- Fires and sensors will take precedence over maneuver warfare.
- Defense will be favored over offense.
- Marines will not possess the type of units and equipment needed to “close with and destroy” an enemy.
- Infantry will no longer be the mainstay of the Corps; missiles and technologies are to be its strength.
- Without tanks and sufficient cannon artillery, there will be no basis for combined arms.
- Marines will not have a mobile, protected, direct-fire weapons system for the first time since 1923.
- The conviction that every tactical unit must have an integral direct and an indirect fires capability will no longer exist (Loitering precision munitions may alleviate this to some degree).
- Smaller rifle companies and infantry battalions will belie the preference for large units that can cover more ground and absorb significant casualties and continue to fight. In short, these battalions will be less resilient.
- III MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force) will no longer be a repository of capabilities used to form task-organized units for missions across the spectrum of conflict. The capabilities of I MEF and II MEF to do the same will be reduced greatly.
The Navy recently unveiled a plan for its future, as well, which has also been harshly criticized by people I take seriously on the subject (as well as people I don't know at all who are still making reasonable points). Of course 'it isn't the critic who counts, but the man in the arena,' as Theodore Roosevelt said. Still, nothing coming out of the leadership of the Department of the Navy is inspiring me to great confidence that they are actually setting the stage for winning wars.
10 comments:
The reality is that there is no role for the US Marines in modern warfare. There is also no role for either the 82nd Airborne or the 101st Air Mobile divisions. All these unit should be folded back into the regular infantry/armor or, better, they should be disbanded.
That's definitely true of the Airborne units; it's impossible to imagine that we'd attempt to insert paratroopers a la WWII except in a sufficiently permissive environment that we just did it because we wanted to do it.
I can easily imagine a use for a sea-based Marine Corps, though: rapidly deployable in small units anywhere in the world, capable of seizing territory we wanted and holding it until relieved by larger forces. I can imagine that capability being very useful on an ongoing basis. But it's a sea-air mobile infantry concept, with air and fire support from the ships.
Although, the 173rd jumped into Iraq in 2003 when Turkey denied ground passage. Still ...
Yeah, into the Kurdish region, the jump zone secured by Peshmerga and US Special Forces.
That's exactly what I meant by "...a sufficiently permissive environment that we just did it because we wanted to do it." The 173rd could have landed the planes and stepped off. They jumped because they wanted the Combat Parachutist Badge, and Combat Camera / PSYOP wanted the footage.
Yeah, I'm not going to dispute this all that much, but the official reason was apparently: "the 173rd decided to parachute in rather than ferry troops in by plane so that a significant combat force could mass almost immediately to protect itself"
I don't even know enough to know if that's plausible. I'll take your word for it that airborne units like this are obsolete.
Of course, there's always low-orbit jumps, once Musk makes that possible ... :D
I mean, 5th Group had been there for a long time. They had deep relationships with the Kurds.
Sure. Like I said, I'm not really arguing the point. When I was reading the comments above I was reminded of the 173s jump.
The Chieftain (Nicolas Moran) observed obliquely in a YouTube mostly devoted to discussing the latest iteration in the tank vs anti-tank debate that the USMC disposing of tanks does not leave the US without a force of "mobile, protected, direct-fire weapons system(s)", and said force does have a history of successful amphibious landings followed by sustained combat operations. While there is likely some synergy having the landing and transport/support force under the same command, the Army and Air Force (and Navy at times) make it work.
I think you can make the same argument with regard to amphibious assaults as parachute drops. I can't think of a recent one that was bigger than battalion size, and I think the 1990 Gulf War was the last time anything bigger was seriously contemplated. There is no current force designed to secure littoral choke points in cooperation with the Navy which is a capability that might make more sense going forward than a dedicated large scale amphibious assault force.
There was so much wrong and inaccurate with the article you posted it is hard to know where to begin. Let me start by pointing out that I just retired from the Marine Corps on 4 March. For the last five years I was assigned to Capabilities Development Directorate where I was the Operations Officer. Combat Development & Integration is our HQ parent command. They are the lead for Force Design 2030.
The first thing that jumps out at me about such articles is that they never address the budgetary realities we are forced to live with. In their fantasy world the USMC has an endless budget to continue being a second land army conducting the same operations as the Army in landlocked countries like Afghanistan. We got rid of our tanks largely because we couldn't afford them. The Tank Bns were regularly only able to take half their tanks to the field because the other half were down for maintenance. That problem was due to the fact we couldn't afford to operate them all as frequently as needed. These tanks have high performance engines that required regular operation just to keep fluids running over the seals. If not they break down. In short, we didn't have the budget to maintain tanks and haven't for a long time.
The article's assertion that the Marine Corps is abandoning combined arms is laughable. We are still maintaining airwings with a focus on close air support and we will still maintain a tube artillery capability. Nevertheless, we are tilting the scales in favor of HIMARS in recognition of the fact the range of our near peer competitor's indirect fire weapons has increased significantly and surpassed the range of our tube artillery. Furthermore, there is nothing about HIMARS that prevents it from being used in a combined arms capacity.
Interestingly, the article does mention the USMC's Title 10 responsibilities when discussing combined arms but conspicuously leaves out any mention of the USMC's requirement to focus on amphibious operations and being the fleet's force for seizing and defending advanced naval bases and conducting naval operations. That amphibious responsibility is what Expeditionary Advanced Based Operations (EABO), the doctrinal thinking behind Force Design 2030, seeks to achieve in our current security situation.
The fact is that for the last 20+ years the Marine Corps largely abandoned its amphibious responsibilities to focus on conducting the same type of operations the Army was performing in landlocked areas. While I understand the requirements of the "War on Terror" took us in that direction I also understand that country can no longer afford, and certainly doesn't need a second land army.
Post a Comment