「第一列島線に地上発射ミサイル」再編が進む米軍・海兵隊。それと連動した自衛隊配備・強化が加速化する琉球弧の島々。
- 2020/05/24
- 16:24
Ryukyuheiwaより：
関連記事：米軍への隷属深める日米軍事同盟。日常化する日米共同訓練（作戦）、米軍は新部隊の一つを沖縄に配備。
http://ryukyuheiwa.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-857.html
県紙沖縄タイムスも書いた！
5月24日の沖縄アイムス紙面
米海兵隊再編、新設「沿岸連隊」はハワイ、グアムと日本＝沖縄に。
5月18日の琉球新報紙面
県紙も報道、
米軍「核地雷小隊」沖縄からベトナム戦に派遣と琉球新報。
5月19日の琉球新報紙面
5月16日の琉球新報紙面
米軍伊江島飛行場滑走路改修、「運用能力の最大化」を図る。
辺野古新基地建設だけじゃない、沖縄島でも辺野古弾薬庫、新浦添軍港など基地強化が進む。
5月14日の高垣喜三さんFB投稿より：
昨年３月には村民に全く知らされない内に米海兵隊が最新鋭の高機動ロケット砲システム（ＨＩＭＡＲＳ）を展開する訓練を実施していたことも明らかになっているなど米の新戦闘構想「遠征前方基地作戦（ＥＡＢＯ）」に基づく訓練と基地機能の強化が図られている。
5月14日の琉球新報紙面
5月15日の沖縄タイムス紙面
実戦配備となれば沖縄・日本への「核」持ち込みは避けられない！
5月14日の沖縄タイムス紙面
「核地雷小隊」西表島で訓練！！
石垣島、宮古島に「米軍の下請け」陸自が配備されれば、それらを拠点にして自衛隊と「小型核＝戦術核」の配備もいとわない米軍が、西表島に訓練に来るのかな？ このように、、、
しんぶん赤旗の「スクープ」記事か？ その後も、県紙は報道せず。
5月6日のしんぶん赤旗紙面
大変だ！！
宮古島・石垣島に「地対艦ミサイル」配備のみならず、米軍の「中距離ミサイル」配備も。
中距離ミサイルには「小型戦術核弾頭」装備も有りうる。
米軍は、地対艦ミサイルだけではなく中距離ミサイル配備先として南西諸島を注目、陸自の地対艦ミサイル部隊との連携強化を進めている。 一方、防衛省は200㎞の地対艦ミサイルの射程の延伸、新型ミサイル「高速滑空弾」の開発に取り組んでいる。
4月14日の毎日新聞紙面
米インド太平洋軍司令官、沖縄からフィリッピンを結ぶ第一列島線に、
「地上発射型の対艦・対空ミサイルを含む精密攻撃ネットワークの構築する必要性」を米議会への報告書で訴える。
4月7日の八重山毎日紙面（ワシントン時事配信）
参考資料： 4月5日のニューヨークタイムス記事
米軍への隷属深める日米軍事同盟下、米海兵隊を始めとする米軍再編と連動した、
自衛隊配備・強化が加速化する奄美大島、宮古島、石垣島。
3月29日の沖縄タイムス紙面
3月25日の琉球新報で報道された、米海兵隊の再編をNHKが取り上げる。（ページ下部に掲載）
米海兵隊の再編の最新資料として THE DRIVE COM 「The War Zone」 をページ最下段に掲載しています。
3月27日 NHK沖縄 NEWS WEB
米海兵隊 沖縄に沿岸連隊配備へ
アメリカ海兵隊は今後１０年間の軍の再編計画をまとめ、中国のミサイル能力に対抗するために、沖縄に新たに編成した部隊を配備する計画を明らかにしました。
アメリカ海兵隊トップのバーガー総司令官は、２６日、今後１０年間の軍の再編計画をまとめた「２０３０年の部隊設計」を公表しました。
この中で、中国がミサイル部隊を増強してアメリカ軍の接近を拒む能力を強化していることに強い警戒感を示し、「敵のミサイルとの交戦が想定される域内で、迅速に機動できる能力が必要不可欠だ」としています。
そのうえで、ミサイル能力と機動性を兼ね備えた「沿岸連隊」を新たに編成し、沖縄に駐留する第３海兵遠征軍に配備する計画を明らかにしました。
一方、アメリカ海兵隊全体として、再編によって確保した予算でミサイルやロケットの部隊を現在の７から２１に増強し、無人機を運用する部隊も３から６に倍増させることを明らかにしました。
アメリカ軍は陸軍でも、再来年までに最新鋭のミサイルを運用する新たな任務部隊をアジア太平洋地域の２か所に配備する計画を進めていて、中国に対抗するための部隊の再編が進んでいます。
3月25日の琉球新報紙面
米軍は、2022年までにサイバーや極超音速ミサイルなどの新たな作戦部隊を「台湾以東の島々（＝沖縄の島々）へ配備。
1月24日の琉球新報紙面
1月23日の東京新聞紙面
1月21日の沖縄タイムス
参考資料：
THE DRIVE COM
The War Zone
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32703/marines-to-radically-remodel-force-cutting-tanks-howitzers-in-favor-of-drones-missiles
Marines To Radically Remodel Force, Cutting Tanks, Howitzers In Favor Of Drones, Missiles
The Marine Corps says the ambitious shift toward smaller units, distributed operations, and unmanned capabilities is essential to staying relevant.
By Joseph TrevithickMarch 23, 2020
