Officer development in the Marine Corps largely is focused on preparing Marines for command, and promotion hinges chiefly on an officer’s potential as a commanding officer. But only a small minority of officers are in command at any given time. Even fewer are destined to command battalion-sized or larger units.
Most officers will serve on staffs for much of their careers, and good staff officers are rare and valuable. Yet the Marine Corps does a poor job identifying and using them, the term “staff officer” has an undeservedly negative connotation, and the service forces every officer onto the command track—or out of the service—even if his or her talents and interests lend themselves to staff work. To fix this, the Marine Corps should create a staff officer career track
Top 50 Issues Require Solutions to Integrate Marines/Navy Close Gap Leaving Amphibious Forces More Vulnerable and Less Lethal
Top 10 Marine Corps Subject Areas Construct To-Do-List
Will Leaders soon enable the service to transform into a substantively more capable 21st century Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF). What will this future look like?
MAGTF must be upgraded from merely a task organized force into a robust network that facilitates all warfighting capabilities — to an extent previously only imagined.
Commadant’s guidance not only removed the amphibious assault force structure paradigm as a planning requirement, it also removed the MAGTF as the go-to organizational construct. Up until now, the MAGTF was the organizational element that all Marine Corps operational planning was based on. If the Marines are going to do a mission, the first thing they do is plan to execute that mission using a MAGTF table of organization. That is no longer going to be the default organization.
Likewise, we are not defined by any particular organizing construct – the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) cannot be our only solution for all crises. Like amphibious assault ships, the MAGTF will not be disappearing anytime soon either, but the Marine Corps force planners will no longer operate on the assumption that the MAGTF is the only option available to them.
In the Marine Corps’ new concept of expeditionary advanced base operations, its forces disperse light, agile units with a small footprint over a wide area while working jointly with naval forces to counter and fight a credible enemy threat in a multi-domain contested environment.
To prepare for that real-world mission, disparate squadrons and battalions that often don’t train together must integrate to exercise as a Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF).
The MAGTF was initially developed to serve as a “single weapons system,” whereby “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” While the MAGTF is task-organized and tailorable to the mission, the building block approach becomes self-limiting because of the blocks. themselves are ‘emergent structures,’ meaning that they evolve…from the interactions.The trick is to find the optimum balance between distributed and modular, between more connections and fewer” also known as the critical elements of command and control.
2. Capabilities Trainer
To achieve the desired shared network scheme and empowered execution, the Marine Corps should not accept training components individually when these components must leverage each other’s capabilities in order to maximize effectiveness. In practice, the Marine Corps is far too compartmentalized, hampering the ability to coalesce into the necessary networked whole. Just consider that a Marine MV-22 squadron can achieve a “fully certified to deploy” rating without ever having trained with marines in the back of the aircraft.
The Rapid Capabilities Office works to generate rapid requirements, then buy a few capabilities, put them in the experiment and then use that to take a concept of operations and inform our requirements fed back into the process and eventually into a program of record.
The solution is to develop a training, doctrine, intelligence, and education system that functions in and of itself as a feedback loop. Like the cycling of a firearm, tactical concepts must be generated in such a way that one cycle facilitates the next…Any military organization must collect, analyze, codify, train, and execute new tactics; the military organization that does so faster than its opponents will succeed.
For other technologies and experiments, the service can buy some systems that are ready for fielding or use what was learned through that experimentation to feed into requirements generation.
Testing new technologies with Marines in live experiments allows the service to realistically see if a particular system is fit for the battlefield. “When we put it in their hands, they figure out how to use it and they come back and tell us this is how we need to use this thing, this is how we to develop the [concepts of operations] and the [concepts of employment] and the [tactics, techniques and procedures] to put it out there and field it,” he said.
“It’s up to us as the headquarters to say OK, got it. We’re going to figure out how field it to you and get it to you.”
3. Joint Force
While all services will need to adapt in different ways to best support the National Defense Strategy’s global operating model, the joint force should take advantage of the Marine Corps’s versatility as a benchmark for concept viability and joint integration. In its current operational construct, the Marine Corps fights via a Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF). The Marine Corps constructs each MAGTF in a mission-specific manner. Organic ground, air, and logistics forces deploy from the service-dedicated amphibious ships owned by the Navy. The Marine Corps owns rocket-supported ground forces, manned and unmanned aircraft, and an organic support structure.
As other service chiefs seek ways to adapt their forces to support the nation’s strategy, they can look at the Marine Corps as a test bed. Per the NDS, the Marine Corps will play a role in the contact and blunt layers—during steady-state operations short of war and during initial escalatory phases. While this charge gives the service different tasks than the surge forces described in NDS, these larger forces will still find value in the Marine Corps’s tests.
The Corps’s goal of persistent mobilized maritime operations is only attainable if the forces are combat credible. This means that the Marine Corps, with its Navy counterparts, will have to create parity with the same long-range, networked, precision missile systems that concern the overall joint force. Dealing with these advanced sensors and munitions will surely be a part of the joint force’s playbook.
The MAGTF’s inherent jointness and the multi-domain mix of capabilities in its existing structure makes the Marine Corps ideal to experiment with the innovations required to adapt to the changing character of war. The Marine Corps can act more rapidly than other services because it can execute much of the necessary experimentation internally. This provides the joint force with an opportunity to use the Marine Corps as a testbed and incorporate lessons learned as experimentation turns into concept development.
The Marine Corps’s multi-domain characteristics are proving conducive to rapid adaptation efforts. Currently, the Marine Corps is conducting war games, simulations, and exercises to shape the service’s future. Simultaneously, the Corps is diverting some of its ground units from their traditional mission sets to operate and innovate based on the commandant’s guidance.
The Marine Corps finds itself in a natural leadership position as the joint force adapts to new strategy. The current contact and blunt layer adaptations are another iteration of the Marine Corps adapting to uncertain situations. In this case, the Marine Corps’s versatility and cost-effectiveness make it the perfect fit for experimentation and joint concept validation
4. Planning Guidance
The Planning Guidance document starts with a robust, but routine declaration of the traditional role of the Marine Corps as the most flexible and responsive military force in the US arsenal.
"The Marine Corps will be trained and equipped as a naval expeditionary force in readiness and prepared to operate inside actively contested maritime spaces in support of fleet operations. In crisis prevention and crisis response, the Fleet Marine Force—acting as an extension of the Fleet—will be first on the scene, first to help, first to contain a brewing crisis, and first to fight if required to do so."
Commadant’s Vision of the Marine Corps as an afloat emergency response force is largely consistent with how the Navy and Marine Corps have operated together with Marines stationed on Navy amphibious assault ships, known as the "Gator Navy,” conducting rotational deployments and serving as a ready force to quickly respond in a crisis.
Marina Corps new force structure plan will require Marines to operate in smaller, more self-sufficient groups. “If you’re going to have combat forces in that sort of an environment, smaller is better because they have less signature, less footprint on the ground, less equipment, less acreage that they’re occupying.
“That means that the units that you’re using have to have the equipment that enables them to protect themselves and to pose a threat to the enemy. Otherwise, the enemy could just ignore them.
Changes in the service’s force structure will help Marines reduce their electromagnetic signature, making it more difficult for adversaries to detect them. “Can the Marine Corps operate at a lower signature, much more mobile, less logistics-intensive ... and do this in a way that enhances the projection of naval power? “This reorganization effort is trying to develop new capabilities and organizational constructs that answer that big question: How to make the Marine Corps relevant in future battle by making it smaller, more distributed, lower signature and have all the range of sorts of capabilities?”
5. Operations Concepts
Marine Corps Operating Concept underscores that the service needs to continuously strive to be at once naval, expeditionary, agile, and lethal. Mobility often is key to determining whether a unit will accomplish their mission or not. Forces with the greater tactical and operational capability have an advantage.
As the battlespace shifts to become “distributed, dispersed, nonlinear, and essentially formless in space and unbounded in time,” so too must our approach to thriving and maximizing tempo in this environment. Expeditionary operations are evolving as the world is shrinking. The initiative will be owned by the side that controls time.” While the Marine Corps is not the master of any single domain, it isn’t meant to be either. Our readiness and capability to control time — to facilitate follow-on forces, linking various domains and services is where we must excel in the future — as tacticians, time is our weapon.
Warfighting lab has been looking at autonomous systems and robotics for quite some time now. “We’ve always recognized that autonomous systems, whether they are in the air, on the ground or at the surface, are going to play a role in the future landscape and future warfighting environment,”
Now, Marine Corps can take a Marine company landing team and break them into smaller teams and put them ashore in separate aircraft. “That enhances your mobility, it lets you surprise the enemy … and it really de-risks the force because you can now deploy a swarm of aircraft,” which makes the invading troops harder to target.
The service is also working on giving the system autonomous capabilities. “Initially it will be piloted, but we’re paying to get the autonomy[developed … and we think we’ll have a fairly good autonomy solution soon.
6. Amphibious Assault
Commadant is essentially saying that the foundational assumptions upon which the Marine Corps is organized and what it needs from the Navy in terms of amphibious assault ship support will no longer guide future planning and procurement.
The MEU and amphibious assault ships are not going away overnight, but they are no longer going to be used as the primary basis for planning force structure across the Marine Corps. The vast majority of Marine Corps procurement programs going back decades have taken place with the intent for that equipment to work within an operational construct centered on MEU deployments onboard amphibious assault ships.
The Commadant is brining into question the long-held basis for Marine Corps MAGTF and Navy amphibious assault ship force structure, positioning a response to the reality of modern Anti Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCM). Up until relatively recently, in order to sink a modern warship, you needed to bring something really big to the fight—another warship, a submarine, a warplane, or a big minefield.
7. Land Systems/Infantry
The Marine Corps’ push to become leaner and more lethal is compelling it to adopt new weapons to better equip its infantry squads.
The Marine Corps infantry will secure key maritime terrain and support the naval commander’s concept of operations. In competition, infantry will predominantly carry out defensive missions.
The new naval operating concepts highlight long-range land and sea-based fires, anti-ship missiles, distributed maritime operations across contested environments, use of sea-based connectors and platforms capable of maneuvering forces quickly across the littorals, and remote-sensing capabilities that feed a larger situational awareness and C2 system with fire-direction quality data.
Those units, capabilities, and systems may exist at some capability level within current naval forces but will require major development and upgrades to meet the future mission. How the Marine infantry fits into these new concepts of operation and with what systems is a serious question.
“The overall goal of this modernization is to enable our close-combat forces to continue to compete and win against a near peer adversary.
Marine Corps has its eye on the next-generation squad weapon and is participating in the system’s development. “The Marine Corps will continue to participate in and assess NGSW [Next-Generation Squad Weapon] solutions for maturity, suitability and affordability to meet our operational requirements in order to inform a decision on if and when to begin procurement of these improved capabilities.
8. Aircraft Readiness
The 21st century MAGTF’s training and readiness requirements must be interwoven and layered. The MAGTF cannot be expected to be a networked and coordinated task force when critical elements fail to interact. Training requirements for the MAGTF’s aircraft squadrons’ aircrew must be built with repetitions to achieve fires integration, simultaneous communication extension, and multi-sensor intelligence/battlespace awareness sharing air reconnaissance in support of maneuver forces. Training and readiness codes requiring interaction with external units cannot be waived to certify a unit ready to deploy and fight. This should be particularly true when supporting entities — integral to a deploying unit’s success — are not also certified ready.
On any given week, fighter jet crews zip through the skies honing their core missions, like air-to-air combat or suppression of enemy air defenses, during routine squadron training. Sometimes, a crew is called to provide close-air support for infantry Marines and other ground-based units sharpening their own warfighting skills.
“Everybody is used to flying with the same type of aircraft that you always fly with. But when you integrate with other assets, that’s more of what it’s like on deployment.
