“If the Navy’s unable to get closer in because of the threat, we just can’t sit there and wait,” Brig. Gen. William Mullen said at Sea-Air-Space. The challenge is getting Marines through the threat zone alive.The Marine Corps is caught in a trap.
While recognizing the threat to amphibious ships by anti-ship missiles they still hold onto the belief that anti-air missiles will pose no problems for MV-22's bringing a Company Landing Team ashore!
The fact that people are overlooking this amazes me! The idea that the MV-22 suddenly solves the anti-access problem for the USMC astonishes me!
NOTE: Navy SEALs and Air Force Special Operations had their CV-22's shot up while on approach to a landing zone in Africa, by a primitive force with small arms only...no RPGs, and no MANPADs..the results? Several SEALs wounded and the aircraft having to abort the landing and limp to a nearby friendly base. Oh and this was simply a mission (according to the DoD) to help in the evacuation of US personnel.
Expeditionary Force 21 seeks to fully establish "mini-MEU's" in the form of the SPMAGTF-CR as a permanent formation in the Marine Corps, instead of an adhoc, mission specific, temporary unit as it was designed to be.
EF21 is half baked, seeks to justify the enormous expense of Marine Air in an age of austerity and hopes to give a failed Commandant a legacy that will justify the dysfunction he brought to the Marine Corps.
