Have you ever been absolutely certain that the "supposedly smartest guys in the room" were smoking crack on a particular subject but you couldn't get others to believe you because it went against conventional wisdom?
If any of the above applies then welcome to my world. Or at least what was once my world when it came to Marine Corps doctrine until CIMSEC published this article (read it here). The main take away? I was right, HQMC was wrong...Check out these tidbits...
The Marine Corps recently rolled out their Expeditionary Force 21 (EF21) “vision,” which states that Marines will need to be able to conduct ship-to-shore operations from 65 nautical miles away—an incredible distance for any kind of surface assault. The analysis (or lack thereof….EF21 was developed independent of the U.S. Navy) behind EF21 is the belief that amphibious ships will be susceptible to coastal-defense cruise missiles (CDCMs). Rather than adhere to joint doctrine, for some inexplicable reason the Marine Corps has decided the way around enemy capability is not to neutralize but rather to swim right through it with future high-speed amphibious combat vehicles (ACVs).That kinda explains the issues with getting the ACV into service doesn't it. A massive amphibious assault and the Marine Corps is going solo? Ain't gonna happen and leadership knew it.
The Marine Corps refuses to accept that the U.S. Navy and the joint force will first set conditions for any possible future amphibious assault in accordance with Joint and Naval Doctrine, which currently allows for the first amphibious assault wave to be launched within 12 nautical miles (or closer)—not 65 nautical milesHow many times have you heard me bitching about the arbitrary distance that Amos was peddling? How many times have you heard me talk about rolling back enemy defenses and setting up corridors for our AAVs, LCACs, LCUs and JHSVs?
Although the short, take-off, and landing version of the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is possibly the best fighter jet ever built, it is not a close-air support platform and was never intended to be. The F-35 is designed for high-end, air supremacy operations during the setting of battlefield conditions that occur long before landing forces ever arrive in theater.Maybe the powers that be are finally catching on to what ever Jar Head below the rank of general has known all along.
We can only hope.
Sidenote: Make no mistake about it. Freeman is part of what I call the Special Ops Cabal inside the Marine Corps that has had the ear of the former Commandant. Notice his comparisons of the Marine Corps to SOCOM over and over again? He can be right on the doctrine needing fixing and wrong on the solution. The author fails to realize that SOCOM takes "the best" of the conventional forces, has lavish funding and can call on conventionals for outstanding support. Additionally they have the option of saying "no" we can't do that. The doctrine needs fixing, but reality must be acknowledged. Freeman doesn't do that.
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ReplyDeleteOdd, I thought the F-35 was a bomber which was limited in air supremacy. Or at least that was what many were complaining about. You sure you didn't get it flipped around Sol?
ReplyDelete"The F-35 is designed for high-end, air supremacy operations"
ReplyDeleteHilarious, tell me another.
the comment is ridiculous but it IS how the USAF is pitching the plane now. but you're getting lost in the forest here. the main takeaway should be that no matter how you define the airplane its the wrong airplane for the USMC.
DeleteTHAT SHOULD BE THE FOCUS...at least as far as this particular article is concerned.
That is hilarious. And F35 fans seem to change their story.
DeleteOne party admits that it is not a air superiority fighter/dogfighter and not a CAS aircraft, but its still awesome because "stealth!" and "sensor fusion!"
Another party claims that it is and it can do CAS better than A10s. That its basically jesus.
There are a couple of things here that undermine Freeman's credibility. The first is the statement, ",,,it is not a close-air support platform and was never intended to be". CAS is the main reason for Marine tacair. When the Marines were directed to join the JSF (which became F-35) program, the role for their F-35B was CAS. When you look at all the ordnance they plan to carry unde the wings, it's obvious that stealth is not of prime importance to them . It's arguable that if they had been allowed to continue with their own program, USMC would have produced a simpler, more focused STOVL platform, but a CAS platform is what the F-35B was always intended to be.
DeleteAs far as "The F-35 is designed for high-end, air supremacy operations..." goes, this further undermines Freeman. Even USAF itself says teh F-35 needs the F-22 to handle the air supremacy role. While it might have a good self defense capability, no one is saying they intend it to primarliy be an offensive air combat aset. The US F-35s wil have a total A2A armament of two AIM-120s and )sometimes) a limited effectiveness gun. Because of its larger bays, theoretically the F-35 coud internally carry more AIM-120s than the F-22, there is no work ongoing to add the necessary "plumbing". While more could possibly be carried externally, that kind of wipes out the stealth (see above) which is critical to F-35's operations. With a small AESA, and less stealth than the F-22, it will be involved in more "close in" engangements. AIM-9X is needed to take advantage of the DAS capabilities and for close in operations, but it can not be carried internally, so stealth is once again compromised.