During Summer Fury, with traditional strike missions and close-air support for ground forces, “we were just a very small piece in a very large picture. So to get exposed to that and do that in a training environment is really valuable not only for new pilots but for guys like me … seeing how we affect the picture differently, seeing how it’s going to shift things around.”
“It’s also integrating the ground units and having them not only see what we do in the fighter or the attack mission but also be an integral part of the planning and the execution, something that we almost never get to do in training. We do it all the time in combat operations. But “oftentimes we are limited in the type of training that we do. It was a great opportunity to do all of that.”
9. Budget Building
The Marine Corps’s rapid changes will not only serve as a test bed for the joint force, but also as a mechanism to save money in a resource-constrained time. As the joint force adapts to the NDS-directed global operating model, budgetary winners and losers will emerge. The force will not find every experiment to be feasible and executable in the face of the changing conflict landscape. All of these optimization efforts will be costly—even the unavoidable mistakes will be expensive.
The Marine Corps’ directed changes, like all changes to doctrine and operational concepts, will not be perfect. However, the Marine Corps’s small size—means it can best deliver sweeping changes, errors will be less costly to rectify than those associated with integrating changes among the entire joint force. While the commandant is prepared to use additional funding for modernization, he is posturing to make these moves without additional funding.
Capacity is distilled down to the service level. But there’s another variable; affordability pared to achieving repetition. When it costs less to use downrange and at home, then we can train more. This is not just more sorties, but the power of persistence. This is necessary to not just successfully integrate the required weapons into the MAGTF, but also to improve the service’s capability as a whole.
Warfighting Lab has developed processes that allow senior leaders to make smart decisions about the technologies they need for programs of record, the technologies they do not need and the technologies that may be obsolete in several years. But making choices can be challenging, because people are swayed by technology and the “bright, shiny new object.
“The hardest part is trying to make sure that the people who are in love with their technologies understand what it is that they are in love with. It is difficult to convince people that, ‘Yes, it is a great capability, but is it greater than this other capability over here?’” Once you see the existing technology and ask to choose between the two, you “can see the lightbulb turn on in their heads, and they say, ‘Oh, now I get it.’
The Marine Corps benefits from bringing warfighters and industry together.
“There’s something special when the engineer and the young Marine put their peanut butter and chocolate together and come out with a better product right on the spot,”
10. Job Interview
After making someone a Marine, the Corps must focus on retaining the best individuals and promoting talent. Let Marines be Marines. Don’t discharge them for no good reason. Let them train under tougher conditions and accept higher risks to reflect operations. Marines must be warriors—professional yes, but ready for battle when things go south. Let Marines be investments that continue to grow, not depreciating assets that decrease in value as they come to the end of their contracts. Teach Marines their value and help them protect and add to it.
Marines 101 “Crash Course” Core Mission Summaries”
The 21st century MAGTF conducts maneuver warfare in the physical and information dimensions of conflict to generate and exploit technological, temporal, and spatial advantages over the adversary. The 21st century MAGTF executes maneuver warfare through a combined arms approach that embraces information warfare as indispensable for achieving complementary effects across five domains – air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace…The 21st century MAGTF operates and fights at sea, from the sea, and ashore as an integrated part of the Naval force and the larger Combined/Joint force.
2. MAGTF Construction
MAGTF is constructed in a mission-specific manner. Organic ground, air, and logistics forces deploy from the service-dedicated amphibious ships owned by the Navy. The Marine Corps owns rocket-supported ground forces, manned and unmanned aircraft, and an organic support structure. Marines need to do more than just leverage new technology and procure advanced systems. To evolve the MAGTF, Marine aviation envisions using new and current systems in innovative ways; advancing the idea that every platform is a sensor, shooter, and sharer; and creating a MAGTF that is effective and resilient. What does all of this mean to the Marine on the ground? Our tactical skills to find, fix, target, track, engage, and assess against any potential adversary is exponentially improved over our current ability. Manned-unmanned teaming means we can provide 24-hour coverage anywhere in the world and preserve assets.
3. MAGTF Future
New MAGTF systems facilitate the Marine Corps’ tactical entry into a contested environment and allow for us to better support the MAGTF and Marines on the ground once we have established air superiority—or, more likely, air supremacy—in a given theater of operations. We will be able to shoot missiles and drop bombs from farther away, but more importantly, we will be able to provide increased situational awareness to aviation and ground commanders on a chaotic battlefield in order to help lessen the effects of the fog of war and ultimately provide a common operating picture across the force. As we look ahead, the Marine Corps imagines what the future battlespace will look like—and we design and build weapons systems that will enable Marines to be prepared for the continuum of conflict. The lines between low-intensity engagements requiring realtime precision strike capabilities and complex engagements requiring counters to high-threat, strategic, near-peer adversary systems can blur quickly.
4. Marines build fleet
Navy is taking a step working on an Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment that also includes emerging unmanned and expeditionary platforms to support new concepts of warfare. The planned force structure assessment (FSA) would examine how many of today’s ships – today’s hull designs, with current or near-term capabilities – the Navy needs to meet operational requirements around the world. However, questions have been swirling for the last year or so about what unmanned surface vessels – into which the Navy is planning to invest significantly in the coming years – will mean for the future force size and composure, as well as what the Marines’ desire to leverage alternate platforms to get more people and gear afloat might mean.
5. Marines force design
Based on a threat-informed, ten-year time horizon, we are designing a force for naval expeditionary warfare in actively contested spaces. It will be purpose-built to facilitate sea denial and assured access in support of fleet and joint operations. As we continue to explore design options through wargames supported by independently verifiable analysis, now is a good time to share some of the initial observations and assumptions behind our efforts, the hypotheses we seek to validate, and the preliminary conclusions we have reached on investments and divestments. New concepts and approaches require the naval services to operate outside our traditional comfort zone and embrace a new cooperative mindset to maximize the reach of seapower.
6. Marines joint force
The MAGTF’s inherent jointness and the multi-domain mix of capabilities in its existing structure makes the Marine Corps ideal to experiment with the innovations required to adapt to the changing character of war. The Marine Corps can act more rapidly than other services because it can execute much of the necessary experimentation internally. This provides the joint force with an opportunity to use the Marine Corps as a testbed and garner lessons learned as experimentation turns into concept development. The Marine Corps’s multi-domain characteristics are proving conducive to rapid adaptation efforts. Currently, the Marine Corps is conducting war games, simulations, and exercises to shape the service’s future. Simultaneously, the Corps is diverting some of its ground units from their traditional mission sets to operate and innovate based on the commandant’s guidance
7. Marines operations concepts
Operational concept employs expeditionary systems — emphasizing anti-ship cruise missile launchers — from austere, distributed land bases within adversary weapons engagement zones to contribute to sea control and sea denial operations. A forthcoming Stand-In Forces concept will seek to augment expeditionary advanced base operations by “taking advantage of the relative strength of the contemporary defense” and emerging technologies to create an integrated maritime defense that confronts aggressor naval forces with an array of low signature, affordable, and risk-worthy capabilities. Both concepts emphasize the tactical defense and heavily prioritize capabilities that are either land-based or dependent on land bases within weapons engagement zones
8. Marines sustainment
Marines process of calculating total ownership costs of major weapons systems is “smoke and mirrors in some ways” but is “one of the most significant things we can do to improve the acquisition process is to better incorporate lifecycle costs or total ownership costs into our decision-making process.“Our program managers are routinely forced to make decisions and tradeoffs that they know will reduce total ownership cost, but it comes with an increase in acquisition cost, and then it’s relegated to the junk pile. And that’s a mistake.” Program managers have had several opportunities where we could reduce total ownership costs significantly but it came at a slightly increased acquisition cost, and they said nope, can’t do it. As an acquisition community fielding our ships to our Navy, we need to figure out how to do that.”
9. Marines aircraft readiness
Marines have outlined its upcoming aircraft acquisition and upgrade plans and providing a glimpse of how those new capabilities will come together in various operational scenarios. A combination of command and control upgrades to better tie the different types of aircraft together, new weapons and improved logistics will help Marine aviation meet increasing challenges around the world. The service is beginning to develop new operational concepts that leverage these capabilities while acknowledging that Marine aviators may not always be able to operate from established land bases or return back to their ships every day.
10. Marines planning guidance
Planning Guidance document starts with a robust, but routine declaration of the traditional role of the Marine Corps as the most flexible and responsive military force in the US arsenal. "The Marine Corps will be trained and equipped as a naval expeditionary force in readiness and prepared to operate inside actively contested maritime spaces in support of fleet operations. In crisis prevention and crisis response, the Fleet Marine Force—acting as an extension of the Fleet—will be first on the scene, first to help, first to contain a brewing crisis, and first to fight if required to do so."
11. Marines connect ship shore
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Amphibious effort is technically limited to five aspects of warfighting: ship-to-shore maneuver itself, amphibious fire support/effects, clearing amphibious assault lanes, amphibious command & control, C4 communication & amphibious information warfare. However, Marines trying not to bound the effort too rigidly because somewhere might submit a totally unexpected idea that changes the way we look at amphibious operations.
12. Marines 29 palms
A recent, massive exercise involving more than 10,000 Marines from 2nd Marine Division conducting a force on force exercise at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California, helped expose some of the needed changes,. The exercise showed atrophied skills and areas where training and equipment is needed to meet the existing capabilities of adversaries. Those include signature management, basic fieldcraft, command and control in degraded environments, deception and decoy, electronic warfare, information operations and sustainment.
13. Marines aviation navy
Marine Corps has drifted away from the Navy over the last two decades. Shortages of amphibious shipping combined with a need to justify force structure gave birth to shore-based SPMAGTFs. Wee need to reestablish a more integrated approach to operations in the maritime domain.” By virtue of their range and speed, aviation assets are inherently able to bridge gaps. Amphibious forces usually take this as meaning between the sea and the land, but it also bridges gaps between forces at sea. Amphibious ships can no longer serve merely as transportation for their embarked Marines. In the future anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environment, they have to be part of the open-ocean kill chain. If the naval services are to enhance their survivability and lethality against the medium- and high-threat fights of the future, they have to combine their efforts and their assets. The keystone of that effort will be the aviation assets of the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG). They must be reconfigured to better exploit aviation platforms such as the V-22 and F-35B, and turn the Corps into a force for sea control.
14. Marines expedition games
Marines are building a vision for how to equip for an era in which its ships, aircraft, and overseas bases exist under constant threat from long-range precision weapons and electronic warfare attacks, and will try to go “smaller, lighter, less exquisite, more numerous. “We’re looking for ways to make ships more numerous, more autonomous, and more attractable with “alternate platforms” like unmanned supply ships and expeditionary basing options could partially replace, or bolster, large amphibious ships as the way Marines get to the fight. “There has to be a smarter way to do logistics and supply that we don’t need an amphib to do. We’re looking for alternate platforms to take the load off those ships.”
15. Marines exhibition tasks
In any crisis expeditionary forces are prepared to fight in uncertain environments. If required during contingency response operations, amphibious ships and their associated Marine air ground task force MAGTFs will "fight fast" in hostile environments as part of the initial-contact and surge layers that bring capability and capacity into the battlespace. On short notice, amphibious ships can reconfigure and be ready to provide the joint force commander with a lethal force capability. All amphibious warships, ranging from amphibious assault LHD/LHA, amphibious transport dock LPD and dock landing LSD ships, can provide a package of wide ranging options. From a ready seaport for landing craft; flight deck for either fixed-wing or rotary aircraft or a highly capable command and control platform; expeditionary ships are ready, responsive, survivable, lethal and agile for any crisis.
