Stretching Forward and Reaching Back
Written by Henry Canday
MLF 2011 Volume: 5 Issue: 10 (November/December)
The long conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have demanded very high availability of all defense assets, both on the ground and in the air. This in turn means as much maintenance as possible has been done in deployed field facilities. Field units have kept assets operating by reaching back to manufacturers and depots for parts and expertise.
A brigade commander in Kuwait in 2002, Carl Cartwright is now executive director of field support operations at Army Sustainment Command (ASC), a part of Army Materiel Command (AMC). “We have made major changes in the last 10 years in AMC and the generating force,” Cartwright emphasized.
“AMC has made a bridge between the supporting commands and the force command in Iraq, bringing the generating force to the operating force,” Cartwright summarized. “And we reached back to the Lifecycle Management Commands (LCMCs).”
AMC initially set up a forward base in Southwest Asia that was centered on pre-stocked assets. “Then we went from the Phased Troop Deployment Model to the Request for Forces model,” Cartwright said.
“We went into Iraq lean and we had to establish facilities in Iraq to handle battle damage and losses.” So AMC reached back to the United States to bring LCMC, logistics and research-and-development assets forward.
Forward repair facilities were set up in Iraq: one facility for light tactical vehicles, one for medium tactical vehicles and one for the heavy tactical vehicles. Facilities in Iraq also completed modifications—for example, up to seven levels of up-armoring on soft-skinned high mobility multi wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs). Electronic sustainment facilities were also set up in Iraq to work on high-end equipment.
Facilities were manned by both contractors and government depot staff. The usual Army standard for repair, all faults identified and parts ordered, could not always be met in wartime, so the Army went to a fully mission capable (FMC) standard. “It can do the mission assigned to it,” Cartwright explained. The Army aimed for 90 to 100 percent readiness according to this FMC standard.
The Army established 21 maintenance support teams (MSTs) in Afghanistan and now has 40 of these MSTs in the country. Tank-automotive and Armaments Command (TACOM) built a joint maintenance facility for light, medium and heavy wheeled vehicles. TACOM and AMC are heavily involved with mine resistant ambush protected (MRAP) and MRAP all-terrain vehicles (M-ATVs) in Afghanistan. Eight to 12 Stryker fire support and reconnaissance vehicles are repaired for battle damage each month outside Afghanistan but still in the region.
“Looking back, in the two theaters of Iraq and Afghanistan we had a field Army of 230,000, plus support staff,” Cartwright said. “And we met the operational readiness rates.”
At peak, the Army had three support battalions in Iraq, and these have been standing down, moving to Kuwait and helping with the return of 12,000 rolling assets and nearly a quarter million non-rolling assets to the United States. In Iraq, The Army will soon be responsible only to the State Department for support of assets assigned to Iraqi forces.
Force Protection Industries manufactures and supports blastand mine-protected vehicles such as the Buffalo, Cheetah and Cougar. Theater Manager Mark Gander said basic support in theater is similar for these products. “They have different characteristics, but they all have engines, tires and drive trains. Service in deployment is critical, so we have regional support in these areas and can reach back to the manufacturer and military depots.”
In deployment, Force Protection vehicles are fixed and repaired only. “They want to get it out quickly, so deployed facilities are less robust,” Gander explained. “Usually in deployment we replace major components that are torn down to their innards at regional support facilities or at depot.” For example, deployed facilities will swap out an old engine for a new one.
“We want to do it at whatever level gets it out quickest,” Gander summarized. “That may not be the least expensive, but it keeps vehicles in operation.”
Forward bases have only mechanics and tool boxes. But new vehicles have either links to diagnostic computers or self-diagnostics on board. This helps with the preventive maintenance—warfighters can avoid sending components back to the United States for major repairs.
Force Protection also assigns field service representatives (FSRs) to forward operation bases. “These give tech advice and also turn wrenches,” Gander said. “Our FSRs are spread across the country based on the density of the equipment. And they can also repair battle damage or road damage at regional support centers.”
The company can modernize vehicles as it replaces components. “Every service has a long-term improvement program, due to age and use, so there is always a decision whether to do it there or bring it back.”
Similar efforts are made for air assets.
“All scheduled maintenance is completed in the area of responsibility [AOR] when possible,” said Master Sergeant Emilia Martin, superintendent of Knowledge Operations Management at Air Force Air Combat Command. Performing maintenance in the AOR increases availability and saves costs on the fuel and manpower necessary for swapping aircraft.
If this is not possible, aircraft are swapped and rotated to home stations—this can happen if hangar space not available in the AOR, if a depot maintenance team is required, or if there is extended down time or long inspection time. “In most cases, fighter aircraft can complete all required major phase inspections in the AOR,” Martin noted.
Hangar space is always a challenge for heavy maintenance in the AOR. Some bases have no hangars, while others have one or two. “Jacking aircraft, engine changes and seat and canopy removals usually require aircraft to be out of the elements, especially wind,” said Martin.
