The 3rd Marine Division is being converted to three MLRs. The 3rd Marines and 12th Marines have already been redesignated MLRs. The 4th Marines is next up. Said another way, 1 of the 3 active Marine Corps Divisions has been restructured and reorganized into irrelevance. The bill payer for this transformation has been I and II MEF under the misguided concept of “divest to invest.”
The purpose of the MLRs in III MEF are to forward deploy SIFs inside contested areas to sink PLAN ships. Each MLR has one Naval Strike Missile Battery. The NSM is subsonic and short-range (115 NM or thereabouts). The shorter missile range means the SIF must deploy deeper into the Chinese WEZ to even theoretically get off a shot.
But, the Marine Corps has no capability to deploy, redeploy, or logistically support widely dispersed and isolated SIFs inside the WEZ. The current and previous Commandants put all their eggs in the LSM basket - - articulating a requirement for 35. The Navy has reduced the requirement to 18. None have been built to date. Five have some visibility in the budgeting process. The main stumbling block to procurement is survivability. The ships as currently envisioned are simply not survivable, despite Marine Corps pronouncements that they will blend in with commercial shipping and go to ground and hide when the shooting starts.
With or without the LSM, the SIFs cannot be logistically supported. With no SIFs, the MLRs are irrelevant. Without MLRs, Force Design is irrelevant. Alarmist or realist?
Correction: The SECNAV briefly ordered a “pause” for San Antonio LPDs, not an end to amphib construction (or even an LHA pause). This was to ensure the next LPD design was sized right – embarked Marine berthing among other factors. Either a Flight II design or an LXR design. A pause also served as a shot across the bow of Huntington Ingalls, keeping their bidding demands from spiraling higher. It worked.
The pause was announced last year, so NOT on the heels of the Commandant’s 2019 Planning Guidance.
Also, FD-2030 never called for elimination of LHAs, LPDs, ARGs or MEUs. Only about 10% of combat Marines are formed into Marine Littoral Regiments which remain organic to the 3rd Marine Division. The 4-ship buy just announced was blessed by the current Commandant. This flies in the face of alarmists who keep claiming the entire Marine Corps will be LMRs.
Your comment regarding III MEF is disingenuous and misleading. I’ll still refer to the regiments as regiments not MLRs. If we’re talking a full up Marine Division, then there’re 3 infantry regiments, one artillery regiment, one combat engineer battalion, and one HQ battalion.
Let’s start at the top. HQ Battalion is located on Okinawa. 3rd Marines is located in Hawaii. We have parts of another infantry regiment located in Australia and other parts located throughout the Pacific such as on Guam. If I recall correctly 3rd MarDiv has approximately 2 infantry battalions located on Okinawa for direct tasking. And that’s before 3rd MarDiv picks up any MEU taskings. III MEF has no MEB deployable. I don’t even know if they have a standing MEB HQ.
Let’s move to the 12th Marines, the “supposed” artillery regiment. 12th Marines has been designated an MLR regiment! They now have AT BEST 1-2 batteries of tubed artillery, and I’m not sure they even have that. Now I’m a cannon cocker by trade, but my education may be a little dated but I’ll go with what I know. FM 6-20 states that the MINIMUM artillery support is one battalion of tubed artillery to a maneuver brigade, in our case we’ll call a regiment equivalent to a brigade. An artillery battalion is the smallest artillery unit that is assigned a supporting arms mission, except for the unique mission of a dedicated battery.
So now that 12th Marines is an MLR regiment where does the MEF get its artillery support? The uninformed answer is “well they just drop their missiles and fall in on their gun tubes”. Ah not so fast. When the Commandant “divested” the Corps of tubed artillery he went all the way. He didn’t keep them at depot level, he turned all those howitzers over to the Army, who promptly declared them excess and gave them to Ukraine. As of Jan. 2024, the BAE production line was closed. In Jan. BAE agreed to open the line, but major components won’t be delivered until sometime in 2025.
You say so what they have HIMARS. HIMARS are not suitable for direct support missions. They are designed to shape the deep battle. If you think that a HIMARS is suitable for a DS mission I’ll let YOU be the FO to call for the FPF to be fired. Me, I’ll be a click away.
But that’s not the worst of it. Where will the Corps get their 08s from. Just as you don’t magically produce an 03, the same goes for 08s, and that’s ANY 08…0802, 0811, 0844, 0848, etc. Where are they now, not in the Corps I assure you.
Bottom line is the Corps is ill equipped to fight ANY type of battle in the Indo-Pacific, except the “Die In Place” battle.
Again.. .FD2030 is proving to be a colossal disaster for our Corps and its readiness!!!
One small step in the right direction.
This is great news!