16. Marines sea control
“People have misconstrued EABO as one thing. … EABO has multiple forms: there’s strike, there’s sensing, there’s electronic warfare, there is reconnaissance, there’s forward arming and refueling. So the size of an EAB, an expeditionary advance base, which is very temporary – go in, grab something, and then move or leave – they could be 40 Marines, it could be much larger than that if we had to do a significant refueling operation. It’s all going to be threat-dependent. But that’s what EAB is, and we’re going after and procuring things that will assist us in doing that,”
17. Marines train
Marine Corps is ditching ts traditional focus on forcible entry—operations involving large-scale and protracted operations on land following the Navy's establishment of sea control. Instead, operations on land would involve small, agile, relatively low cost and “risk-worthy” ships and units operating inside an adversary’s A2/AD umbrella and employing advanced technologies such as the F-35B, long-range anti-ship rockets, and artillery and unmanned systems. These formations would be moved and resupplied by a fleet of small, low-signature and relatively cheap ships, some of which may be based on existing commercial designs. Marine Corps was “over-invested in capabilities and capacities purpose-built for traditional sustained operations ashore.” Among the capabilities he identified for divestment were systems associated primarily with sustained, large-scale land operations.
18. Marines amphib build
Speed and maneuverability are also recognized as fundamental to offensive operations, one reason the Marine Corps is working vigorously to explore the technical feasibility of a super high-water speed amphibious assault vehicle able to attack rapidly from beyond the horizon, leaving ships at a safer distance from enemy fire. Essentially, if advanced enemy precision weaponry precludes amphibious assault ships from operating in closer proximity to targets, closer to the shore, the Navy and Marine Corps will still need to hold potential adversaries at risk of amphibious attack.
19. Marines amphib light
Exactly what the LAWs might look like remains to be seen. Last year, the Navy and Marines said that they were examining offshore support vessel (OSV) type ships as one possible option. The Navy has facilitated the development and delivery of OSVs in the past and has employed modified commercial examples to support various experiments, including those related to work on unmanned surface vessels.
20. Marines amphib logistics
While prepositioned stocks may be available to support initial operations, the sustainment of operations will require establishment of a sea bridge. The sea movement of equipment and supplies is entirely dependent on having access within the theater of operations to adequate port facilities to offload or transload the inbound materiel. Forces and materiel move from home stations to air- and seaports of embarkation. From there they can move to intermediate staging bases, depots, or directly to air- and seaports of debarkation. At this stage personnel can join up with prepositioned materiel. From there they move to the fight.
21. Marines amphib multiplier
The Navy and Marine Corps are proposing radical changes to their force structures in line with new concepts for maritime and expeditionary operations. All eyes on what is new, such as the Navy’s desire for fleets of unmanned surface and subsurface vessels and, with respect to amphibious warfare, at least two new proposed ship classes. Navy and Marine Corps have been working on a set of warfighting concepts that will radically change how the Sea Services fight in the future. What these concepts, Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE), and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) have in common is the conviction that future high-end warfare will in-volve the operation of widely-distributed, highly-networked land- and sea-based formations equipped with long-range strike capabilities and advanced aircraft, both manned and unmanned.
22. Marines amphib outline
New Marine amphibious strategy called the current approach of moving Marines ashore aboard slow, small amphibious vehicles and helicopters an “impractical and unreasonable” plan that has been wedged within a force that “is not organized, trained, or equipped to support the naval force” in high-end combat. “The ability to project and maneuver from strategic distances will likely be detected and contested from the point of embarkation during a major contingency. Marines must be able to quickly move and scatter forces ashore to avoid the proliferation of precision strike capabilities. The adversary will quickly recognize that striking while concentrated aboard ships is the preferred option. We need to change this calculus with a new fleet design of smaller, more lethal, and more risk-worthy platforms.” The decades-old idea that Marines could punch their way ashore from amphibious ships parked dozens of miles offshore has been hijacked by reality. “We must change,” “we must divest of legacy capabilities that do not meet our future requirements, regardless of their past operational efficacy.”
23. Marines amphib shortage
While it’s common for the Corps to train with Marine Expeditionary Units, a force of about 2,000 Marines aboard multiple ships, the Navy is rarely able to provide enough ships for Marines to train in the larger formations that a real amphibious assault would require. The lack of available amphibs impairs the Corps’ ability to train a force to relearn and experience naval operations and reignites an age-old complaint about adequate Navy support to the Marines’ amphibious mission. There’s also the ongoing debate about how high casualties might rise from a seaborne invasion of a contested beachhead.
24. Marines amphib strike force
When you consider Marines, its usually, “storming the beaches.” Amphibious vehicles first in, troops storm ashore. That capability still exists, but today there is a far greater capability, one that will provide a vexing challenge for any adversary. Already transformed by the mobility of the Osprey, the F-35B offers a critical upgrade to the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) and amphibious assault. The first wave is no longer limited to the beach or uncontested space, it can effectively reach locations 450 miles from the shipborne base – even in contested airspace. These ships are designed for amphibious operations, MAGTF operations with the standard mix of Marine units that will go out (Marine Expeditionary Units – MEU), but occasionally we need to configure this to be jet heavy or helicopter heavy. In this case, this is a jet heavy deck. We could take up to 20 F-35Bs onboard, we put 12 on this time.
25. Marines land systems
Land Systems portfolio is being shaped by the desire for greater naval integration to support distributed maritime operations and expeditionary advance base operations. All the activity taking place now is for the personnel variant ACV as the legacy Amphibious Assault Vehicles come out of the fleet to make room for the ACVs Over the next five or six years the service will be pursuing a command and control variant, a 30mm gun variant and a recovery variant.
26. Marines amphib vehicles
One of the main concerns regarding the amphibious assault vehicle was its lack of survivability. The ACV’s level of protection is equal to or greater than that of a mine-resistant, ambush protected vehicle, making it three times more survivable than the amphibious assault vehicle, he said. Initial requirements stated the vehicle should be able to protect against threats such as direct and indirect fire, mines and improvised explosive devices. The ACV's significant protective assets make it resilient to direct attacks and allow it to operate with degraded mobility in an ever-changing battle environment. The vehicle possesses sufficient lethality to deliver accurate fire support to infantry, whether stationary or on the move. The ACV will come in four different variants derived from the armored personnel carrier base. There's a recovery variant, a command-and-control variant, and an up-armed variant to engage enemy armored vehicles. Each ACV comes equipped with eight wheels instead of the tracks originally on the AAV. "It's a huge difference on how the ACV and the AAV drive and handle," "The main difference (with wheels) is that it's a lot faster on land. But instead of pivoting like the AAV, we have to make three-point turns now, which is not a problem."
27. Marines force mix
The Marine expeditionary brigade [MEB] is the “middle- weight” MAGTF. It is a crisis response force capable of forcible entry and enabling the introduction of follow-on forces. MEB is capable of rapid deployment and employment deploying either by air, in combination with maritime pre-positioning ships, or by amphibious shipping. As a result, the MEB can conduct the full range of combat operations and may serve as the lead echelon of the MEF. Deployment of a MEB does not necessarily mean that all the forces of the MEF will follow.
28. Marines drone supply
Since significant levels of loitering time is common for helicopter supply lift time, a clearer sense of where supplies are could cut down on that. Modern networked logistics systems would go a long way in helping maintainers and logisticians be more efficient. In the longer term, that could look like a barcode system that in real time tracks equipment on the battlefield. If you can track all the supplies moving around the battlefield with a networked system that cant be compromised you could create movement tables for people and cargo nearly real time. Most basic is using unmanned aerial vehicles to move goods. Experience with K-MAX in was “very good for getting goods out, very good for geo-isolated, very remote locations. And it the supply network was very user-friendly.” Marines are aiming to bring in small UAVs and as large as K-MAX and “everything in between.” On the larger end, a scenario is described in which a manned CH-53K could carry a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle JLTV into the battlefield, while a couple unmanned vehicles brought 4,000 pounds of ammunition or other supplies that the JLTV would need.
29. Marines KMAX
KMAX allows marines to send multiple unmanned aircraft into a battlefield to deliver supplies. If the enemy shoots down some of them, others will make it to the destination and units will not take any losses. To avoid mountains of steel on the beach, Marine Corps wants to build a system where sensors in vehicles and other equipment determine when a part is needed and transmit the information to a headquarters, which delivers the replacement. A system like that will avoid having to stockpile a lot of parts during an operation. The technology will allow the Marines to reduce the number of troops in logistics support, freeing up more for combat. You don’t want to assign war fighters to things that could be assigned to unmanned technology.
30. Marines sensor field
Aircraft depend on army of sensors to monitor components and provide feedback. The advanced technology in modern fleets demands near-constant supervision and management to ensure optimal performance and avoid disaster in many cases. With the push toward autonomous flight, there are more sensors enmeshed in increasingly complicated systems. Occasionally the main computer gets a signal that isn’t the result of a failing component, but a fault in the sensor itself. How do you know whether you’re dealing with a bad sensor or something worse?
31. Marines V-22 weapons
The Marine Corps is now arming its Osprey tiltrotor aircraft with a range of weapons to enable its assault support and escort missions in increasingly high-threat combat environments. Rockets, guns and missiles are among the weapons now under consideration, as the Corps examines requirements for an "all-quadrant" weapons application versus other possible configurations such as purely "forward firing" weapons. "The current requirement is for an all quadrant weapons system. We are re-examining that requirement—we may find that initially, forward firing weapons could bridge the escort gap until we get a new rotary wing or tiltotor attack platform, with comparable range and speed to the Osprey. A more capable and heavily armed Osprey will be able to provide its own escort protection, a development the Corps has been pursuing for several years now from lessons learned in the field. Adding weapons to the Osprey would naturally allow the aircraft to better defend itself should it come under attack from small arms fire, missiles or surface rockets while conducting transport missions; in addition, precision fire will enable the Osprey to support amphibious operations with suppressive or offensive fire as Marines approach enemy territory.
32. Marines MV-22 train
Flying the MV-22 is pretty much like a helicopter, not quite an airplane at the same time. “There’s definitely a few lessons in our previous training, habits that we had to let go of as we got experience and learned more about this aircraft.” “They’ve gained a lot of experience out here, both operationally and in the maintenance side. “They made safe-for-flights qualifications, collateral duty/quality assurance inspectors, collateral-duty inspectors, and then a host of higher qualifications.”
33. Marines CH-53K testing
The CH-53K Helo Team worked really hard to ensure we could get to low-rate initial production. We’re looking forward to getting the most powerful heavy-lift helicopter ever designed into the hands of our Marines.” There are so many improvements that have been made to this aircraft” to boost lift capability, safety, reliability and maintainability. “This capability right here is really going to be an incredible step increase for the warfighter and the Marine Air-Ground Task Force. The 53K will be able to fly to an Landing Zone pretty much hands off and pick up a hover in total brownout conditions – and that’s one of the areas where we’ve lost a lot of aircraft. “So from a safety standpoint, survivability, it’s just incredibly more capable than what we have today, and the Marines pretty much can’t wait to get it.”
34. Marines viper
“The AH-1Z’s are replacing the AH-1W’s with greater fuel capacity, ordnance capabilities, and situational awareness.” The AH-1Z can carry and deploy 16 Hellfire missiles, effectively doubling the capacity of its predecessor, the AH-1W. Updated avionics systems and sensors are another important aspect of the upgrade. The upgraded capabilities allow the squadron to further project power. “With the new turret sight system sensor, we can see threats from much further out than before. Obviously, that’s a huge advance for our situational awareness. “Having the new digital display systems under glass is a big change from the old steam gauges. “Another thing you notice is that in the electrical optical sensor, there’s a night and day difference.” The updated electrical systems create a new situation for Marine avionics technician with the squadron.
35. Marines infantry
The Marine Corps infantry will secure key maritime terrain and support the naval commander’s concept of operations. In competition, infantry will predominantly carry out defensive missions. The Service is looking for a slew of new gear that Marines can wear. “Part of our business in infantry combat equipment is outfitting Marines for battle with everything from uniforms to body armor to load-bearing equipment. making them look good, but also allowing them to operate safely and effectively” in any environment. “Like everyone, we want it cheaper, better, faster. We also want something that’s scalable.” The service doesn’t want to have different sets of gear or armor for different missions, but rather modular pieces.