Performing major maintenance in the AOR requires additional manpower. Phase inspections for a fighter may require eight to 12 extra mechanics for the inspection and any extra maintenance with return to service in a few days. More equipment is required for major maintenance. Special tools and test equipment are deployed with the Aircraft Maintenance Unit to complete inspections and perform heavy maintenance. “There are times an inspection team finds a broken part is not available and requires supply experts to source the part from a different base in the AOR, from a base in the United States or from the manufacturer,” said Martin.
Some aircraft in Central Command are maintained by contractors that are required to keep airframes mission capable at certain percentages of time. “Contractors do a great job in keeping aircraft above the mission-capable threshold,” Martin said.
Air Force Central Command does not plan to change these practices. “We have a good mix of in-AOR and home-station maintenance plans,” Martin emphasized. “The formula is working and we are successfully generating mission sorties.”
Northrop Grumman Technical Services’ Walter Hill handles sustainment for NGC’s unmanned aerial systems (UASs). He is project manager for the 13-foot Bat and MQ-5B Hunter and also works with the MQ-8 Fire Scout and the new Firebird and on payloads for the C-12 Huron.
Two Hunter units in Afghanistan are government owned and company operated, with NGC doing all the work under a military commander. Another Hunter unit is mixed with Army soldiers. “We work side by side with the Army on pre-flight/post-flight and we help recover and fix them,” Hill summarized. “We also do the quality assurance function and the supply chain, ordering parts that come in on DHL, FedEx or military air.”
Most deployed maintenance consists of pulling and replacing components such as engines. But some depot-level repairs, for example, cracked wings, can be done in the field if a qualified tech is there and NGC authorizes the work.
In addition, NGC has a four-person reset team that visits every Hunter unit for several months each year. These teams do modifications in the field and can replace both hardware and software. “They also integrate new payloads, which are very important,” Hill said. “We do as much as possible in the field,” the NGC exec emphasized. “The alternative is two weeks to get them back to the States, repair them, and then two more weeks to get them back. They should only come back if they are wrecked, and that has not happened in a year.”
A Hunter may also be returned to the United States for nondestructive inspection if it has high time, say 5,000 hours. “These things were originally expected to fly about 500 hours and then be thrown away,” Hill observed. “We haven’t thrown any away.”
The Army is now moving communications to Tactical Common Data Link and all UASs will need retrofits. Two Hunter units in Afghanistan have already been modified and the other will be, in the field.
Lockheed Martin supports the C-130 Hercules deployed in theater with FSRs. At the request of Air Force and Marine operators of C-130s, FSRs stay for 90 days up to two years.
Lockheed spokesman Peter Simmons said FSRs provide support in all areas, from the initial delivery of C-130s to rescue and other special missions. “Their primary function is to be the subject matter experts on hand with operators to enable the C-130s to be turned as quickly as possible. It is critical to have availability and mission capable rate as close to 100 percent as we can.”
Expert advice by FSRs enables a deployed unit to do deeper fault diagnostics on site and thus to sometimes avoid pulling an entire component for return to depot. The FSRs also have reach-back to Lockheed engineers and direct access to the manufacture’s expertise that military units do not.
Deployed maintenance is also affected by technologies, especially in aircraft engines. Legacy engines on Air Force aircraft have traditionally been maintained at three levels. The organizational (O) level in the field does quick fixes on the flight line. “It’s remove, repair and replace, with servicing any inspections required,” explained Stanley Stevens, Pratt & Whitney’s F135 site leader and manager at Eglin Air Force Base.
Intermediate stations traditionally disassemble engine modules and remove line replaceable units.
But the new F135 engine on the F-35 Lightning II will have no intermediate maintenance. Instead, an “O or O Plus” level will remove engines, engine modules or line replaceable components (LRCs) for return to depot. Extra modules and LRCs will be stored at O level to enable quick return to service.
O Level mechanics will remove engines, remove faulty modules or swap LRCs. The F135 has five modules, fan, power, augmenter, nozzle and gearbox, and several times that number of LRCs.
“This will give a much smaller logistics footprint at deployed stations, with fewer people,” Stevens said. “The tasks in the field will be much simpler, requiring fewer skills and less support equipment. It will maintain the aircraft at a higher availability than on legacy aircraft, but at a lower total cost including the footprint.” For example, engine mechanics were typically assigned to the flight-line for legacy engines. For the F135, the crew chief will be the engine mechanic.
Elimination of intermediate maintenance is possible because the F135 is more reliable and maintenance-friendly. Additional sensors will enable true engine prognostics with constant analysis of performance and reliability. “Any degradation will show, [and] the engine talks to us,” Stevens said. “We can forecast when a module will have to be replaced.”
Pratt and its customers are now verifying the two-level maintenance concept at Edwards Air Force Base, Naval Air Station Patuxent River and the F-35’s first operating base at Eglin. With six F-35s on station in late October, training of mechanics was set to start soon. The Pratt exec says there has been movement in this direction in the last 15 years, even for older engines. But original designs and the investments made for the old, three-level maintenance program limits what can be achieved for older models. ♦