The Marine Corps has a tremendous opportunity sitting right in front of it IF it has the audacity to act boldly, dump an ill conceived formation and make it the force of choice for Combatant Commanders.
How about we make our MEU's reinforced by attaching an AFSB to the Amphibious Ready Group?
How would we do it? First we have to dump the SPMAGTF-CR. Land based Marine units that fly in on MV-22's, supporting units hundreds of miles away and expecting them to be combat capable is a recipe for disaster.
Correcting that mistake will be easy...all it will take is a wave of a pen by the current Commandant. Acknowledging that the SPMAGTF-CR was not the way to go will be hard.
But the benefits will be tremendous. We will be floating an extremely powerful combat unit that will handle most low intensity situations with ease. We're talking about a plus up of maybe 200 infantrymen (I think, not sure how many Marines can be transported on the AFSB or whether extra space is available on the rest of the ARG)...an additional number of MV-22s, CH-53s, AH-1Zs or UH-1Ys...or you could simply keep the number of helos the same, transfer some to the AFSB and plus size your firepower on the big deck amphib by increasing the number of Harriers carried!
The idea needs work but I think it has merit.
Regarding land based Marine units that (might) fly in on aircraft, that's called air assault and it's an Army mission. In fact there is a division devoted to it. "The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) provides our Nation an unmatched expeditionary Air Assault capability to conduct forcible entry and other worldwide unified land operations in support of combatant commanders." The US Army field manual FM 1-02 (FM 101-5-1) describes air assault operations and the Sabalauski Air Assault School at Ft. Campbell teaches it. Airborne Marine units? An Amos wet dream, and he's gone.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that the Marines have a new commandant, a graduate of the Amphibious Warfare School.....hello, anybody home?
EXTREMELY well said.
DeleteI do not know anything about the billeting on the AFSB. Do you know if it has the racks and life support to sustain this many Marines?
ReplyDeleteThese were being built when i went through EWS and I did not receive any information on them so i know nothing about this platform other than what has been published in open source spaces.
a berthing barge (whatever that is) is suppose to accommodate 298 people. i don't know if that can be expanded but thats what i based my estimate on (its via Wikipedia)
ReplyDeleteFor extremely short duration operations, what does this offer over the current task org? Remember by law the USMC can't conduct land operations without the US Army for more than 6 months. So if it beefing up an initial entry package that it all well and good, especially if there is a "port seizure" mission attached so the Army can offload Afloat Prepositioned Stocks to fight inward in Brads and Abrams.
ReplyDeleteIf it is truly forced entry, it will be joint. We don't need to build USMC formations that are designed to "go it alone" because that is a recipe for inefficiency and unnecessary redundancy.
this would be useless in a forcible entry scheme. the AFSB is not a combat ship and no Navy commander would hazard his ship unless absolutely necessary...especially one not designed for it. my proposal would give an MEU increased flexibility though. you would have an additional 200 infantrymen for the dull and dirty. humanitarian assistance, small scale combat ops like embassy reinforcement and evacuation...TRAP missions would be substantially boosted making them more effective....mechanized, short duration raids would have added punch (as will heliborne raids), anti piracy ops would cover a larger area....and displays of force would be more impressive.
Deletei guess the biggest benefit would be that we would have something to do with a ship that really had no mission.
sea basing? really? seriously? we don't need the MLP to do that! quite honestly this is a blast to the past. we once sailed with 4 ship ARGs. this is a return to what we once did.
as far as stepping on roles. not at all. we're adding a few hundred infantry and the scope of operations will not change in the least. the MEU is simply getting a bit more punch.
I guess then the question is whether the additional combat power is worth the pain of changing the task organization. If it helps the USMC do all the Marine only missions by all means make the change, but a geographic combatant commander is probably not concerned about the specific structure of a Marine unit until the Request for Forces (RFF) is submitted. 200 men is about two Companies worth, so it is "tactically useful" as you've noted, but it is probably not a strategic concern for the 4 Star making war plans.
DeleteBerthing barges are typically used by the Navy to billet sailors during repairs to thier ships. They are fully functional with chow halls and all equipment, berthing areas, heads, storerooms, ect. However, the Navy does not have an over abundance of these. The majority of the ones currently in use were actually built in the 40's and have been upgraded over the years.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.shipscribe.com/usnaux/APL/APL02.html The link is to those currently, or past, in the inventory.
They can accomodate more than 200 personnel (Carriers utilize them during pierside repairs), but as I said above, they do not have that many available.