Article

October 2003

Marines Sketch ‘Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare’ Scenarios

by Michael Peck

The Marine Corps is reshaping its war-fighting doctrine to become a faster and more responsive force. Key to making this happen is the availability of improved airlift and sealift assets, such as heavy vertical-lift transport aircraft and blimps, said participants of a Marine-sponsored wargame held in Quantico, Va.

The core of the Marine Corps’ emerging doctrine is the notion of expeditionary maneuver warfare, an ambitious concept intended to transition the Corps from the old-fashioned hit-the-beach tactics of Iwo Jima toward modern maneuver warfare.

Based around the deployment of a Marine Expeditionary Brigade, expeditionary maneuver warfare is aimed at supporting joint force operations in the world’s littoral areas.

Expeditionary maneuver warfare is designed to fit with the Navy’s “sea basing” concept, which is built on the premise that operations can be planned, managed and conducted from the sea, reducing the need for land bases.

Sea basing will require a full spectrum of ships, including amphibious vessels, carrier battle groups, heavy cargo ships, black-bottom commercial ships and fast small craft.

The scenarios developed for the Marine wargame, “Enhanced Networked Seabasing,” conducted at Quantico in late May, saw the employment of new force mixes, which combined assets from amphibious-ready groups and carrier battle groups.

In one scenario, an Expeditionary Strike Group—carrying a Marine Expeditionary Unit—and a Carrier Strike Group were first to arrive in the crisis area. Within seven days, a Maritime Pre-positioning Force arrived, supporting a 15,000-troop Marine Expeditionary Brigade. The goal was for the entire brigade to be ashore within seven days after the MPF arrived, said Col. Art Corbett, director of the future war-fighting division at the Marine Expeditionary Force Development Center.

The wargame also was designed to help Marine officials fine-tune the Corps’ overarching doctrine, called “Operational Maneuver from the Sea.”

The idea is to be able to launch Marines in fast amphibious assault vehicles and aircraft from over the horizon (up to 25 miles).

“We’re not doing what we did in the past, with an LST (tank landing ship) spitting amphibs 3,000 yards off the beach,” said Corbett. Indeed, mobility by sea will enable the Marine Expeditionary Brigade to travel up and down the coast, landing, re-embarking and landing again.

“It is our ability to use the sea as maneuver space,” Corbett said. “The adversary either defends the length of his coastline and dissipates his forces, letting us defeat them in detail, or he concentrates his forces and leaves us openings to maneuver.”

Another concept emphasized in the wargame was “ship to objective maneuver.” The Marines are jettisoning their traditional assault-buildup-breakout doctrine honed on beaches from Tarawa to Korea. They will not spend days and weeks dug-in while waiting for artillery and supplies to arrive.

“Look at Inchon,” said Corbett. “We had a tremendous capability at sea to strike at the enemy’s rear, and then we proceeded from the beach at the speed of shoe leather. We went from great operational maneuver to a tactical battle of attrition.”

Ship to objective maneuver calls for the Marine Expeditionary Brigade to push aggressively inland as soon as it reaches the shore. Two battalions will land on the beach using Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicles (AAAVs) and Landing Craft Air-Cushioned (LCACs).

In the wargame, the brigade advanced inland, while an Osprey-borne reinforced battalion was inserted 100 miles beyond the beach, a capability that could grow to 200 miles by 2020. “It is a capability that has never existed,” said Corbett.

In their post-wargame brief, participants cited several capabilities that the Marine Corps will need to conduct ship-to-objective maneuver warfare in the future. Among the weapon systems and platforms needed are the CH-53 SLEP, the MV-22, the AAAV, over-the-horizon command and

control, combat service support, mine countermeasures, indirect fire support, a replacement vehicle for the LAV and the M1 tank, and a light truck that fits inside the MV-22.

Expeditionary maneuver warfare is predicated on speed, Corbett explained. Reinforcements will be flown by strategic airlift to a major base such as Guam or Diego Garcia, and then moved by new High Speed Vessels, or catamarans. And though the Marines will carry only 20 days’ supply—instead of the 30 carried by current maritime pre-positioned forces—new cargo MPF ships will have sophisticated containerized storage, allowing selective offloading instead of just spitting out pallets.

“The Navy continues to load supplies on ships just like the Phoenicians did,” Corbett said. Using the containerized systems standard on commercial vessels also will allow the Marine forces to be sustained by commercial ships, and will assist non-combat transport.

Corbett stressed that expeditionary maneuver warfare will require a plethora of new hardware, especially new ships. The Marine Corps’ doctrine assumes that the Navy will acquire 18 new MPF ships (Marine Prepositioned Force) at a billion dollars each. Warships such as the new LHA(R) amphibious ships, DDX destroyers for fire support, LCACs and HSVs will be needed as well.

The Navy is already refitting its 74 LCACs with new electronics, under a service life extension program that will make them last for another 20 years. Expeditionary maneuver warfare also will require a joint command and control network to link all elements of the maritime force.

A key system for expeditionary maneuver warfare is the new AAAV, now scheduled to enter service in 2008 and be fully deployed by 2018. It will have several advantages over the current AAV7A1, including a 30 mm Bushmaster II cannon, better armor and a propulsion system that lets it glide along the water like a speedboat. It can cruise at a speed of 20 knots for 65 miles.

The common denominator of these concepts is plentiful lift capacity, an issue that wargame participants quickly seized upon. For example, inserting a Marine battalion 100 or 200 miles inland is based on inserting the unit in one full period of darkness (about eight hours). This only could be accomplished with the V-22, according to Corbett.

The medium-lift Osprey, however, is limited as a cargo platform. Some military participants argued that a heavy-lift helicopter is needed. One recommended a heavy vertical-lift transport with quadruple tilt-rotors, instead of the Osprey’s dual propulsion system, though he lamented a lack of research funds available for this.

Other participants questioned whether there would be sufficient intra-theater lift. Some recommended resurrecting seaplanes and dirigibles.

A logistics expert was skeptical of the notion that Marine battalions could easily be re-embarked and moved quickly by sea. “What are they going to do if it’s greater than sea state 2 [slightly choppy waters]?” The Marines’ goal is to be able to operate in conditions up to sea state 5 (eight-foot waves and 22-27 knot winds).

The implementation of expeditionary maneuver warfare also poses other concerns wargame participants expressed. These include:

• Acquiring cargo-handling systems that can operate in high sea states.
• Having heavy-lift vessels that can operate in shallow waters.
• Paying more attention to mine countermeasures capabilities.
• Obtaining access to satellite-based communications and high-bandwidth data transmission capabilities.
• Effectively integrating precise joint fires from land, air and sea.
• Deploy “asset visibility” systems to track equipment from “factory to foxhole.”

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