This would be too funny if it weren't for the fact that its the USAF fighting for its traditional roles and missions while the US Marine Corps is simply surrendering without even a whimper. via Breaking Defense.
Air power supporters argue that the Army’s top-priority Long-Range Precision Fires program, which aims to rebuild the artillery with new long-range cannons and surface-to-surface missiles to hit far-way ground targets, is stepping over traditional service boundaries.Story here.
“It’s ridiculous, to be quite candid. It is encroachment on roles and missions,” Dave Deptula, a retired Air Force lieutenant-general and dean of the Mitchell Institute, says. “The fact of the matter is the services need to adhere to their core competencies. And the United States Army reaching out to develop weapon systems that operate at thousand-mile range truly is encroachment.”
While top Air Force officials, including outgoing chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein, have downplayed potential roles and missions clashes by citing the benefit of having overlapping capabilities, Deptula argues that tough choices are going to soon become imperative due to downward budgetary pressures stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“While some people have said: ‘well, you know, it’s nice to have a variety of different capabilities’ — well, sure, in a world where you’ve got unlimited budgets,” he said yesterday, somewhat sarcastically.
THIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN ARGUING! The US Army is developing weapon systems that can reach out fucking thousands of kilometers, can put more of them in a single Army division that the Marines can acquire Corps wide and somehow you think that Congress and the bean counters won't eventually say hey...we've got the Army doing this so why do we need the Marines?
The USAF is getting the force of connection.
The weird thing.
If I didn't know better I'd think that the Army looked at the future and got it right...laid in wait while the USAF and USMC lusted after the F-35 then sprung the trap when it became apparent to everyone that it just wouldn't cut the mustard.
They knew that because of a variety of reasons deep strike by aircraft would be a no-go (and that was one of the selling points of the F-35 with the USMC...from deep strike to acting as a scout for missile fire etc...) and that the future would be different.
So what are they doing? They're calling it Multi-Domain (or as I call it Air-Land-Sea Battle Reborn in a bigger package but singing the same tune) but the reality is clear.
The US Army is NOW the force that will be able to fight across the entire spectrum. NOT the USMC.
