Content area
Full Text
Cherry Point Marines have pioneered a tactical air command center that can get up and go, and if you're at First, Third or Fourth Marine Aircraft Wing, it could be coming soon to a theater near you.
Here's the interesting thing about XTACC: After all those eye-glazing, mind-numbing, brain-draining acronyms are pushed aside, XTACC is a concept that makes sense. Oh, there are some rough edges to be sure, but nothing that can't be solved with a little more fine-tuning and-no big surprise here-a little more funding. In fact, Cherry Point, N.C., Marines of Marine Tactical Air Control Squadron (MTACS) 28 would have been happy with just more duct tape and shop vacuums to deal with the rain after the XTACC system was deployed to Bogue Field, N.C., this past February for Exercise Swift Hammer.
Along with new high-speed improvements in hardware and software, the Marines have unavoidably kept the original, aging Trell tents-scrounged for XTACC more than eight years ago, when they were already old. All that water aside, the successful deployment of this unique system may have implications for the future of Marine aviation, as out-of-thebox thinking coupled with off-the-shelf buying have combined to improve tactical aviation management by making it very mobile.
The Expeditionary Tactical Air Command Center, or XTACC (pronounced "ex-tack"), was created to fill a gap in what Marines bring to the table, tactically speaking.
They can scale it up or reduce it, but in either case, it arrives in theater with Marine organic transport and can even be off-loaded with Marines instead of machines. It's an in-house operation which keeps the logistics clean and quick, fairly uncomplicated and decidedly un joint. A baseline configuration is just less than 3,000 square feet, comprised of nine inflatable Trell tents-pretty much in a row. It contains cells for all the Marine Aircraft Wing planning sections: Future Operations, Future Plans, Air Combat Intelligence, an Aviation Command Element (ACE) command post and Current Ops.
The staff can execute between 200 and 250 sorties a day, and two crews can work the 24-hour operation for up to 30 days. Within 24 hours of touch down, barring a shortage of duct tape, it can be up and running.
Right now, when the Marine expeditionary unit...