Bold Alligator 2012 was significantly more than an amphibious exercise. And in a real sense it was not. It was a littoral force engagement exercise leveraging the seabase to operate over a very large battlespace. And it was an exercise which pick up some of the lessons learned off of Libya and are carrying them forward into the 21st Century. When compared to the last major amphibious exercise conducted in 1996 “Operation Purple Star,” one of the clear differences was the impact of the Osprey. The speed and range of the Osprey demonstrated in both Libyan operations and in Bold Alligator provided glimpses of the future. The seabase can be linked ship to ship, from ship to shore, from shore to ship and back again. During the exercise, the Osprey landed on the USNS Robert E. Peary, a T-AKE ship and, indeed, participated in the raid 185 miles away on Fort Pickett. As the chief coalition officer involved in the exercise, Lt. Commander Pastoor argued, “This really is about power projection from the sea and the ability to move the insertion force from and to the sea base and to operate throughout the battlespace.” The promise of the ESG enabled by the Osprey and the coming F-35B is really rather simple. The ESG enabled by the Osprey and the F-35B is neither a Carrier Battle Group nor an Amphibious Ready Group. It is far more flexible than a CBG, in that it is a modular mix and match capability, which clearly can include allies as it did in the Exercise or in the operations off of Libya. And it is not simply an “ARG on steroids,” as one of the Harrier squadron commander noted. “It is far more capable.” An ESG will allow for an economy of force whereby the ARG-MEU can be scaled up to include other sea based on air assets to allow for dominance of the battlespace. It is scalable both in terms of assets contained within the sea base or contributed by various land support structures, air or ground. According to the 2nd MEF commander in the exercise, Brigadier General Owens, who will soon be moving to Okinawa, by strengthening the ability of the seabase to provide for logistics ashore, one can insert force without moving an iron mountain with it ashore. And “we get away from that image of amphibious assault where we’re going into a limited area, and that you have limited places you can land, so the enemy knows you’re coming to one of these two places. The goal of the ESG is to hit them where they’re not!” The distributed character of the sea base seen in this exercise and highlighted by the evolving ESG allows for a modular mix and match quality. And this mix and match quality can embody the key elements of what one wants in 21st century forces: presence, economy of force and scalability.

1. Bold Alligator 2012 and the Future
of the Expeditionary Strike Group
Leveraging the Present and Preparing
for the Future
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2. Prologue
• Bold Alligator 2012 was the largest Amphibious
exercise in more than a decade.
• Because it is called an amphibious exercise, outsiders
who attended the exercise tended to focus upon
– the amphibious ships themselves,
– the landing ships,
– the vehicles
– and the assault on the beach.
• The reality was that this was a power projection
exercise; it was a maneuver of forces from the sea
inland and out again.
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3. A Shift Towards a New Paradigm
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4. The Littoral Engagement Zone
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5. D-Day Assault Fleet
The Front Edge of the ESG
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6. The USS Enterprise on D-Day
An Extended Range Support Asset
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7. Glimpses of the Future (1)
• An assault raid was conducted from the
seabase deep inland (180 miles) aboard the
Ospreys with allied forces observing or
participating.
• The Osprey was the key element operating in
this exercise, which was not there during the
last big "amphibious" exercise.
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8. Assault on Fort Pickett
“There is a Tsunami of change coming,” Lt. Col. Boniface, Osprey
Squadron Commander.
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9. Glimpses of the Future (2)
• The BAC1-11 aircraft carrying the F-35 combat systems
and see many capabilities coming soon to the ESG;
• What I saw on the BAC1-11, I have exponentially
greater ability to scan and “see” the battlespace with
exponentially greater fidelity than ever before, locating
and positively identifying everything from air to sea
targets. I can look at the battlespace with the
radar, the DAS, a host of other sensors and basically
can bring all that information together into one data
system, fuse that information — which makes it a
flying sensor. (General “Dog” Davis, CG, 2nd MAW).
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10. F-35 Bravo Aboard the USS Wasp, October 2011
The F-35 community of users – sea based and land based — will be able
to create a pretty tight air grid over the top of the distributed battle space
so we can share information very freely out there.
