The three MEFs will be different to handle different geographic areas according to the incoming Commandant. SO why are they optimizing infantry battalions to the MLR concept?

The service's "Force Design 2030" initiative -- a planned transformation of the Marine Corps this decade that has drawn controversy in the past -- will shave the current infantry battalion size https://t.co/i8QPKJEfzD

— Military.com (@Militarydotcom) June 7, 2023

Three MEFs will be different.  So why are they optimizing infantry battalions to the MLR concept?

Then I read this from Defense One on the same subject...

Third Battalion, 4th Marines returned from deployment in April, and over 18 months, as it prepares for the next one, the unit will be manned, trained, and equipped based on how the Marine Corps envisions future infantry battalions, “so we can assess it and build that body of evidence to make sure we found the sweet spot with our experimentation and our equipment,” Ellison said. The Marine Corps Warfighting Lab, which is leading the experimentation effort, will work with the unit through their training and deployment, he said.

“So we’re going to experiment with them in every clime and place, to include the jungles of Okinawa, Japan, and in the Pacific,” he said. “So it's about an 18 month experimentation timeline, but we'll recommend decisions as we learn. We're not going to wait to make decisions, there’s second- and third-order effects to every decision we make. And part of our responsibility is to inform Lt. Gen. Heckl of decisions that can be made early that help us anticipate later decisions or enable alternatives across the rest of the force.”

It's all fairy dust.

They're talking "force in readiness" but they're focused like a laser on only one clime, one place and one enemy.

HQMC and the Warfighting Lab are so focused on being recon and killing ships that they forget enemy infantry will be just as focused or more on killing Marines.

This will end badly.

This will go one of a couple of ways if war happens.

*  The Chinese will simply bypass the MLR sailing out of range of detection and/or its anti-ship missiles.

*  The Chinese will isolate the MLR, making foraging necessary and basically starving them out while letting the jungle degrade their capabilities so that when they do attack the force will be so weak as to put up almost no fight.

*  The Chinese will launch a concerted effort to destroy in detail the MLR.

The amount of resources it will take to destroy these small dispersed units will be relatively small.  Assign one destroyer to each found unit and they will be microfragmented.

This plan is a recipe for disaster.