Above you see MEU Mission Essential Tasks (pg 16). They're drilled, rehearsed and practiced till they become almost routine.
I've either watched or participated in every mission set listed above to include airfield seizure but there is one that I've never witnessed.
Port seizure.
This is piggy backing on the MLP discussion. Why is it that we practice airfield seizure but not port seizure. Did you know that the Marine Corps has a manual for practically everything it does. Its a common truth that some take as a joke. Additionally tribal knowledge is passed through either word of mouth or by professional writings. I have never seen an article in the Gazette that cover the subject.
One of our stated core competencies has essentially been ignored.
Are you one of those that is calling for a major role for MARSOC? This is it. Coupled with an MEU or MEB, this is a mission set where they would be welcomed due to the sheer complexity of the task (at least in my mind and I've been a critic).
Its a win-win. You want a real mission for MARSOC? This is it. You're a big believer in the traditional Marine Corps? This is that mission. You like joint operations? You're going to need SeaBees attached to the assault wave. It might be nice to have Coastal Riverine Force follow on shortly after the seizure.
This is the capability that we must start practicing. Port seizure should become as routine a tasking as Tactical Recovery of Personnel and/or Aircraft (TRAP) missions.
I would have assumed that after taking a beach, seizing a port was the second most important job of USMC and considered quite routine.
ReplyDeleteyou would think but it just isn't so. just trying to wargame it in my mind and its difficult....maybe more difficult than an amphibious assault.
DeleteA port would be harder due to the infrastructure that is supposed to be preserved for future use by the US forces and the urban terrain that houses the local population that we are don’t target due to media? A beach would be either non-contested with no enemy or if the enemy is on the beach, there no civilians be in harms way like at Normandy?
ReplyDeleteThe problem with that is, that a MEU and Amphibious assault group doesn't have a frigate for Naval Gun Fire support for the Marines ashore.
ReplyDeletewould you even want to use naval gunfires during a port seizure? you better hope that MARSOC or some other entity can give you good coordinates for strike missions...
DeleteIt was done in Korea during the Korean War in the Battle of Inchon. They used Cruisers, Destroyers and Frigates for Naval Gun Fire support ashore. Here's the Wiki on it
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Inchon
Naval gunfire would work against the effort of port seizure, if your hope is to turn that port around for your own use. The object would be to capture the port and port facilities intact. Naval gunfire wouldn't assist that effort.
ReplyDeleteTime to get the three letter secret squirrels in gear with plastic tubs full of money to rent or flip the OPFOR while targeting the C2 nodes of the defenders. No need for naval gunfire?
ReplyDeleteIf you can't deliver the GCE from OTH-'Out-of-harm's-way' for the ARG, then bringing in RoRos is an unattainable objective - hence the absence of exercises to do so.
ReplyDeleteIraq taught a lot of hard ugly lessons about urban warfare. And Ports are typically part of a dense urban environment where even M1A2s had to be up-armored with TUSK. It would only take a few back-pack mortars on bikes to give you a serious headache, first from harassment and disruption of just getting RoRos in, never mind tied up and into unloading-mode. And then they'd get good at 'hit-&-run'. Would you raze whole city-blocks 'in return' ?
When would you be justified to declare 'pacification' to bring in fat targets ?
In any urban setting asymmetric warriors will just wait silently.
Eventually your roaming mortar-jockeys and RPG-'heroes' would break-out their hardware and try anything to get the fruits of their labor on Al-Jazeera, CNN and Congressional Post-Disaster Investigation Schedules.
No urban choke-point ambitions.
Instead, broad multiple over-the-beach and up-the-river insertion-points that you can begin to protect some some of.
So it's back to the vital role of Connectors...
No way to do amphibious assault without GCE-First-Wave Capability, and preferably more than that, i.e. 4-vessel ARG incl. new-built cheap but modern LSD-41 alongside the 8 old ones, the LPD-17 and LHD.
And that would offer you 12x LCU-F, 5x LCAC spots along with lots of floating infrastructure to support ACE etc...