Compass Points - Hogan's Alley
Compass Points - Hogan's Alley
Compass Points - Hogan's Alley
Looks like a real town
April 23, 2025
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The "crown jewel" of the FBI Academy at Quantico is the world famous shooting range, Hogan's Alley. The shooting range is made to seem like a real town.
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How realistic is Hogan’s Alley? Very. We built it with the help of Hollywood set designers. Like many small towns, it’s got a bank, a post office, a hotel, a laundromat, a barber shop, a pool hall, homes, shops, and more.
. . . But don’t look too closely. The cars parked outside “Honest Jim’s” aren’t really for sale, although a contract painter once tried to buy one. The “Dogwood Inn Restaurant” is actually a classroom. The post office doesn’t deliver and the town’s two mailboxes have been welded shut . . . .
-- FBI.gov
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The FBI's crown jewel at Quantico, Hogan's Alley, is not a real town, it just look like a real town.
The Marine Corps leadership often says that the afloat Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) is the crown jewel of the Marine Corps.
Is it really?
It is worth reviewing what the Commandant has said about the MEU in his planning guidance which is most likely what he will say again soon in his posture statement to Congress.
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39th Commandant’s Planning Guidance
Comment and Analysis
Section 15. MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNITS - p 12
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MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNITS
MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNITS (MEUs) – 3.0 REQUIREMENT
CPG -- The Amphibious Ready Group / Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) is the premier force offering of our Corps, and I will make all necessary investments to keep it that way. No other formation we offer as Marines is as responsive or flexible as a three-ship ARG/MEU. Forward deployed, the MEU provides our national leadership with combat credible forces that are persistently on-scene and contribute to deterrence, campaigning, crisis response, and combat operations. The ARG/MEU provides our Nation’s premier seabasing capability, which remains a national imperative and delivers unmatched flexibility without the need to first request access, basing, or overflight permissions prior to conducting operations. In a peer fight, the ARG/MEU can hold adversary overseas holdings at risk, and if necessary, expand the conflict to strain adversary resources in protracted conflict. For these reasons, the Geographic Combatant Commanders’ demand for ARG/MEUs greatly exceeds the Navy and Marine Corps’ ability to source them.
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Comment & Analysis –
Beginning with General Gray as the 29th Commandant of the Marine Corps, Marines placed emphasis on the Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF). The most common expression of this emphasis was the phrase, “primacy of the MEF.” Marines also spoke of the MEF as a “reservoir of combat power.” Why has the Corps moved away from this MEF-focused construct, which proved very successful in the fielding and employment of MEUs, MEBs, and on two occasions MEFs? What else can the MEU “contribute to combat operations” other than a light infantry battalion, a cannon artillery battery, and a vertical lift capability?
How will the Corps even be able to support a 3.0 presence? Recently, battalions operated on a 24-month cycle—six-months deployed and 18 months at home station—requiring 4 infantry battalions for each of the MEUs based in the continental US. Thus, maintaining a “heel-to-toe” (365 days a year) deployment of MEUs from the East and West Coasts will require 8 infantry battalions. This leaves 13 of the existing 21 infantry battalions available, however one is stationed permanently as Littoral Combat Team (LCT) in Hawaii, bringing the number to 12.
Some reports indicate, the LCTs in Okinawa and Guam might be part of a unit deployment program requiring 8 battalions. If that is true, there will only be 4 infantry battalions remaining to serve as the maneuver elements of 5 infantry regiments -- 3 West Coast regiments and 2 East Coast Regiments. Four infantry battalions shared by 5 infantry regiments? That makes no sense. The misguided missile unit experiment is having a catastrophic effect on Marine Corps combat power.
Also, the idea that MEFs are force providers is badly misguided. Service Components (MARFORs) are force providers. MEFs are warfighters. Or, they are supposed to be warfighters. The unbalanced focus on the MEUs alone has led to severe reductions in the capabilities of the all important MEFs. And III MEF, the Corps’ so-called “fight now” MEF has been dangerously stripped of nearly all its combat arms infantry.
The combined arms power of III MEF resides in the 3rd Marine Division. But the division’s infantry and artillery regiments are being removed. The 3rd Marine Division is being converted to three Marine Littoral Regiments, (MLRs). The 3rd Marines and 12th Marines have already been redesignated MLRs. The 4th Marines is next to go.
What this means for the Marine Corps is 1 of the 3 active Marine Corps divisions has been restructured and reorganized into irrelevance. The MLRs are not infantry regiments. 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 (Weapons Engagement Zone) to even theoretically get off a shot.
How will the Marine missile units get deep inside the WEZ? The Marine Corps has no capability to deploy, redeploy, or logistically support widely dispersed and isolated SIFs inside the WEZ. The current and the previous Commandant put all their eggs in the LSM (Landing Ship Medium) basket - - articulating a requirement for 35.
