via Marine Corps Times...
The Spanish government will allow an additional 300 Marines to be based at Morón Air Base to respond to crises in Africa, the Defense Department announced Monday.Read the whole thing here.
The Marine Corps has the go-ahead to boost the size of its Special-Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force Crisis Response from about 550 Marines to 850, said Eileen Lainez, a spokeswoman at the Pentagon. Spain also will allow the unit to remain at Morón Air Base for another year.
The land-based crisis response force was stood up last year to fill a gap in available Navy amphibious ships in the region. The crisis-response Marines can be tapped to carry out a variety of operational missions — including embassy reinforcement — throughout Africa.
The unit typically comprises about 550 Marines, six MV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and two KC-130J aerial refueling planes.
Spain also approved additional Marine Corps aircraft to be based there, Agence France-Presse reported.
A couple of things stand out.
1. Amos is attempting to address the survivability issue of the unit by bolstering its numbers. This is a two part concern on his part. The first regards his legacy. Unless he can do a better sales job of the unit to the Corps then this will be another one of his ideas that is quickly tossed in the trash heap. The second deals with it attempting to replicate a MEU. Marines are tired of the second land army moniker that a few uninformed people tagged us with. This adds fuel to that fire. Quite honestly this is a US Army mission. As a matter of fact to be specific. THIS IS A 101ST AIRBORNE MISSION!
2. The next issue is the reality of Marine Corps manning and rotation. Why are we reinventing the MEU as a land and not sea based force? Do we have enough personnel to fully staff normal MEU and UDP deployments, and still run SPMAGTF-CR's? I know we have a GLUT of MV-22's but what about the Infantry, Logistics and other aircraft? I don't think so.
Long story short.
This is a legacy move on the part of Amos that is his attempt to have the history books look more kindly on his tenure as commandant.
It won't work.
This concept gets shit canned as soon as he leaves office on budget grounds alone.
Amos is done. No one is listening to him anymore and everyone is looking at their watches. Its past time for him to leave.
Just as all the smart money goes amphibious................. :)
ReplyDeleteMilitarily the West is stagnant. Your generals and admirals don't know what to do so are playing with aeroplanes and computer warfare. Our generals (in the UK) are creating a two tier army with all the money going into armour off set against troop reductions and a flawed reservist programme; the only projects we have that keep us relevant (CVF and Astute) are regularly panned here by defence pundits (often who wore green uniforms in their youth); I will ignore air ops in Libya that are held up here as expeditionary airpower yet to me show that we are not capable of it as the next fight will be far from our European doorstep, The Germans are on their way to becoming Switzerland and just don't seem to have any martial temperament. And finally even though French activities in Africa are collecting a lot of plaudits all they are doing is doing what they have been doing since they bailed on NATO in 1955; cheap mechanized warfare from bases in theatre (just like the old and bold SADF).
To me nobody seems to care where the actually fight is and actually what is involved. Troops on the ground in good numbers with good organic firepower and mobility (not armour) win battles not flying penny packets of men into the fire in expensive fragile vehicles being supported by even more expensive flying vehicles of low duration, (An AH is expensive way to bring a cannon and some rockets into play even it can move very fast.) Yet helicopters are all; even small ones take huge chunks of budget. (Apparently half the British Army's costs per year are to fund helicopter ops.) CAS is being used to help justify the purchase expensive platforms that are being purchased for strike. The guy on the grounds wants constant firesupport not a few bombs from an F35b that was bought to satisfy some strike requirement better answered with a bushell of TLAM. If you are being mortared the thing you want knocked is that mortar not the mortar team's boss' boss' boss' boss' a few hundred miles away.
I have on odd view on the Vietnam War. Militarily that war successful for the US. Yes it was. First put the politics to one side and concentrate on the military side. B52s dropping bombs in huge numbers, fail. Helicopter warfare, OK at first, and then it went down hill. But on the ground in terms of soldiers and marines (and sailors) doing the basics it was win after win . (Just as in the Sandbox if you take away the politics.) All your senior people seem to do want to do is repeat what failed in Vietnam with a 21st century twist.
i agree with everyone of your points. well said by the way, but i want to add that its much worse than that.
Deleteour generals, with the consent of a secdef that wore the uniform and knows better, along with a president that has little interest and no experience with the military, are playing politics.
instead of making sensible cuts that we could actually live with they're making cuts that put our national security in danger and hope to recoup those funds through forcing a budget deal or emergency appropriations to buy the equipment we REALLY need.
its laughable.
but the problem is that they've alienated enough retirees, vets, citizens interested in military affairs etc...that everyone is collectively saying fuck you all.
its even worse for the Marine Corps. cuts are coming, Marines are getting axed and we have leadership that still isn't serious about solving problems.
it is about men with rifles. Look at this Crimea Crisis, not at the right or wrong, just how it is being played out on the ground; men with rifles standing on real estate. We are in an age where the shooting war could last hours as somebody blinks and smart weapons are exchanged. But the period leading up to that firefight will involve men standing on real estate or threatening to stand on real estate for weeks or even months, Airborne forces can't do that. Really this is as much a European failure as USMC leadership problem as the need for this formation comes about (supposedly) through a lack of shipping. At the end of Cold War instead of moving from tanks to ships we Europeans just gave up on defence. A government deploying ships is being proactive; Europeans are reactive in defence hoping the Americans will be there. You see being proactive takes money. Having ships in service, trained crews, and well equipped takes money. And Europeans don't like to sully their hands with dirty business. After Afghanistan it will be the British way too.
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