Compass Points - Ode to HEMTT
Missiles in the Pacific
Compass Points - Ode to HEMTT
Missiles in the Pacific
September 17, 2024
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Compass Points has reported on the continuing doubts and questions about the Marine Corps' focus on putting small Marine missiles units on Pacific islands. Still, missiles are important. Missiles that are ready to be launched from Navy ships and subs as well as from Air Force bombers are a critical part of the US deterrent force in the Pacific.
In his recent substack post, author Matt Turpin has delivered an authoritative article on why island-based missile units are also needed in the Pacific. He goes into detail about the great progress being made by the US military in the Pacific fielding powerful medium range land-based missiles. But Turpin is not talking about the Marine Corps' nearly five-year-old plan for island missile units. Turpin is talking about new US Army missile units that have genuine existing capabilities today.
Much of the capability of these Army missiles units begins with what Turpin calls, "the humble HEMTT." The HEMTT is the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. The new Army missiles units using the transportation abilities of the HEMTT came about in response to China's rapid expansion of its mobile missile program.
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By the early 2010s, the United States was facing a considerable military challenge: the PRC had hundreds of relatively inexpensive and hard-to-find, truck-launched ballistic and cruise missiles that could operate within Mainland China and target U.S. bases in the region as well as any U.S. Navy ships operating there. For the United States to defend its allies and partners in the region against PRC aggression, the U.S. military had to operate from fixed airfields vulnerable to these missiles or from ships that were vulnerable to these missiles.
China’s ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles had the effect of pushing the U.S. military farther east into the Pacific Ocean and away from the Chinese coast.
-- Matt Turpin
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Turpin explains that in response to China's mobile missile program the US Army has rapidly put together its own mobile missile program.
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The Army took existing technology (trucks we’ve operated since the 1980s, along with the Navy’s proven launcher system and missiles) and in just a couple of years built a new organization from scratch to take advantage of an opportunity made possible by the withdrawal from the INF Treaty.
. . . This is a Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF), the Army’s newest unit and it consists of several thousand soldiers commanded by a 1-star Brigadier General.
. . . A HEMTT (Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck) is an eight-wheel drive truck that is essentially an Army “big rig,” the tractor part of a tractor-trailer we are all familiar with seeing on the highway everyday.
Each trailer or TEL (transporter erector launcher) contains four Tomahawks missiles, four of the Navy’s exceptional SM-6s (Standard Missile 6) missiles, or a combination of both. The Tomahawk has a range of about 1600 kms (1000 miles), while the SM-6 has a range of about 400 kms (250 miles). The Tomahawk can strike land targets and with modifications, ships, while the SM-6 is an anti-air missile that can also strike ships.
. . . Between the Battalion ammunition point and the ATHP, that single Typhon battery could have access to dozens of additional TELs as their reloads. With just the MDTF support elements alone, the Battery could immediately have access to three or four dozen additional TELs, which is 144-192 missiles (if we can produce that many… more on that below).
If reinforced with additional transportation capabilities from higher echelon units like a Theater Sustainment Command, there is no logistical limit to the number of missiles available to that battery.
And since the TEL has the same proportions as a typical 40-foot shipping container, the Army could forward deploy and conceal any number of reloads just about anywhere in the world … if it wanted to.
-- Matt Turpin
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Matt Turpin is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution specializing in US policy toward the People’s Republic of China, economic statecraft, and technology innovation. He is also a senior advisor at Palantir Technologies.
From 2018 to 2019, Turpin served as the US National Security Council’s Director for China and the Senior Advisor on China to the Secretary of Commerce. In those roles, he was responsible for managing the interagency effort to develop and implement US government policies on the People’s Republic of China.
Before entering the White House, Turpin served over 22 years in the US Army in a variety of combat units in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East and as an assistant professor of history at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He retired from the Army in 2017.
Turpin makes a persuasive case for the usefulness of the Army's Multi Domain Task Force using HEMTT trucks transporting containerized missiles.
In a related article, author John Turpin discusses the US Navy's program to use missiles in standard shipping containers, "Pacific Dragon: Is the Shipping Industry Ready for Containerized Missile Warfare?"
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Central to this exercise was the Mark 70 Mod 1 Payload Delivery System, a containerized version of the Navy’s Vertical Launch System (VLS). This system packs four VLS cells into a standard shipping container, making it easily transportable by semi-truck and mountable on a wide range of naval platforms. It’s a flexible, modular solution that can enhance missile defense capabilities both on land and at sea.
