Early Experiments are Proving Out Tank-Free Marine Corps Concept

 via USNI News

Ongoing testing and experimentation are proving the Marine Corps can be more lethal even while being lighter and more maneuverable, as the service evolves to support littoral operations under its Force Design 2030 plan, a top general said today.

Lt. Gen. Eric Smith, the deputy commandant for combat development and integration, today described how the Marine Corps’ evolution over the next couple years would allow for a small group of 75 Marines to pose such a great threat that the adversary would have to divert resources to find and counter them.

These groups of 75 Marines, already located in the first island chain in the Pacific and relying on their own organic aircraft and surface ships for mobility, “[will begin] to have an effect on the adversary’s ability to fully track where everyone is. In the past, you would think, ‘well there’s 75 Marines in location X, they’re not a threat.’ If I can sink one of your billion-and-a-half-dollar warships with a one-and-a-half-million-dollar missile, I am a threat. And that may change the calculus, if I can do that and rapidly move using things like our Joint Light Tactical Vehicle and make it incredibly hard for you to find me, both in the electromagnetic spectrum and physically on the ground because of my mobility. You have to respect that very small unit of which we will have dozens and dozens and dozens placed strategically throughout,” he said while speaking at the International Armoured Vehicles Conference, hosted by Defence IQ.

Smith used the anti-armor mission as an example of how the service evolving. Before, the Marines would use their own tanks to target enemy tanks. Now, the service is divesting its entire fleet of tanks to free up money to invest in higher priorities. Instead, it can use long-range precision munitions launched from the back of a JLTV to destroy enemy tanks from a more mobile posture and from longer ranges.

“The experimentation that we’ve done now to date successfully using lightweight mounted fires – think the back of a Joint Light Tactical Vehicle – is killing armor at ranges, rough calculation, about 15, 20 times the range that a main battle tank can kill another main battle tank,” Smith said. He added the Marine Corps didn’t get rid of its tanks because they weren’t good at taking out adversary tanks, but rather “we can kill armor formations at longer ranges using additional and other resources without incurring a 74-ton challenge trying to get that to a shore, or to get it from the United States into the fight. You simply can’t be there in time.”

Of course that's bullshit. 

It's not even good spin and whoever this bubba is he should be fired instantly for telling obvious lies.

Oh and make no mistake about it.  This ain't for our consumption.  This is for all the Marine Officers/SNCOs that doubt this monstrosity being foisted on the Corps.

Killing tanks from long distance with JLTVs?  Whole formations?  Are you shitting me?  But wait.  This pile of hot steaming poo gets better...

Precision fires is among the priorities the Navy has focused on during research and development and experimentation efforts. Smith said the service would have ground-based anti-ship missiles that the Marines could use to push enemies back hundreds of miles from a contested piece of land.

“That is sea denial, and that supports our naval partners, our fleet commanders, in distributed maritime operations,” Smith said, adding that it would allow U.S. Navy ships to focus on the sea control piece of the portfolio.

Additionally, other R&D and experimentation efforts have centered on enablers to be successful in what the Marines are calling the “hider-finder challenge” inside the enemy’s weapons engagement zone: if both the Marines and the enemy are trying to find each other and avoid being detected themselves, whoever wins that first stage of the competition has an advantage in the next stage – whether it’s the adversary trying to escalate, or the Marines trying to take a decisive action to force the adversary to deescalate.

They're really trying to flesh out the "competition" thing.  I don't get it.  This bubba really thinks penny packets of Marines will cause an enemy to deescalate?

Drug test that fucker immediately!  He's smoking that good shit!

Forget that.

I'm off on a tangent.

Read the whole thing here.