36. Marines rifle qualification
A small group of Marines with Weapons Training Battalion shot what might become the most drastic changes to the annual rifle qualification in nearly a century. After years of feedback from marksmanship experts and operational commands across the Corps asking for a more realistic ― and shorter ― shooting qualification, a new experimental course of fire will be rolled out soon
Weapons Training Battalion officials aim to gather data from 600 Marines across the force to best determine what the thresholds for qualification and the shooting badges of marksman, sharpshooter and expert. It will become more challenging because shooters will be qualifying as they’ll fight.
37. Marines rifle squad
When Marines head out of the next deployment later this year, they will operate in a kind of rifle squad that top Marine leaders see as the future of the Corps’ core unit and a way to bring new technologies and capabilities to bear at the lowest tactical levels of warfighting. The unit is the first fully manned deploying unit in the Marine Corps at the 15-Marine rifle squad configuration. The move is an effort to put more capabilities in the squad, which some see as the base of the fight in a future battlefield that may require small numbers of Marines to operate in contested areas with a lot of firepower at their fingertips. Experimentation with different squad sizes, gear and weapons began several years ago, and recommendations ranged widely as to what changes would happen in a military element that’s remained largely unchanged for at least seven decades.
38. Battle Simulation Center
The Battle Simulation Center supports the Corps by providing units with various training simulations that assist in individual, small unit and staff level operations. The technology available helps the Marines feel a sense of realism of their environment as well as provide communication with artillery units, aircrafts and other Marines. The Battle Simulation Center will continue to provide Marines the training they need in preparation for their field exercises and ultimately their deployments. In constructive training the Marines can see what is supposed to be done in certain situations. Once the Marines understand what to do they move onto virtual training, where they can put their knowledge into action. The simulations allow the Marines to receive live feedback from their instructors, this allows the Marines to make mistakes and be corrected without risk of injury or loss of resources. After the Marines have had a chance to practice and be coached in a safe environment they can move on to live training.
39. Marines info unit
Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups, are the focal points for all information warfare capabilities within the expeditionary force. The Marine Corps is using wargames and exercises to game how to operationalize their new information environment commands. “How does the MIG, MEF Information Group, plug into the Navy? That’s a question Marine Corps leaders are continuing to work through. Trainning centers will help commanders better understand the threats and vulnerabilities in the information sphere. These centers are “always on” command and control nodes that work on understanding, planning and coordinating what the Marines describe as operations in the information environment. The centers work in concert with other Marine Corps Air-Ground Task Force operations in physical domains. The goal of these organizations is to show information warfare commanders the threats, vulnerabilities and opportunities that exist in their domain.
40. Marines personnel
No Marine mission can work without those who make the Marines run: logisticians, maintainers, supply experts, air traffic controllers, those who build our runways and maintain our systems and get the parts we need to keep flying. The MWSS is key to everything we do. It enables the ACE to perform their missions in steady state as well as austere conditions. The MWSS will be central to distributed lethality. Reactivated MWSG (Marine Wing Support Group) headquarters will serve in a C2 role over subordinate MWSSs. The MWSG will provide advocacy for the aviation ground support community and ensure a focus of effort to man, train, and equip the MWSS units in preparation for future expeditionary operations and concepts. The leadership and staff functions of the MWSG enable the commanding officer of the MAG to focus on the operations and maintenance requirements of the MAG while in garrison as he prepares them for combat.
41. Marines warfighting lab
Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory will refine and validate the proposed changes to the Fleet Marine Force and its operating concepts. Once the service is confident the proposed concepts are mature enough for adoption, the next step will be “refinement, validation, and implementation, This step is crucial because it will determine whether the operating concepts and structure are suitable for implementation. Experimenting, prototyping, and testing are distinct activities, and each has different roles in the evaluation of new ideas. The Warfighting Lab will develop the Force Design 2030 experimentation plan—and it is more than capable of developing and prototyping the necessary future operating concepts and force structures. But these must be validated independently, through a transparent and reproducible operational test prior to adoption.
42. Marines budget cuts
Marine Corps wants to make modernizing its equipment more affordable, so the service is weeding out old technology that’s either too expensive to run or hasn’t kept pace with advances made by near-peer adversaries. Recently, Marine Corps has focused on plugging capability holes created by decreased funding in several previous budget cycles and the current budget is geared toward improving lethality. As for the future budgets, efforts to modernise the Marine Corps will be important.
43. Marines capabilities lab Following the Advanced Naval Technology Exercise, ANTX, Marines were able to put generate requriements and some contracts in place after identifying some systems worth pursuing. For other technologies and experiments, the service can buy some systems that are ready for fielding or use what was learned through that experimentation to feed into requirements generation. What’s new about this approach and effort is the stand up of the Rapid Capabilities Office, that works to generate rapid requirements, then buy a few capabilities, put them in the experiment and then use that to take a concept of operations and inform our requirements fed back into the process and eventually into a program of record.
44. Marines digital ops
Marine Corps executes mission Digital threads primarily as an integrated MAGTF, organized to support the Marine rifleman. The integration of the MAGTF and the successful execution of mission threads rely on the effective exchange of critical information; communication, whether in the form of electronic data or voice, is critical to the exchange of mission-essential information. An effective network infrastructure is required in order to achieve effective end-to-end communication. The goal of MAGTF digital interoperability is to provide the required information to the right participants at the right time in order to ensure mission success, i.e., defeating the threat, while improving efficiency and effectiveness. This approach provides the additional advantage of responsible spectrum use, which becomes increasingly important as spectrum demands increase, as technology advances, and as our MAGTFs continually operate in more distributed and disaggregated operations.
45. Marines DIY 3D print
Marines are the first service to 3D print military-grade ammunition and spare parts for weapon systems. Service will deploy a tiny unmanned aircraft to become the first 3D printed drone used in combat operations by conventional forces. Marines see it as just the beginning of a new way of equipping and supplying forces in the field. Digital manufacturing is a technology the military has been pursuing for some time. The Pentagon made headlines when it disclosed an experiment in which swarms of 3D printed micro-drones were launched successfully from Navy Super Hornet fighter aircraft.
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Top 50 Issues Require Solutions to Integrate Marines/Navy Close Gap Leaving Amphibious Forces More Vulnerable and Less Lethal
- Marine Corps has drifted away from the Navy over the last two decades. Shortages of amphibious shipping combined with a need to justify force structure gave birth to shore-based SPMAGTFs.
- The new Commandant of the Marine Corps said in his planning guidance, “…there is a need to reestablish a more integrated approach to operations in the maritime domain.”
- By virtue of their range and speed, aviation assets are inherently able to bridge gaps. Amphibious forces usually take this as meaning between the sea and the land, but it also bridges gaps between forces at sea.
- Amphibious ships can no longer serve merely as transportation for their embarked Marines. In the future anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environment, they have to be part of the open-ocean kill chain.
- If the naval services are to enhance their survivability and lethality against the medium- and high-threat fights of the future, they have to combine their efforts and their assets.
- The keystone of that effort will be the aviation assets of the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG). They must be reconfigured to better exploit aviation platforms such as the V-22 and F-35B, and turn the Corps into a force for sea control.
- The strength of the Navy and Marine Corps team is the use of seaborne mobility to achieve effects on land. New aviation platforms can reinvigorate this for the 21st century, making both the Navy and Marine Corps more survivable, deadly, and integrated
- “Distributed operations” in Marine Corls means small units scattered throughout a given ground commander’s area of responsibility.
- Navy distributed maritime operations are those within a naval commander’s area of responsibility. Rarely are the two domains intertwined, but now they need to be.
- Marines routinely practice distributed operations within the ships of an Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) – performing “split-ARG” ops at widely separated locations. But this is much less common among the ships of the larger Expeditionary Strike Group, which adds attached surface combatants and often a submarine.
- It is virtually unheard of to detach Marines to other ships, such as those in a carrier strike group. The ARG typically does not integrate much with the rest of the Navy, but in the future, it will need to in order to survive.
- Why are Ospreys tethered to ships at all, much less particular ships? Ospreys are easier to maintain on land. With the two KC-130Js normally assigned to the MEU, they can reach anywhere in most theaters within hours.
- The tiltrotor squadron assigned to SPMAGTF-CR-CENTCOM and the half-squadron with SPMAGTF-CR-AFRICOM are burning out aircraft and people for little operational benefit.
- By making the MEU MV-22s and the tiltrotor company land-based, the SPMAGTFs are made redundant. Instead of having a SPMAGTF in a given theater in addition to MEU assets, the MEU VMM, tiltrotor company, and KC-130Js would shadow the MEU from shore instead.
- If the rest of the MEU is needed, the tiltrotor-borne unit could be a rapidly deployable advance element, or conversely, remain in strategic or operational reserve. The base tiltrotor squadron, KC-130J detachment, and tiltrotor infantry company would essentially be an airmobile split ARG, capable of independent action, but rejoining the MEU main body when necessary. They could immediately take spots on the air plan ferrying Marines ashore, recovering aboard ship, or to an airfield as the situation dictates.
- For many missions, there is no need to commit the entire Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) or ESG when V-22s can take Marines almost anywhere in theater. It saves these warship formations from having to steam for days. It also affords another way to split the MEU besides just between the ships in the ARG, increasing flexibility and the MEU’s ability to respond to multiple contingencies.
- In certain threat environments, staging Marines from ships other than amphibious platforms may be the most survivable option, offering greater distribution and putting a greater number of the enemy’s shore bases at risk of amphibious assault. The enemy will never be entirely sure which vessels present that threat, complicating their threat analysis.
- Once the MEU doesn’t have to be in one place, or even two, options expand. Amphibious ships aren’t the only vessels Marines can stage from. Ospreys can land on many other naval vessels, even if they can’t support sustained flight operations. The Ospreys could embark, or they might just deliver a contingent of Marines, by alternate insertion means (FAST rope, hoist, etc.) if necessary. Then the ship’s organic air and surface assets would come into play.
- With the right preparation, much of the Navy’s fleet could become staging areas for Marines.
- Aircraft carriers are certainly capable of supporting MV-22s. CVNs typically carry two squadrons of H-60s and will soon have their own CMV-22s Ospreys, so have a robust organic insertion capability. They also have sufficient billeting for any GCE Marines.
- If MV-22s deliver Marines to destroyers or cruisers, those also often have their own helicopters. While they typically carry the MH-60R, not optimized for troop transport, Marines could still use those ships as lilypads for certain missions.
- Those ships could also deploy small craft with Marines aboard. That would typically be for naval missions like interdiction and counterpiracy, but could also include going ashore for embassy reinforcement. In permissive environments, even USNS vessels could provide staging areas for a small GCE.
- Moving the Ospreys and the tiltrotor company off the ship or distributing these assets across more ships frees up plenty of space above and below deck. This allows for other assets that are more dependent on shipboard space compared to more flexible aviation assets. Those can bring new capabilities such as increased lethality.
- Given the number of active theaters today, the 11 big-deck carriers are not enough. However, with the F-35B amphibious strike capability is no longer just providing bomb trucks for low-threat sideshows new amphibious assault formations can strike targets in high-threat environments.
- The F-35B is not just a replacement for the AV-8B. It is a 5th generation multirole fighter, capable of penetrating integrated air defenses.
- Due to the situational awareness the F-35 provides pilots, its preferred maneuver element is a division of three or four aircraft, vice the sections of two that AV-8Bs typically employ. Given 75 percent availability, eight aircraft are required to make two light divisions, and thus support sustained combat flight operations. With eight F-35Bs, both the strike and counter-air capabilities of the MEU are dramatically improved. Having a baseline detachment of eight F-35s per MEU will enable a full spectrum of missions, especially a fairly robust offensive and defensive counter-air capability, which the AV-8B was only able to perform in relatively permissive environments.
- Having more F-35s doesn’t just mean more bombs on target. F-35s make every other combatant around them more effective.