The Navy has reduced the requirement to 18. So far, not one LSM has been built. It is not clear that any ever will be constructed. Five do have some visibility in the budgeting process. The main stumbling block to procurement is survivability. The LSM 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. Without the infantry regiments from 3rd Marine Division, III MEF is not the Corps’ “fight now” MEF, it is, unfortunately, the Corps’ “irrelevant now” MEF.
Although the global MEUs are a powerful tool for the US, the real power of the MEU comes not from the small Marine force that arrives quickly offshore in a crisis, the real strength of the MEU is when it can be quickly reinforced and expanded into a larger and more capable force. Rapidly expanding the MEU at the scene of a crisis requires supplies and equipment from maritime prepositioning ships together with fly in echelons of Marines provided by robust MEFs. But very soon, III MEF will have nothing to “fight now” with and no echelons to fly in to support a MEU in crisis.
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Too much of what the Marine Corps has been saying for too long is as fake as a store front on Hogan's Alley.
For example, is the NMESIS lancher unit at exercise Balikatan in the Philippines, a genuine, substantial capability that will actually fire a real missile during the exercise? No. No firing. Just photographs.
After years of talk about a string of Marine missile units off the coast of China, are the missile units in place today and ready to shoot, move, and communicate? No. No operational missile units. Just briefing slides.
After talk of the Marine MEU being the "crown jewel" of the Marine Corps, is the Marine MEU consistently supported by maritime prepositioning ships, consistently reinforced by a much larger, fully equipped, combined arms MEF, and is the MEU consistently on patrol around the globe? No. Too often there is too little support for the MEUs and too few MEUs on the oceans of the world -- often none at all.
It is time for the Marine Corps to stop putting another coat of paint on the fake store front of Hogan's Alley. What is needed is not more pretending, but more leadership to restore and enhance what the Nation needs around the world: the Marine Corps' always ready, flexible, scalable, combined arms, crisis response force of Marines.
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FBI
Tactical - Hogan's Alley
https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-investigate/hogans-alley
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Marines
39th Commandant's Planning Guidance
https://www.cmc.marines.mil/CPG/
CMCs Neller, Berger and Smith have done what no enemy could do in 250 years, they destroyed Our Marine Corps!
### Comprehensive Breakdown: Impacts of Force Design 2030 Since 2020
Since its implementation in March 2020, Force Design 2030 (FD2030) has aimed to transform the U.S. Marine Corps into a lighter, missile-focused force for Indo-Pacific sea denial, primarily through the creation of Marine Littoral Regiments (MLRs) of approximately 2,000 Marines each. However, this shift has come at a significant cost, both financially and operationally, undermining the Corps’ ability to execute its Title 10 role as a global force-in-readiness. The following breakdown details the financial waste, operational failures, missed missions, and strategic risks incurred since 2020, culminating in a diminished capacity to address escalating global threats.
#### Financial Waste: $18.092 Billion in Divestments and Reinvestments
FD2030 divested critical assets and reinvested in unproven systems, resulting in substantial financial waste:
- **Divested Assets ($14.149 Billion)**:
- Tanks: 400 M1A1 Abrams and 50 M88 recovery vehicles, totaling $925 million.
- Towed Artillery: 96 M777 howitzers, valued at $384 million.
- Aviation: 44 MV-22 Ospreys, 54 AH-1Z/UH-1Y helicopters, 48 CH-53K helicopters, and 54 F-35B fighters, totaling $12.62 billion.
- Bridging: 50 Armored Vehicle Launched Bridges (AVLBs), valued at $50 million.
- Infantry and Other Units: 5 infantry battalions and 2 assault amphibian companies, totaling $170 million.
- **Training Losses ($43.24 Million)**:
- Tankers: 800 personnel, with training costs of $25,000 each, totaling $20 million.
- Scout Snipers: 300 personnel, with training costs of $30,000 each, totaling $9 million.
- Military Police: 308 personnel, with training costs of $30,000 each, totaling $9.24 million.
- Bridging Engineers: 200 personnel, with training costs of $25,000 each, totaling $5 million.
- **Reinvestments ($3.9 Billion)**:
- MLR Setup: $1.5 billion to establish 3 MLRs.
- MADIS: $1.9 billion for 190 Marine Air Defense Integrated Systems.
- NMESIS: $500 million for the Navy/Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System, which has yielded zero operational units after 72 months.
- **Total Financial Waste**: $18.092 billion, diverting resources from proven capabilities to a strategy that has failed to deliver operational results, as evidenced by wargames showing 30,000 MLR casualties defending Taiwan compared to 9,000 for a combined-arms MAGTF.
