The US Army in Air-Sea Battle. How will they get in the game?

The Army Chief looks at the Chairman and feels his blood pressure rising. He counts to ten before he speaks.  He wanted this to come out in a calm and measured way.  He failed.  This is fuckinig bullshit.  I've got 500,000 soldiers ready to go to war and you're telling me you don't need them.  FUCK YOU!  Fuck you all!

The Marine Commandant worked hard to conceal his smile.  This shit is fun!  Luckily he was able to contain his laughter and replied, well calm down John, which units are you gonna send?  Your Strykers aren't integrated with our amphibs and the MPS ships will take to long to get to theater.  You're gonna send your air assault units?  I thought we all agreed that we wouldn't be doing any more dog and pony shows...so no, we're not going to empty an aircraft carrier to carry your helos to the Pacific...besides, after that Haiti nonsense it took weeks for you all to get them back together after the saltwater worked its magic on them.

That only leaves your airborne forces and they're not mechanized.  They'll be foot mobile and that means they won't be able to pursue and destroy the enemy.  I'm afraid your boys are sitting this one out.  The Army Chief knew this was coming, his own staff had informed him of the issues.

He still had one card to play.  Time to get some allied help...Ok, Allen tell me this war plan again.  Allen was the new Air Force Chief of Staff.  They played golf and lifted weights together.  If he was going to get on board it was by the help of his long time friend.  Wow.  I really hate to tell ya but this plan is solid.  It just doesn't have any Army involvement this time out.  We've got a mix of Communist, Insurgents and Terrorist operating on the Philippine Island chain and between our fighters and UAVs out of Clark along with a Carrier Battle Group and Expeditionary Strike Group, we pretty much have this covered.  We'll be using our C-17's to ferry in high priority people and materials but we'll be landing the Marines on the southern most island and between Air Force, Navy and Marine Air they'll be covered the whole way.  Our UAVs will provide intel and you know SOCOM is already trying to get the lead on this so we have more than enough grunts running around.

The Army Chief was feeling a migraine coming on.  Those fucking cowboys in SOCOM always wanted to get camera time.  They more than had their hands full with the cluster that is Afghanistan but the news media had moved on so they were wanting out.  Still he saw an opening.

How long are operations set to continue?  The Navy Chief finally spoke up.  We're looking at a time scale of 15 days once the first Marines hits feet dry.  We've been told that under no circumstances will the mission go longer.  OK, now the Army Chief was in full migraine mode and the gloves were coming off.  So why can't my paratroopers drop in on these little fuckers and you can send your Marines back out to patrol the waters again?  The Commandant was really starting to like this new Army Chief.  He picked the wrong service but he was feisty!  He could feel the Army Chiefs pain so he wouldn't insult him with platitudes.  Its because little groups of paratroops spread all over the jungle is a recipe for disaster.  Even if we landed them at Clark and helo'ed them in they'd still be foot mobile and we're looking at pursuing them across several islands.  I'll tell ya what they can do.  Remember Panama when we had a company of Marines involved in what was an army effort?  Give us a Battalion of paratroopers for force protection at Clark...my FAST Company will take care of Subic Bay and you can tell the media that Army units are in the fight.

Damn it!  The Army Chief wondered how his predecessors could set the Army up for failure with their planning.  They refused to get light enough to fight and wouldn't get their light infantry and paratroopers the kind of vehicles necessary to fight in the Pacific.

More to come.

Oh and in this particular scenario the Army was left out completely.  Air Force Security forces pitched a bitch and would be providing force protection for Clark.  SOCOM's Army units got involved but they no longer considered themselves Army.

NOTE:
Air Sea Battle has to encompass more than just dealing with area denial threats.  It has to embrace an entirely new way of fighting wars in the future.  This is one of the ways that I see it playing out.