Compass Points - Deter or Fight?
Marines must get ready for DOD ‘show & tell’
Compass Points - Deter or Fight?
Marines must get ready for DOD ‘show & tell’
December 4, 2024
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It will soon be ‘show & tell’ time at the DOD. What capability should the Marine Corps show off?
Military forces must have practical usefulness. In peacetime, military forces must be useful for deterring the enemy. When deterrence ends and war begins, military forces must be useful in warfighting. For the last four years, the US Marine Corps has been focused on developing small missile units along the coast of China. What is the practical usefulness of these small missile units? Are the missile units useful for deterrence or are the missile units useful for warfighting?
USNI News is reporting that after years of waiting, the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in Hawaii has received a few NMESIS missile systems.
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“The NMESIS provides this Regiment a potent sea denial capability in support of our mission essential task to ‘Attack Enemy Maritime Targets.’ That capability greatly enhances the Regiment’s ability to support and integrate with the Marine Air-Ground Task Force, the Fleet, the Joint Force and our Allies,” Col. John Lehane, the commanding officer of the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, said in a news release. The 3rd MLR and NMESIS are among the defining symbols of Force Design, the Marine Corps’ transformative plan to modernize amid new threats from adversaries such as China and Russia. The idea is for the unit, and its anti-ship missiles, to deploy to remote islands across the Indo-Pacific to provide targeting data to other service branches and deny strategic chokepoints and maritime areas from adversaries.
-- USNI News
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It may be the article overstates what has arrived in Hawaii so far. The NMESIS systems the article discusses are most likely only pre-production prototypes. Actual production and fielding of the NMESIS is not scheduled until April 2026. Does the arrival of the NMESIS prototype systems mean the controversial Force Design effort at last has acquired useful operational capabilities? Doubtful. One Compass Points reader has commented on the plan for small units of missile Marines.
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Almost six years later: no T/E, no T/O, no ships, no doctrine, no weaponry, no concept of employment. We used to call this “on a wing and a prayer.” No garbage barge sunk, no position defended and no displacement or resupply. Please show me a demo on San Clemente Island. Insert, set up, shoot, defend, resupply and displace. Repeat. Until that can be demonstrated this is vapor ware. At its best it is amateurish. At its worst it is professional incompetence bordering on a crime. When will someone step up and put this long running farce to an end?
-- Douglas C Rapé
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Beginning with his article back in 2022, another experienced Marine, Franz J. Gayl, has raised several objections to the entire Marine missile unit plan.
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Marine Corps Tomahawk and Naval Strike Missiles are currently subsonic ― while China already has fielded a family of precision hypersonic missiles, including infrared homing.
Immediately following any Marine Corps launch, the Chinese will know the point of launch and the type of missile through the mature technique of plume spectral analysis, multiple sources show. If the Chinese counter-fire on detection, at Mach 3 to Mach 5 or higher, their missiles will reach our Marines before our missile even hits its land or sea target. Shoot and scoot is unrealistic.
. . . Instead, we can provide better service by returning to our global focus as a combined arms force in readiness that employs scalable MAGTFs for the broad variety of missions they were intended.
-- Franz J. Gayl in the Marine Times
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In his article, Gayl also dismisses what some proponents of Force Design have often whispered: that the real power of Marine missiles would come from Marines using nuclear munitions. The argument is regrettable and inaccurate. Whether munitions are conventional or not, the US already has more robust delivery systems, including Navy subs, Navy ships, and Air Force bombers. What those services cannot provide is what Gayl calls, "scalable MAGTFs for a broad variety of missions."
When the new year arrives and with it a new administration, the US military services will each be reviewed to assess their value to the US defense. It will be ‘show & tell’ time. US forces must be able to deter today and, should deterrence end, fight tomorrow. Traditionally, Marine scalable, combined arms MAGTFs, transported and supported by Navy ships, provide a constant deterrence today and should war begin tomorrow, a rapid source of combined arms combat power.
Can the same be said for the Marine NMESIS missile systems? Do these latest Marine missile systems deter today? Sadly, not even one nation state in the world today is deterred by the Marine NMESIS missile systems in Hawaii. Whether only prototypes or actual production systems, the missile systems do not deter anyone today and tomorrow, they cannot be a rapid source of combined arms combat power.
Should full scale war erupt with China, what is the Marine Corps plan for the NMESIS missile systems in Hawaii? Use CH-53 heavy lift helicopters to sling load the NMESIS system to some remote island off China's coast? Why would China allow that? The slow-moving CH-53s would simply be easy targets. Would Navy ships turn from pressing war time missions, to pick up the NMESIS systems from Hawaii and transport them to the first island chain? Why? What could a handful of sub-sonic missiles do to turn the tide of the war? If the missile units were placed on remote islands, before or after warfighting began, how would the missile units be resupplied, reinforced, or evacuated?