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11. Glimpses of the Future (3)
• The coalition element has become central to
most operations and the BA-12 exercise
reflected this evolving con-ops foci; Coalition
has become a new definition of joint
• A core focus of the exercise planners has been
upon sorting out to more effectively managing
information, distributing information and
operating with a common operational picture.
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12. Lt. Commander George Pastoor, Chief Planner for the
Bold Alligator Exercise, 2012 and a member of ESG-2
The default for future operations will need to be CENTRIX or the NATO
standard. During the exercise CENTRIX was used as the coin of the realm.
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13. Glimpses of the Future (4)
• The French amphibious ship Mistral was the
centerpiece of a physical allied contribution.
• But the Mistral was not just a solo French
contribution. It represented an entire class of
ships of various sizes being built by allies –
Spain, Italy, South Korea, Australia, etc. – that
will carry significant aviation assets evolving
over the years ahead and give this capability
longer reach and impact.
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14. The Mistral in the Bold Alligator 2012 Exercise
The F-35B will be added to several decks, the Osprey, the Tiger and X-3
helicopters, the CH-53K, the NH-90, unmanned aerial vehicles of various sizes
and kinds. In short, the future belongs to clusters of these types of ships.
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15. Glimpses of the Future (5)
• The surface and subsurface assets can be
organized around the Large Deck Amphibious
ships in a new approach to sea basing operations.
• The Mistral deploys with other ships, notably
frigates which provide for air defense. Images
could be seen if one looked of ships like the Aegis
which engaged and deployed to provide a
protective cover along with the Big E and its
deployed assets.
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16. The amphibious dock landing ship USS Oak Hill and the
guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio operate in formation
during Bold Alligator 2012.
USS Oak Hill and the guided-missile cruiser USS Anzio
operate in formation during BA-12
“Aegis can be my wingman” as the F-35B is added to the large deck
amphibious ship.
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17. Glimpses of the Future (6)
• Images of the Harriers operating off of the
Kearsarge raised another prospect of capabilities
and changes.
• The Harriers based on the USS Kearsarge worked
closely with land-based air to provide for a
significant air combat capability to shape the
battlespace.
• The organizer of the spear cab be on the sea-
base. This capability can be conjoined with the
various air combat centers based ashore, allied or
American.
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18. Operating off of the Kearsarge during BA-12
Some 16 Harriers operated off of the large deck amphibious ship, in an
approach which was very un-ARG like. This exercise worked at a much
more aggregated level with many more ships.
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19. Glimpses of the Future (7)
• The MV-22 landed on a T-AKE ship.
• This means that this new aviation asset can
connect supply ships with combat ships to
potentially allow a much more efficient use of
the combat ships.
• The ship-to-ship connection capability is a key
part of the evolving sea basing concept.
• It is about sustainable maneuver warfare from
the sea.
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20. The Osprey landing on the USNS Robert E. Peary
The new VM-22 T-AKE combination is a potential war winner.
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21. Glimpses of the Future (8)
• A clear message from the past decade is that one
needs to define, respond and anticipate
asymmetrical threats.
• The images of various assets dealing with the
counter-mine threat, whether they be French
special forces or SEALS in the water, the Canadian
counter mine vessel, the riverine forces, or the
mammal insertion from the virtual engagement
of West Coast USN teams were prevalent and
clear.
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22. French special forces involved in clearing the path.
A seabase will not survive if the asymmetric threats are not taken into
account.
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23. Conclusions
• Re-shaping maneuver warfare from the sea by
encompassing allied and US land-based air and other
support and strike capabilities is a crucial element of
the way ahead.
• New uses of the sea base new capabilities deployed
from the sea base will allow the U.S. and its allies to
deploy scalable forces and to shape a force appropriate
to the mission.
• An economy of force approach can be shaped to
ensure that mission and forces match, but, with
scalability, other capabilities can augment the force to
ensure mission success.
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24. Credits
• Page 3: Second Line of Defense
• Page 4 Virginian Pilot
• Page 5 USMC
• Page 6 USMC
• Page 8 USN
• Page 10 Second Line of Defense
• Page 12 Second Line of Defense
• Page 14 Second Line of Defense
• Page 16 USN
• Page 18 USN
• Page 20 USN
• Page 22 Second Line of Defense
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