The top general in charge of Marine Corps Combat Development Command sees uncertainty in the road ahead.
One thing remains perfectly clear though: The force is heading back to its traditional role as the nation’s amphibious shock troops, which requires new vehicles, new gear and new ways of operating.
We sat down with Lt. Gen. Kenneth Glueck, commanding general of MCCDC, and his deputy commandant for Combat Development and Integration,to talk about the top priorities, challenges and the changes that lie ahead as they toil to ensure Marines can swoop in to the “right place, at the right time” even when short on ships and facing budget constraints.
As it turns out, Marines are banking big on two ships to carry out amphibious ops.
■MLP meets SPMAGTF-crisis response.
In 2015, Glueck said he will continue to explore the possibility of placing Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force-crisis response units aboard Navy Mobile Landing Platform ships so they can float closer to potential flashpoints. Glueck cited the Gulf of Guinea near Nigeria and other troubled West African nations now fighting Islamic extremists as an example.
To efficiently deliver and support Marines responding to crises, ideas like the the floating crisis response force are borne out of the practical applications of Expeditionary Force 21 and Marine Expeditionary Brigade Concept of Operations unveiled this year. The two closely related concepts are aimed at providing combatant commanders scalable forces rather than a generic Marine Expeditionary Brigade and the ability to sustain them through sea basing. The idea is to give commanders “just enough force to handle” whichever crisis they face, Glueck said.
In a particularly large scenario, a MEU may be a first responder, but not big enough to handle the crisis. Under EF-21 another MEU could drop in to create what Glueck termed a Marine Expeditionary Brigade-light.
In part, shortages of Navy ships are the center of gravity driving these new concepts of operations. Years ago, 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, for example, could set sail aboard Navy ships from the East Coast and conduct forcible entry operations anywhere, Glueck said. That is no longer a viable option.
On the smallest end of scalable forces are the land-based crisis response special purpose Marine air ground task forces. They have successfully used MV-22 Ospreys, slingshotted by KC-130J super Hercules refuelers to springboard across Africa reaching Juba, South Sudan, in January to evacuate an embassy, for example. But, the immense distances still pose a significant challenge.
■From ship to shore.
New concepts are irrelevant without the means to deliver Marines to combat. One of Glueck’s top priorities is the continued development of big-ticket vehicles critical to delivering Marines quickly ashore and supporting their inland operations. That includes ship-to-shore connectors, amphibious troop transports and next-generation armored vehicles.
Glueck is putting heavy stakes in the Joint High Speed Vessel, a Navy ship that can move at between 40 to 50 mph, as an efficient way to deliver Marine amphibious vehicles near shore.
With a heavy emphasis on the JHSV, the service is working to refine tactical use of the ship, including it in this year’s Bold Alligator exercise, scheduled for mid-Winter off the North Carolina coast. There, Glueck said, Marine commanders will be able to finally test the ship in an operational setting, learning what does and doesn’t work. It will be left to them to devise how to conduct notional beach assaults, using the new craft.
It could be at least a partial solution to an emerging threat posed by the proliferation of cheap, deadly missile technology that impoverished states or even non-state actors could use to blast Marines out of the air and water from over the horizon. Navy ships from which Marines launch will likely have to remain about 100 miles off shore. That is much too far for the services current Amphibious Assault Vehicle, which takes 14 hours or more to swim those distances.
The JHSV not only allows men and machines to be moved quickly ashore from over the horizon, it permits Marine forces to out-maneuver the enemy and avoid a gory World War II-style, head-on amphibious assault, officials assert.
“We can put [Amphibious Assault Vehicles] 100 miles on either side of center where that beach might be,” Glueck said.
The ship has been criticized by some as vulnerable because of its lack of armor and heavy defenses, but that matters less if Marine forces can avoid a gunfight until they are already ashore.
AAVs, which are currently undergoing upgrades to their armor and suspension to keep them operational for at least another 20 years, can then swim the short distance to shore and assault toward enemy forces from land, Glueck said. The service has plans to also update its fleet of Landing Craft Air Cushions and is exploring the development of new connectors.
■Countering IEDs
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As recently as last year the service was still struggling to develop devices that could detect low- or non-metallic IEDs. Insurgents were constructing destructive devices using little to no metal, with devastating effect. One difficulty was the weight ground-penetrating radars added to the end of detectors, making them tiring and difficult to wield.
But, the service was able to field the Compact Metal Detector and the Vallon Minehound VMR-2, which is a commercially available dual-sensor detector. The CMD detects low-metallic IEDs and the VMR-2 non-metallic IEDs with ground-penetrating radar.
“These two detection systems have since been transitioned to enduring programs of record that will sustain this capability going forward,” according to Maj. Anthony Semelroth, a MCCDC spokesman at Quantico.
In the year ahead they will be made part of the service’s permanent equipment inventory.
■Power management.
MCCDC has also been working hard to refine requirements for new power-management and generation systems that can reduce Marines’ reliance on batteries, which are the among the heaviest objects in a Marine’s pack. This year the service tested a number of energy-generating devices at their Experiment Forward Operating Base, a simulated FOB that was run using experimental technology this summer at Twentynine Palms, California.
Those included a knee brace and backpack that generate electricity by harnessing kinetic energy as Marines move. Last month, the Office of the Secretary of Defense approved funding for a joint Army-Marine effort to further develop those capabilities for use at the company level. That means Marines in the field may get to use them for user evaluations in the year to come.■
