Hey Berger. Summer Fury means nothing to me! Show me that the Missile Marines can fight in Africa and the Middle East!

via USNI News.

Last month, 17 squadrons with San Diego, Calif.-based 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing joined with 1st Marine Division and 1st Marine Logistics Group units for exercise Summer Fury 2020, held over three weeks across Southern California and southwest ranges.

The large-scale exercise had two goals: deploy an integrated MAGTF to conduct expeditionary advance base operations (EABO), and “increase aviation operational proficiency with realistic, relevant training to ensure the Marine Corps’ largest aircraft wing remains operationally excellent, interoperable, deployable on short notice and lethal when called into action,” the Marines said in a statement. This year’s training scenario simulated operations across an expansive island region like the Indo-Pacific.

The 3rd MAW pushed fighter jets, helicopters, Marines and combat equipment hundreds of miles, from Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and Camp Pendleton north of San Diego to Naval Air Station Lemoore and China Lake Naval Weapons Station farther north in California and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma in Arizona. Aviation ground support Marines set up a series of forward arming and refueling points, or FARPs, to support the aircraft, and heavy-lift helicopters moved artillery guns – all missions that helped project combat forces and stretch the MAGTF’s operational reach.

“From there … you’re penetrating into badness,” the wing commander, Maj. Gen. Christopher Mahoney, said in a recent interview at his MCAS Miramar headquarters. “How are you going to exploit that distance? You exploit with adapting your capabilities and being quick about it. So get in the door when they ain’t looking – and then go. And then ultimately, in our business, you’ve got to destroy something.”

“You exploit, whether it’s distance, whether it’s the electromagnetic spectrum, whether it’s penetrate the geo-political environment,” Mahoney said. “Then you need to destroy – in most cases – and that’s what we do.”

Here. 

I AM SO UNIMPRESSED!   They got a favorite journalist to get out their story? Big Fucking Deal!

You exercised to fight a fight you want and you got the results you wanted.  Again.  Big Fucking Deal!

We've seen this story several times before.  We saw all the services gear up for a nuclear fight that never came.  We saw them prepare for a big push by the USSR thru the Fulda Gap.  IT NEVER CAME~!

What did come?

Fights and emergencies everywhere else!

Can this "new" Missile Marine Corps fight in the Middle East or Africa?  I don't think so.  We're seeing hybrid forces that are TEARING APART dispersed units and they're untrained insurgents!  They're operating everything from MBTs to IFVs and have anti-air missiles that are taking pot shots at anything in the sky!  ADDITIONALLY THEY HAVE BALLISTIC MISSILES THAT THEY'RE RAINING ON SAUDI ARABIA!

I won't even talk about what the Russians will do to this force if it ever decides to deploy against them.  The Russians will be like a grizzly bear with a dogs chew toys.  They're gonna rip this force apart.

It's theater specific.  Enemy specific.  Diplomacy dependent.  Air Centric.  MESS!

Go back to the drawing board.  This ain't the Marine Corps.  This is an abomination.  Unfortunately you're proceeding at pace without any thought and it'll take a reformer to get our house back into order.

The funny thing?  I thought Amos was bad.  Berger is turning out worse.