The issue of too few Amphibs is as old as the hills. Our last Division size Amphib exercise was Operation Steel Pike in 1965. IMPO, nothing short of general war, or divine intervention, will reverse the damage we have sustained by this neglect: one from the Navy, and our own recent self inflicted wounds. So, a question may be: what is the Corps to do until our listing ship can be repaired? I offer a few thoughts that we can expand upon, to wit: 1. Continue with vigorous PME - we must remain smart & educated. 2. Continue to train well in the basics. 3. Remember our constituents in the public, especially organizations such as the American Legion & the VFW - those people vote, & are powerful. 4. Continue discussions such as we are having on CP … this mode of communication can have enormous intellectual freshness to it. 5. Listen to each other … the late MajGen Jim Day once told me “all of us are smarter than any of us” … we can beat our current situation. 6. In placing senior general officers, let’s make sure we’re getting the right folks, with the right backgrounds, into the right positions. Don’t give up the ship! Semper Fi!
I want to address the amphibious lift capability—or the gap in that capability. I apologize for the length of this, but my perspective is one that may be different from that of many Marines.
I served a two-year tour as a Combat Cargo Officer (CCO) with the amphibious Navy in 1974-76. The first year I was on the USS Francis Marion, LPA-249, the last of the troop transport ships, an old Liberty ship from WWII. It was put into the Navy’s reserve fleet, and I transferred at the end of year one to the USS Shreveport, LPD-12. I have a different perspective on the amphibious service with those two different platforms. For those unfamiliar with the CCO billet, at that time, each amphibious ship (amphib) had a Marine officer, usually a 1stLt, and a Staff NCO as part of ship’s company. We were assigned to the ship—our duty station for two years. We coordinated the Marine load plan, embarkation, and offload during exercises. We had to know the Marine and Navy sides of the amphibious business. It was a requiring an 0430 Embarkation MOS, my secondary; my primary was 0302, Infantry.
In those two years I saw the old LCVP’s and LCM’s, the vehicles we called Amtracs, and three types of helicopters carrying Marines, vehicles, ammunition and supplies. When you are landing troops, the amphibs are either not underway or at very slow speed because we were launching, loading and/or recovering the water-borne vehicles. Today these may be hovercraft, or LCU’s or today’s assault amphibious vehicles. Think of pictures of South Pacific invasion fleets and you see vast numbers of ships offshore. Every vessel is an easy target full of hundreds of sailors and Marines.
We all know an amphibious operation requires more ships than the Navy and Marines have available today. And the operations—even just the exercises I saw--take incredible coordination by expert, dedicated professional servicemembers totally focused on the mission and in many cases willing to risk it all for success. And it takes luck being on our side. Does that describe today’s Navy? How many commanders have been relieved for “…lack of confidence in the ability to lead”? I worry about the service men and women paying more attention to their phones and devices than to the radar, sonar, radios, and other early warning systems they are assigned to monitor. It was difficult to keep them attentive even in the days before phones and the internet. Now it must be nearly impossible.
Even if Congress decided tomorrow to build ships, it would take years to be operational. And I am not confident in the quality of personnel being recruited, trained and put into positions of responsibility both in the Marine Corps and the Navy. It gives me heartburn to write that—about the Marines.
Our adversaries are watching and reading every day, learning the weaknesses of our capabilities. We can count on them to be prepared to take full advantage of those weaknesses. Not enough ships is a weakness. Poor leadership is a weakness. Add to that the lack of self-discipline in the enlisted ranks caused by attention to social media. I do not intend to say this applies to the entire enlisted men and women, but enough of them to create weak links in kay jobs at critical times. The answers—the solutions are obvious. Are we willing to do what we have to do?
cue Cfrog: "The problem is the USN / DoD management of shipyard building, maintenance, and repair facilities. It is time to break the protocol window and pressure the Navy instead of just hoping the bus shows up." PS: 31 or 38 doesn't matter in this environment....it's akin to arguing who gets the fresh filet mignon while holding a rat gnawed box of MRE's. Yes 38 is important, but in current environment, it is a paper patch over the hole in the armor. I understand there are externalities that have resulted in the current surface ship situation, but those aren't written in stone and they are failing to deliver an essential component of the Navy-Marine Corps Team.
This entire fiasco was self inflicted. Look no further than the Marine Corps leadership of the last nine years and specifically the tenure of Gen Berger. This is not a war college debate or alternating points of view. This was internal bad judgement or gross malfeasant decision making combined with a lack of integrity. Certain leaders should be recalled to active duty and answer to Congress, the American people and Marines why they decided as they did, why they often acted in secret to deceive by omission and commission. Accountability does not end with a billet or retirement. It is a life long obligation and some senior leaders have much to answer for. The wrong things were done the wrong way for the wrong reasons.