The 3rd Marine Division is being converted to three MLRs. The 3rd Marines and 12th Marines have already been redesignated MLRs. The 4th Marines is next up. Said another way, 1 of the 3 active Marine Corps Divisions has been restructured and reorganized into irrelevance. The bill payer for this transformation has been I and II MEF under the misguided concept of “divest to invest.”
The purpose of the MLRs in III MEF are to forward deploy SIFs inside contested areas to sink PLAN ships. Each MLR has one Naval Strike Missile Battery. The NSM is subsonic and short-range (115 NM or thereabouts). The shorter missile range means the SIF must deploy deeper into the Chinese WEZ to even theoretically get off a shot.
But, the Marine Corps has no capability to deploy, redeploy, or logistically support widely dispersed and isolated SIFs inside the WEZ. The current and previous Commandants put all their eggs in the LSM basket - - articulating a requirement for 35. The Navy has reduced the requirement to 18. None have been built to date. Five have some visibility in the budgeting process. The main stumbling block to procurement is survivability. The ships as currently envisioned are simply not survivable, despite Marine Corps pronouncements that they will blend in with commercial shipping and go to ground and hide when the shooting starts.
With or without the LSM, the SIFs cannot be logistically supported. With no SIFs, the MLRs are irrelevant. Without MLRs, Force Design is irrelevant. Alarmist or realist?
Correction: The SECNAV briefly ordered a “pause” for San Antonio LPDs, not an end to amphib construction (or even an LHA pause). This was to ensure the next LPD design was sized right – embarked Marine berthing among other factors. Either a Flight II design or an LXR design. A pause also served as a shot across the bow of Huntington Ingalls, keeping their bidding demands from spiraling higher. It worked.
The pause was announced last year, so NOT on the heels of the Commandant’s 2019 Planning Guidance.
Also, FD-2030 never called for elimination of LHAs, LPDs, ARGs or MEUs. Only about 10% of combat Marines are formed into Marine Littoral Regiments which remain organic to the 3rd Marine Division. The 4-ship buy just announced was blessed by the current Commandant. This flies in the face of alarmists who keep claiming the entire Marine Corps will be LMRs.
Your comment regarding III MEF is disingenuous and misleading. I’ll still refer to the regiments as regiments not MLRs. If we’re talking a full up Marine Division, then there’re 3 infantry regiments, one artillery regiment, one combat engineer battalion, and one HQ battalion.
Let’s start at the top. HQ Battalion is located on Okinawa. 3rd Marines is located in Hawaii. We have parts of another infantry regiment located in Australia and other parts located throughout the Pacific such as on Guam. If I recall correctly 3rd MarDiv has approximately 2 infantry battalions located on Okinawa for direct tasking. And that’s before 3rd MarDiv picks up any MEU taskings. III MEF has no MEB deployable. I don’t even know if they have a standing MEB HQ.
Let’s move to the 12th Marines, the “supposed” artillery regiment. 12th Marines has been designated an MLR regiment! They now have AT BEST 1-2 batteries of tubed artillery, and I’m not sure they even have that. Now I’m a cannon cocker by trade, but my education may be a little dated but I’ll go with what I know. FM 6-20 states that the MINIMUM artillery support is one battalion of tubed artillery to a maneuver brigade, in our case we’ll call a regiment equivalent to a brigade. An artillery battalion is the smallest artillery unit that is assigned a supporting arms mission, except for the unique mission of a dedicated battery.
So now that 12th Marines is an MLR regiment where does the MEF get its artillery support? The uninformed answer is “well they just drop their missiles and fall in on their gun tubes”. Ah not so fast. When the Commandant “divested” the Corps of tubed artillery he went all the way. He didn’t keep them at depot level, he turned all those howitzers over to the Army, who promptly declared them excess and gave them to Ukraine. As of Jan. 2024, the BAE production line was closed. In Jan. BAE agreed to open the line, but major components won’t be delivered until sometime in 2025.
You say so what they have HIMARS. HIMARS are not suitable for direct support missions. They are designed to shape the deep battle. If you think that a HIMARS is suitable for a DS mission I’ll let YOU be the FO to call for the FPF to be fired. Me, I’ll be a click away.
But that’s not the worst of it. Where will the Corps get their 08s from. Just as you don’t magically produce an 03, the same goes for 08s, and that’s ANY 08…0802, 0811, 0844, 0848, etc. Where are they now, not in the Corps I assure you.
Bottom line is the Corps is ill equipped to fight ANY type of battle in the Indo-Pacific, except the “Die In Place” battle.
I think the concern with the amphib ship buy was that the proposed LSM program
of 18-36 ships would detract from the bigger L Class ships.