The U.S. Marine Corps has an ambitious 10-year transformation plan that could see the service eliminate its entire tank force, dramatically scale back howitzer batteries, and cut a significant number of aviation units in favor of land-based rocket artillery and stand-off missile launchers and unmanned aircraft. The proposal follows an already dramatic announcement from the Corps' top officer last year about the need to move away from reliance on large traditional amphibious warfare ships, something The War Zone explored in depth. All of this is rooted in the prevailing view that Marines will have to fight in small groups and in a distributed fashion in any major conflict in the future, especially in the Pacific region, in order to remain relevant.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the Marines plans for the radical shift on Mar. 23, 2020. The newspaper interviewed Marine
Corps Commandant General David Berger about his proposal, which would fundamentally change the face of his service for years to come.
"China, in terms of military capability, is the pacing threat," Berger told the Journal. "If we did nothing, we would be passed."
"I have come to the conclusion that we need to contract the size of the Marine Corps to get quality," he added.
“The wargames do show that, absent significant change, the Marine Corps will not be in a position to be relevant" in a high-end conflict against a “peer competitor,” U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant General Eric Smith, head of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, also explained to the Journal. Berger had been head of this command, which is responsible for developing new and improved concepts of operations for the Corps, before becoming Commandant.
Berger's contraction is significant and wide-ranging. Over the next decade, he wants to shrink the entire size of the Corps from approximately 189,000 personnel to 170,000.
To do this, he would get rid of a number of units, including all seven existing Marine tank companies, along with their M1 Abrams and support vehicles. Three bridging companies, necessary to get those heavy vehicles across waterways, would go get shuttered. Marine armored vehicles fleets would be limited to the service's existing fleet of LAV-25 8x8 wheeled armored vehicles and its new Amphibious Combat Vehicles (ACV), another 8x8 wheeled design. The ACV will increasingly supplant the tracked Assault Amphibious Vehicles (AAV) in the coming years.
“We need an Army with lots of tanks," Berger said. "We don’t need a Marine Corps with tanks."
The total number of 155mm howitzer batteries would also drop from 21 to just five. Three of the 24 infantry battalions are also set to get cut under the plan, though the Marines have talked about increasing the size of infantry squads, and by extension the remaining infantry units, at the same time.