While the test relied on Aegis systems for missile guidance, defending commercial ships could be done using simpler sensors—such as drones or commercial radar—or with offboard sensors feeding targeting data from UAVs. In fact, the U.S. Navy already successfully engaged a ballistic target using offboard sensor data during the Pacific Defender 24 exercise off the coast of Hawaii, according to Naval News.
-- John Konrad
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While author Matt Turpin talks about the advances being made with Pacific missiles units. And author John Konrad talks about the possible usefulness of containerized missiles in the Pacific. Neither author even mentions the advances made by the Marine Corps in the Pacific with their mostly theoretical missile units. In addition, a comprehensive article from Reuters about US missile defense in the Pacific does not even mention the Marine Corps’ island missiles plan. The Navy, Air Force, and now Army are making great strides in providing a potent missile capability in the Pacific. The Indo-PacCom Commander is well aware that when missiles are needed for Pacific missions, he can call on the Navy, Air Force, and now the Army. But is he ever going to call on the Marine Corps for missiles?
When there is a need, as there always is, for a global, crisis response force, all Combatant Commanders worldwide have always known their first and best option is the Marines. With five years of focus on island missiles units, the Marine Corps has severely damaged or deleted the capabilities that made it the crisis response force of choice.
After five years the Marine Corps has still not produced a capable missile program like the Army's Multi Domain Task Force. The Marine Corps is too small to continue to focus on two missions: island missiles and the MAGTF. The Marine Corps cannot continue to walk two roads at the same time. The Navy, Air Force, and Army are making great strides with missiles. It is time to fold missiles into the MAGTF and then upgrade and enhance the Marine Corps global crisis response MAGTF.
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China Articles - Substack - 09/15/2024
Behold, the Typhon!
Ode to the humble HEMTT
By Matt Turpin
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gCaptain - 09/16/2024
Pacific Dragon: Is the Shipping Industry Ready for Containerized Missile Warfare?
By John Konrad
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Reuters - 09/17/2024
US strategy for anti-ship weapons to counter China: plentiful, mobile, deadly
By Gerry Doyle and Mike Stone
The Army has developed world class short, mid, and long range anti-ship missile capabilities without divesting other needed capabilities. By comparison, Marine Corps anti-ship capabilities are inferior and insignificant - - not only to Army capabilities but also to Navy and Air Force capabilities. The Marine Corps needs to "smell the coffee," change course, and restore its offensive capabilities to respond quickly and effectively to global threats across the range of military operations.
“Writing 120 years ago, just after the U.S. Navy burst on the world stage in the Spanish-American War, Alfred Thayer Mahan said one of the most critical numbers naval planners needed to keep in mind was 3,500. The 3,500 nautical miles from Hawaii to Guam became the “standard distance” at the heart of naval planning for the United States”. Mahan’s “yardstick” is that 3500 (nm) measure.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2019/july/go-get-mahans-yardstick
Pre-WW2 War Planner’s took Admiral Mahan’ warning to heart keeping Mahan’s yardstick as a critical planning factor in the Pacific War Planning. When looking at the history of both the war games and planning, you see maps with spider web lines labeled with distances between all Pacific key ports and harbors. Mahan’s concerned was the movement of the Pacific Fleet the 3500 miles between Hawaii to Guam. One of the planner’s concern at the time was the 3500 mile “yardstick” cuts through the Japanese Mandate Territory Islands of the Marshall, Caroline and Marianas.
This article also discusses the US Navy Carrier Aviation’s retreat from distance. ”In 2015, Jerry Hendrix issued an indictment of U.S. force development decisions in relation to carrier aviation entitled “The Retreat from Range,” tracing the rise and fall of range as a critical requirement at key decision points.4 The same bureaucracy that once developed long-range aircraft such as the A-6 and S-3—and the F-14 that combined aircraft range with sensor and weapon range—now has produced a carrier air wing with less reach than its 1960s counterpart.”
This article asks the question “what might be the “critical distance” for 21st-century naval strategy and operational planning? It also goes on to suggest that the new “yardstick” in now 1000 miles.
Now we learn the US Army has developed a Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) basically using existing technology. I should state that the MDTF development was announced at about the same time as the MLR. The MDTF not only has the capability to fire 1000 mile Tomahawks but also the SM-6 (Standard Missile) with a range of 250 miles, The SM-6 can also double as an anti-air missile. Both missiles can be fired from the HEMETT (Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck) mobile launcher.
If the US Army has the MDTF capability for the Combatant Commander, why does he need (or request) the “hide and seek” MLR? Is the reorganization of the Marine Corps worth the effort?