Recalling certain senior leaders to answer for our current plight strikes me as unusual, but, if done in the right format, intent, & spirit, perhaps some good could come of it. Such a course of action seems to me potentially explosive, so character of members of the “receiving” audience must be absolutely first rate - the bluest of blue ribbon committees. I am not convinced a congressional committee will be of real actionable value - that must not see the light of day. A blue ribbon panel of knowledgable citizens, protected from prying eyes and self-serving interests, might just be the ticket to getting new and satisfactory “rudder steerage” that can really repair a hole in our national defense.
From Britannica amphibious warfare, military operations characterized by attacks launched from the sea by naval and landing forces against hostile shores. The main form is the amphibious assault, which may be conducted for any of several purposes: to serve as a prelude to further combat operations ashore; to seize a site required as an advanced naval or air base; or to deny the use of the site or area to the enemy. Landing of expeditionary forces on a shore or at a port already secured by friendly forces is not usually included in the concept.
amphibious warfare
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Amphibious warfare has been conducted since ancient times, although specialized landing vessels are a modern development. The Greeks attacking Troy (1200 BC) had to gain a lodgment on the shore, as did the Persian invaders of Greece in the Bay of Marathon (490 BC). After the decline of Rome and during the European Middle Ages, the most successful practitioners of amphibious warfare, although on a small scale, were the Norse raiders on the coasts of northern, western, and Mediterranean Europe. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon’s failure to control the English Channel and invade England is frequently cited as a classic example of the inability of a strong continental force to project its strength over even the narrowest of seas if it lacks sea power. Similarly, Germany was disadvantaged during World War II by its lack of adequate amphibious capability.
The Marine Corps without Amphibs (not enough of them to meet the mission) is like a motorcycle club without the motorcycles or a rod and gun club without the rods and guns!
I do pray our current leaders wise up, reevaluate, and reequip our Corps to meet the ongoing geopolitical challenges our country is facing.
Our Marines deserve to have their motorcycle, rods, and guns to be the premier fighting force in readiness as it has always been!
The issue of too few Amphibs is as old as the hills. Our last Division size Amphib exercise was Operation Steel Pike in 1965. IMPO, nothing short of general war, or divine intervention, will reverse the damage we have sustained by this neglect: one from the Navy, and our own recent self inflicted wounds. So, a question may be: what is the Corps to do until our listing ship can be repaired? I offer a few thoughts that we can expand upon, to wit: 1. Continue with vigorous PME - we must remain smart & educated. 2. Continue to train well in the basics. 3. Remember our constituents in the public, especially organizations such as the American Legion & the VFW - those people vote, & are powerful. 4. Continue discussions such as we are having on CP … this mode of communication can have enormous intellectual freshness to it. 5. Listen to each other … the late MajGen Jim Day once told me “all of us are smarter than any of us” … we can beat our current situation. 6. In placing senior general officers, let’s make sure we’re getting the right folks, with the right backgrounds, into the right positions. Don’t give up the ship! Semper Fi!
I want to address the amphibious lift capability—or the gap in that capability. I apologize for the length of this, but my perspective is one that may be different from that of many Marines.
I served a two-year tour as a Combat Cargo Officer (CCO) with the amphibious Navy in 1974-76. The first year I was on the USS Francis Marion, LPA-249, the last of the troop transport ships, an old Liberty ship from WWII. It was put into the Navy’s reserve fleet, and I transferred at the end of year one to the USS Shreveport, LPD-12. I have a different perspective on the amphibious service with those two different platforms. For those unfamiliar with the CCO billet, at that time, each amphibious ship (amphib) had a Marine officer, usually a 1stLt, and a Staff NCO as part of ship’s company. We were assigned to the ship—our duty station for two years. We coordinated the Marine load plan, embarkation, and offload during exercises. We had to know the Marine and Navy sides of the amphibious business. It was a requiring an 0430 Embarkation MOS, my secondary; my primary was 0302, Infantry.
In those two years I saw the old LCVP’s and LCM’s, the vehicles we called Amtracs, and three types of helicopters carrying Marines, vehicles, ammunition and supplies. When you are landing troops, the amphibs are either not underway or at very slow speed because we were launching, loading and/or recovering the water-borne vehicles. Today these may be hovercraft, or LCU’s or today’s assault amphibious vehicles. Think of pictures of South Pacific invasion fleets and you see vast numbers of ships offshore. Every vessel is an easy target full of hundreds of sailors and Marines.
