Compass Points - Missile Duplication
Marines need to focus on more than missiles.
Compass Points - Missile Duplication
Marines need to focus on more than missiles.
January 13, 2025
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While the US Marines have been focused for nearly five years on building a string of missile units off the coast of China, there are still zero operational deployed Marine missile units.
As recently as one year ago, the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab leased the civilian HOS Resolution to prepare for the construction of the first dozen of three dozen Landing Ship Medium (LSM).
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The 254-foot Resolution, under contract with the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, pulled into Camp Pendleton’s Del Mar boat basin on Thursday to begin a series of experiments that the Marine Corps expects will help shape operational concepts and design for the Navy’s Landing Ship Medium. Resolution will also join the Army’s Project Convergence Capstone 3 experimentation that’s underway with the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity at Camp Pendleton.
The offshore support vessel is a stern landing vessel that’s a prototype for the future LSM, officials said, and it’s one of three planned contracted OSVs that will shape those decisions for the LSM as a platform in a contested logistics environment.
-- USNI News
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From the beginning the LSM was a misguided and ineffectual attempt to provide logistic support for the Marine island missile units. After years of disagreement between the Marine Corps and the Navy, the RFP for the LSM has been pulled and it looks likely that none of the LSMs will ever be constructed. Now the Marine Corps has zero LSMs and zero missile units.
Does this mean there are no US missiles in the Pacific? Not at all. The US Navy has missiles on ships and subs, while the US Air Force has missiles on a variety of aircraft.
Even the US Army has made rapid progress with its own missile units in the Pacific.
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The U.S. Army’s 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery, also known as the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force’s Long-Range Fires Battalion, conducted the test last November in the Port of Tacoma using the chartered Seacor Lee. Previously contracted by the service for Pathways 2024, a series of Indo-Pacific exercises, the offshore support vessel provided logistical support to forward-deployed Army units in the region. According to the service, the training event aimed “to reduce risk for potential upcoming deployments of the system via maritime transport.”
Port officials, Lockheed Martin engineers, and Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command personnel assisted the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force during the test.
Lt. Col. Blane in a press release on the test:
“It’s important to note that this battery didn’t even exist a year ago. Now you have qualified crews and systems that just demonstrated new methods to deliver fires and move in theater,”
“This means that we’re building capability faster and more efficiently while providing increasingly lethal options to support commanders in the Indo-Pacific.”
The first deployment of the Typhon Missile System on foreign soil occured last April when the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force arrived in the Philippines with the launcher. A U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster delivered the system to Laoag International Airport in Northern Luzon, where it has since remained in an indefinite deployment. During the system’s stay in the Philippines, it has participated in major exercises such as Salaknib and Balikatan, the latter of which saw its virtual employment during an anti-ship drill.
-- Naval News
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The Army missile units include a variety of missiles including the PrSM, SM-6, MST, and LRHW. The theoretical Marine missile units depend mostly on the NSM - Navy Strike Missile - which is much slower and has a shorter range.
The Marine Corps calls its missile units, Stand-in-Forces, but after all these years and still no operationally deployed missiles units, the Marine Corps should change the name from Stand-in-Forces to Stand-Down-Forces.
And whatever happened to the HOS Resolution, the leased vessel that was to point the way to the future for Marine missile units? As one astute reader has noted, it appears that the HOS Resolution has mostly been just bobbing at anchor in Naha Harbor. www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:441459/mmsi:367334290/imo:9472335/vessel:HOS_RESOLUTION
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With new leaders coming in at the Department of Defense, the Naval Department, and in Congress, how long will the Marine Corps continue to focus on its Stand-in-Force missile units that have never been and never will be? The US has a substantial and growing missile capability in the Pacific courtesy of the Navy, Air Force, and Army.
What the Navy, Air Force, and Army cannot provide to US policy makers, however, is worldwide crisis response. It is the Marine Corps that has always been the Nation's expeditionary force in readiness. With Marines always embarked and prepared on Navy amphibious ships around the world, US policy makers have options when a crisis erupts. No matter how difficult the challenge, or how intractable the crisis, Marines can arrive rapidly on the scene prepared to deter, assist, and fight.
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Naval News - 01/11/2025
U.S. Army Validates Maritime Transport of Typhon Missile System
The loading of what the U.S. Army described as a “credible, land-based maritime strike capability” onto a vessel for the first time is a crucial step for the Typhon Missile System’s future deployment in coastal and amphibious operations across the Indo-Pacific.
By Aaron-Matthew Lariosa
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USNI News - 02/26/2024
Marine Corps Begins Water Testing for Future Landing Ship Concept
By Gidget Fuentes
https://news.usni.org/2024/02/26/marine-corps-begins-water-testing-for-future-landing-ship-concept
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Compass Points - Missile Mistake
The threat of precision munitions
October 4, 2024
https://marinecorpscompasspoints.substack.com/p/compass-points-missile-mistake
This post is a sad commentary of Force Design and SIF. Those who led us down this destructive path will be scorned by future Marines and judged harshly by historiafns. Those who knew the path chosen would wreck the Corps but failed to speak out will have to live with their apathy.
Four years in and a mountain of facts bury a delusional concept and the leadership remains obstinate and hostile. This is not tenacity or the behavior of professionals. It is spoiled brat behavior throwing tantrums and demanding to be listened to. That sort of stubbornness is not admirable. It is refusing to accept responsibility. The drunk loser at the roulette table in Vegas keeps doubling down with no chance of winning. The facts be damned, full speed ahead. I hope I am able to witness the leaders being held accountable. There must be consequences for these actions. Those who were silent must understand that silence is consent and they are still responsible.