“Marine Corps Budget Faces Challenges with Technology Too Expensive to Run or Not Kept Pace with Advances made by Adversaries “

To make modernising its equipment affordable, the challenge facing the Marine Corps  is finding money in the budget to afford modernisation. The current budget is the high-water mark for funding, and future budgets will not be larger.

In the Fiscal Year 2019 budget, the Marine Corps focused on plugging capability holes created by decreased funding in several previous budget cycles and the FY 2020 budget is geared toward improving lethality. As for the budgets in FY 2021 and beyond, they would be all about modernising the Marine Corps.

“It’s only going to get the same or less, in my opinion, down the road. So in order to modernise we have to divest.”

The Marine Corps developed a Requirements Oversight Council to weigh what to fund and what to cut. Divesting might be caused by new technology making older equipment obsolete, or the long-term maintenance cost of a program does not improve lethality.

During the FY 2019 budget process, the Marine Corps identified more than $567 million in savings, in part by identifying programs to either reduce or phase out entirely. These savings were part of an effort reforming how the Marine Corps buys equipment, which has saved about $3.6 billion.

One example is the Marine’s decision to cancel the survivability upgrade for the service’s legacy AAV-7 amphibious landing craft in favor of the new Amphibious Combat Vehicle.

Another example of divesting is how the Marine Corps is replacing its fleet of EA-6B Prowlers and the F-18 Hornets with the F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. The Marine Corps loses some of its electronic jamming capability by divesting its Prowlers, but the Corps could lean on the Navy’s fleet of EA-18G Growlers to complement more directed electronic jamming equipment mounted on land vehicles or even carried by Marines
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Instead, the Marine Corps is developing better means of defeating small unmanned aerial vehicles that are hard to detect with traditional radar, relatively cheap to deploy, and used by the full spectrum of adversaries.
The Marine Corps is developing improved lasers to track and fry the small vehicles and electronic countermeasures to disrupt the signals sent from operators.

“It’s easy to say we need this new thing or that new thing, but no one ever comes to the table with an offset. No one ever comes to the issue team and says, ‘We need this, and I’m going to trade that.”

“But we have to figure out where the trades our if we’re going to modernise and accelerate

“Marines Pursuing New Family of Amphibious Combat Vehicles with Multiple Variants to Carry Troops from Sea to Shore”

The ACV program is intended to replace the 40-year-old amphibious assault vehicle. The previous $3 billion replacement effort, deemed the expeditionary fighting vehicle, was canceled in 2011 because of the system’s poor reliability and cost growth.

ACV is an 8x8 platform with a 690-horsepower engine that can traverse 325 miles on land before refueling. The system can reach ground speeds of more than 65 miles per hour and carry 13 Marines and a crew of three with two propellers and mount up to a 40 mm cannon.

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.

“Ultimately, the balance between what was best value between survivability, performance and reliability and cost ultimately earned BAE the selection.”

“Once we completed the operational assessment, we wanted to get as much feedback from the Marines as possible.  Users provided “a very detailed assessment of their experiences operating the vehicles in areas where improvements could be made.”

The operational assessment led to “very minor changes” in the system’s design. “When it was all said and done, there really were no improvements made to the vehicle.  There were only minor engineering change proposals.
One modification the Marine Corps wanted was an increase in situational awareness so contractor upgraded the design with a 360-degree camera suite to meet the requirement. Previously the vehicles had 180-degree cameras.

“Marine Corps Continues on Path to Modernize Amphibious Systems to Allow Manoeuvre Capability in High-End Fight”

Marine Corps has had success with the Amphibious Combat Vehicle proving itself in harsh climates and acquisition officials making concrete decisions on what the replacement for the aging Light Armored Vehicle should be.

The Marine Corps spent late 2018 and much of 2019 testing 16 vehicles delivered by contractor during the ACV competition. Marine Corps originally planned to start with an ACV 1.1 vehicle that would include most of the desired features but may need assistance from a connector to move between the ship and the beach, and then eventually move to a 1.2 design that could independently swim. 

Marine Corps officials suspected during the competition that any potential winning design would be more sophisticated than the 1.1 requirements; in 2018 and 2019 a testing team from the contractor and the Marine Corps put the vehicle through its paces during on-land and at-sea tests and allowed the service to officially nix the distinction between the ACV 1.1 and the ACV 1.2 designs.