- F-35Bs are capable of directing SM-6 intercepts, HIMARS strikes, and providing in-flight retargeting support to other networked munitions.
- The SM-6 is not only a capable SAM, but can also be used to engage surface targets.
- The HIMARS is not limited to working ashore, but can also be fired from a ship’s deck, filling the long-neglected gap in naval gunfire support. Ship-launched HIMARS could also provide amphibious platforms with a powerful new anti-ship capability without requiring launch cells, further expanding the high-end mission set to include sea control.
- The F-35 links the ships of the ESG together into something far more deadly and survivable than before. Big-deck amphibs can become formidable strike platforms, reaching out not just with the F-35Bs themselves, but also with their networking support for other shooters distributed across the battlespace.
- If LHAs and LHDs are to be legitimate strike and counter-air platforms, they are going to need greater logistics and search-and-rescue (SAR) capability. The current Navy SAR detachment aboard the LHD/LHA is only capable of relatively short-range recovery in secure areas, generally overwater “planeguard” duty. But soon the Navy will be fielding its own enhanced variant of the MV-22, the CMV-22.
- CMV-22 detachment would enhance the capability of both the Navy and the Marine Corps team. With CMV-22s aboard, the Navy could reclaim the long-range SAR mission. This is key if amphibs are going to routinely serve as strike platforms and perform a greater role in sea control. With the right equipment and personnel, this could provide a capability well up the SAR decision matrix, making a VSC detachment valuable as a joint theater personnel recovery asset.
- Using more F-35Bs means using more engines, including those the CMV-22 is uniquely suited to carry, not to mention the additional bombs and missiles a “lighting carrier” would need. This is in addition to the benefits of being able to conduct longer-range resupply in general, especially at the distances involved in the Indo-Pacific. The CMV has an 1150nm range, roughly 300nm greater than an MV.
- Replacing the expeditionary MH-60S with CMV-22s would require 22 aircraft, assuming that the squadron and the ship keep similar deploy-to-dwell ratios. With additional Fleet Replacement Squadron, pipeline, and attrition aircraft, the ultimate requirement would be 25 to 30 CMV-22s to sustainably outfit all the big-deck amphibs.
- MH-60S is starting to come up on the point when recapitalization is necessary. With the CMV-22 already being purchased for COD, expanding that community to include the gator Navy offers a huge increase in capability for a marginal increase in cost.
- Even with the addition of F-35Bs and trading MH-60Ss for CMV-22s, there is still significant room for adding capability.
- One of the recurring complaints about the MV-22 is that it is too large for certain missions, such as VBSS (Visit Board Search and Seizure). While the UH-1N was not able to do significant troop lift, the UH-1Y can. That means the aviation combat element (ACE) needs at least four, not the typical three aircraft. At a readiness rate of 75 percent, that would allow a section of UH-1Ys to be devoted to assault support, especially in support of special missions and hard hits. The third would be able to perform any other tasks in the utility mission set. The Marine Corps has already purchased attrition aircraft over its T/O requirement that could be used to fill this need immediately. If this employment proves useful, additional UH-1Ys could be purchased to preserve this capability into the future.
- There are normally four AH-1Zs assigned to the ACE. With a typical four aircraft to make three, the addition of that extra UH-1Y would allow an extra mixed section of skids to provide CAS and FAC(A) when shooting becomes the priority. The Yankee brings significant CAS capability, including Precision Guided Munitions – for now just APKWS rockets, but in the future, likely Hellfire missiles as well.
- The Marine Corps and the Navy are working past each other when it comes to UAS. The Marines field small tactical platforms and the Navy seeks to enhance sea control with larger systems. Neither of those efforts reaches the other, nor provides top cover for the critical period when Marines transition ashore.
- The Marine Corps has begun the MAGTF Unmanned Expeditionary program (MUX), looking to acquire a large UAS capable of vertical takeoff. For CAS and persistent ISR, it requires a Group 5 UAS, a huge asset in normal MEU operations. Just as importantly, a VSTOL UAS with a reconfigurable payload and long endurance would make every platform around it, both Navy and Marine, more capable.
- Currently the ESG does not have an Airborne Early Warning (AEW) capability. Its organic sensors are limited by line-of-sight from just above the waterline, or at best from the radars of MH-60Rs from surface combatants, which can provide coverage for only a few hours at a time, even if they are near enough.
- Sea-skimming threats traveling below the radar horizon would pose a considerable threat, making an organic AEW capability fundamental for awareness and survivability in a high-end threat environment.
- Currently an LHD or LHA flight deck is able to support only eight to twelve hours of flight operations a day. A long-endurance UAS would extend this coverage greatly, staying in the air even when ships aren’t at flight quarters. With two, ideally three, AEW-equipped units, MUX would enable almost continuous coverage.
- AEW would allow the F-35Bs to stay on the deck in an alert status appropriate for the threat, vice burning hours overhead performing the same AEW function. MUX could also detect and cue air or surface targets for other shooters. Long-range weapons like Tomahawk and the Long Range Anti-ship Missile (LRASM) work best when standoff observation and in-flight retargeting support is readily available, and where unmanned aviation platforms can be more readily risked to provide time-critical networking support.
- In the future, we can’t assume that we will possess uncontested sea control, whether in the objective area or in transit. The ESG may have to fight its way there. Every asset aboard every ship, including manned and unmanned aircraft, whether they have “Marines” or “Navy” painted on the side, must work in concert.
- We need to move beyond the construct where the Navy exists only to move Marines to an objective, into one where elements of both are a cohesive fighting team from embarkation to debarkation.
- With V-22s, every ship can have access to a Marine detachment when needed. We do not always need CVNs for strikes if we have F-35B-capable amphibious ships. With additional UH-1Ys, the ACE can execute more direct action missions and CAS, relieving other high-demand assets. And with the right UAS providing overwatch, the ESG should never be surprised.
- Once we stop thinking of the Navy and Marine Corps as operating in distinct domains, the survivability and lethality of the ESG and the MEU, and even carrier strike groups and surface action groups will be increased.
- Employed correctly, emerging Marine and Navy aviation platforms, such as the F-35B, CMV-22, and MUX, combined with the assets of the MEU, ARG, and ESG, will make the integrated Navy-Marine team more capable and deadly.
Top 10 Marine Corps Subject Areas Construct To-Do-List
- Future MAGTF
- Capabilities Trainer
- Joint Force
- Planning Guidance
- Operations Concepts
- Amphibious Assault
- Land Systems/Infantry
- Aircraft Readiness
- Budget Building
- Job interview
- Future MAGTF
Will Leaders soon enable the service to transform into a substantively more capable 21st century Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF). What will this future look like?
MAGTF must be upgraded from merely a task organized force into a robust network that facilitates all warfighting capabilities — to an extent previously only imagined.
Commadant’s guidance not only removed the amphibious assault force structure paradigm as a planning requirement, it also removed the MAGTF as the go-to organizational construct. Up until now, the MAGTF was the organizational element that all Marine Corps operational planning was based on. If the Marines are going to do a mission, the first thing they do is plan to execute that mission using a MAGTF table of organization. That is no longer going to be the default organization.
Likewise, we are not defined by any particular organizing construct – the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) cannot be our only solution for all crises. Like amphibious assault ships, the MAGTF will not be disappearing anytime soon either, but the Marine Corps force planners will no longer operate on the assumption that the MAGTF is the only option available to them.
In the Marine Corps’ new concept of expeditionary advanced base operations, its forces disperse light, agile units with a small footprint over a wide area while working jointly with naval forces to counter and fight a credible enemy threat in a multi-domain contested environment.
To prepare for that real-world mission, disparate squadrons and battalions that often don’t train together must integrate to exercise as a Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF).
The MAGTF was initially developed to serve as a “single weapons system,” whereby “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” While the MAGTF is task-organized and tailorable to the mission, the building block approach becomes self-limiting because of the blocks. themselves are ‘emergent structures,’ meaning that they evolve…from the interactions.The trick is to find the optimum balance between distributed and modular, between more connections and fewer” also known as the critical elements of command and control.
2. Capabilities Trainer
To achieve the desired shared network scheme and empowered execution, the Marine Corps should not accept training components individually when these components must leverage each other’s capabilities in order to maximize effectiveness. In practice, the Marine Corps is far too compartmentalized, hampering the ability to coalesce into the necessary networked whole. Just consider that a Marine MV-22 squadron can achieve a “fully certified to deploy” rating without ever having trained with marines in the back of the aircraft.
The Rapid Capabilities Office works to generate rapid requirements, then buy a few capabilities, put them in the experiment and then use that to take a concept of operations and inform our requirements fed back into the process and eventually into a program of record.
The solution is to develop a training, doctrine, intelligence, and education system that functions in and of itself as a feedback loop. Like the cycling of a firearm, tactical concepts must be generated in such a way that one cycle facilitates the next…Any military organization must collect, analyze, codify, train, and execute new tactics; the military organization that does so faster than its opponents will succeed.
For other technologies and experiments, the service can buy some systems that are ready for fielding or use what was learned through that experimentation to feed into requirements generation.
Testing new technologies with Marines in live experiments allows the service to realistically see if a particular system is fit for the battlefield. “When we put it in their hands, they figure out how to use it and they come back and tell us this is how we need to use this thing, this is how we to develop the [concepts of operations] and the [concepts of employment] and the [tactics, techniques and procedures] to put it out there and field it,” he said.
“It’s up to us as the headquarters to say OK, got it. We’re going to figure out how field it to you and get it to you.”
3. Joint Force
While all services will need to adapt in different ways to best support the National Defense Strategy’s global operating model, the joint force should take advantage of the Marine Corps’s versatility as a benchmark for concept viability and joint integration. In its current operational construct, the Marine Corps fights via a Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF). The Marine Corps constructs each MAGTF in a mission-specific manner. Organic ground, air, and logistics forces deploy from the service-dedicated amphibious ships owned by the Navy. The Marine Corps owns rocket-supported ground forces, manned and unmanned aircraft, and an organic support structure.
As other service chiefs seek ways to adapt their forces to support the nation’s strategy, they can look at the Marine Corps as a test bed. Per the NDS, the Marine Corps will play a role in the contact and blunt layers—during steady-state operations short of war and during initial escalatory phases. While this charge gives the service different tasks than the surge forces described in NDS, these larger forces will still find value in the Marine Corps’s tests.
The Corps’s goal of persistent mobilized maritime operations is only attainable if the forces are combat credible. This means that the Marine Corps, with its Navy counterparts, will have to create parity with the same long-range, networked, precision missile systems that concern the overall joint force. Dealing with these advanced sensors and munitions will surely be a part of the joint force’s playbook.
The MAGTF’s inherent jointness and the multi-domain mix of capabilities in its existing structure makes the Marine Corps ideal to experiment with the innovations required to adapt to the changing character of war. The Marine Corps can act more rapidly than other services because it can execute much of the necessary experimentation internally. This provides the joint force with an opportunity to use the Marine Corps as a testbed and incorporate lessons learned as experimentation turns into concept development.
The Marine Corps’s multi-domain characteristics are proving conducive to rapid adaptation efforts. Currently, the Marine Corps is conducting war games, simulations, and exercises to shape the service’s future. Simultaneously, the Corps is diverting some of its ground units from their traditional mission sets to operate and innovate based on the commandant’s guidance.
The Marine Corps finds itself in a natural leadership position as the joint force adapts to new strategy. The current contact and blunt layer adaptations are another iteration of the Marine Corps adapting to uncertain situations. In this case, the Marine Corps’s versatility and cost-effectiveness make it the perfect fit for experimentation and joint concept validation
4. Planning Guidance
The Planning Guidance document starts with a robust, but routine declaration of the traditional role of the Marine Corps as the most flexible and responsive military force in the US arsenal.