#### Operational Failures: Fragmented Structure and Reduced Readiness
FD2030’s shift to MLRs has fragmented the unified MAGTF structure—comprising a Command Element (CE), Ground Combat Element (GCE), Aviation Combat Element (ACE), and Logistics Combat Element (LCE)—that enabled the Corps’ global reach in 1991. Key operational failures include:
- **Amphibious Shortfall**: The Corps now has only 12–13 amphibious ships ready, down from 38–40 in 1991, with the Landing Ship Medium (LSM) program stalled due to cost overruns. This limits rapid deployment for NEOs, HADR, and deterrence operations.
- **Loss of Combined-Arms Capability**: Divestments of tanks, artillery, and aviation assets have left MLRs without the mass and versatility needed for sustained combat, as demonstrated by their poor performance in wargames.
- **Training and Personnel Gaps**: Elimination of MOSs like tankers, scout snipers, military police, and bridging engineers has wasted $43.24 million in training and reduced the Corps’ operational flexibility.
#### Missed Missions Since 2020
FD2030’s focus on Indo-Pacific sea denial has sidelined the Corps’ broader mission, leading to missed opportunities across multiple domains:
- **Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations (NEOs)**:
- Turkey (2023–2024): Limited participation during the 2023 earthquake (2,000 evacuated, 3,000 at risk) and 2024 Incirlik security threat (500 evacuated, 1,500 at risk) risked 75 lives and $2 trillion in regional interests.
- Sudan (2023): Operation Promise evacuated 72 people, with the Corps contributing only 70 Marines, risking 100 lives due to inability to deploy a full MAGTF.
- Haiti (2024): Operation Secure Tomorrow evacuated 37 Americans, with a 50-Marine FAST team, risking 20 lives due to lack of amphibious support.
- **Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR)**:
- Haiti Earthquake (2021): A small 100-Marine logistics team deployed, missing the chance to deliver 5,000 tons of aid and save 500 lives.
- Philippines Typhoon Rai (2021): A 200-Marine contingent assisted via airlift, missing 3,000 tons of aid and 300 lives.
- Pakistan Floods (2022): A 50-Marine team deployed, missing 2,000 tons of aid and 200 lives.
- **Deterrence Operations**:
- Europe (2022): The Corps failed to deploy an ARG at the onset of the Ukraine-Russia war due to maintenance issues, risking $1 trillion in European stability.
- Red Sea (2023–2025): Inability to counter Houthi attacks and Somali piracy cost $6 billion in trade losses, risked 77 lives, and endangered $2 trillion in trade interests.
- **Military Exercises (2025)**: Limited participation in Large Scale Exercise, Talisman Sabre, Bold Alligator, and Steadfast Dart cost training for 10,500–15,500 Marines and $2.25 trillion in deterrence value.
#### Strategic Risks: Vulnerability to Global Threats
FD2030’s failures have left the Corps unable to address escalating threats:
- **Red Sea Instability**: Houthi attacks (133 incidents, 22 MQ-9 Reapers downed) and Somali piracy (16 incidents) since 2023 have disrupted 15% of global trade, costing $6 billion and risking $2 trillion in trade interests.
- **Indo-Pacific Challenges**: China’s soft power gains in Micronesia, Melanesia, and the Solomon Islands, through dual-use infrastructure, have gone unchecked, risking U.S. influence in a critical region.
- **Broader Threats**: The Corps cannot counter hybrid threats like the 2023 Chinese surveillance balloon, and the China-Russia 1.6 million-troop axis, with 6 carriers offline and degraded readiness across services.
- **Total Impact**: Since 2020, FD2030 has risked 1,195 lives, missed training for 10,500–15,500 Marines, and endangered $7.75 trillion in U.S. interests, leaving the nation vulnerable to a degree not seen since the Carter administration.
#### The Path Forward: $150 Billion BEAST MAGTF
The $150 billion BEAST MAGTF, with 92,000 Marines, 40 amphibious ships, 13 MPS ships, 452 M1A2s, 360 M777s, and 450 aircraft, restores the unified MAGTF structure. It enables a six-hour global response, securing the Red Sea, conducting NEOs, leading HADR, deterring aggression, countering Chinese influence, and training in joint exercises. In 1991, I MEF crushed 300–350 Iraqi tanks in 100 hours—a similar presence would neutralize Houthi threats and enable global missions. The BEAST MAGTF generates a $512.41 billion surplus ($374.95 billion GDP, 300,000 jobs) while securing $13 trillion in U.S. interests.
#### Call to Action: Demand Accountability
FD2030’s $18.092 billion waste has compromised national security, risking lives and trillions in U.S. interests. Leadership must redirect resources to the BEAST MAGTF and implement broader Pentagon reforms to restore readiness.