The Core USMC Air Assets: 2025
The lynchpin of rapid force insertion for the USMC is clearly the Osprey. This aircraft is described in the Deputy Commandant of Aviation’s January 2025 as follows:
Since the first deployment in 2007, the MV-22’s revolutionary capability has been a cornerstone of the MAGTF. The MV-22 Osprey provides medium lift assault support to ground forces in multiple theaters of operation from expeditionary sites and afloat. It also provides unmatched operational flexibility due to its combination of speed, range, payload, and aerial refueling capability. MV-22Bs currently based in Djibouti, Hawaii, and Okinawa provide the ability to respond to crisis, contingencies, and humanitarian missions across large swaths of Africa, Asia, and the Indo-Pacific region.
As the backbone of Marine Corps combat assault transport capability, MV-22B squadrons have conducted a total of 109 operational deployments and flown over 588,000 flight hours since 2007. The MV-22B flies approximately twice as many flight hours per year as any other Marine Corps rotary-wing aircraft.
Moving the insertion force rapidly and at distance is crucial but being able to support that force with adequate weapons, and supplies is crucial. The heavy lift component of the USMC – the CH-53E and its replacement the CH-53K – are the crucial enablers for a sustainable insertion or distributed force.
This aircraft is described in January 2025 report as follows:
The CH-53K King Stallion offers three times the range and payload capacity of the CH-53E Super Stallion. It can transport heavy equipment, troops, and supplies over long distances, ensuring forces remain agile and supported. Operating from both land and sea bases, including austere sites and amphibious shipping, it provides essential flexibility. The CH-53K handles both internal and external cargo loads, maintaining performance in degraded environments. This versatility allows it to execute complex missions like combat assault transport, casualty evacuation, and logistical resupply, maintaiing the MAGTF’s operational tempo and effectiveness.
The Marine Corp’s heavy lift aircraft is refuelable unlike the Army’s medium lift helicopter the Chinook. This means that the CH-53K can move the force, and move with the force and support force insertion and distribution.
But the key partner to both the Osprey and the heavy lift component is the KC-130J. This aircraft is a key player in the ability of the force to be refueled in flight and to carry assets to a fixed field location where supplies can be offloaded and carried forward by either an Osprey and Ch-53K. It also has been weaponized in the Harvest Hawk version of the aircraft, a subject to which I will return later when I discuss evolving payloads for the aircraft.
This aircraft is described in January 2025 report as follows:
The KC-130J remains a critical enabler for forward deployed MAGTF success across all the Combatant Commands. Continuously deployed since 2005, VMGR detachments are supporting Crisis Response-Africa, operations in Europe, the Middle East, and South America. Additional KC-130J capacity has been added with the activation of VMGR-153 aboard MCAS Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii in FY23. This will increase MAGTF mobility and grow logistical capacity throughout the Indo-Pacific.
The KC-130J has proven its value by operating from austere airfields in forward operating areas and providing mission support in emergency evacuation of personnel and key equipment, advanced party reconnaissance, tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel, special warfare operations, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, target acquisition, indirect and direct fires adjustment, and battlefield damage assessment.
As the sole Marine Corps tactical fixed wing lift and aerial refueling platform, demand for KC-130Js will remain high. The KC-130J and VMGR will continue to be a critical asset to the MAGTF and the Joint Force in the movement of aircraft and cargo across the globe for years to come.
The F-35 is even to this day not well understood. Whether being used by the Israelis to destroy Iranian air defenses, or enabling incredible reach to interoperable air forces through the sensor sweets and low latency communication systems, the F-35 is a foundational capable to provide an insertion force with an overhead sensor-shooter capability which is unparalleled currently. The flexibility of the F-35B in terms of its deployability enables force distribution not available to any other ground force in today’s world. And the F-35C adds range with its enhanced fuel capability which can support an insertion force as well, although it requires landing fields which the F-35B simply does not need.
This aircraft is described in January 2025 report as follows:
The F-35B/C provides afloat and expeditionary 5th Generation lethality to Combatant Commanders with an advanced array of sensors, air-to-air missiles, and air-to-surface strike weapons. The F-35B/Cs survivability in the most contested environments stands ready to counter the pacing threat.
The fourth key air element is USMC attack helicopter coupled with their lift counterpart the UH-1Y.
These aircraft are described in the report as follows:
H-1’s are the MAGTF’s multi-tool. Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadrons (HMLA) are manned, trained and equipped to fight from the sea into austere environments and confined littoral spaces. The AH-1Z “Viper” and UH-1Y “Venom” provide attack and utility capability, working in concert with Naval and Joint Force capabilities, to sense, shoot, survive, and sustain inside the Weapon Engagement Zone (WEZ). As a kill web enabler and effector, H-1s expand depth, range, and communication to the MAGTF, providing lethal and non-lethal options to the commander. They are essential to narrowing service gaps in low-altitude attack, strike, and utility capabilities, and are critical to enable a seamless transition to the H-1 Next in the 2040s.
But because the U.S. Army is building a new tiltrotor attack helicopter, the Marines could leverage this program to introduce their own variant. Tiltrotor will add a significant survivability element to attack helicopters facing new threat environment by having a flight envelope that gives them more flexibility and survivability and is being built from the ground up to work with what the Army calls launched effects systems or autonomous systems.
These four aircraft form the core of the USMC 360-degree air element for force insertion and distribution. Other capabilities are being added, notably the MQ9A Reaper which in many ways is part of the effort to incorporate uncrewed systems within the operational envelope of the MAGTF.
As the January 2025 report underscored: Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) have become essential assets as a force multiplier in modern military operations, offering a tactical to strategic combat edge and versatility across the range of military operations.
In my view, the air arm provides the backbone for the insertion force and its ability to deliver distributed maritime effects. They are evolving in part with upgrades in terms of the platforms, but more rapidly and notably in terms of the payloads they can carry and work with. This is where key enabler come in, notably in terms of distributed C2 and ISR and evolving tactics for reducing the signature of the force to enable it to move as a more survivable and lethal force.
In the following articles, I will address each aircraft and examine how they are evolving and how they might evolve as payloads change under the influence of technological development.
Credit featured image: A U.S. Marine Corps XQ-58A Valkyrie, highly autonomous, low-cost tactical unmanned air vehicle, conducts its fourth test flight alongside two U.S Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II aircraft from VMFA-214 at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., Oct. 2024. The XQ-58A Valkyrie test flight and the data collected inform future requirements for the Marine Corps in a rapidly evolving security environment, while successfully fueling joint innovation and experimentation opportunities. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Blake Wiles)