The total number of Marine fighter attack squadrons, all of which are transitioning to variants of the F-35, would remain at 18. However, the size of each of these squadrons will shrink from 16 aircraft to just 10, according to a separate report from USNI News.
Three MV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor squadrons, two light attack helicopter squadrons equipped with AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venoms, and three heavy helicopter squadrons are all set to get cut from the overall force structure. The latter of these units are equipped with CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters, which are set to get replaced by CH-53K King Stallions. Trimming those squadrons could impact the total number of CH-53Ks, which have had a long-troubled development, the Marines expect to buy in the end.
Despite this contraction, Berger is planning to make additions, as well, including tripling the size of land-based rocket artillery and stand-off missile units from seven to 21. This would include M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers that the Marines want to be able to fire Naval Strike Missile anti-ship missiles in the future, in addition to 227mm guided artillery rockets and short-range quasi-ballistic missiles. The Corps is also planning to introduce land-based launchers able to fire the Tomahawk cruise missile.
The Marines' unmanned aircraft force would also double in size, from three to six squadrons. The service is very much in the process of defining exactly how it envisions the composition of these drone fleets. In its most recent budget request for the 2021 Fiscal Year, submitted as part of the larger U.S. Navy proposal, the Corps' revealed that it was reassessing its Marine Air Ground Task Force Unmanned Aircraft System Expeditionary program, or MUX, as well as scaling back plans to acquire MQ-9 Reapers in the interim.
The present plan includes exploring a "system of systems" that could including various smaller drones, as well as larger, land-based unmanned aircraft. The original MUX concept, which you can read about in more detail in this past War Zone piece, had envisioned large Marine unmanned aircraft capable of performing various complex roles and intended to operate from large amphibious warships.
The Marines would also add another squadron of KC-130J Hercules aerial refueling tankers, which can also serve as airlifters and gunships.
These massive force structure changes are driven in part by budgetary concerns, as well as a new, over-arching operating concept the Marines have been experimenting with, on paper and during exercises, called Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO), for some years now. EABO is heavily center on an idea of an island-hopping blitzkrieg of sorts during a major conflict in the Pacific region where ground units could easily find themselves distributed across a front thousands of miles long separated by large expanses of water.
Unlike the other U.S. military services, even the U.S. Army, the Marines do not expect to have the capacity to conduct large-scale stand-off operations and plan to fight almost exclusively inside "the weapons engagement zone" of a potential opponent, such as China, according to the Journal. China, in particular, has invested significant resources in the development and fielding of anti-access and area denial capabilities, including air, sea, and ground-launched anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, including air-launched ones, some of which carry hypersonic boost-glide vehicles or that may have anti-ship capabilities. Longer-range surface-to-air missiles and supporting sensors are also part of the picture. All of this forces large traditional amphibious warfare ships to operate further and further from actual objectives, limiting the ability of the Marine Corps in its present configuration to contribute in the minds of Berger and other senior service officials.
Under the EABO concept, smaller elements of Marines would use air assaults and smaller ships, including unmanned surface vessels, to seize control of small islands and rapidly set up forward operating bases. Unmanned platforms, including drones, unmanned ships, and unmanned ground vehicles, including remotely-operated mobile artillery systems, would be important to giving these Marine units additional capabilities without the need for significant amounts of additional manpower.
Missile units, especially with anti-ship missiles, would then be able to conduct strikes on hostile ships from this constellation of island outposts. Depending on the facilities available or that could be readily made available, they might also support forward manned or unmanned aviation operations. Targeting data from forward-deployed Marine units would also be passed back to other assets, including Navy ships and U.S. Air Force aircraft, which could then conduct their own stand-off attacks.
To keep the enemy on edge and to prevent them from effectively counter-attacking, Marines would reposition from one outpost to another every 48 to 72 hours. Decoy movements, which could be physical or generated using electronic warfare systems, would further confuse the enemy. Constantly changing positions would also enable Marines to attack from different vectors, forcing an opponent to be constantly evaluating their own defenses and potentially spreading their forces thin to protect against all avenues of attack.
