Modern Day Marine News....

If you didn't know it Modern Day Marine is going on at Quantico.  News has been flowing out and I've been monitoring it, but decided to do a wrap up instead of covering it on a daily basis.

Here are some articles of interest....

via Marine Corps Times.

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert B. Neller told a standing-room only crowd Wednesday at the annual Modern Day Marine military expo at Quantico, Virginia, that the current sea-to-shore connectors — air cushion, landing craft or other systems — are a serious shortfall.

“That’s the area that we’re going to pay close attention to,” Neller said, adding that developments will involve a variety of machines and methods.

Improving on current crafts is crucial for moving forces, but also for avoiding attacks.

“Those connectors that allow us to sustain that force ashore and not have to build a huge pile of logistics ashore that makes it targetable, but use the sea to move in and out of the maneuver area as we need to,” Neller said.

The Amphibious Assault Vehicle, a tracked landing vehicle, has been chugging along in that mission for nearly four decades and is due for a replacement.

The new rendition, an Amphibious Combat Vehicle, is being developed by BAE Systems and SAIC, who both are vying to be selected for the contract. The ACV will be wheeled, not tracked.

Story here. 

via Marine Corps Times.

In the next war, Marines will have to “fight to get to the fight” for the first time since World War II, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said.

“Our adversaries are not going to let us just go to the fight uncontested,” Neller said on Wednesday. “We’re going to have to fight our way across the ocean or under the ocean or in the air.”

That’s why the Marine Corps has developed a new concept called “Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment,” which looks at how the Corps can best get Marines ashore, Neller said.

One major challenge is that large ships pose “lucrative targets” to modern defenses, which have ranges of hundreds of miles, the concept says. Moreover, each ship in carrier strike groups and amphibious ready groups is so important that the loss of one ship would seriously hinder a task force’s ability to accomplish the mission.

“It is therefore imprudent to task those ships with inshore operations in complex archipelagos or confined and shallow waters, where geography and battlespace geometry allow an adversary to concentrate diverse weapons systems to maximum advantage,” the concept says.

However, the Marine Corps does not plan to “land directly into the teeth of an enemy defense,” Neller said. Instead, the Corps will find gaps in an enemy’s defenses to put Marines ashore.

Story here. 


I can't explain it but none of this stuff even begins to excite.  I get the feeling they're saying what I want to hear but keeping the same weird plans in place.