We all know an amphibious operation requires more ships than the Navy and Marines have available today. And the operations—even just the exercises I saw--take incredible coordination by expert, dedicated professional servicemembers totally focused on the mission and in many cases willing to risk it all for success. And it takes luck being on our side. Does that describe today’s Navy? How many commanders have been relieved for “…lack of confidence in the ability to lead”? I worry about the service men and women paying more attention to their phones and devices than to the radar, sonar, radios, and other early warning systems they are assigned to monitor. It was difficult to keep them attentive even in the days before phones and the internet. Now it must be nearly impossible.
Even if Congress decided tomorrow to build ships, it would take years to be operational. And I am not confident in the quality of personnel being recruited, trained and put into positions of responsibility both in the Marine Corps and the Navy. It gives me heartburn to write that—about the Marines.
Our adversaries are watching and reading every day, learning the weaknesses of our capabilities. We can count on them to be prepared to take full advantage of those weaknesses. Not enough ships is a weakness. Poor leadership is a weakness. Add to that the lack of self-discipline in the enlisted ranks caused by attention to social media. I do not intend to say this applies to the entire enlisted men and women, but enough of them to create weak links in kay jobs at critical times. The answers—the solutions are obvious. Are we willing to do what we have to do?
cue Cfrog: "The problem is the USN / DoD management of shipyard building, maintenance, and repair facilities. It is time to break the protocol window and pressure the Navy instead of just hoping the bus shows up." PS: 31 or 38 doesn't matter in this environment....it's akin to arguing who gets the fresh filet mignon while holding a rat gnawed box of MRE's. Yes 38 is important, but in current environment, it is a paper patch over the hole in the armor. I understand there are externalities that have resulted in the current surface ship situation, but those aren't written in stone and they are failing to deliver an essential component of the Navy-Marine Corps Team.
Replying to my own post....For clarity, I absolutely agree that shifting to a "31 is acceptable" stance was a compounding error.
This entire fiasco was self inflicted. Look no further than the Marine Corps leadership of the last nine years and specifically the tenure of Gen Berger. This is not a war college debate or alternating points of view. This was internal bad judgement or gross malfeasant decision making combined with a lack of integrity. Certain leaders should be recalled to active duty and answer to Congress, the American people and Marines why they decided as they did, why they often acted in secret to deceive by omission and commission. Accountability does not end with a billet or retirement. It is a life long obligation and some senior leaders have much to answer for. The wrong things were done the wrong way for the wrong reasons.
Recalling certain senior leaders to answer for our current plight strikes me as unusual, but, if done in the right format, intent, & spirit, perhaps some good could come of it. Such a course of action seems to me potentially explosive, so character of members of the “receiving” audience must be absolutely first rate - the bluest of blue ribbon committees. I am not convinced a congressional committee will be of real actionable value - that must not see the light of day. A blue ribbon panel of knowledgable citizens, protected from prying eyes and self-serving interests, might just be the ticket to getting new and satisfactory “rudder steerage” that can really repair a hole in our national defense.
From Britannica amphibious warfare, military operations characterized by attacks launched from the sea by naval and landing forces against hostile shores. The main form is the amphibious assault, which may be conducted for any of several purposes: to serve as a prelude to further combat operations ashore; to seize a site required as an advanced naval or air base; or to deny the use of the site or area to the enemy. Landing of expeditionary forces on a shore or at a port already secured by friendly forces is not usually included in the concept.
amphibious warfare
amphibious warfare
See all media
Category: History & Society
Related Topics: naval warfare land warfare
See all related content →
Amphibious warfare has been conducted since ancient times, although specialized landing vessels are a modern development. The Greeks attacking Troy (1200 BC) had to gain a lodgment on the shore, as did the Persian invaders of Greece in the Bay of Marathon (490 BC). After the decline of Rome and during the European Middle Ages, the most successful practitioners of amphibious warfare, although on a small scale, were the Norse raiders on the coasts of northern, western, and Mediterranean Europe. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon’s failure to control the English Channel and invade England is frequently cited as a classic example of the inability of a strong continental force to project its strength over even the narrowest of seas if it lacks sea power. Similarly, Germany was disadvantaged during World War II by its lack of adequate amphibious capability.
The Marine Corps without Amphibs (not enough of them to meet the mission) is like a motorcycle club without the motorcycles or a rod and gun club without the rods and guns!
I do pray our current leaders wise up, reevaluate, and reequip our Corps to meet the ongoing geopolitical challenges our country is facing.
Our Marines deserve to have their motorcycle, rods, and guns to be the premier fighting force in readiness as it has always been!