Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Ok. I'm confused. What exactly is a Marine Expeditionary Brigade????

via Marine Corps Times...
More recently at a Washington, D.C., event, Maj. Gen. Frank McKenzie, Marine Corps representative to the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, discussed the significance of the Marine expeditionary brigade, a force significantly smaller and lighter than the 2,200-strong Marine expeditionary units, to Marine Corps planning for future crisis response.
“(MEBs are) fully manned, they can go on very short notice,” he said. “They would have the capability to go forward, to fall in on an existing MEU, or to fall in on joint forces that are forward deployed.”
Working with two Navy dock landing ships en route from Okinawa and air support from the Ospreys and four KC-130J Hercules, Marines in the Philippines are able to play to the strength of their amphibious pedigree, the assistant commandant said.
“So this is part of the amphibious and expeditionary nature that the Navy and Marine Corps team prides themselves on,” Paxton said. “The Philippines happens to be one of those areas that is kind of uniquely, geographically relevant to the Navy-Marine Task Force.”
What the fuck is McKenzie talking about?

A MEB is suppose to be a much larger formation than a MEU!  Why would a MEB fall on to a MEU at the scene?????

This is just a bitched up SPMAGTF thats shed its ground vehicles for MV-22's.

I can't wait till we get a grunt as Commandant.  He's going to have a lot of field daying to do to clean up this huge aviation only clusterfuck thinking that these confused, arrogant, misguided son of a bitches are doing to my Corps.

I marvel at the thought that with the massive clean up thats going to take place that the MV-22 is considered the bell of the ball.  The Filipino people need a fully realized Ground Combat Component vehicle set to get real relief, not just images for public consumption.

You need engineer vehicles to remove debris.  MTVRs to deliver food.  AAVs to get to places that are remote.

All the MV-22 will do is blow around enough debris to cause further injuries. 

4 comments :

  1. He's talking about the deployment of an "Enhanced MAGTF Operations"HQ, the
    MAGTF level extension of Distributed Operations that the Marine War Lab has been working on.

    DO dealt with Squad/Platoon level structure & operations; Enhanced Company Operations, ECO dealt with developing MAGTF-level capability in Company-sized Units; EMO brings a rapid, flexible, Theater-level MAGTF planning cell that can be put in place & pull together various Marine units for Crises.

    The Marine Corps War Lab based EMO on what Gen Mattis did with Task Force 58. On short notice he combined 2 MEU(SOC)s with a stripped down MEB Command Element of 32 Marines (usually well over 300 Marines). EMO was designed to come off the back of an Osprey.

    New training puts distance between HQ and units

    http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/article/20110524/NEWS/105240325/New-training-puts-distance-between-HQ-and-units

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry, I was trying to fix the spelling errors. I'm typing on my phone.



    1) You need to stop seeing things as absolutes or you'll never understand anything going on. 

    The DO Platoon as demonstrated in the War Lab LOEs 2003-2006 were a vehicle, they were never going to be fully adopted but through came a $19 million upgrade in the comms of the Rifle Squads/Platoons in every BN; DTCS (Netted Iridium), Combat Hunter, the Squad Fires program, & more.
    ECO mainly focused on deploying company-sized units independent of BN HQs through CLIC (Intel) & CLOC (Operations). Your seeing this in play now with SPMAGTF-CR so do you understand what your talking about or just mindlessly rant?

    Task Force 58 was never officially called a MEB. It was a creation of Mattis on the fly. He was 1st MEB Cmdr at the time & instead of deploying his traditional MEB he pushed for a stripped down MEB Command Element of 32 Marines to take command of the 26th & 15th MEU(SOC)s combining to form TF-58.

    The requirement for the CE to be Osprey-borne predates Amos & goes back to when Mattis was the CG of the MCCDC the parent command of the War Lab. 

    What then Brig Gen Mattis in '01was innovate on the fly, EMO was designed to take that & formalize it into a blueprint for MEB Cmdrs to quickly strip down their MEB CE's for rapid, tailored missions that don't require mobilizing the whole MEB.

    Who is the Marine in charge of HA/DR right now in the Philippines?? 3rd MEB Cmdr, with a stripped down MEB staff.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eric.

      you are full of shit my friend. why do we need a stripped down MEB command to take charge of a MEU sized force.

      it makes no sense and you know it.

      this can't be justified and like another commenter said it just gives a flag officer a billet. what should have been done is that a SPMAGTF be created (adhoc) to deal with this short term issue.

      a MEB is not the right tool. additionally you can bet your bottom dollar that friction is being added instead of reduced because of this move.

      last. the MV-22 isn't God. why are we designing the entire Marine Corps to fit in the back of a helicopter.

      Delete
  3. Not the MEB, the MEB CE.

    Like the MEU the MEB is a Theater-level asset. Unlike the MEU it's full force it's not preassembled, on the seen ready to go. Also unlike the MEU it's designed for sustained operations. Along with that the MEU has other properties.

    So what do you have?
    1) A MEU that can quickly arrive on scene & has the assets to play an immediate role, but can't stay.

    2) A MEB that can provide sustained engagement, a flag-level Command & Control but would need time to mobilize as a unit.

    So how do you round that square peg?

    You enable a rapidly deployable MEB Command Element that load in Ospreys & immediately take command of all Marine & Naval forces under a single flag officer tailoring a response, using the MEU for immediate assistance while developing a longer action plan freeing the MEU with MEB assets.

    ReplyDelete

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