Agilitywise, in 2013 DoD reduced the required performance in both accelertion and turning capability that F-35 had to achieve. Test crews have said it turns like a heavily loaded F-16. While the F-35 still has to achieve a 9g instantaneous rate of turn, required sustained turning performance has been reduced to 4.6g, roughly comparable to an F-4.
Am i just some Luddite or have unmanned systems proven to be that awesome real world attempts to use them? I am asking because i have never been impressed with them in real life. Yes they make awesome science fiction but in real life vehicles break, vehicles get stuck and terrain that looks passable on a map turns out to be anything but passable. All of the situations require people to get the vehicle moving again.
ReplyDeleteYou're not the only one. I long thought that the original purpose of the UAV has been lost with each successive "model" they put out. Cheap disposable ISTAR/ECM assets which are now so expensive they are no longer cheap nor disposable.
DeleteI'd love to see how the US is going to justify using Global Hawk like how the Israelis did during Mole Cricket. (As missile magnets). Come to think of it, where ARE the US's small, cheap, disposable UAVs? Unless they are planning to use target decoys for the same job? Which is possible.
Well we do have many varieties and even the predators are not super expensive at 5 million each. I am not sure on the cost of a Shadow.
DeleteUsually the infrastructure to run these things bogs everything down, the predator or even a shadow is hardly a small footprint asset. Scan Eagles are getting closer but they usually need at least a couple of vehicles dedicated to them to keep them operational.
You're not a luddite, you're a realist that is unconvinced by the mythology and exaggeration behind UCAV's capabilities.
DeleteThey are very useful assets that opens up a lot of possibilities for us, but to portray them as potential replacements for manned aircraft? hogwash. And they wont be until another half a century of development, easy.
Well the author of the article is not even talking about just UAVs but unmanned ground systems as well. Sea and Air systems are a piece of cake compared to ground systems. The infamous example of a popped open paper bag in the road is the perfect example of the limitations of a ground vehicle. Does the vehicle just drive over it? Because if it does it will also try to just drive over a concrete block in the road and results are usually different between running over a paper bag and concrete block. Does it drive around? Go over very slowly? Stop and ask for directions?
DeleteFrom what I have seen the most accomplished that we have become with a self driving vehicle was a 7-ton that perfectly followed the manned 7-ton in front of it. It cut down on the numbers of drivers you needed and was also a safer driver LCpl in the follow on truck. The advantage is you can cut down the number of drivers you need in a convoy or allow your drivers to rotate and get more sleep. But that is far cry from sending an unmanned vehicle ashore from 20nm form see and having it find dug in camouflaged anti-tank teams and infantry positions.
The best weapon you got In any army is a soldier who's well trained well armed and determined to go all the way to accomplish his mission ... That being said a good integrated doctrine of employment of your forces is an indispensable prerequisite for success ... Now regarding this EF21 vision I'm a bit out of my depth to explain it ... Sounds so out of touch with so many things it seems almost grotesque
ReplyDeleteRobert Work, now Deputy SecDef, co-authored this article for Proceedings Magazine in 2010: (extracts)
ReplyDelete"Hitting the Beach in the 21st Century
"...There will be no 10- to 14-day deploy/arrive/ landing scenarios in an A2/AD environment. A joint theater-entry operation will be a deliberative undertaking with weeks of pre-landing shaping operations. Only after these have successfully identified, isolated, and sanitized access areas would littoral maneuver begin. In this critical phase, both surface and vertical-assault elements may have to start from farther offshore than we do today. But against adversaries with less powerful A2/AD networks or networks that have been neutralized, the force could be much closer to shore. Obviously, this would facilitate more rapid maneuver to secure, extend, and clear the lodgment.
"Once ashore, the primary threat to the lodgment will come from G-RAMM counterattacks and hybrid warriors who will hide among the people and complex terrain and employ ambush tactics. The Marines will have to concentrate on gaining entry ashore and establishing an inner perimeter designed to keep G-RAMM suppressed or out of range."
--Work is a 27-year Marine veteran and, pertinent to strategy, was the first head of the Marine Corps' Strategic Initiatives Group. More recently Work is promoting Third Offset Strategy -- Toward a New Offset Strategy: Exploiting U.S. Long-Term Advantages to Restore U.S. Global Power Projection Capability.
That sounds more precise and thought through than the initial EF21 vision "thing". However I would have some questions about the idea of "weeks" of prelanding operations to shape operations. This would indeed be a very critical phase, crucial to success or failure of future landing operations. It might also be a period of time when the involved forces are most vulnerable to adaptable and maeouvering and well synchornized ennemy, especially if logistics and support units are quite far offshore. Not sure about the assessment of main threat coming from G-RAMM and hybrid warriors only ... depends which potential theater of ops we talking about, but i have seen nothing about prospect of an ennemy equiped with a fleet of gun ships for example ... which is perfectly realistic for the 21st century. Also the ability to hit assault fleet at a large distance from the shore, with 'unconventional means of attack' does not seem to be addressed here. Last but not least, I fear the tradition of US amphibious operations of direct assault of the target has again taken precedence over possibility of 'soft' landing followed by extensive ground manoeuver before engaging the ennemy.