"The Marine Corps will have three Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs) organized, trained, and equipped to accomplish sea denial and sea control within actively contested maritime spaces as part of a modernized III MEF [Marine Expeditionary Force]," U.S. Marine Corps Major Joshua Benson, a Marine Corps Combat Development Command spokesperson, separately told USNI News in a statement. "This Pacific posture will be augmented by three globally deployable Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) that possess both traditional and Expeditionary Advanced Base capabilities that can deploy with non-standard Amphibious Ready Groups.”
In principle, the EABO concept certainly presents a number of potential benefits. There are also real questions about just how viable it would be in practice, especially from a logistical standpoint.
In his interview with the Journal, General Berger highlighted how 3D printing in small field workshops could help manufacture on-demand replacement parts to support distributed operations. But you can't 3D print fuel, water, ammunition, or food. Water is a resource that U.S. military units particularly take for granted and which is absolutely essential to any operation.
The fuel demands for modern U.S. military units are also only increasing as more and more is required on a daily basis to power the generators that supply electricity for ground-based sensors, communications systems, living facilities, and more. There is work being done on alternate battlefield power concepts, including small nuclear reactors and hydrogen fuel cells, but these efforts are still in the very early stages of development.
The Marines have been looking at various distributed logistics concepts, including using unmanned ships and expendable supply drones, and even seaplanes, as ways to get critical supplies to forward units with limited risk. None of these proposals entirely eliminate supply chain disruption that could potentially have serious impacts on the ability of Marine units to operate under the EABO concept.
"Some of the capabilities we assume might pan out, will not pan out, and other technological things will come along that we have not even considered," Berger told the Journal. He described his plan “as an aim point" and that the Corps would "monitor the threat all along as we go."
It certainly remains to be seen how much of the Commandant's ambitious proposal comes to fruition. However, it is clear that the Marine Corps' present senior leadership sees radical changes as essential to ensure that the force continues to be useful in future major wars, especially in the Pacific region.
Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com
関連記事：米軍への隷属深める日米軍事同盟。日常化する日米共同訓練（作戦）、米軍は新部隊の一つを沖縄に配備。
http://ryukyuheiwa.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-857.html
県紙沖縄タイムスも書いた！
5月24日の沖縄アイムス紙面
