Watch These Marines Set Up A Forward Arming/Refueling Point In Minutes

[SvenSvensonov]

This video, shot during a training exercise at Marine Corps Air-Ground Combat Center 29 Palms, gives you a good idea of how these high-explosive laden 'pit stops' all come together:

As dispersed operations at austere locales and long-range special ops raids have become increasingly popular tactics over the last few years, we will see more and more of FARPs in the future. Even the F-22, the USAF's most complex and finicky fighter aircraft, is having to adapt to possible operations under austere conditions in the Pacific Theater and other hot spots.

Sprawling air bases are also big known targets for the enemy and in a near-peer state conflict there is a good chance that those bases will be bombarded with air-breathing and ballistic missiles, making operations from them very problematic and even their wholesale destruction a possibility. Thus being able to migrate a portion of your force to more obscure operating locations is a very relevant capability to train for.

For attack helicopters and hardy close air support oriented aircraft like the A-10 and even the AV-8B Harrier, FARPs are more about getting into the action as fast as possible and as many times as possible in a given length of time. Moving close to the front lines greatly enhances a squadron's sortie rate and can have substantial and life-saving effects for friendly ground forces in combat nearby. This concept was used by A-10s during Operation Iraqi Freedom and continued to be used by attack helicopters in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last decade.

When it comes to special operations missions, especially those that occur deep inside enemy territory, what helicopters lack in range and payload a FARP can make up for. An MC-130 Combat Talon can land in the middle of nowhere and quickly refuel hungry special operations Blackhawks and Chinooks. In lower threat environments, even larger C-17s can land at semi-prepared airstrips and quickly offload gear and personnel to gain a foothold in enemy territory. In doing so, this tactic can work as an anti-access weapon, crow-baring open targets deep inside enemy territory that are usually outside the range of unrefueled conventional helicopters and even tilt-rotor Ospreys.

The FARP tactic was used by the 160th SOAR, otherwise known as the Nightstalkers, during Operation Neptune Spear, the mission that killed Usama Bin Laden. The stealth Blackahawks used in the raid almost certainly did not have aerial refueling capability and even if they had, a low-altitude aerial refueling via a very non-stealthy MC-130 could have given away their presence. In the case of this historic operation, MH-47s were used in a similar role as the KC-130 Hercules or MC-130 Combat Talon, as a mobile gas stations ready to 'hot pit,' or refuel while running, the stealth Blackhawks after exiting the target area.

You can see how rapidly the USAF's special operations community can set up a FARP in the video below.

For years, FARPs were burned into mission planners minds as very high-risk operations following the disaster at Desert One during Operation Eagle Claw in 1980. Yet that image has changed greatly over the past 25 years and America turns away from fighting terror with large conventional land forces and the DoD continues with its slow pivot towards the Pacific Theater, FARPs and operating out of austere locations will become more and more a staple of future US battle doctrine.

From Watch These Marines Set Up A Forward Arming/Refueling Point In Minutes

*Bonus FARP pics... because you can never have enough damn pictures!!!

 

[datalibdaz]

Oh man!!! Look at the zulu with the sidewinder
Why no zulu's for us...

 

[Jungibaaz]

That was very impressive.

 

[Itachi]

I saw several flaws in the video. It shows a transport aircraft landing on a ALREADY MADE Airstrip.

1) In warfare, the enemy won't leave you airstrips to land on in or near their country. So this whole FARP's become useless.
2) There was a lot of video editing in the clip. One second, an aircraft landed, the other, its hangers are opening. Then a wacky slow vehicle at 1 km/hr comes out with either fuel tanks or some kind of ammo and a few seconds later, we have a whole platform already done.
3) Even the aircraft hanger doors open in 10 seconds, since it takes like 3 seconds to open less than half way in the video.
4) The vehicle that is shown carrying those fuel tanks comes towards the aircraft and not from it, suggesting not an aircraft laden vehicle.
5) Look closely at the back doors of the aircraft when the vehicle takes out the drop tanks, the doors are not optimized to be put on the ground, thus the vehicle extending its arms to take out the cargo.
6) The fuel tanks had to be put down within at least 3-5 minutes, considering how slowly the vehicle took out the cargo, walked and had time to put down the cargo.
7) They never showed the platform at 2 minutes being taken out and being set up. They just fast forwarded it. It must have taken them at least 6-10 minutes to pull it out of the aircraft and make it spread out.
8) Also look at how the soldiers are moving. In a real exercise(or warfare), they don't walk at slouching speed and pondering every move. They just move out and settle down the base as fastly as they can.
9) In the second picture, they show us big trucks with tons of fuel. They can't even be transported on a Heavy Lift aircraft because it will take more than 1 trip to even take one of those trucks with fuel on their backs. They will have to be separated with their fuel tanks and transported separately and thus will prolong the time taken to load of and settle the FARP.
10) In the Pacific and many other regions of the world, there isn't much flat land or desert(none of this the Pacific except Australia) for these aircraft's to settle down without a runway. Thus, a whole year must be spent to make a runway in a unknown location in a island in the Pacific for these FARP.
11) There are many other logical, logistical and maintenance problems with this FARP and thus, it can't be established within "minutes", let alone an hour.

Try to find other problems too, there are many.