Compass Points - Come Together HMLA-269
Campaign of Learning Unites All.
Compass Points - Come Together HMLA-269
Campaign of Learning Unites All.
March 26. 2024
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In their 1969 album, Abbey Road, the Beatles, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, composed a blues, rock classic "Come Together." Although many of the lyrics were nonsensical or unintelligible, the main message was clear "Come together. Right now."
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Now that some years have gone by, perhaps the entire, broad community of Marines, both the supporters of Force Design and those with questions, have begun to come together.
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Over the years some supporters of Force Design have accused those with doubts and questions about Force Design of being unhelpful and unwelcome. But in a memorandum from then Commandant Berger to the Secretary of Defense, the Commandant stressed the importance of the Force Design "ongoing campaign of learning." He went on to say, "We will continue to refine our Force Design based on the results of this learning . . . ." So, those who have raised and continue to raise questions about Force Design are helping the campaign of learning succeed. There is no campaign of learning without hard questions and clear eyed critique.
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From the very beginning, one of the portions of Force Design that needed a campaign of learning was Marine aviation. The Deputy Commandant for Aviation, in his Marine Aviation Plan even warned of the dangers of reducing Marine aviation:
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. . . As the Marine Corps continues to execute Force Design 2030, we are experiencing challenges driven by aviation capacity being reduced without relief from operational commitments. Multiple communities will be stressed over the coming years, resulting from either divestment or transition. This is a critical period for the Marine Corps and for Marine Aviation. We must protect the progress that we have made over the past several years in increased readiness in order to sustain our competitive advantage over our adversaries.
-- USMC Aviation Plan 2022 (p. 24)
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Even though he tried to use tactful language, the message from the official Aviation Plan is clear. If you deactivate aviation aircraft and units, there will not be enough left to meet all the required missions. The Aviation Plan was not the only warning. In an early post about the dangers of cutting so much aviation, Compass Points was less tactful and more blunt.
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. . . Will Marine assault support aircraft suffer the same fate? Will they eventually go to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, “Aircraft Boneyard” outside Tucson, Arizona? If not there, will they go overseas as excess defense articles or somewhere else?
. . . one thing is certain - - 44 MV-22s, 30 AH-1Zs, and the 24 UH-1Ys will no longer be available in the active force to support Marines. The 48 CH-53K are still in the POR (for now) but for what purpose since they will not be in the active or even reserve force? The Marine Corps has divested all of these aircraft as ostensible bill payers for experimental capabilities that are years away from being fielded in sufficient quantities to make a difference in operational capabilities. A Marine capability that is supposedly fine “programmatically” has been “operationally” devastated. The ACE is clearly less capable today, even with the new aircraft, than it was three years ago. . . A stronger Marine Corps requires stronger aviation.
-- Compass Points "Compass Points - Focus on Aviation, Part 1 -
Where have all the Rotor & Tiltrotor Aircraft Gone?" 01/03/2023
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That same month, Marine Generals Amos, Dake, and Knutson, writing in Defense News, issued their own strong warning, “Unwise divestments are crippling US Marine Corps aviation”
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In summary, we believe Marine Corps aviation has been needlessly and unwisely decimated by the dangerous strategy of “divest to invest.” The capabilities the Marine Corps and the nation need to fight and win today have been discarded for the allure of experimental capabilities that may or may not prove effective — or even be available in sufficient quantities for a decade or more.
The crippling of Marine aviation is a national security concern, which deserves the attention of Congress, the Department of Defense and the American people.
-- Gen. James Amos (ret.), Gen. Terrence Dake (ret.) and Lt. Gen. Barry Knutson (ret.)
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Despite the warnings, including warnings from the Marine Corps' own Aviation Plan, too many aviation airframes and units were divested and deactivated.
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But now, because of the hard questions and pointed warnings, the lesson has been learned. HMLA-269 (Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 269) is being reactivated. The Marine Times is reporting,
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In November 2022, Marines from a North Carolina helicopter squadron flew their AH-1Z Vipers and UH-1Y Venoms together for what was supposed to be the last time. . .
. . . But less than two years after the squadron was deactivated as part of an overhaul of the Marine Corps, it will get reactivated.
“Through the Force Design Campaign of Learning, the Service continually seeks validation of previous assumptions to ensure the [Fleet Marine Force] is effective, lethal, and combat-ready,” Marine spokesman Maj. Eric Flanagan said in an emailed statement to Marine Corps Times on March 14.
-- Marine Times
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Deactivate a critical squadron in November of 2022? Reactivate the same critical squadron in July of 2024? Strange way to plan. A better way to avoid misguided situations where key assets and units are deactivated and discarded one month and then brought back a short time later, is to use a comprehensive, thorough, combat development process. Fortunately, the Marine Corps has the Combat Development Command at Quantico which, when it is put to work, makes sure in advance that all the aspects of a plan are well thought out and accounted for.
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The Combat Development Command could have helped put the actual process of design into Force Design. The name, 'Force Design 2030' is a misnomer. True design calls for the active participation of a wide variety of experienced and knowledgeable people. All the evidence indicates that the 38th Commandant, in large measure, simply dictated the Force Design 2030 plan.
