The USMC as we knew it is over. Call it the US Airpower Marines.

via Marine Corps Times (do me a favor and read the entire article here before you take in my ramblings).

Dunford cited a question he fielded from an infantry captain during a visit to the Expeditionary Warfare School in Quantico, Va. The officer wondered whether the cutting edge MV-22 Osprey and F-35B aviation platforms had drawn attention and resources away from the Marines' rifle squads and its larger ground combat element. Should the Corps' ground contingent, he asked, have a dedicated general officer as an advocate, the way the aviation combat element did?

This question should have had Dunford and the rest of HQMC on full alert.  A revolt (of sorts) is brewing in the Ground Combat Element of the Corps and this type of question is the canary in the coal mine.

This is the ominous part...the part that tells me that the Marine Corps we all know...the USMC that has won battles for over 200 years is about to be changed forever....

For the ground combat element, he said, that means finding ways to do more with the Corps' high-tech air platforms, and to innovate beyond traditional infantry assault methods. Dunford called on a favorite example of 21st Century MAGTF operations: February 21 of this year, when the Marines' crisis response unit in the Middle East found itself operating in six countries simultaneously, between rifle companies and air elements.

Want to hear a pile of steaming manure that will almost guarantee that body bags will be filled because of a failed concept?  Check this out....

Platforms like the F-35, expected to reach initial operating capability this summer, represent vast untapped potential for the ground combat arms units as well, Dunford said.
"We're nowhere near capable of fully realizing or leveraging the kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities of that particular aircraft," he said.

Uh excuse me Sir but are you fucking serious?

Never in the history of the Marine Corps has so much been bet on weapon system, air or ground.  Now we see the entire Marine Corps being turned upside down because of the purchase of two airplanes....the MV-22 and the F-35.

What do I expect with the announcement?

You're going to see the Air Wing plus sized.  They have no choice.  The F-35 and the MV-22 are both maintenance hogs.  I expect to see the MEU/Battalion Landing Team all but trashed.  The big decks aren't going to be able to carry enough MV-22's to transport a Battalion Landing Team so you can expect that they're gonna try and baffle us with bullshit about how effective the Company Landing Team is.  You can pretty much bet that Marine Armor is dead.  Have you noticed that the major ground vehicle being purchased is the ITV?  And finally you can expect much talk about how the ISR, non-kinetic advantage that the F-35 brings will make up for the loss in firepower (what remains to be seen is what happens to artillery...I expect it to also be cut).

I don't understand this new Marine Corps...and I don't think I want to...


NOTE:  If you've ever taken on college course on business or even management then you're familiar with a topic that always comes up.  Why do change agents fail so often?  The answer is simplicity itself.  Change Agents fail because they push change so rapidly that the entity in question never adopts to the change.  Often you'll have buy in from leadership but those at the top never take the time to get buy in from the rank and file.  That's why the question from the Infantry Captain is so important.  Leadership is not properly assessing how these "changes" are being assessed by the people that they need to "buy in".  These concepts....these "new ways" of doing business will fail dramatically and it'll be for two reasons.  First they sound great in the classroom but in those settings everything works right (like the F-35) and second, the enemy gets a vote and will easily defeat an air centric Marine Corps.  HQMC is doing what no enemy ever has.  They're defeating the Marine Corps before it has even set foot on the battlefield.