History of Marine Corps Aviation

Recent History

Pressing on Toward the 1980s

In 1978, to further augment the wholesale test and evaluation effort, Marine Corps Base, Twentynine Palms, Calif., was redesignated as an air-ground combat center. This provided test and evaluation of control systems and methods for all firings of combined arms and direct air support. A major effort was made to schedule both ground and air units through the center as a priority item in their training cycles.

An important development of this period was the establishment of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) organization structure. There are four major elements which are assigned: the command, ground combat, aviation combat and combat service support. The aviation combat element may range in size from a reinforced helicopter squadron to one or more aircraft wings. A complementary concept to the MAGTF organizational structure is a prepositioning idea which places equipment and supplies, in ships, in a forward area for future link-up with MAGTF personnel. It is called the maritime prepositioning ships (MPS) program, and is usually included in planning considerations at the MAB level only. For the marriage of the MAB personnel with the supplies and equipment, a benign area in the crisis region, with a suitable airfield, is a requirement. MPS units have no forcible entry capability whatsoever.

The malaise so prevalent and of such great concern on the campuses of the sixties was gone with the war. In its place, as far as the armed services of the country were concerned, was a refreshing response. A new pride in service in the armed forces had taken control in the early eighties. From 1975 onward, Marine Aviation buckled down to a more encompassing realization than ever that the next performance improvements were going to be more costly in budget dollars than ever before imagined. One of the first of the "new looks" greeted some of the first Marine units to return from the war in the late spring of 1971. It was the AV-8A, the British-built Hawker-Siddeley Harrier, with its vertical take-off and landing capability. The second version, produced largely in the US. by McDonnell Douglas, the AV-8B. began to come into the inventory in the mid-eighties, With its advanced capabilities, it could open a whole new approach to operation of higher-powered tactical aircraft from not only small ships in the amphibious force, but also from relatively unprepared and dispersed sites ashore. The AV-8B has twice the range or payload of its predecessor.

One of the upgrade programs eagerly anticipated for the latter eighties directed toward enhancement of the night attack capabilities of both the AV- 8B and A-6E. The AV-8B will be the first to be configured. The A-6E will be upgraded to the A-6F, which will bring to this valuable all-weather attack aircraft increased capability, survivability and extended life.

In the mid-eighties, Marine Aviation began to receive its replacement for the F-4 series fighter/attack aircraft. It is the reliable and effective F/A-18. This responsive, agile fighter and solid accurate attack weapons platform is currently planned for 12 squadrons. Two of these units will deploy to fleet aircraft carriers in continuance of the interoperability program of the Secretary of the Navy.

Also coming into the Marine Aviation inventory in the mid-eighties is the beginning of a two-year buy of 44 AH-1T attack helicopters. The receipt of this aircraft fills in some long-standing inventory blanks in this category. In transport helos, the upgrade programs for the CH-46 and CH-53 have extended their capabilities and their inventory lives well into the next century. The CH-53E Super Stallion, now in the inventory, is the free world's most capable heavy-lift helicopter.

Down the road is the MV-22A Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft which promises to exceed by a wide margin the best performance figures of any of the current helicopters. Its predicted speed and range are so improved that it is an advance of technology comparable to the introduction of the jet engine.

All of the planned programs, when added to the superior capability of the already developed upgrades and extended life programs, give Marine Aviation a sound basis indeed as the turn of the century draws closer. That it is sound in training, procedures, tactics and general employment is reflected in the fact that in the mid-eighties Marine Aviation does more, far better, than ever before. It does all this with a continuing, ever-improving safety record and day-in, day-out systems availabilty that represent the best it has ever achieved in its 75-year history.

Various stages of the programs briefly referred to above were realized by the early eighties when the MAU deployments to Lebanon and Grenada took place. For this depiction of Marine Aviation, it will suffice to say that, in those two operations, the aviation combat element of the MAU performed, with readiness, whatever the combat element of the MAGTF directed. Neither operation could be readily compared with the mount-out and support of the 1st Marine Brigade in the Pusan perimeter in 1950, nor to the birth of III MAF at Danang is following the landing of the 9th MAB there in 1965.

The common factor in all of these post- WW II Marine Corps events and the most important one over the years is that, in each case, it was aviation Marines supporting ground Marines. This is the way the founding fathers of Marine Aviation wanted it to turn out. May it never change - in space, or wherever else the Corps is bound.

History of Marine Corps Aviation

Recent History

Pressing on Toward the 1980s

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