"The Marine Corps will be trained and equipped as a naval expeditionary force in readiness and prepared to operate inside actively contested maritime spaces in support of fleet operations. In crisis prevention and crisis response, the Fleet Marine Force—acting as an extension of the Fleet—will be first on the scene, first to help, first to contain a brewing crisis, and first to fight if required to do so."
Commadant’s Vision of the Marine Corps as an afloat emergency response force is largely consistent with how the Navy and Marine Corps have operated together with Marines stationed on Navy amphibious assault ships, known as the "Gator Navy,” conducting rotational deployments and serving as a ready force to quickly respond in a crisis.
Marina Corps new force structure plan will require Marines to operate in smaller, more self-sufficient groups. “If you’re going to have combat forces in that sort of an environment, smaller is better because they have less signature, less footprint on the ground, less equipment, less acreage that they’re occupying.
“That means that the units that you’re using have to have the equipment that enables them to protect themselves and to pose a threat to the enemy. Otherwise, the enemy could just ignore them.
Changes in the service’s force structure will help Marines reduce their electromagnetic signature, making it more difficult for adversaries to detect them. “Can the Marine Corps operate at a lower signature, much more mobile, less logistics-intensive ... and do this in a way that enhances the projection of naval power? “This reorganization effort is trying to develop new capabilities and organizational constructs that answer that big question: How to make the Marine Corps relevant in future battle by making it smaller, more distributed, lower signature and have all the range of sorts of capabilities?”
5. Operations Concepts
Marine Corps Operating Concept underscores that the service needs to continuously strive to be at once naval, expeditionary, agile, and lethal. Mobility often is key to determining whether a unit will accomplish their mission or not. Forces with the greater tactical and operational capability have an advantage.
As the battlespace shifts to become “distributed, dispersed, nonlinear, and essentially formless in space and unbounded in time,” so too must our approach to thriving and maximizing tempo in this environment. Expeditionary operations are evolving as the world is shrinking. The initiative will be owned by the side that controls time.” While the Marine Corps is not the master of any single domain, it isn’t meant to be either. Our readiness and capability to control time — to facilitate follow-on forces, linking various domains and services is where we must excel in the future — as tacticians, time is our weapon.
Warfighting lab has been looking at autonomous systems and robotics for quite some time now. “We’ve always recognized that autonomous systems, whether they are in the air, on the ground or at the surface, are going to play a role in the future landscape and future warfighting environment,”
Now, Marine Corps can take a Marine company landing team and break them into smaller teams and put them ashore in separate aircraft. “That enhances your mobility, it lets you surprise the enemy … and it really de-risks the force because you can now deploy a swarm of aircraft,” which makes the invading troops harder to target.
The service is also working on giving the system autonomous capabilities. “Initially it will be piloted, but we’re paying to get the autonomy[developed … and we think we’ll have a fairly good autonomy solution soon.
6. Amphibious Assault
Commadant is essentially saying that the foundational assumptions upon which the Marine Corps is organized and what it needs from the Navy in terms of amphibious assault ship support will no longer guide future planning and procurement.
The MEU and amphibious assault ships are not going away overnight, but they are no longer going to be used as the primary basis for planning force structure across the Marine Corps. The vast majority of Marine Corps procurement programs going back decades have taken place with the intent for that equipment to work within an operational construct centered on MEU deployments onboard amphibious assault ships.
The Commadant is brining into question the long-held basis for Marine Corps MAGTF and Navy amphibious assault ship force structure, positioning a response to the reality of modern Anti Ship Cruise Missiles (ASCM). Up until relatively recently, in order to sink a modern warship, you needed to bring something really big to the fight—another warship, a submarine, a warplane, or a big minefield.
7. Land Systems/Infantry
The Marine Corps’ push to become leaner and more lethal is compelling it to adopt new weapons to better equip its infantry squads.
The Marine Corps infantry will secure key maritime terrain and support the naval commander’s concept of operations. In competition, infantry will predominantly carry out defensive missions.
The new naval operating concepts highlight long-range land and sea-based fires, anti-ship missiles, distributed maritime operations across contested environments, use of sea-based connectors and platforms capable of maneuvering forces quickly across the littorals, and remote-sensing capabilities that feed a larger situational awareness and C2 system with fire-direction quality data.
Those units, capabilities, and systems may exist at some capability level within current naval forces but will require major development and upgrades to meet the future mission. How the Marine infantry fits into these new concepts of operation and with what systems is a serious question.
“The overall goal of this modernization is to enable our close-combat forces to continue to compete and win against a near peer adversary.
Marine Corps has its eye on the next-generation squad weapon and is participating in the system’s development. “The Marine Corps will continue to participate in and assess NGSW [Next-Generation Squad Weapon] solutions for maturity, suitability and affordability to meet our operational requirements in order to inform a decision on if and when to begin procurement of these improved capabilities.
8. Aircraft Readiness
The 21st century MAGTF’s training and readiness requirements must be interwoven and layered. The MAGTF cannot be expected to be a networked and coordinated task force when critical elements fail to interact. Training requirements for the MAGTF’s aircraft squadrons’ aircrew must be built with repetitions to achieve fires integration, simultaneous communication extension, and multi-sensor intelligence/battlespace awareness sharing air reconnaissance in support of maneuver forces. Training and readiness codes requiring interaction with external units cannot be waived to certify a unit ready to deploy and fight. This should be particularly true when supporting entities — integral to a deploying unit’s success — are not also certified ready.
On any given week, fighter jet crews zip through the skies honing their core missions, like air-to-air combat or suppression of enemy air defenses, during routine squadron training. Sometimes, a crew is called to provide close-air support for infantry Marines and other ground-based units sharpening their own warfighting skills.
“Everybody is used to flying with the same type of aircraft that you always fly with. But when you integrate with other assets, that’s more of what it’s like on deployment.
During Summer Fury, with traditional strike missions and close-air support for ground forces, “we were just a very small piece in a very large picture. So to get exposed to that and do that in a training environment is really valuable not only for new pilots but for guys like me … seeing how we affect the picture differently, seeing how it’s going to shift things around.”
“It’s also integrating the ground units and having them not only see what we do in the fighter or the attack mission but also be an integral part of the planning and the execution, something that we almost never get to do in training. We do it all the time in combat operations. But “oftentimes we are limited in the type of training that we do. It was a great opportunity to do all of that.”
9. Budget Building
The Marine Corps’s rapid changes will not only serve as a test bed for the joint force, but also as a mechanism to save money in a resource-constrained time. As the joint force adapts to the NDS-directed global operating model, budgetary winners and losers will emerge. The force will not find every experiment to be feasible and executable in the face of the changing conflict landscape. All of these optimization efforts will be costly—even the unavoidable mistakes will be expensive.
The Marine Corps’ directed changes, like all changes to doctrine and operational concepts, will not be perfect. However, the Marine Corps’s small size—means it can best deliver sweeping changes, errors will be less costly to rectify than those associated with integrating changes among the entire joint force. While the commandant is prepared to use additional funding for modernization, he is posturing to make these moves without additional funding.
Capacity is distilled down to the service level. But there’s another variable; affordability pared to achieving repetition. When it costs less to use downrange and at home, then we can train more. This is not just more sorties, but the power of persistence. This is necessary to not just successfully integrate the required weapons into the MAGTF, but also to improve the service’s capability as a whole.
Warfighting Lab has developed processes that allow senior leaders to make smart decisions about the technologies they need for programs of record, the technologies they do not need and the technologies that may be obsolete in several years. But making choices can be challenging, because people are swayed by technology and the “bright, shiny new object.
“The hardest part is trying to make sure that the people who are in love with their technologies understand what it is that they are in love with. It is difficult to convince people that, ‘Yes, it is a great capability, but is it greater than this other capability over here?’” Once you see the existing technology and ask to choose between the two, you “can see the lightbulb turn on in their heads, and they say, ‘Oh, now I get it.’
The Marine Corps benefits from bringing warfighters and industry together.
“There’s something special when the engineer and the young Marine put their peanut butter and chocolate together and come out with a better product right on the spot,”
10. Job Interview
After making someone a Marine, the Corps must focus on retaining the best individuals and promoting talent. Let Marines be Marines. Don’t discharge them for no good reason. Let them train under tougher conditions and accept higher risks to reflect operations. Marines must be warriors—professional yes, but ready for battle when things go south. Let Marines be investments that continue to grow, not depreciating assets that decrease in value as they come to the end of their contracts. Teach Marines their value and help them protect and add to it.
Marines 101 “Crash Course” Core Mission Summaries”
- MAGTF Missions
The 21st century MAGTF conducts maneuver warfare in the physical and information dimensions of conflict to generate and exploit technological, temporal, and spatial advantages over the adversary. The 21st century MAGTF executes maneuver warfare through a combined arms approach that embraces information warfare as indispensable for achieving complementary effects across five domains – air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace…The 21st century MAGTF operates and fights at sea, from the sea, and ashore as an integrated part of the Naval force and the larger Combined/Joint force.
2. MAGTF Construction
MAGTF is constructed in a mission-specific manner. Organic ground, air, and logistics forces deploy from the service-dedicated amphibious ships owned by the Navy. The Marine Corps owns rocket-supported ground forces, manned and unmanned aircraft, and an organic support structure. Marines need to do more than just leverage new technology and procure advanced systems. To evolve the MAGTF, Marine aviation envisions using new and current systems in innovative ways; advancing the idea that every platform is a sensor, shooter, and sharer; and creating a MAGTF that is effective and resilient. What does all of this mean to the Marine on the ground? Our tactical skills to find, fix, target, track, engage, and assess against any potential adversary is exponentially improved over our current ability. Manned-unmanned teaming means we can provide 24-hour coverage anywhere in the world and preserve assets.
3. MAGTF Future
New MAGTF systems facilitate the Marine Corps’ tactical entry into a contested environment and allow for us to better support the MAGTF and Marines on the ground once we have established air superiority—or, more likely, air supremacy—in a given theater of operations. We will be able to shoot missiles and drop bombs from farther away, but more importantly, we will be able to provide increased situational awareness to aviation and ground commanders on a chaotic battlefield in order to help lessen the effects of the fog of war and ultimately provide a common operating picture across the force. As we look ahead, the Marine Corps imagines what the future battlespace will look like—and we design and build weapons systems that will enable Marines to be prepared for the continuum of conflict. The lines between low-intensity engagements requiring realtime precision strike capabilities and complex engagements requiring counters to high-threat, strategic, near-peer adversary systems can blur quickly.
4. Marines build fleet
Navy is taking a step working on an Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment that also includes emerging unmanned and expeditionary platforms to support new concepts of warfare. The planned force structure assessment (FSA) would examine how many of today’s ships – today’s hull designs, with current or near-term capabilities – the Navy needs to meet operational requirements around the world. However, questions have been swirling for the last year or so about what unmanned surface vessels – into which the Navy is planning to invest significantly in the coming years – will mean for the future force size and composure, as well as what the Marines’ desire to leverage alternate platforms to get more people and gear afloat might mean.
5. Marines force design
Based on a threat-informed, ten-year time horizon, we are designing a force for naval expeditionary warfare in actively contested spaces. It will be purpose-built to facilitate sea denial and assured access in support of fleet and joint operations. As we continue to explore design options through wargames supported by independently verifiable analysis, now is a good time to share some of the initial observations and assumptions behind our efforts, the hypotheses we seek to validate, and the preliminary conclusions we have reached on investments and divestments. New concepts and approaches require the naval services to operate outside our traditional comfort zone and embrace a new cooperative mindset to maximize the reach of seapower.