Over the years, some Force Design boosters have claimed that the Marine Corps must turn itself into a defensive missile force because the Navy warfighting ships are extremely vulnerable to enemy anti-access / area denial. While it is true that missiles continue to grow in speed and capabilities, there is no credible evidence that Navy ships cannot defend themselves. The Houthi rebels, for example, have tried for more than a year to damage or sink a US Navy warfighting ship. The Houthis have not been able to even damage a Navy ship, much less sink one. Navy ships in the Red Sea have demonstrated the ongoing power and usefulness of Navy warships, including amphibious ships.
Military forces must have practical usefulness. In peacetime, military forces must be useful for deterring the enemy. When deterrence ends and war begins, military forces must be useful in warfighting.
USNI News is reporting that the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment in Hawaii has received a few NMESIS missile systems. The NMESIS systems now in Hawaii are most likely only prototypes. What is the usefulness of the new NMESIS systems?
Are they useful for deterring the enemies of the US today? Doubtful.
Are they useful for warfighting tomorrow? Doubtful.
In contrast, even with very serious shortages of Navy amphibious ships, the Marine Corps is still sending out on Navy amphibious ships "scalable MAGTFs for a broad variety of missions."
Are deployed MAGTFs useful for deterring the enemies of the US today? Absolutely.
Wherever they sail, MAGTFs are a combined arms, deterrent force.
Are deployed MAGTFs useful for warfighting tomorrow? Absolutely.
Marine MAGTFs can arrive quickly to any crisis, ready to deter, assist, or fight.
Shortly after the new year begins, it is going to be ‘show and tell’ time at the Department of Defense. Each military service will need to step forward and show off their best capabilities. The Marine Corps would be wise to bring to show and tell, not the shiny new NMESIS prototypes in Hawaii, but the powerful, proven, and extremely practical 9-1-1 MAGTF, the Nation’s always ready crisis response force.
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USNI News - 12/02/2024
Hawaii Marine Littoral Regiment Receives First Anti-ship Missile System
By Aaron-Matthew Lariosa
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Marine Times - 08/04/2022
The Marine Corps’ new plan will not beat China in a fight for Taiwan
By Franz J. Gayl
I hope all Compass point readers noticed that budget documents indicate the first production models of the NMESIS are not scheduled to come off the production line until April 2026. It will take more months to fully equip and train operators in the 3rd MLR. When that is accomplished the regiment will have a system that is not stealthy despite the 38th CMC's claims otherwise, has a limited range (115 miles), is subsonic, and with a warhead unlikely to sink a naval combatant. Furthermore, the leaders of the Corps have yet to figure out how they will provide logistics to keep this system in the fight or how it will maneuver the Stand-i Forces armed with the system. For this the 38th CMC gave up the Corps ability to fulfill its Congressionally mandated role as an air-ground combined arms force, its focus on the corps-level MEF (39th CMC advertises MEUs as the "jewel of the Corps"), and its persistent forward presence. I see this as professional malpractice on the part of the Corps' senior leaders.
When I read about the “deployment” of the NMESIS missiles, I yawned.” I still don’t see how “it’s a Force Multiplier!
In my humble and unlearned opinion, deployment of NMESIS missiles by the Corps in a potential conflict against China is misguided and will more than likely prove ineffective.
First, China’s robust and highly advanced air defense systems, such as the HQ-9 - https://www.army-technology.com/projects/hong-qi-9-hq-9-air-defence-missile-system/
and other integrated missile defense networks, are specifically designed to neutralize incoming missile threats, reducing the tactical advantage of NMESIS.
Second, China’s vast geography and decentralized command-and-control infrastructure make it challenging to identify high-value targets that could justify the missile’s use.
Additionally, the reliance on a missile-based strategy located close to China in a static position (if other countries in the first island chain allow their deployment) risks escalating tensions, rather than deterring Chinese adventurism.
Finally, such an approach neglects the strategic importance of cyber, electronic warfare, and other asymmetric methods that are more suited to countering China’s strengths, making the use of NMESIS missiles both impractical and strategically shortsighted. The Marine Corps would be better suited, and would serve our nation more capably, by returning all three MEFs to their MAGTF concept…add to the MAGTFs, don’t neuter them, this is the only way to keep the Marine Corps viable in any future conflict and keep them as a deterrence against potential bad actors.
Let the Air Force, Navy, and Army handle missile defense; they are quite capable and already have such systems in place!