew.

The Air Force expects to use its Osprey variant, the CV-22, in combat by 2009, but this debut may be accelerated due to sluggish production and the impending retirement over the next 18 months of MH-53 Pave Low helicopters. According to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley, this acceleration of Osprey combat deployment would be "to prevent a mission impact and loss on U.S. Special Ops Command in its vertical lift and covert insertion capability." The first operational CV-22 Ospreys were delivered to Hurlburt Field, FL in January. A total of 50 are expected to be delivered there by 2017.

The military plans to eventually operate 458 Ospreys:

• 360 for the Marines to replace aging CH-46 and CH-53 helicopters for airlifting troops and supplies directly to inland positions, thereby bypassing vulnerable beachheads;
• 50 for Air Force special operations; and
• 48 for Navy rescue and recovery missions.

Each Osprey costs about $100 million after factoring in research and development expenses, according to Lawrence Korb, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration who now works at the Center for American Progress. The V-22 is one of the Marine Corps' top priorities and the Pentagon has already spent $20 billion to date, with $54.6 billion budgeted for the future.

A TROUBLED PAST

The Osprey has been very controversial since initial development began in the 1970s. There have been a total of four crashes - in 1991, 1992, and two in 2000. The 1991 and 1992 crashes killed a combined seven people. In 2000, one crash in Arizona killed all 19 Marines onboard, and another crash near Camp Lejeune, NC killed four. Thus, a total of 30 people, including 26 Marines, have died during the V-22's development.

Full scale development of the V-22 began in 1986 under President Reagan, and the first prototype flew in 1989. During the George H.W. Bush administration, however, the V-22 was a source of continual friction between then-Defense Secretary Richard Cheney and Congress. Cheney felt that the program's cost was unjustifiable given its incremental improvements in capabilities and survivability. In fact, the Army, which had originally planned to purchase 231 V-22s, opted out of the program in 1987. In 1989, the Bush administration canceled the project.

Yet Congress continued to fund the program over Cheney's objections. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1992, Cheney told the committee: "Congress has let me cancel a few programs, but you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements...You've directed me to buy the V-22, a program I don't need." Later congressional supporters of the program threatened to take him to court over the issue.

Faced with the prospect that DoD's opposition to the program might hurt President Bush's re-election chances in the states of Texas and Pennsylvania where the V-22 is produced, Cheney agreed to spend $1.5 billion allocated by Congress for the program in Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993, although he continued to maintain his personal opposition to the program.

Critics have long suggested that the aircraft's combination of airplane and helicopter technology made it unstable and vulnerable to ground fire when entering and exiting combat zones. On some descents, the Osprey has a tendency to become enveloped in its rotor downwash - a condition known as vortex ring state or VRS - and then crash. As Lee Gaillard of the Center for Defense Information explains in "V-22 Osprey: Wonder Weapon or Widow Maker?":

The V-22's extremely high-twist rotorprops cause the smooth laminar flow across the blades' upper surfaces to be replaced by boundary layer separation and turbulent flow. This is the primary reason why the maximum vertical descent speed of 800 feet per minute (fpm) - that's just 9.1 mph - is mandated for this aircraft. It is so slow it will make the V-22 an easy target. This performance limitation is lethal to the aircraft as well as its crew and human cargo. Equally bad, combat pilots trying to insert troops urgently into a "hot" landing zone, where the enemy is shooting, may try to descend more quickly, thus encountering VRS, which will likely roll the aircraft into an inverted dive toward the ground and lose everyone on board in the process. So should a pilot choose to descend at 9.1 mph? If he does, he'll get shot out of the sky. Should the pilot go in fast instead? If he does, a crash is imminent. It's a Catch-22. This design anomaly has not been, and probably cannot be, eliminated.

A maximum descent speed of 9.1 mph puts the Osprey at risk when confronted with threats like Iraqi insurgents wielding rocket propelled grenades (RPGs).

Another critique of the Osprey has been its inability to protect itself. U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has disclosed that it is seeking a vendor to provide an "interim all-quadrant defensive weapon system" for its CV-22s. This may be a signal that SOCOM believes greater self-protection is necessary for the CV-22 than is currently available on the aircraft. As an interim measure, the Marine Corps has installed a .50-calibre gun on the tail ramp of its MV-22 variant. The V-22 program office is seeking to obtain $82 million in supplemental defense spending for Fiscal Year 2008 in order to launch development of the all-quadrant gun, but the Special Operations Command initiative would accelerate the procurement timeline. Proposals for an all-quadrant gun have been placed on the backburner for several years due to a lack of funds.

Marines have also previously voiced concern over space constraints onboard the Osprey. There are no windows and the 24 soldiers onboard (if the aircraft is filled to capacity) have reported airsickness and numb legs, which makes jumping out of the craft directly into a combat zone difficult. Furthermore, there is no bathroom and soldiers must use "piddle packs" that they say are insufficient because there is no storage space for them once they are full.

CONCLUSION

In an urban counterinsurgency (COIN) environment, a core mission component for aircraft will be to provide close air support as well as transport ground forces and supplies into and out of combat zones. When intelligence is timely and a high-value, short-timeframe target is identified, aircraft using precision guided munitions like the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) or laser-guided bomb (LGB) can serve an invaluable role (an example being the June 2006 strike that killed Abu Musab Al Zarqawi). But massive firepower and bombings are not realistic missions in urban COIN because the collateral damage will be unacceptable. Too many innocent civilians will be killed, a process that engenders ill will against the counterinsurgents and leads to the creation of more sympathizers and active supporters of the insurgency.

Is the V-22 the best platform for close air support in COIN operations? Is 9.1 mph fast enough to get in and out of a hot zone and put soldiers on the ground? More conclusions can be drawn once the Thunder Chickens complete their seven-month deployment in Iraq, although from the limited operational details available it does not appear that the Ospreys will see much frontline battle action this time around. Most importantly, evaluations of the V-22's performance by the Marines themselves will help chart future deployment and procurement decisions by policymakers in Congress and the Pentagon. It does not seem overly skeptical at this point, however, to conclude that the Osprey is not out of the woods yet and major concerns remain regarding its ability to safely and effectively operate in combat zones.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Adam Behsudi, "Hurlburt Ospreys Training in N.C.," Asheville Citizen-Times (September 25, 2007).

Defense Industry Daily, "V-22 Osprey: A Flying Shame?" (October 4, 2007).

Lee Gaillard, "V-22 Osprey: Wonder Weapon or Widow Maker?" Center for Defense Information (2006).

GlobalSecurity.org, "V-22 Osprey."

Dave Montgomery, "Osprey Squadron Is Off To Iraq," McClatchy Newspapers (September 20, 2007).

Mark Thompson, "V-22 Osprey: A Flying Shame," Time (September 26, 2007).

Stephen Trimble, "USA Seeks New Gun for Tiltrotor," FlightGlobal.com (September 21, 2007).

Leslie Wayne, "Combat, With Limits, Looms for Hybrid Aircraft," New York Times (April 14, 2007).