米海兵隊再編、新設「沿岸連隊」はハワイ、グアムと日本＝沖縄に。
5月18日の琉球新報紙面
県紙も報道、
米軍「核地雷小隊」沖縄からベトナム戦に派遣と琉球新報。
5月19日の琉球新報紙面
5月16日の琉球新報紙面
米軍伊江島飛行場滑走路改修、「運用能力の最大化」を図る。
辺野古新基地建設だけじゃない、沖縄島でも辺野古弾薬庫、新浦添軍港など基地強化が進む。
5月14日の高垣喜三さんFB投稿より：
昨年３月には村民に全く知らされない内に米海兵隊が最新鋭の高機動ロケット砲システム（ＨＩＭＡＲＳ）を展開する訓練を実施していたことも明らかになっているなど米の新戦闘構想「遠征前方基地作戦（ＥＡＢＯ）」に基づく訓練と基地機能の強化が図られている。
5月14日の琉球新報紙面
5月15日の沖縄タイムス紙面
実戦配備となれば沖縄・日本への「核」持ち込みは避けられない！
5月14日の沖縄タイムス紙面
「核地雷小隊」西表島で訓練！！
石垣島、宮古島に「米軍の下請け」陸自が配備されれば、それらを拠点にして自衛隊と「小型核＝戦術核」の配備もいとわない米軍が、西表島に訓練に来るのかな？ このように、、、
しんぶん赤旗の「スクープ」記事か？ その後も、県紙は報道せず。
5月6日のしんぶん赤旗紙面
大変だ！！
宮古島・石垣島に「地対艦ミサイル」配備のみならず、米軍の「中距離ミサイル」配備も。
中距離ミサイルには「小型戦術核弾頭」装備も有りうる。
米軍は、地対艦ミサイルだけではなく中距離ミサイル配備先として南西諸島を注目、陸自の地対艦ミサイル部隊との連携強化を進めている。 一方、防衛省は200㎞の地対艦ミサイルの射程の延伸、新型ミサイル「高速滑空弾」の開発に取り組んでいる。
4月14日の毎日新聞紙面
米インド太平洋軍司令官、沖縄からフィリッピンを結ぶ第一列島線に、
「地上発射型の対艦・対空ミサイルを含む精密攻撃ネットワークの構築する必要性」を米議会への報告書で訴える。
4月7日の八重山毎日紙面（ワシントン時事配信）
参考資料： 4月5日のニューヨークタイムス記事
米軍への隷属深める日米軍事同盟下、米海兵隊を始めとする米軍再編と連動した、
自衛隊配備・強化が加速化する奄美大島、宮古島、石垣島。
3月29日の沖縄タイムス紙面
3月25日の琉球新報で報道された、米海兵隊の再編をNHKが取り上げる。（ページ下部に掲載）
米海兵隊の再編の最新資料として THE DRIVE COM 「The War Zone」 をページ最下段に掲載しています。
3月27日 NHK沖縄 NEWS WEB
米海兵隊 沖縄に沿岸連隊配備へ
アメリカ海兵隊は今後１０年間の軍の再編計画をまとめ、中国のミサイル能力に対抗するために、沖縄に新たに編成した部隊を配備する計画を明らかにしました。
アメリカ海兵隊トップのバーガー総司令官は、２６日、今後１０年間の軍の再編計画をまとめた「２０３０年の部隊設計」を公表しました。
この中で、中国がミサイル部隊を増強してアメリカ軍の接近を拒む能力を強化していることに強い警戒感を示し、「敵のミサイルとの交戦が想定される域内で、迅速に機動できる能力が必要不可欠だ」としています。
そのうえで、ミサイル能力と機動性を兼ね備えた「沿岸連隊」を新たに編成し、沖縄に駐留する第３海兵遠征軍に配備する計画を明らかにしました。
一方、アメリカ海兵隊全体として、再編によって確保した予算でミサイルやロケットの部隊を現在の７から２１に増強し、無人機を運用する部隊も３から６に倍増させることを明らかにしました。
アメリカ軍は陸軍でも、再来年までに最新鋭のミサイルを運用する新たな任務部隊をアジア太平洋地域の２か所に配備する計画を進めていて、中国に対抗するための部隊の再編が進んでいます。
3月25日の琉球新報紙面
米軍は、2022年までにサイバーや極超音速ミサイルなどの新たな作戦部隊を「台湾以東の島々（＝沖縄の島々）へ配備。
1月24日の琉球新報紙面
1月23日の東京新聞紙面
1月21日の沖縄タイムス
参考資料：
THE DRIVE COM
The War Zone
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32703/marines-to-radically-remodel-force-cutting-tanks-howitzers-in-favor-of-drones-missiles
Marines To Radically Remodel Force, Cutting Tanks, Howitzers In Favor Of Drones, Missiles
The Marine Corps says the ambitious shift toward smaller units, distributed operations, and unmanned capabilities is essential to staying relevant.
By Joseph TrevithickMarch 23, 2020
The U.S. Marine Corps has an ambitious 10-year transformation plan that could see the service eliminate its entire tank force, dramatically scale back howitzer batteries, and cut a significant number of aviation units in favor of land-based rocket artillery and stand-off missile launchers and unmanned aircraft. The proposal follows an already dramatic announcement from the Corps' top officer last year about the need to move away from reliance on large traditional amphibious warfare ships, something The War Zone explored in depth. All of this is rooted in the prevailing view that Marines will have to fight in small groups and in a distributed fashion in any major conflict in the future, especially in the Pacific region, in order to remain relevant.
