Check this out from the Marine Corps Times...
To meet those challenges, the service could put a small special purpose MAGTF on the next generation LXR amphibious ship. While the ship — based on the hull of the Navy's current San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships — has space for two fewer landing craft air cushions, it has a much larger flight deck, O'Donnell said.We're gonna need different types of amphibious ships to make this concept work.
That provides more capability with air assets, which is significant he said, because Marine forces will be able to disaggregate for distributed operations.
That means it could be used as a "single deployer" floating on its own with a crisis response unit aboard. That closely mirrors comments made by Lt. Gen. Kenneth Glueck, commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, who said in September that in 2015 he would explore the possibility of placing crisis response units on Navy mobile landing platform ships.
It give Marines a faster response time when carrying out missions like the evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in South Sudan, about a year ago, or the one in Libya in July. The Marines had to deploy from Móron, Spain. While they were able to successfully complete their missions, they had to fly long distances to do so.
Distributed operations, as implied by the theme of this year's symposium — Surface warfare: Distributed Lethality, Going on the Offensive — will define the Marine Corps' future.
If we're talking about amphibious ships becoming single deployers then we need something like the Mistral and not the LXR.
The wing has won.
* It just occurred to me that the MEU as we've known it is probably dead. Infantry Battalions will simply be broken up to be farmed out to SPMAGTF's and mini MEUs aboard single deployer ships. Someone said that the reason why the Marine Corps performed so well in the Korean War while the Army suffered is because they formed adhoc combat teams that were not able to bring combined arms to the fray in the same way as USMC units.
Since Solomon tends to like no BS videos about actual training on the ground and interaction between multiple AFV's in an exercise-
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkM-6qrKyRk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv2S_AR4iAE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLUobRjiaFc
The first one is a cameraman embedded with a foot patrol in a Joint Exercise
The second one is Indian BMP-2's and US Strykers operating in the Thar desert. The sound comes on a minute into the video. And its celebration in the end.
The third one is of a joint firing exercise between Indian and US troops in India.
They are all part of the Yudh Abhyas series of exercises which I think have become an annual affair now.
Can't win a war but boy are they sure lookin' to retreat in /style/...
ReplyDeleteGeeze, they'd be better off without thier own air wing at all, may as well put them under the airforce rather than the Navy. Don't need ships if you only bring infantry.
ReplyDeleteAccording to DAPA's industry RFI issued yesterday, there will be a new AAV for the ROKMC. This AAV will be ready in about 10 years and will have a 1,200 HP engine to boost the swimming speed to 12+ knots and armed with a 40 mm gun similar to the one equipped on the K-21 IFV. With the USMC's EFV out of the way, DAPA hopes to sweep the world market for this next generation AAV.
ReplyDeleteSOL I agree that the USMC has tilted distinctly to aviation forms of assault. That was made obvious by the LXR rqmts and how the program was formalized. There is going to be much fallout from that when it comes to amphibs force structure. We got to ask where/how are the "connectors" aka landing craft going to be brought into a location when needed to go ashore? I mean the LSD has more landing craft spots than the LXR or BPC or several other amphib support ships. I think the MLP is POS design because those two hulls could have been built to lift in many more landing craft.
ReplyDeleteAND if the LXR or other PHIbFORCE is going to be used in the future, where will the cargo be. Meaning the larger tactical equipment, ammo, provisions, etc of which the LXR only has limited capacity and which is now the forte of the LSD.
A lot of the big and heavy cargo is on MPS. The problem is how to get that cargo off quickly. and of course the Marines disdained for anything which is NOT a purpose built amphib warship.
Not to forget that the T-AKE will be major platforms in the logistics chain of future Gator ops.