Independence Class LCS as Hight Speed Transports?

 

via USNI News.

The idea comes as the Navy looks for ways to employ the Littoral Combat Ships – which are now entering the fleet in high numbers – and the Marine Corps pursues a Light Amphibious Warship to shuttle Marines around the island chains. The Navy has struggled with the LCS mission packages – envisioned as a way to swap three different types of mission sets within the ship. But the service has only deployed an LCS with a version of the surface warfare mission package, as developing and fielding the anti-submarine warfare and mine countermeasure packages has been delayed.

“The LCS – the mission is not completely clear. And so I think the Navy is looking at this as a way to provide an additional mission for the LCS to do,” Hudson Institute senior fellow Bryan Clark, a former submariner who previously worked on the chief of naval operations staff, told USNI News.

“It would help the Navy get more value out of the LCS and make those deployments more impactful,” Clark added. “And then it would help them on the financial side because it would give them a way to mitigate that the LAW may be slow in coming or may not ever come at all.”

Here 

I like this idea.  I once pushed for this idea (but not as part of the EABO concept...I pushed it as part of my Reinforced MEU concept).

But make no mistake about it.  It's suboptimal.  It could even be called less than a half measure.

Which leads back to this whole thing.

We still don't see how the LAW and LPD/LHA/LHD would co-exist. The Navy can't grow crews on trees.

Which leads to the real canary in the coal mine.

It's obvious that the Navy has bigger fish to fry than getting the Marines the LAW.  It's obviously more concerned with its surface, subsurface and air fleet than it is with pushing for a new ship for the Marines.

Now I ask you all.

If the LAW doesn't come online then how do you make the EABO a thing?  If the Independence Class LCS is the ride for Marines in the Littorals then how does it offload HIMARS/NEMISIS?

Kinda patting myself on the back.  If you recall I stated that the LAW would be the shatterpoint for this thing.  I doubted that the Navy would saddle up to pay for another ship that the Marines had "figure out how to use" and it looks like the time might be now.

The Marines moved before the Navy while at the same time trying to tie itself to its hip.

We've been burned by doing this before and it looks like it might be happening again.

Ain't interservice politics grand?

Late Open Comment Post. 29 Sept 2021

Tornado in Germany?

NOW - Several injured after rare tornado hits #Kiel in Germany on Wednesday evening. Major deployment of police and fire department.pic.twitter.com/6lR8bWpESf

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 29, 2021

P-38 Lightning Concepts...

 

The Lockheed P-38 Lightning could have been a very different looking aeroplane! These are some conceptual models considered in 1937, when the project was still in discussion. Certainly some 'blue sky thinking' evident in the mind of designers “Kelly” Johnson and Hall Hibbard! pic.twitter.com/RYo5A1S7E9

— Trev Clark's Obscure Aviation History Page . 🚁 (@clark_aviation) September 28, 2021

Marine Rotational Force - Darwin conduct a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System Rapid Infiltration (HIRAIN) @ Exercise Loobye at Bradshaw Field Training Area, Australia

U.S. Marines with Marine Rotational Force - Darwin conduct a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System rapid infiltration during Exercise Loobye at Bradshaw Field Training Area, NT, Australia, Aug. 12, 2021. HIRAIN is the process of identifying an enemy target from forward observation points and unmanned aerial vehicles, seizing key terrain for an aerial landing, inserting HIMARS onboard a Royal Australian Air Force C-17 Globemaster III, destroying the target and retrograding back to a secure location. Exercise Loobye is a tangible demonstration that the U.S. Marines and the Australian Defence Force are postured to respond to a crisis or contingency in the Indo-Pacific region. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Cpl. Colton K. Garrett and Cpl. Sarah E. Taggett)

Combined Anti-Armor Team Platoon conduct Service Level Training Exercise 1-22 @ Marine Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms

 

All Domain Reconnaissance Detachment boat team & Coast Guardsmen assigned to the Advanced Interdiction Team, Task Force 55 conduct maritime navigation training aboard a rigid inflatable boat.

To the PAO 11th MEU. Pick a lane. Either they're Recon or Force Recon. I refuse to play this "All Domain" renaming bullshit that you're pushing. YOU ARE THE ONLY MEU going down that lane. Did you make that up or is that the new designation????

210920-M-ON629-1375 ARABIAN GULF (Sept. 20, 2021) Marines assigned to the All Domain Reconnaissance Detachment boat team, 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), and Coast Guardsmen assigned to the Advanced Interdiction Team, Task Force 55 conduct maritime navigation training aboard a rigid inflatable boat. The training was conducted to share U.S. Central Command-specific techniques, sustain proficiency, and enable interoperability in support of Task Force 51/5 maritime security operations. The 11th MEU is deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations in support of naval operations to ensure maritime stability and security in the Central Region, connecting the Mediterranean and Pacific through the Western Indian Ocean and three strategic choke points. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Seth Rosenberg/Released)

US Army, US Navy & Japanese Self Defense Ground Force @ Exercise Rikuen

@USArmy and @Japan_GSDF service members project JGSDF MCVs as part of exercise Rikuen which strengthened interoperability between the @USNavy, U.S. Army and Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces. #TogetherWeDeliver @INDOPACOM @USARPAC @hqSDDC @FORSCOM pic.twitter.com/5YwGSz7rjG

— USTRANSCOM (@US_TRANSCOM) September 28, 2021

Swedish Marines with the 204th Rifle Company, 2nd Marine Battalion, 1st Swedish Marine Regiment, and U.S. Marines with 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2d Marine Division conduct training @ Exercise Archipelago Endeavor, Berga Naval Base, Sweden

 

Question. The generals give advice, the civilians make the decisions. If that's true then can we say Biden lost the Afghanistan war?

via Task and Purpose.

Milley was not the only top U.S. military commander who foresaw that America’s Afghan allies could not survive without American forces on the ground. Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., the head of U.S. Central Command, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he had recommended last fall that the military keep 4,500 troops in the country.

“I also have a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces, and eventually the Afghan government,” McKenzie said.

On Nov. 9, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper recommended to Trump that the U.S. military maintain between 2,500 and 4,500 troops in Afghanistan until conditions on the ground permitted further reductions, Milley said.

But Trump fired Esper that very day and deliberations about the troop withdrawal became chaotic. Milley publicly revealed on Tuesday that he received an “unclassified, signed order” on Nov. 11 to pull all American forces out of Afghanistan by Jan. 15.

“After further discussions regarding the risks associated with such a withdrawal, the order was rescinded,” Milley said.  

Ultimately, Trump ordered the military to reduce the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to 2,500, plus enablers, he said. By the time Biden took office, about 3,500 U.S. troops were in the country, roughly 1,000 more than the Pentagon admitted at the time.

Biden initially refused to commit to the withdrawal of all American forces from Afghanistan by the May 1 deadline agreed to by the Trump administration, but in April the president announced that he would end the U.S. military’s nearly 20-year presence in Afghanistan.

Tuesday’s hearing featured a tortured debate about whether military commanders had recommended that Biden keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, which ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos asked Biden about during an April interview.

“No, they didn’t,” Biden said at the time. “It was split. That wasn’t true. That wasn’t true.”

Here 

1.  Answer the question in the title.

2.  Knowing what we know now, would it have made sense to remain or was getting out of Afghanistan worth it no matter what.

3.  Can anyone answer what the strategic implications of this loss are?

4.  Can anyone answer why our mission evolved into nation building instead of simply crushing terrorists?

5.  Can it be said that the idea of cultural change brought on by conquest CANNOT be accomplished by Western forces in the modern era...which means nation building is beyond our capabilities?