6. Marines joint force
The MAGTF’s inherent jointness and the multi-domain mix of capabilities in its existing structure makes the Marine Corps ideal to experiment with the innovations required to adapt to the changing character of war. The Marine Corps can act more rapidly than other services because it can execute much of the necessary experimentation internally. This provides the joint force with an opportunity to use the Marine Corps as a testbed and garner lessons learned as experimentation turns into concept development. The Marine Corps’s multi-domain characteristics are proving conducive to rapid adaptation efforts. Currently, the Marine Corps is conducting war games, simulations, and exercises to shape the service’s future. Simultaneously, the Corps is diverting some of its ground units from their traditional mission sets to operate and innovate based on the commandant’s guidance
7. Marines operations concepts
Operational concept employs expeditionary systems — emphasizing anti-ship cruise missile launchers — from austere, distributed land bases within adversary weapons engagement zones to contribute to sea control and sea denial operations. A forthcoming Stand-In Forces concept will seek to augment expeditionary advanced base operations by “taking advantage of the relative strength of the contemporary defense” and emerging technologies to create an integrated maritime defense that confronts aggressor naval forces with an array of low signature, affordable, and risk-worthy capabilities. Both concepts emphasize the tactical defense and heavily prioritize capabilities that are either land-based or dependent on land bases within weapons engagement zones
8. Marines sustainment
Marines process of calculating total ownership costs of major weapons systems is “smoke and mirrors in some ways” but is “one of the most significant things we can do to improve the acquisition process is to better incorporate lifecycle costs or total ownership costs into our decision-making process.“Our program managers are routinely forced to make decisions and tradeoffs that they know will reduce total ownership cost, but it comes with an increase in acquisition cost, and then it’s relegated to the junk pile. And that’s a mistake.” Program managers have had several opportunities where we could reduce total ownership costs significantly but it came at a slightly increased acquisition cost, and they said nope, can’t do it. As an acquisition community fielding our ships to our Navy, we need to figure out how to do that.”
9. Marines aircraft readiness
Marines have outlined its upcoming aircraft acquisition and upgrade plans and providing a glimpse of how those new capabilities will come together in various operational scenarios. A combination of command and control upgrades to better tie the different types of aircraft together, new weapons and improved logistics will help Marine aviation meet increasing challenges around the world. The service is beginning to develop new operational concepts that leverage these capabilities while acknowledging that Marine aviators may not always be able to operate from established land bases or return back to their ships every day.
10. Marines planning guidance
Planning Guidance document starts with a robust, but routine declaration of the traditional role of the Marine Corps as the most flexible and responsive military force in the US arsenal. "The Marine Corps will be trained and equipped as a naval expeditionary force in readiness and prepared to operate inside actively contested maritime spaces in support of fleet operations. In crisis prevention and crisis response, the Fleet Marine Force—acting as an extension of the Fleet—will be first on the scene, first to help, first to contain a brewing crisis, and first to fight if required to do so."
11. Marines connect ship shore
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Amphibious effort is technically limited to five aspects of warfighting: ship-to-shore maneuver itself, amphibious fire support/effects, clearing amphibious assault lanes, amphibious command & control, C4 communication & amphibious information warfare. However, Marines trying not to bound the effort too rigidly because somewhere might submit a totally unexpected idea that changes the way we look at amphibious operations.
12. Marines 29 palms
A recent, massive exercise involving more than 10,000 Marines from 2nd Marine Division conducting a force on force exercise at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California, helped expose some of the needed changes,. The exercise showed atrophied skills and areas where training and equipment is needed to meet the existing capabilities of adversaries. Those include signature management, basic fieldcraft, command and control in degraded environments, deception and decoy, electronic warfare, information operations and sustainment.
13. Marines aviation navy
Marine Corps has drifted away from the Navy over the last two decades. Shortages of amphibious shipping combined with a need to justify force structure gave birth to shore-based SPMAGTFs. Wee need to reestablish a more integrated approach to operations in the maritime domain.” By virtue of their range and speed, aviation assets are inherently able to bridge gaps. Amphibious forces usually take this as meaning between the sea and the land, but it also bridges gaps between forces at sea. Amphibious ships can no longer serve merely as transportation for their embarked Marines. In the future anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environment, they have to be part of the open-ocean kill chain. If the naval services are to enhance their survivability and lethality against the medium- and high-threat fights of the future, they have to combine their efforts and their assets. The keystone of that effort will be the aviation assets of the Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG). They must be reconfigured to better exploit aviation platforms such as the V-22 and F-35B, and turn the Corps into a force for sea control.
14. Marines expedition games
Marines are building a vision for how to equip for an era in which its ships, aircraft, and overseas bases exist under constant threat from long-range precision weapons and electronic warfare attacks, and will try to go “smaller, lighter, less exquisite, more numerous. “We’re looking for ways to make ships more numerous, more autonomous, and more attractable with “alternate platforms” like unmanned supply ships and expeditionary basing options could partially replace, or bolster, large amphibious ships as the way Marines get to the fight. “There has to be a smarter way to do logistics and supply that we don’t need an amphib to do. We’re looking for alternate platforms to take the load off those ships.”
15. Marines exhibition tasks
In any crisis expeditionary forces are prepared to fight in uncertain environments. If required during contingency response operations, amphibious ships and their associated Marine air ground task force MAGTFs will "fight fast" in hostile environments as part of the initial-contact and surge layers that bring capability and capacity into the battlespace. On short notice, amphibious ships can reconfigure and be ready to provide the joint force commander with a lethal force capability. All amphibious warships, ranging from amphibious assault LHD/LHA, amphibious transport dock LPD and dock landing LSD ships, can provide a package of wide ranging options. From a ready seaport for landing craft; flight deck for either fixed-wing or rotary aircraft or a highly capable command and control platform; expeditionary ships are ready, responsive, survivable, lethal and agile for any crisis.
16. Marines sea control
“People have misconstrued EABO as one thing. … EABO has multiple forms: there’s strike, there’s sensing, there’s electronic warfare, there is reconnaissance, there’s forward arming and refueling. So the size of an EAB, an expeditionary advance base, which is very temporary – go in, grab something, and then move or leave – they could be 40 Marines, it could be much larger than that if we had to do a significant refueling operation. It’s all going to be threat-dependent. But that’s what EAB is, and we’re going after and procuring things that will assist us in doing that,”
17. Marines train
Marine Corps is ditching ts traditional focus on forcible entry—operations involving large-scale and protracted operations on land following the Navy's establishment of sea control. Instead, operations on land would involve small, agile, relatively low cost and “risk-worthy” ships and units operating inside an adversary’s A2/AD umbrella and employing advanced technologies such as the F-35B, long-range anti-ship rockets, and artillery and unmanned systems. These formations would be moved and resupplied by a fleet of small, low-signature and relatively cheap ships, some of which may be based on existing commercial designs. Marine Corps was “over-invested in capabilities and capacities purpose-built for traditional sustained operations ashore.” Among the capabilities he identified for divestment were systems associated primarily with sustained, large-scale land operations.
18. Marines amphib build
Speed and maneuverability are also recognized as fundamental to offensive operations, one reason the Marine Corps is working vigorously to explore the technical feasibility of a super high-water speed amphibious assault vehicle able to attack rapidly from beyond the horizon, leaving ships at a safer distance from enemy fire. Essentially, if advanced enemy precision weaponry precludes amphibious assault ships from operating in closer proximity to targets, closer to the shore, the Navy and Marine Corps will still need to hold potential adversaries at risk of amphibious attack.
19. Marines amphib light
Exactly what the LAWs might look like remains to be seen. Last year, the Navy and Marines said that they were examining offshore support vessel (OSV) type ships as one possible option. The Navy has facilitated the development and delivery of OSVs in the past and has employed modified commercial examples to support various experiments, including those related to work on unmanned surface vessels.
20. Marines amphib logistics
While prepositioned stocks may be available to support initial operations, the sustainment of operations will require establishment of a sea bridge. The sea movement of equipment and supplies is entirely dependent on having access within the theater of operations to adequate port facilities to offload or transload the inbound materiel. Forces and materiel move from home stations to air- and seaports of embarkation. From there they can move to intermediate staging bases, depots, or directly to air- and seaports of debarkation. At this stage personnel can join up with prepositioned materiel. From there they move to the fight.
21. Marines amphib multiplier
The Navy and Marine Corps are proposing radical changes to their force structures in line with new concepts for maritime and expeditionary operations. All eyes on what is new, such as the Navy’s desire for fleets of unmanned surface and subsurface vessels and, with respect to amphibious warfare, at least two new proposed ship classes. Navy and Marine Corps have been working on a set of warfighting concepts that will radically change how the Sea Services fight in the future. What these concepts, Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO), Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE), and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) have in common is the conviction that future high-end warfare will in-volve the operation of widely-distributed, highly-networked land- and sea-based formations equipped with long-range strike capabilities and advanced aircraft, both manned and unmanned.
22. Marines amphib outline
New Marine amphibious strategy called the current approach of moving Marines ashore aboard slow, small amphibious vehicles and helicopters an “impractical and unreasonable” plan that has been wedged within a force that “is not organized, trained, or equipped to support the naval force” in high-end combat. “The ability to project and maneuver from strategic distances will likely be detected and contested from the point of embarkation during a major contingency. Marines must be able to quickly move and scatter forces ashore to avoid the proliferation of precision strike capabilities. The adversary will quickly recognize that striking while concentrated aboard ships is the preferred option. We need to change this calculus with a new fleet design of smaller, more lethal, and more risk-worthy platforms.” The decades-old idea that Marines could punch their way ashore from amphibious ships parked dozens of miles offshore has been hijacked by reality. “We must change,” “we must divest of legacy capabilities that do not meet our future requirements, regardless of their past operational efficacy.”
23. Marines amphib shortage
While it’s common for the Corps to train with Marine Expeditionary Units, a force of about 2,000 Marines aboard multiple ships, the Navy is rarely able to provide enough ships for Marines to train in the larger formations that a real amphibious assault would require. The lack of available amphibs impairs the Corps’ ability to train a force to relearn and experience naval operations and reignites an age-old complaint about adequate Navy support to the Marines’ amphibious mission. There’s also the ongoing debate about how high casualties might rise from a seaborne invasion of a contested beachhead.
24. Marines amphib strike force
When you consider Marines, its usually, “storming the beaches.” Amphibious vehicles first in, troops storm ashore. That capability still exists, but today there is a far greater capability, one that will provide a vexing challenge for any adversary. Already transformed by the mobility of the Osprey, the F-35B offers a critical upgrade to the Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) and amphibious assault. The first wave is no longer limited to the beach or uncontested space, it can effectively reach locations 450 miles from the shipborne base – even in contested airspace. These ships are designed for amphibious operations, MAGTF operations with the standard mix of Marine units that will go out (Marine Expeditionary Units – MEU), but occasionally we need to configure this to be jet heavy or helicopter heavy. In this case, this is a jet heavy deck. We could take up to 20 F-35Bs onboard, we put 12 on this time.
25. Marines land systems
Land Systems portfolio is being shaped by the desire for greater naval integration to support distributed maritime operations and expeditionary advance base operations. All the activity taking place now is for the personnel variant ACV as the legacy Amphibious Assault Vehicles come out of the fleet to make room for the ACVs Over the next five or six years the service will be pursuing a command and control variant, a 30mm gun variant and a recovery variant.
26. Marines amphib vehicles
One of the main concerns regarding the amphibious assault vehicle was its lack of survivability. The ACV’s level of protection is equal to or greater than that of a mine-resistant, ambush protected vehicle, making it three times more survivable than the amphibious assault vehicle, he said. Initial requirements stated the vehicle should be able to protect against threats such as direct and indirect fire, mines and improvised explosive devices. The ACV's significant protective assets make it resilient to direct attacks and allow it to operate with degraded mobility in an ever-changing battle environment. The vehicle possesses sufficient lethality to deliver accurate fire support to infantry, whether stationary or on the move. The ACV will come in four different variants derived from the armored personnel carrier base. There's a recovery variant, a command-and-control variant, and an up-armed variant to engage enemy armored vehicles. Each ACV comes equipped with eight wheels instead of the tracks originally on the AAV. "It's a huge difference on how the ACV and the AAV drive and handle," "The main difference (with wheels) is that it's a lot faster on land. But instead of pivoting like the AAV, we have to make three-point turns now, which is not a problem."