That decision was based on testing done by a team of ACV operators from contractor and the Marines’ new equipment training team, who conducted reliability growth testing with the 16 engineering and manufacturing development EMD vehicles delivered in the final stage of the competition. That testing showed that the vehicles produced in a serial production line could meet all ACV 1.2 requirements. 

The team had other responsibilities, including testing the Lot 1 vehicles coming off the production line and getting the 3rd Assault Amphib Battalion ready to begin working with the new vehicles, but they also found time to take the original 16 vehicles to continue testing them in harsh conditions and learning how the Marine Corps could best leverage this new capability.

The service’s original plan was to pursue the vehicle in different increments, where ACV Increment 1.1 would rely on ship-to-shore connectors. Increment 1.2 would be tracked and fully amphibious.

Marines decided to combine the programs into one ACV family of vehicles after determining that the systems were able to fulfill the requirements for both variants.

Increment 1.1 performed and exceeded the performance requirements in key areas that were the desired performance of the 1.2. “In essence, 1.1 gave us the 1.2 performance requirements, and so there was really no need to continue on with using the vernacular of 1.1, 1.2.”

“Decision to Combine ACV Increments into One Program Expected to Save Money and Create Questions on Capitol Hill”.

Marines need to bring gear to the fleet faster. It is much more cost effective, and now we can focus some of that research-and-development funding on what is past 1.2, not just redoing the R&D just for the sake of redoing it.”

As part of the family of vehicles, the service is seeking multiple variants. These include personnel; command-and-control; and recovery vehicles. Additionally, the Marine Corps decided to pursue a gunned variant that will have a 30 mm cannon to increase lethality.

The current acquisition objective is to obtain over 1, 100 total vehicles. So far, the feedback we’ve gotten from the Marines that operate this vehicle has been extremely positive.

With the consolidation of the program, “there will likely be a number of programmatic changes and potential ramifications for the ACV and ACV 2.0 programs.

So Marines need to explore questions such as: “What is the revised timeline for the replacement of AAVs and will this result in cost savings from not having to upgrade and maintain AAVs longer than previously intended?”

Consolidating the increments into one has been a positive step. It likely accelerated the timeline of multiple variants and “allowed us to pursue those solutions faster than doing it in a ... 1.1, 1.2 approach. It hasn’t had a negative impact on the schedule. It hasn’t had a negative impact on the program. … In many ways it makes it a more efficient program to execute.”

For the gun variant, Marine Corps is in the process of finalizing performance specifications for the 30 mm cannon and contractor has already made headway on the system by integrating a turret on one of its own prototypes to get early feedback, . 

“There’s a high degree of confidence both on contractor side and DoD side that integrating a 30 mm system is very manageable,.

When  the vehicle was conceived a decade ago, it was specifically designed for turret integration. The platform can carry over 6,000 pounds of payload without affecting its mobility on land or in the water.

Contractor must ensure that it picks a turret that is not too heavy for the vehicle because that will affect performance.

Marines need  a weapon system that isn’t overweight. “When contrator designed this vehicle to begin with, they built gross margin into the platform in order to accommodate additional capabilities.

The contractor also demonstrated an ACV equipped with a 40 mm cannon “in an effort to start fully vetting out the integration aspects of their vehicle” using its own internal research-and-development dollars.

However, DoD is not planning on pursuing a 40 mm cannon at this time. For the recovery variant, the service plans to begin creating the design “in earnest” in fiscal year 2022.

“Changes are Coming to Marines New Information 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.
Until recently, there was no way for the Marine Corps to know what was happening in that arena because there was no consolidated understanding of day-to-day or real-time actions. But with new information groups, the Corps will be able to reduce stovepipes and improve collaboration.
The information command centers will exist within the combat operations centers, essentially expeditionary command and control centers, which already provide Marine commanders with a picture of the physical battlespace from air, ground and logistics.
The data for the new centers will come from the Marine Corps Air-Ground task force and will include intelligence, and information on the electromagnetic spectrum. While officials said they do not have a formal program of record to provide such a common operational picture, they are pursuing a concept they call the Spectrum Services Framework. The idea for the concept is similar to the Army program, the Command Post Computing Environment, which is a web-enabled system that will consolidate mission systems and programs into a single user interface.
Each information group, which is led by a colonel with six subordinate battalion-level commands, is expected to perform at least 5 functions. The are: 1) assuring enterprise command and control, 2) providing information environment battlespace awareness, 3) attacking and exploiting networks, 4) systems and information informing/deceiving foreign target audiences and 5) controlling information capabilities, resources and activities.
Those capabilities are part of a broader effort to expand the scope of these forces over the next several years. Part of that initiative includes creating new organizations within existing formations and rebranding existing formations.
For example, the Marines created electronic warfare support teams and an aviation support element under its existing radio battalions.
Electronic warfare will be a big portion of fighting capability being restored in information spaces.
The aviation support element will provide signals intelligence and electronic warfare support in general support to each Marine air wing.
 