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on the Marines plans for the radical shift on Mar. 23, 2020. The newspaper interviewed Marine
Corps Commandant General David Berger about his proposal, which would fundamentally change the face of his service for years to come.
"China, in terms of military capability, is the pacing threat," Berger told the Journal. "If we did nothing, we would be passed."
"I have come to the conclusion that we need to contract the size of the Marine Corps to get quality," he added.
“The wargames do show that, absent significant change, the Marine Corps will not be in a position to be relevant" in a high-end conflict against a “peer competitor,” U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant General Eric Smith, head of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, also explained to the Journal. Berger had been head of this command, which is responsible for developing new and improved concepts of operations for the Corps, before becoming Commandant.
Berger's contraction is significant and wide-ranging. Over the next decade, he wants to shrink the entire size of the Corps from approximately 189,000 personnel to 170,000.
To do this, he would get rid of a number of units, including all seven existing Marine tank companies, along with their M1 Abrams and support vehicles. Three bridging companies, necessary to get those heavy vehicles across waterways, would go get shuttered. Marine armored vehicles fleets would be limited to the service's existing fleet of LAV-25 8x8 wheeled armored vehicles and its new Amphibious Combat Vehicles (ACV), another 8x8 wheeled design. The ACV will increasingly supplant the tracked Assault Amphibious Vehicles (AAV) in the coming years.
“We need an Army with lots of tanks," Berger said. "We don’t need a Marine Corps with tanks."
The total number of 155mm howitzer batteries would also drop from 21 to just five. Three of the 24 infantry battalions are also set to get cut under the plan, though the Marines have talked about increasing the size of infantry squads, and by extension the remaining infantry units, at the same time.
The total number of Marine fighter attack squadrons, all of which are transitioning to variants of the F-35, would remain at 18. However, the size of each of these squadrons will shrink from 16 aircraft to just 10, according to a separate report from USNI News.
Three MV-22B Osprey tilt-rotor squadrons, two light attack helicopter squadrons equipped with AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venoms, and three heavy helicopter squadrons are all set to get cut from the overall force structure. The latter of these units are equipped with CH-53E Super Stallion helicopters, which are set to get replaced by CH-53K King Stallions. Trimming those squadrons could impact the total number of CH-53Ks, which have had a long-troubled development, the Marines expect to buy in the end.
Despite this contraction, Berger is planning to make additions, as well, including tripling the size of land-based rocket artillery and stand-off missile units from seven to 21. This would include M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launchers that the Marines want to be able to fire Naval Strike Missile anti-ship missiles in the future, in addition to 227mm guided artillery rockets and short-range quasi-ballistic missiles. The Corps is also planning to introduce land-based launchers able to fire the Tomahawk cruise missile.
The Marines' unmanned aircraft force would also double in size, from three to six squadrons. The service is very much in the process of defining exactly how it envisions the composition of these drone fleets. In its most recent budget request for the 2021 Fiscal Year, submitted as part of the larger U.S. Navy proposal, the Corps' revealed that it was reassessing its Marine Air Ground Task Force Unmanned Aircraft System Expeditionary program, or MUX, as well as scaling back plans to acquire MQ-9 Reapers in the interim.
The present plan includes exploring a "system of systems" that could including various smaller drones, as well as larger, land-based unmanned aircraft. The original MUX concept, which you can read about in more detail in this past War Zone piece, had envisioned large Marine unmanned aircraft capable of performing various complex roles and intended to operate from large amphibious warships.
The Marines would also add another squadron of KC-130J Hercules aerial refueling tankers, which can also serve as airlifters and gunships.
These massive force structure changes are driven in part by budgetary concerns, as well as a new, over-arching operating concept the Marines have been experimenting with, on paper and during exercises, called Expeditionary Advance Base Operations (EABO), for some years now. EABO is heavily center on an idea of an island-hopping blitzkrieg of sorts during a major conflict in the Pacific region where ground units could easily find themselves distributed across a front thousands of miles long separated by large expanses of water.