27. Marines force mix
The Marine expeditionary brigade [MEB] is the “middle- weight” MAGTF. It is a crisis response force capable of forcible entry and enabling the introduction of follow-on forces. MEB is capable of rapid deployment and employment deploying either by air, in combination with maritime pre-positioning ships, or by amphibious shipping. As a result, the MEB can conduct the full range of combat operations and may serve as the lead echelon of the MEF. Deployment of a MEB does not necessarily mean that all the forces of the MEF will follow.
28. Marines drone supply
Since significant levels of loitering time is common for helicopter supply lift time, a clearer sense of where supplies are could cut down on that. Modern networked logistics systems would go a long way in helping maintainers and logisticians be more efficient. In the longer term, that could look like a barcode system that in real time tracks equipment on the battlefield. If you can track all the supplies moving around the battlefield with a networked system that cant be compromised you could create movement tables for people and cargo nearly real time. Most basic is using unmanned aerial vehicles to move goods. Experience with K-MAX in was “very good for getting goods out, very good for geo-isolated, very remote locations. And it the supply network was very user-friendly.” Marines are aiming to bring in small UAVs and as large as K-MAX and “everything in between.” On the larger end, a scenario is described in which a manned CH-53K could carry a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle JLTV into the battlefield, while a couple unmanned vehicles brought 4,000 pounds of ammunition or other supplies that the JLTV would need.
29. Marines KMAX
KMAX allows marines to send multiple unmanned aircraft into a battlefield to deliver supplies. If the enemy shoots down some of them, others will make it to the destination and units will not take any losses. To avoid mountains of steel on the beach, Marine Corps wants to build a system where sensors in vehicles and other equipment determine when a part is needed and transmit the information to a headquarters, which delivers the replacement. A system like that will avoid having to stockpile a lot of parts during an operation. The technology will allow the Marines to reduce the number of troops in logistics support, freeing up more for combat. You don’t want to assign war fighters to things that could be assigned to unmanned technology.
30. Marines sensor field
Aircraft depend on army of sensors to monitor components and provide feedback. The advanced technology in modern fleets demands near-constant supervision and management to ensure optimal performance and avoid disaster in many cases. With the push toward autonomous flight, there are more sensors enmeshed in increasingly complicated systems. Occasionally the main computer gets a signal that isn’t the result of a failing component, but a fault in the sensor itself. How do you know whether you’re dealing with a bad sensor or something worse?
31. Marines V-22 weapons
The Marine Corps is now arming its Osprey tiltrotor aircraft with a range of weapons to enable its assault support and escort missions in increasingly high-threat combat environments. Rockets, guns and missiles are among the weapons now under consideration, as the Corps examines requirements for an "all-quadrant" weapons application versus other possible configurations such as purely "forward firing" weapons. "The current requirement is for an all quadrant weapons system. We are re-examining that requirement—we may find that initially, forward firing weapons could bridge the escort gap until we get a new rotary wing or tiltotor attack platform, with comparable range and speed to the Osprey. A more capable and heavily armed Osprey will be able to provide its own escort protection, a development the Corps has been pursuing for several years now from lessons learned in the field. Adding weapons to the Osprey would naturally allow the aircraft to better defend itself should it come under attack from small arms fire, missiles or surface rockets while conducting transport missions; in addition, precision fire will enable the Osprey to support amphibious operations with suppressive or offensive fire as Marines approach enemy territory.
32. Marines MV-22 train
Flying the MV-22 is pretty much like a helicopter, not quite an airplane at the same time. “There’s definitely a few lessons in our previous training, habits that we had to let go of as we got experience and learned more about this aircraft.” “They’ve gained a lot of experience out here, both operationally and in the maintenance side. “They made safe-for-flights qualifications, collateral duty/quality assurance inspectors, collateral-duty inspectors, and then a host of higher qualifications.”
33. Marines CH-53K testing
The CH-53K Helo Team worked really hard to ensure we could get to low-rate initial production. We’re looking forward to getting the most powerful heavy-lift helicopter ever designed into the hands of our Marines.” There are so many improvements that have been made to this aircraft” to boost lift capability, safety, reliability and maintainability. “This capability right here is really going to be an incredible step increase for the warfighter and the Marine Air-Ground Task Force. The 53K will be able to fly to an Landing Zone pretty much hands off and pick up a hover in total brownout conditions – and that’s one of the areas where we’ve lost a lot of aircraft. “So from a safety standpoint, survivability, it’s just incredibly more capable than what we have today, and the Marines pretty much can’t wait to get it.”
34. Marines viper
“The AH-1Z’s are replacing the AH-1W’s with greater fuel capacity, ordnance capabilities, and situational awareness.” The AH-1Z can carry and deploy 16 Hellfire missiles, effectively doubling the capacity of its predecessor, the AH-1W. Updated avionics systems and sensors are another important aspect of the upgrade. The upgraded capabilities allow the squadron to further project power. “With the new turret sight system sensor, we can see threats from much further out than before. Obviously, that’s a huge advance for our situational awareness. “Having the new digital display systems under glass is a big change from the old steam gauges. “Another thing you notice is that in the electrical optical sensor, there’s a night and day difference.” The updated electrical systems create a new situation for Marine avionics technician with the squadron.
35. Marines infantry
The Marine Corps infantry will secure key maritime terrain and support the naval commander’s concept of operations. In competition, infantry will predominantly carry out defensive missions. The Service is looking for a slew of new gear that Marines can wear. “Part of our business in infantry combat equipment is outfitting Marines for battle with everything from uniforms to body armor to load-bearing equipment. making them look good, but also allowing them to operate safely and effectively” in any environment. “Like everyone, we want it cheaper, better, faster. We also want something that’s scalable.” The service doesn’t want to have different sets of gear or armor for different missions, but rather modular pieces.
36. Marines rifle qualification
A small group of Marines with Weapons Training Battalion shot what might become the most drastic changes to the annual rifle qualification in nearly a century. After years of feedback from marksmanship experts and operational commands across the Corps asking for a more realistic ― and shorter ― shooting qualification, a new experimental course of fire will be rolled out soon
Weapons Training Battalion officials aim to gather data from 600 Marines across the force to best determine what the thresholds for qualification and the shooting badges of marksman, sharpshooter and expert. It will become more challenging because shooters will be qualifying as they’ll fight.
37. Marines rifle squad
When Marines head out of the next deployment later this year, they will operate in a kind of rifle squad that top Marine leaders see as the future of the Corps’ core unit and a way to bring new technologies and capabilities to bear at the lowest tactical levels of warfighting. The unit is the first fully manned deploying unit in the Marine Corps at the 15-Marine rifle squad configuration. The move is an effort to put more capabilities in the squad, which some see as the base of the fight in a future battlefield that may require small numbers of Marines to operate in contested areas with a lot of firepower at their fingertips. Experimentation with different squad sizes, gear and weapons began several years ago, and recommendations ranged widely as to what changes would happen in a military element that’s remained largely unchanged for at least seven decades.
38. Battle Simulation Center
The Battle Simulation Center supports the Corps by providing units with various training simulations that assist in individual, small unit and staff level operations. The technology available helps the Marines feel a sense of realism of their environment as well as provide communication with artillery units, aircrafts and other Marines. The Battle Simulation Center will continue to provide Marines the training they need in preparation for their field exercises and ultimately their deployments. In constructive training the Marines can see what is supposed to be done in certain situations. Once the Marines understand what to do they move onto virtual training, where they can put their knowledge into action. The simulations allow the Marines to receive live feedback from their instructors, this allows the Marines to make mistakes and be corrected without risk of injury or loss of resources. After the Marines have had a chance to practice and be coached in a safe environment they can move on to live training.
39. Marines info unit
Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups, are the focal points for all information warfare capabilities within the expeditionary force. The Marine Corps is using wargames and exercises to game how to operationalize their new information environment commands. “How does the MIG, MEF Information Group, plug into the Navy? That’s a question Marine Corps leaders are continuing to work through. Trainning centers will help commanders better understand the threats and vulnerabilities in the information sphere. These centers are “always on” command and control nodes that work on understanding, planning and coordinating what the Marines describe as operations in the information environment. The centers work in concert with other Marine Corps Air-Ground Task Force operations in physical domains. The goal of these organizations is to show information warfare commanders the threats, vulnerabilities and opportunities that exist in their domain.
40. Marines personnel
No Marine mission can work without those who make the Marines run: logisticians, maintainers, supply experts, air traffic controllers, those who build our runways and maintain our systems and get the parts we need to keep flying. The MWSS is key to everything we do. It enables the ACE to perform their missions in steady state as well as austere conditions. The MWSS will be central to distributed lethality. Reactivated MWSG (Marine Wing Support Group) headquarters will serve in a C2 role over subordinate MWSSs. The MWSG will provide advocacy for the aviation ground support community and ensure a focus of effort to man, train, and equip the MWSS units in preparation for future expeditionary operations and concepts. The leadership and staff functions of the MWSG enable the commanding officer of the MAG to focus on the operations and maintenance requirements of the MAG while in garrison as he prepares them for combat.
41. Marines warfighting lab
Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory will refine and validate the proposed changes to the Fleet Marine Force and its operating concepts. Once the service is confident the proposed concepts are mature enough for adoption, the next step will be “refinement, validation, and implementation, This step is crucial because it will determine whether the operating concepts and structure are suitable for implementation. Experimenting, prototyping, and testing are distinct activities, and each has different roles in the evaluation of new ideas. The Warfighting Lab will develop the Force Design 2030 experimentation plan—and it is more than capable of developing and prototyping the necessary future operating concepts and force structures. But these must be validated independently, through a transparent and reproducible operational test prior to adoption.
42. Marines budget cuts
Marine Corps wants to make modernizing its equipment more affordable, so the service is weeding out old technology that’s either too expensive to run or hasn’t kept pace with advances made by near-peer adversaries. Recently, Marine Corps has focused on plugging capability holes created by decreased funding in several previous budget cycles and the current budget is geared toward improving lethality. As for the future budgets, efforts to modernise the Marine Corps will be important.
43. Marines capabilities lab Following the Advanced Naval Technology Exercise, ANTX, Marines were able to put generate requriements and some contracts in place after identifying some systems worth pursuing. For other technologies and experiments, the service can buy some systems that are ready for fielding or use what was learned through that experimentation to feed into requirements generation. What’s new about this approach and effort is the stand up of the Rapid Capabilities Office, that works to generate rapid requirements, then buy a few capabilities, put them in the experiment and then use that to take a concept of operations and inform our requirements fed back into the process and eventually into a program of record.
44. Marines digital ops
Marine Corps executes mission Digital threads primarily as an integrated MAGTF, organized to support the Marine rifleman. The integration of the MAGTF and the successful execution of mission threads rely on the effective exchange of critical information; communication, whether in the form of electronic data or voice, is critical to the exchange of mission-essential information. An effective network infrastructure is required in order to achieve effective end-to-end communication. The goal of MAGTF digital interoperability is to provide the required information to the right participants at the right time in order to ensure mission success, i.e., defeating the threat, while improving efficiency and effectiveness. This approach provides the additional advantage of responsible spectrum use, which becomes increasingly important as spectrum demands increase, as technology advances, and as our MAGTFs continually operate in more distributed and disaggregated operations.
45. Marines DIY 3D print
Marines are the first service to 3D print military-grade ammunition and spare parts for weapon systems. Service will deploy a tiny unmanned aircraft to become the first 3D printed drone used in combat operations by conventional forces. Marines see it as just the beginning of a new way of equipping and supplying forces in the field. Digital manufacturing is a technology the military has been pursuing for some time. The Pentagon made headlines when it disclosed an experiment in which swarms of 3D printed micro-drones were launched successfully from Navy Super Hornet fighter aircraft.
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