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The official Marine publication on planning, MCDP 5 - Planning, describes what should happen in the planning process. Planning starts with the conceptual, moves to functional, and then to detailed planning. Conceptual, functional, and then detailed. Design is part of conceptual planning; thus, design is visionary in depth and broad in scope. It is holistic, not narrow, systematic, or reductionist. The two planning phases that come next, functional, and then detailed, become increasingly narrow and systematic.
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It is all similar to tactical planning. In tactical planning, creating a scheme of maneuver and supporting fires is less detailed than developing unit boundaries, lines of departure, phase lines, and fire plans all of which entail the use of procedures.
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Force development should begin with an operating concept. A new operating concept is visionary, whereas doctrine derived from that concept is more specific. After doctrine, acquisitions requirements for a new piece of gear are extremely detailed.
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The Marine Corps Combat Development Process moves planning from a broad concept all the way to detailed instructions and requirements. In the past this process enabled the Corps to redesign its operational forces again and again with few errors and minimal friction.
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Failure to use the Combat Development Process in the case of Force Design 2030 brought about serious errors and created considerable friction. The need to reconstitute HMLA 269 less than two years after it was deactivated is an illustration of one of many serious errors. It is not only HMLA-269. There are widespread reports that the “stoplight” charts the Marine Manpower department uses to show the current status of personnel activities are all “red” today -- a sure sign of difficulties and friction. And it has become widely accepted that the Stand-in-Force mission on Pacific islands, the focus of Force Design, is currently logistically unsupportable.
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All these problems including HMLA 269, the blinking red stoplight charts at Manpower, the missing logistics support for Stand-in-Forces, and many more issues, should have been carefully planned and prepared for by the Combat Development Command. But in the hurry to implement Force Design, Combat Development Command was never allowed to even begin the foundational design work. Now, without the proper planning accomplished, all that is left is a haphazard “learning campaign” that seeks to learn after the fact what should have been discovered in advance.
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The past is the past. What is needed now is an urgent campaign, not just of learning, but a campaign to bring back all the similar HMLA-269s that have been heedlessly deactivated throughout the Marine Corps. Bring back what needs to be brought back. Enhance and upgrade all that needs improving. Use the Combat Development Command to thoroughly plan and prepare.
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In their 1969 album, Abbey Road, the Beatles, Paul McCartney and John Lennon, composed a blues, rock classic "Come Together." Today it may be that the so-called campaign of learning can be a way to bring people together. The Gunrunners of HMLA-269 are coming back. More of the worse excesses of Force Design are being rethought and it is all because of the widespread and continuing clear eyed critique by the entire Marine community -- which includes hard questions from Congress. The return of HMLA-269 can be a sign that the supporters of Force Design and those with questions about Force Design can all "come together" and find a better way forward that will build the advanced and enhanced Marine crisis response force that is urgently needed today all around the globe.
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2022 United States Marine Corps Aviation Plan
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Compass Points "Focus on Aviation, Part 1"
Where have all the Rotor & Tiltroter Aircraft Gone?
O1/03/2023
https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-focus-on-aviation
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Marine Times - 03/21/2024
Marine Corps is reviving a light attack helicopter unit it cut in 2022
By Irene Loewenson
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Defense News - 01/26/2023
Unwise divestments are crippling US Marine Corps aviation
By Gen. James Amos (ret.), Gen. Terrence Dake (ret.) and Lt. Gen. Barry Knutson (ret.)
Retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Amos last served as commandant of the Marine Corps. Retired Gen. Terrence Dake last served as assistant commandant of the Marine Corps. Retired Lt. Gen. Barry Knutson’s last assignment was leading the Marine Corps’ Combat Development Command.
The phrase “ ongoing campaign of learning…” is a curious phrase when you make massive divestment decisions without a clear picture of where you might be going. That is precisely what FD-2030 did. “I don’t really know what I want, but what I have is not it.” That is an indication of deep seated mental illness. No rational organization operates that way. It is a a hallmark of irresponsible behavior, poor planning, if any occurred at all, and gross ignorance. One wonders which brilliant individual thought the Marine Corps could with draw from world events to reinvent itself in what now appears to be a 15 year process. Words simply fail me as I reviewed what happened and continues to happen. Gen Berger, single handedly decided that long range, Chinese hypersonic missiles had so radically changed the paradigm that he needed to rebuild the Corps for a new mission. Anyone seen one of those missiles hit a moving warship? Some pundits raised their hands in defeat claiming there was no defense against the missiles. Seems to me conventional forces were once declared dead by AirPower, Nuclear weapons, guerrilla warfare, satellites, electronic jamming, fossil fuel short falls and a host of other “modern developments.” The Pentomic Army lasted less than five years.
It is high time to stop FD-2030 in its tracks. Rebuild the MAGTF and give it additional anti air ( drones, planes, Helos and missiles) capabilities. If the Corps decides it wants a ship killing capability let it stand up a Bn in each of the Artillery Regiments.
That is great news. Now, if the bridging, tanks, infantry, and snipers could all come back too.