Unlike the other U.S. military services, even the U.S. Army, the Marines do not expect to have the capacity to conduct large-scale stand-off operations and plan to fight almost exclusively inside "the weapons engagement zone" of a potential opponent, such as China, according to the Journal. China, in particular, has invested significant resources in the development and fielding of anti-access and area denial capabilities, including air, sea, and ground-launched anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as medium and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, including air-launched ones, some of which carry hypersonic boost-glide vehicles or that may have anti-ship capabilities. Longer-range surface-to-air missiles and supporting sensors are also part of the picture. All of this forces large traditional amphibious warfare ships to operate further and further from actual objectives, limiting the ability of the Marine Corps in its present configuration to contribute in the minds of Berger and other senior service officials.
Under the EABO concept, smaller elements of Marines would use air assaults and smaller ships, including unmanned surface vessels, to seize control of small islands and rapidly set up forward operating bases. Unmanned platforms, including drones, unmanned ships, and unmanned ground vehicles, including remotely-operated mobile artillery systems, would be important to giving these Marine units additional capabilities without the need for significant amounts of additional manpower.
Missile units, especially with anti-ship missiles, would then be able to conduct strikes on hostile ships from this constellation of island outposts. Depending on the facilities available or that could be readily made available, they might also support forward manned or unmanned aviation operations. Targeting data from forward-deployed Marine units would also be passed back to other assets, including Navy ships and U.S. Air Force aircraft, which could then conduct their own stand-off attacks.
To keep the enemy on edge and to prevent them from effectively counter-attacking, Marines would reposition from one outpost to another every 48 to 72 hours. Decoy movements, which could be physical or generated using electronic warfare systems, would further confuse the enemy. Constantly changing positions would also enable Marines to attack from different vectors, forcing an opponent to be constantly evaluating their own defenses and potentially spreading their forces thin to protect against all avenues of attack.
"The Marine Corps will have three Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs) organized, trained, and equipped to accomplish sea denial and sea control within actively contested maritime spaces as part of a modernized III MEF [Marine Expeditionary Force]," U.S. Marine Corps Major Joshua Benson, a Marine Corps Combat Development Command spokesperson, separately told USNI News in a statement. "This Pacific posture will be augmented by three globally deployable Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) that possess both traditional and Expeditionary Advanced Base capabilities that can deploy with non-standard Amphibious Ready Groups.”
In principle, the EABO concept certainly presents a number of potential benefits. There are also real questions about just how viable it would be in practice, especially from a logistical standpoint.
In his interview with the Journal, General Berger highlighted how 3D printing in small field workshops could help manufacture on-demand replacement parts to support distributed operations. But you can't 3D print fuel, water, ammunition, or food. Water is a resource that U.S. military units particularly take for granted and which is absolutely essential to any operation.
The fuel demands for modern U.S. military units are also only increasing as more and more is required on a daily basis to power the generators that supply electricity for ground-based sensors, communications systems, living facilities, and more. There is work being done on alternate battlefield power concepts, including small nuclear reactors and hydrogen fuel cells, but these efforts are still in the very early stages of development.
The Marines have been looking at various distributed logistics concepts, including using unmanned ships and expendable supply drones, and even seaplanes, as ways to get critical supplies to forward units with limited risk. None of these proposals entirely eliminate supply chain disruption that could potentially have serious impacts on the ability of Marine units to operate under the EABO concept.
"Some of the capabilities we assume might pan out, will not pan out, and other technological things will come along that we have not even considered," Berger told the Journal. He described his plan “as an aim point" and that the Corps would "monitor the threat all along as we go."
It certainly remains to be seen how much of the Commandant's ambitious proposal comes to fruition. However, it is clear that the Marine Corps' present senior leadership sees radical changes as essential to ensure that the force continues to be useful in future major wars, especially in the Pacific region.
Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com
スポンサーサイト