 
 
“Field Level Build of Unmanned Vehicles Promise Solutions to Air Lift/Distribution Domains Change How Marines Move Goods Into and Throughout Battlefield”

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.
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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, he described a scenario 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.
 
Leaders are asking to buy a lot of very basic UAVs and tack on mission packages as needed rather than buy expensive multi-mission UAVs. We would rather have 50 trucks at a low cost, then if 25 get shot down it’s not a disaster. Whereas if I only have 10 Swiss Army knife, does all things, and we lose those 10, not good. That’s our view on it-- operating these UAVs in a swarm tactic.
 
But UAVs aren’t the only unmanned vehicles Marines are eyeing. The Motor-T community is the second largest in the corps, behind infantry, and that a fleet of unmanned ground vehicles would save a lot of manpower and keep Marines safe from roadside bombs and other threats.
 
Marines are also interested in pursuring unmanned surface craft to bring goods from ship to shore and join the Navy in the undersea unmanned vehicle business, where small vehicles could be placed on the ocean floor and activated at a later time.
 
DoD envisions vehicles swimming to a designated location and bringing along the supplies stored inside whenever an operator sent out the electronic network signal. A small UAV could fly over and send out the signal, and a larger UUV could be sent out to distribute the undersea cache vehicles, further exploiting unmanned technology.
 
“So for the next 10 to 15 years it’s a hybrid logistics model, so you’ve got to move a lot of water, fuel and ammo to the battlefield to a heavier, more logistics-dependent force, but the way you offset that is bringing along these new technologies, the first being unmanned capability.”

The Marines are planning to take their do-it-yourself ethos further and begin prototyping, manufacturing and deploying full-blown 3D printed systems, such as surveillance drones.

The Marines will deploy a tiny unmanned aircraft dubbed the “Nibbler,” which would 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.
 
The Marines’ Nibbler is significant because it would operate just like other, far more expensive, portable unmanned aircraft that are used for “over-the-hill” intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
 
3D printing gained an early following in the military because it was seen as a solution to the perennial problem of shortages of spare parts for aging weapon systems. The Marines have embraced the technology, which they see as compatible with their “adapt and overcome” culture.
 
“Imagine being in a forward deployed environment, and you can ‘order’ the weapons and equipment you need for the next day’s mission from an entire catalog of possible solutions. These solutions can all be upgraded literally overnight, in order to integrate new components or adapt to new requirements. On a very small scale, Nibbler shows us that this is possible right now with the UAS family of systems.”
 
The goal is to have a “small manufacturing capability” locally. All that would be needed is a desktop printer, a box of components, and a spool of plastic 3D printing filament for a“near infinite set of different UAS that we could produce from those basic elements.”
 
The Nibbler will be used for surveillance missions, along with several other 3D printed unmanned aircraft that the Marines are still developing.We can have a backpack-able fixed wing UAS for long endurance ISR. We can have a small quadcopter for building clearing operations. “We will forward deploy these capabilities into a combat zone as soon as possible.”
 
A drone made by Marines in a trailer obviously will not be a substitute for high-end aircraft made by Pentagon contractors, but that is beside the point. “Ultimately, it's about optimizing specific mission needs to the equipment we use to fight those missions. Many of the requirements today could be met with lower end equipment, and often the priority is to get things fast, which is one reason this technology is catching on.
 
We see a future of “micro-factories” propping up in overseas combat zones and even on large Navy ships where troops will make spare parts and systems like drones, trucks and small radios. “On demand, as needed, closer to the point of need. That’s something we don’t have. We assume when we forward deploy, we bring every single thing we might need, just in case. The assumption today is that the supply chain may or may not support our needs.”

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review by several dispatch
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This ticket schedule item is currently under
review by several dispatch
teams. Installations have not yet responded with a quote

This ticket schedule item is currently under
review by several dispatch
teams. Installations have not yet responded with a quote

This ticket schedule item is currently under
review by several dispatch
teams. Installations have not yet responded with a quote