USMC moving ahead with ground vehicle divestiture....is LAR & AAV/ACV next?

via Janes.

The US Marine Corps (USMC) has retired 200 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks, M88 armoured recovery vehicles, and armoured vehicle launched bridges, and is planning to transfer them over to the army.

Over the past few weeks, the USMC has been standing down various ground vehicles as part of Commandant General David Berger’s Force Design 2030 plan. On 6 July, for example, the service announced that the last tank assigned to 1st Tank Battalion had departed the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, California.

The service is now consolidating the vehicles at a logistics base in Barstow, California, and recently announced that its Railhead Operations Group staff is now verifying that everything is in order before sending the vehicles on to army depots in Herlong, California, and Aniston, Alabama.

“We have Marines from several units here to assist with the offload, on load, and securement of the equipment,” Chad Hildebrandt, the railway operations supervisor for the logistics base, said in a 30 July announcement. The loaded cars will be stored on base until we have all tanks loaded and secured, then they will all ship out to the army at the same time”.

Earlier this year, Gen Berger unveiled his vision for how his service should be manned and operating by 2030 to compete with China and Russia. One of his ultimate goals is to design a smaller force that is more nimble to support naval expeditionary warfare operations, and to achieve this the service is funneling dollars away from legacy systems and towards modernised ones.

What should surprise and worry everyone is the speed at which this Commandant killed Tank Battalions across the Missile Marines.  What should concern us all is his next steps.

Will LAR & AAV/ACV be next?

I contend that in keeping with his current rationale of concentrating on fighting one fight, in one region, against one enemy that its a forgone conclusion.

LAR & AAV/ACV must die.

The Marine Corps has morphed into the Missile Marines and will be INCAPABLE of participating in any other conflict (maybe aviation but why would the USAF want them...why would the Navy clear deck space...would we even have units available?).

With ground combat off the table (God Bless the US Army...they're gonna have to carry the whole load) why would they remain in service?

Tanks was just the beginning. 

The Ground Combat Element needs a four star advocate at the highest level of the Missile Marines or it will become just a token part of the fight (funny to think that all Marine Infantry will be prized for in the near future is ceremonial events).