DeleteMy thoughts, but then again, who am I to criticize the experts ...
Dang, That Painted Raptor looks cool, kinda like the Old P-26 Peashooters paint scheme pre WW2.
ReplyDeleteOsprey is also called fish-hawk, but that doesn't make it a raptor.
DeletePersonally I wouldn't want to attempt to enter the littoral zone or EEZ (exclusive economic zone) of a hostile country with a sophisticated Air-Sea force like china without having the airforce sanitize the area and decimate their Air-Sea defences and fly in AWACs and Sea-patrol planes first.
ReplyDeleteEspecially given how poorly defended LPHD/LPDs are in general (US ones not so much), what massive targets they are, and the lack of suitable smaller screens to protect them. We are looking at countries like China with complicated early warning systems and regular (cold war era, level) patrols being able to throw 1000+ Fighters with potentially Hypersonic Cruise-missiles of a stand-off range into giant Killzones filled with large submarine and surface fleets. And these are backed up by TEL-IRBMs designated as anti-shipping batteries which they 'claim' are not equiped with nuclear warheads.
Ontop of that they have litterally thousands of small seagoing fishing vessals that could be armed with hypersonic, potentially nuclear armed missiles. Frankly unless killzones like that are dismantalled first it would be a miracle if anything ever came out of one alive, or in a recognizable form. Let alone something with a giant target painted on it.
Yep, hadnt read your mail before i posted a reply above, but absolutely concurr as to potential dangers you're mentioning.
DeleteOn the other hand, they have a big coastline and not every square inch of it is covered by radar. MH-370 showed us that not all countries have every inch of their coastline monitored, so there is a possibility of "gaps". Take the US for example. Where is your nearest coastal monitoring radar or station in your neighbourhood? (If you live near the coast that is.) Drive along the coast. How much of it is covered by radar? You know immigrants and smugglers still slip through.
DeleteTo exploit your enemy's radar gaps would require hard work and planning to track patrol schedules, radar sites and their lines of coverage etc. Not impossible, but a serious PITA and very risky.
OTOH, "encouraging" radars to fail sounds like it's just up the alley for first in Spec Ops teams.
The joke might go over some people's heads but for Asian watchers like me, the N-TR number of the Osprey made me smile.
ReplyDeleteNTR (neotare) = The protagonist's girl gets screwed by someone else.
I have read the article, I have read everyone’s comments. Seems to me this forum is missing the point....the Marine Corps, we all know and love, is in serious danger of becoming irrelevant due to decisions being made unilaterally. Joint doctrine is the bible on how we do business. The Goldwater–Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 is the gospel all the armed services must work by. For the Marine Corps to think they would be the only game in town when it comes to an amphibious assault, is sheer stupidity! A MEU will NEVER storm a beach on its lonesome. But, even if it did, the thought that it would go alone, without any support from a carrier battle group or Air Force bombers and TACAIR, or even Army paratroopers seizing key points to link up to is crazy thought.
ReplyDeleteBut it seems that the Marine Corps higher leadership has been thinking just that. As much as we would like to believe, we, as Marines, are not the only game in town. Nor do we do anything alone. The initial assault into Afghanistan? SEALs were there for a week or so before we made the game changing helo launched assault into Kandahar. And what came right on the heels of our movement? Air Force C-17's loaded with Seabee gear to repair the runways. Somalia? Again, SOCOM was there before and paved the way.
I agree whole heartedly that the F-35B is the exactly wrong aircraft for the Corps. We need a ground support "A-10 esque" aircraft, tough and capable close air support aircraft. Air superiority belongs to Navy and Air Force fighters. What is wrong with working under the protections of those capable services while we do what we do? We are not losing anything in that scenario.
We need to keep the American public on our side. They have expectations of their Marine Cops and the day we lose that faith....we are doomed. Brute Krulak had it correct, the United States does not need a Marine Corps, the American public wants a Marine Corps. And the day we lose the American publics support....we need to case our flag.
The new Commandant needs to realign the ship and get it sailing correctly or we could find ourselves right back in 1947 and "The Little Men’s Chowder and Marching Society" days, fighting for our very survival.
Brute is turning over in his grave.
EXACTLY RIGHT!!!!! we would already have the ACV or whatever they want to call it if our doctrine was inline with common sense! we wouldn't even be considering the F-35 if our doctrine was right! we wouldn't even dream of the V-22, would have bought UH-60's and the CH-53K would already be in service if our doctrine was right!!!!
DeleteYOU GET THE FORCE OF CONNECTION HERE!!!!